Actual Constructive Suggestions to Improve Harvest!

Hello!

I, like many people have voiced my displeasure with the recent Harvest changes. In a separate thread I began talking about the possibility of using currency in Harvest recipes. I wanted to flesh the idea out a bit more here. First I'd like to talk about some issues facing Harvest and PoE:

Problem #1: Currencies in PoE are built around usage in crafting. However no one actually uses them for this purpose. (Do you remember the last time you "slammed" an Exalt or "Chaos spammed" an item?) This leads to multiple "faucets" that produce currency but very few "sinks" that destroy it.

Problem #2: Repeatable deterministic crafting defeats the purpose of "hunting for gear" and goes directly against one of the core game loops in PoE (arguably the most important). Note, itemization through drops in late game is currently broken, but that's a separate topic.

Problem #3: In contrast to point #2, past a point crafting is the only way to improve gear. This means there is always a delicate balance between crafting being overly deterministic and underwhelming or inaccessible.

Within (or without) the context of Harvest can we solve these problems?

What if basic currencies were required along side an expanded roster of harvest materials to craft? Players would need to farm or trade for the materials they wanted. However those same trade currencies would also be required to craft. This would create a new "sink" for basic currency and compel players to consider just how much crafting materials they needed compared to how much currency they had to trade. Let's me get into specifics...

- Expand the current three Wild, Vivid, and Primal Lifeforce types to reflect the type of craft desired. Create Life, Mana, Defense, Caster, Attack, Physical, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Critical (etc...) Lifeforce types.

- Three base Harvest monster types drop random stacks of materials within their category. For example, a Vivid monster could drop Cold, Physical, Chaos, or Speed Lifeforce. Some Vivid crafts could use any of these types, while some would require specific types.

- Crafts would also require multiple currencies matching the craft type. For example, "Reforge a rare item with a physical modifier" could require 3 Chaos Orbs, and some amount of Physical Lifeforce. Alternately "Remove a non-physical modifier, add a physical modifier might require 3 Anulls, 3 Exalt, 1 Crystalized, many Physical Lifeforce AND many of a different type of Vivid Lifeforce besides Physical.

Under such a system players would be incentivized to use basic currency, farm and trade Harvest materials, and buy Harvest materials with the same currency they needed to craft. I think these restrictions would allow for many powerful crafting options to be brought back while limiting the amount of crafts players -even very high level players- could do.

In any case, I hope this post gets creative juices flowing amongst the community. I think there is a great deal of untapped potential in Harvest. Potential that could make both the players and developers happy while solving long standing issues in PoE.

Am i getting it right if i say you want to empower harvest but add a basic currency cost to balance it out?

TBH, Harvest should be removed... or at least the top crafts in it (this goes for all other deterministic crafting as well).

What Harvest has done is giving the 1%'ers, and the 1%'ers ONLY, the opportunity to create massively overpowered items and characters.

That has meant that the gap between the abilities of a normal player and a 1%'er increased massively. When GGG then attempted to compensate for the increased power of the 1%'ers, the nerfs hit the normal players as well.

For this reason, it should never have been implemented in the first place, and any of the higher crafts should be immediately removed.

The game balance in PoE simply can't support deterministic crafting... it confers too much power to the top players... and creates too wide a gap between them and the rest.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Am i getting it right if i say you want to empower harvest but add a basic currency cost to balance it out?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Not even pretending it's a perfect idea. Just want to get more thoughts on crafting into discussion because "isn't really possible" isn't an acceptable response, and players endlessly screaming "no! no! no!" without creative solutions isn't helpful either.