Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

harvest crafting is the only thing that kept me in this league for so long - because i saw, that i could craft really good items without spending insane amount of currency, otherwise i would have stopped much earlier, because If I see, that for further upgrades i need a mirror or two, thats a big STOP sign for me

I think the way GGG gathers feedback is just watching couple of top streamers. Ok this guy made his mirror tier build a week earlier than usually - we should nerf it! Guys, those ~100 streamers ARENT all players that play ur game. Ok those 10-20% are getting shit tonn of currency to easy - LETS PUNISH THE REST 80-90% of players.
As a casual player this was the first league iv managed to complete end game and had fun. And i guess this was the last league.

Please Chriss DO NOT become fcking Gabe Newell . Instead offering new mtx each day - listen to ur players.

Bravo! We're going to the "stone age" of crafting, Fear and Loathing in the POG(Path of Gambling) soon! P.S Chris please! I and many others beg you not to make such a mistake in changing the harvest

I love the game and I'm not a big fan of harvest, however PoE is growing with game mechanics and its player base becoming bigger and more importantly smarter so its a good step forward to introduce mechanics that help raise the item acquisition ceiling in a meaningful way.

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This sentiment was summed up by a member of our design team who recently said "We don't want to take away the feeling of closing your eyes and Exalting an item, scared to see whether you ruined it or not."

This mentality is what brings good games to ruin, best example is world of warcrafts battle for azeroth expansion. I'd be happy with a gamble if the exalted orb wouldn't have a big chance of giving a t10 life.

For the larger player base breaking an item can be devastation to a point of quitting the game so don't mess around with that too much. The game doesn't have to give but as long as it doesn't take its a good balance for an average player.

Maybe a better alternative with the nerfs/changes would be flipping the crafts:
remove "add specific tag" so people use more exalted orbs and hope for the best and keep the "remove specific tag" crafts so items still have a big chance to be saved.

I hope I didn't come across negative, my intentions were more of the cautious nature to remind devs of good old games that even they can lose focus, drive them selves into a corner or simply refuse to accept changes.

nick GGG hhhh

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rekloose wrote:

As long as you leave in enemy damage in the game that can 1 shot players with 9k effective hp.
And as long as you leave beast dooping for the elite players so they can doop 6 link 6 white socket explode chests or 6 link 6 white socket bows all day and make "money".
you said you want to keep the feeling of closing your eyes and hoping you get a good mod with an exalt slam. isn't that what mavens orbs are doing?
exalt slamming to craft items is dumb.
nerfing harvest is a bad idea.
you should nerf vorici too 3 white sockets is too much. you should think about how you want that close your eyes feeling and make it so its a 1 in 10 chance to get 1 white socket max.
you should nerf sirus drops and remove awakened gem drops from the game.
you should make it so you have to exalt slam a gem and 1 in a thousand chance you get an awakened gem.
you should nerf the passive tree too.
make it so you have to exalt slam your passive tree. close your eyes and hope you get a skill thats usefull to your build. players have to much control over their build right now.
when you made this game you wanted that "close your eyes feeling"
terrible decision to nerf harvest.
I think you cater too much to the streamer youtuber 1%er communities.
you should remove delve recipe for 6 link from the game, am I right? wheres that close your eyes feeling of spamming fusing orbs.........

The most funny, sad and true at the same time comment in the thread. LMAO.

Thanks! I was afraid that I might actually like to play next league, with this change I won't have a chance to get to the endgame so I am not going to waste time playing your game. Great!

GGG, I am asking you to rethink the decision. Is farming Atoll until I get the ultimate gear healthy for the game in the long run? No absolutely not. I have invested nearly 400 hours in the game this league and that is only because of Harvest.

For reference I stated playing in Legion.

I was too nervous before to even begin approaching crafting because it just seems like a huge RNG mountain, and it was just easier for me to buy worse gear from the trade site than try to make it myself. Because of this, I was not able to appreciate Bestiary, Delve, Essence, Betrayal, or Prophecy fully because I did not invest the time to learn those systems. Somebody else had already learned it and it was just better for me to sell those items and buy what I need.

I spent multiple hours farming currency and crafts to be able to acquire a ring for my build. Is it perfect? No it's terrible, but it allowed me to use worse gear to cover slots I need. I was really only able to kill Sirus because this one item allowed me to use some build enabling unique and I wasn't worried about spending multiple exalts just to get the resistances right on my other gear.

The ring in question? This one:


Essence Crafted Int, each resist at least 25%, T2 Energy shield and Spell Damage. Is this ring Mirror Quality? Nope! Can this ring be improved? Absolutely. Am I going to improve it? Probably not. This ring is allowing me to slowly change the other gear piecemeal instead of all at once.

I also learned how to metacraft this league. I was able to build a decent 5 link chest piece that I have been wearing for multiple hours. However it is number 1 on my list of things to replace. Which does enforce you point that harvest crafting makes targeting items easier, but it really doesn't. I have been looking and grinding, annuling to create a Explode %Int Stacking 6link. Am I close? Maybe? There is still RNG, but I at least have hope at making it before league end. Is it going to let me Kill the Watcher/Elder? Nope, because I have the important pieces on my current piece. Will it allow me to farm maps faster so I can improve other gear? Yes! I looked and the chest piece I am making costs 25 exalts. Considering I've probably only made 50-80 exalts this leqgue, that's a lot of money to me.

Oh and that ring that I made? IT DOES NOT EXIST! Literally, Nobody is trading a ring with all 3 resists, spell damage and INT. This is all tiers of the rolls, not just the mid-high tiers I've rolled. Nobody on Ritual, Ritual HC, Standard, and Standard HC. It's not on buyout or negotiation, offline or online. The one piece of gear that is allowing me to finally feel successful again in the game is gone, and I made it myself. Right now as it is, I could probably sell that ring to somebody for several exalts. Am I? Nope, I need it. I am also extremely proud of it.

Can I make this item again with those 5 requirements and the nerfs? Yeah i could, but it's going to take much longer, and several bricked items. Instead of making me want to try again and not make the same mistakes next league that I made this league, it makes me want to play a different on meta build or not play at all.

My list of goals this league just kept expanding, Run consistent Red Maps and Kill Sirus. Which to most people is just steps on their way to other more important things. The thing is, I did it. I felt accomplished beating him and I feel great every time I run a T16 and not die. I want to be able to kill Elder/Watcher too. If I don't I wont feel bad because this league I pushed myself.

That feeling of frustration/excitement your developer wants us to feel is still there. Its just in a different way. Yeah I can exalt slam a ring to try and get the mods I need/want, but it just feels bad when I can't play the game because my items are bad and there is no goal besides grind currency and hope someone else made the item cheap enough for you.

The biggest issues to game balance is not Harvest, it's external trading tools like discord. Have I used it myself, yes. Do I feel good about it, no. There have been multiple suggestions in this thread on how to improve game health without nerfing Harvest and I hope you read some of them and discuss which is best for your game.

Just remember that these nerfs are not affecting the 1% or even the casual player picking it up for the first time. Nor is it affecting individual builds, like nerfing aura cluster nodes. This is nerfing a large part of your gaming community. The people who are too busy to play for days on end, yet are knowledgeable enough to realize that resistances are important. Please reconsider nerfing Harvest in this way. I agree it needs to change, but this is too harsh and alienating.

Thank you

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Ruffleberg wrote:

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Peonsson2 wrote:

Suggestion: Give us a timer. When you kill one plot you have 60 seconds to craft your item. Killing another plot adds 30 seconds. When your time is up you get kicked out like incursion.
Also make everyone in your party able to craft (or at the very least see them)! It would make it the best thing ever. Please GGG!

Guff's timed crafting bench didn't go down well.

Lol as someone who only joined since harvest and has only encountered this a few times..

What kind of cosmic joke is this mechanic? The window opens up and I blink once and start moving my mouse towards something and then it goes away again. Like, It's over and I'm still not sure what was in there. Was that flash of blue an alt or an annul? It would take me 15 minutes and a plan to craft something half decent, and they decided 3.2 seconds for my eyes to adjust was the reasonable amount of time for me to interact with this window...

i was allready losing interest in this game over all the years guess this is the final nail in the coffin

we had some great times together GGG .....