Is anyone actually going to stop playing?

Yes, at least people who came back just for Harvest.

Realistically, there be not many who will quit fir ever

But

Mostly we will come beck to 2-weeks-league style. Like next league online dropoff will be quite quick. Thats it. So GGG profits may drop too.

If so it will be quite a good lesson for many.

ill always be faithful to this game but as of late? i really dont know and here's my reasons why

1.crafting...i remember when lothebanes were a thing and that was made the hard way with exalted chaos and allot of profanity

2.the game has literally gone from "path of exile" to "path of CRAFT THE HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING AND FLOOD THE MARKET"

3.THE BUGS ,CRASHES,PERFORMANCE ISSUES (nothing to say here this one explains itself)

4.the pure lack of communication with the community

5.the pure lack of "oh this is broken we need to fix this a.s.a.p."

6.bots....enough said there

7.THIS IS A GOOD ONE: every time you make a build spending hours,days ,weeks putting your literal heart soul and sanity into it just for them to nerf it so bad it renders your entire build useless (for example look what they did to firestorm,molten strike etc)

8.feeling like a lab rodent: admit it,ggg uses us as test subjects to see exactly how far we can take a skill so they can nerf it to the ground

9.true fact:
amount of melee gems in the game= 72(including supports)
amount of spell/caster gems in game= 232(including supports)
amount of bow gems =29 (including supports)

seems kind of biased doesn't it

i dont even want to make a 10 i think nine is enough

I am not gonna say I'll quit the game once and for all, but I can say I'll look at what the next league looks like, might skip it if I feel it doesn't look cool.

Just like I skipped Blight, cause you know tower thing is not thing. Also skipped heist because I loved Harvest, league had no harvest, league mechanics looked weird and crappy - I can confirm Heist isn't fun to me, did some heists to get some replica and gems, but not worth my time because it's not fun at all to me.

What is pretty obvious to me is that I'll stay in the future leagues a shorter period, before Harvest what made me quitting the league was a mix of lack of time, disappointment and boredness when I feel endgame is not made for hc (even less for sff hc).

Harvest made more builds viable for the endgame, especially in hc sff, since I never play in sf and feel ssf is a better experience, it does matter quite a lot. The most obvious example is the explody chest that makes an okish build into a decent map runner. Some guys might say it's OP, honestly I don't care, I just like it and don't ask anybody to think or feel the way I do.

GGG decided to destroy harvest, fine. I am not goona cry, this just makes the game worse for me, might be a good move for others. But to me it's bad when I feel that upgrading any of my items is not possible at all. My higest levels characters were in harvest (98) and ritual (99). Pretty proud of my self running endgame stuff, I am risk adverse so I just don't run things as long as I don't feel ready. Harvest made crafting a thing, the other mechanics are more like gambling to me. Fossils are ok'ish, but since they removed specific mods(another stupid nerf imho) I don't feel like it's that strong, I do still use it cause I love delving deeper and deeper until I rip :). Essences are cool, because of... it's deterministic. Anyway I do use all the way I can to improve my gear, even chaos, alt, exalt, annuls etc every tools in this game.

Very poor game design to destroy harvest. Also feels like they chose to side with the 1%, ignoring the other 99%.

Maybe I am wrong thinking I am among the vast majority. It might improve the game for some of the top players, I don't know but to me and the way I play the game is not the case. PoE still remains a very good game, but GGG does make mistakes sometimes and it's a pretty heavy one.

It's just a game after all, people that quit the game don't post to say they do, they just quit, that's all.

I'll stay.. I actually stopped playing when I saw read the Harvest Introduction.
Did't want to play a garden simulator. ^^

Definitely quitting, but it isnt just the removal of harvest. The fact that I cant lower my textures beyond medium or removes shadows has made my game performance shit. This game looks and performs far worse for me now than it did 2 years ago.

With as unstable as this game is it pisses me right off that GGG keeps trying to "improve" the graphics without addressing the game using WAY more resources than a top down third person game EVER should.

The last big reason is that they keep locking endgame content behind fucking annoying mechanics like prophecy or horribly designed fights like maven and sirus.

GGG has completely lost touch I'm afraid.

nah I'll keep playing. ggg used a bad example for what chaos and exalt crafting looks like, there's meta crafts, beast crafts, and ways to block mods still. Also if I understand correctly fracturing is still in harvest?

It's kind of annoying because I enjoy crafting and it was made a bit harder to do, but I hated that discord so whatever. (nothing against the people running the discord btw)

If there is something new for me to experience, I will play. That's not really counting the league mechanic, as I only see them as extra currency sources, compensating for starting with nothing.

The new thing has to be a main skill I would enjoying playing, and different from what I have already played. Or a mechanic that truly helps me farther into endgame than I ever been before. The hot topic of deterministic crafting would be a mechanic that could help me with that, as an example.

To be honest, with my play style, harvest wasn't good enough in its current form. But that's me, and how I play. So *shrugs*, harvest is pretty pointless, like essences, in my eyes. Yeah, there is a tiny chance they could hit good rolls (if I close my eyes), but I don't enjoy that. I don't play slot machines at casinos, I play the card games, having more agency on the game than pulling a lever and hoping to get six 7s in a roll.

For me, this game requires a massive time investment & doing many unfun stuff, like TFT, trade, Atlas mini-game, lab (sure I only do 3-time (3 chars) max per league, but still sucks).

Way too grainy & the grind only gets worse every league if you want to do end game contents, & fight end game bosses. I can play one league/ per year, or maybe 1.5 leagues, but that's the limit for me.

I pretty much stop many other activities to play PoE & I think that cannot be sustained.

I get it, this game end game, & end game bosses like Maven are meant for hardcore ARPG players willing to grind & spend time playing, & I am afraid I am no longer that target audience. That's okay, as I have other games that fill my need, without a massive time sink.

I will play Path of Exile till the wheels fall off.