Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

Dear GGG
Let me begin with the simple statement that I love the work you put in the game and the ethic core considerations you design the game arround.

Regarding to harvest crafting. If I consider the whole game, sure standard with the curret harvest crafting seems way to much. In a standard league it's ok powerfull and for league SSF the builds which were not a f* chance now is actually a chance and hardcore ssf i guess the same.

My biggest fear in the anounced nerf in harvest crafting is actually that if I as a player value not to play path of trading but just want to find my own stuff and improve as i go along I beleive that will with the announced nerfs exclude me from the different builds that i would love to try out during a league. I am a normal gamer with family and all. 99% of my limited gamining time goes to POE as I love the diversity and complexsity of the the game. I dont want to just optimise one build but prefer to try out different playstyles and builds. This is from time to time challanging but harvest made this more possible. So I fear that the nerfs is going at step back towards path of trading where i as a player is going to need to spend time on this (even though I would prefer not to) to get acess to items I need to try out different builds.

I can totally be wrong and will try out the nerfed harvest and keep supporting your great work. I simply just hope that you take into considaration the normal player with limited time when discussing these nerfs.

Keep up the good work

"

Lvzb3l wrote:

This is utterly stupid, in those times NO ONE NEEDED mirror worthy items to clean the whole content. NO ONE.
Right now, the end game is IMPOSSIBLE to beat unless you play with those items or almost those items+ the OP broken build of that league.
So removing Harvest is WORSE to the game because It will NARROW the Meta builds and also KICK OUT players like me who hate being told WHICH BUILDS SHOULD PLAY.
What is so hard to understand from this???

There are currently a shitton of builds that can clear all content with like 5ex investment tops. This investment is mostly for certain uniques for the builds to function ( and some cluster jewels ) , and not for super duper crafted rares. Yes , there is ( in theory ) more build diversity with harvest because of cheap build enabnling rares , but GGG maybe will buff a shitton of skills again ( like last league ) and maybe we got some ascedancy candy. Just because you cant clear all content with a shitty glacial hammer build on a 100c budget it doesnt mean that you cant clear all content with another build. Look at FASTAF videos , he does builds which clear every boss in 1-2 seconds with full unique equipment.

You just need to craft good cluster jewels ( and guess what harvest still works on those , i would even argue its now more worth than last league to spam those jewels with the 60% increase buff ). So basicly nothing got changed in terms of power , except that you cant make a 1000million dps shit build with a trash skill , but that is up for the balance team of GGG to balance the skills.

The only downside i see right now it that the TFT issue is not even close to being fixed , since there are still a lot of abusable crafts left in the game.

I can't believe how absolutely out of touch you are with your own player base and the design of this game.

"

"Lvzb3l wrote:"
RainbowIsHere wrote:
"
nickwch wrote:
came here with a nice coffee on hand and reading butthurt kids whining abt how this has hurt their butt. Finished 300+ pages in 20mins, wasnt disappointing.

Pls, for those who believe "this shall teach them a lesson", just save your breath already and go see the world out there.


Same, some people have been playing Path of Exile for many years before Harvest came out and they had no problem clearing all content. ( I was one of them )

Just because endgame bosses are getting harder doesn't mean, we, as players, should benefit to the help of Harvest because it made crafting too easy.

It was better when mirror tiers items was rarer, the game is designed to be challenging and it's the reason why I'm playing it.

I hope Harvest will never come back to the game, I'm looking forward to play the next league !


This is utterly stupid, in those times NO ONE NEEDED mirror worthy items to clean the whole content. NO ONE.
Right now, the end game is IMPOSSIBLE to beat unless you play with those items or almost those items+ the OP broken build of that league.
So removing Harvest is WORSE to the game because It will NARROW the Meta builds and also KICK OUT players like me who hate being told WHICH BUILDS SHOULD PLAY.
What is so hard to understand from this???


I would understand if you tell me that the game right now is difficult to beat in SSFHC but common.. really ?

With these nerfs there's a good chance for the next league to be a crafting one, and if not the devs are good enough with balancing to scale it correctly with the craftings available.

Also no one is forcing you to play a certain build.. there's tons of non-meta builds that are fun to play and doesn't cost a lot to build due to players not playing them.

One last thing, if you want the game to get better then criticize the changes without shouting because complaining about my comment will not chance anything but take out your uncontrollable rage.

And this comming from a player with 1 character past lvl90. Looking at the build you have this league, I would say that the majority of the content is hard for you.

Horrible changes. Average players getting a massive nerf specifically targeting them is just a bad business decision. Guess we'll see what the numbers look like next league now that average players don't have what was most likely keeping the game fun and interesting for more than a week or two, especially for SSF players.

No more comment

"

AngryC00kieZ wrote:

"

"Lvzb3l wrote:"
RainbowIsHere wrote:
"
nickwch wrote:
came here with a nice coffee on hand and reading butthurt kids whining abt how this has hurt their butt. Finished 300+ pages in 20mins, wasnt disappointing.

Pls, for those who believe "this shall teach them a lesson", just save your breath already and go see the world out there.


Same, some people have been playing Path of Exile for many years before Harvest came out and they had no problem clearing all content. ( I was one of them )

Just because endgame bosses are getting harder doesn't mean, we, as players, should benefit to the help of Harvest because it made crafting too easy.

It was better when mirror tiers items was rarer, the game is designed to be challenging and it's the reason why I'm playing it.

I hope Harvest will never come back to the game, I'm looking forward to play the next league !


This is utterly stupid, in those times NO ONE NEEDED mirror worthy items to clean the whole content. NO ONE.
Right now, the end game is IMPOSSIBLE to beat unless you play with those items or almost those items+ the OP broken build of that league.
So removing Harvest is WORSE to the game because It will NARROW the Meta builds and also KICK OUT players like me who hate being told WHICH BUILDS SHOULD PLAY.
What is so hard to understand from this???


I would understand if you tell me that the game right now is difficult to beat in SSFHC but common.. really ?

With these nerfs there's a good chance for the next league to be a crafting one, and if not the devs are good enough with balancing to scale it correctly with the craftings available.

Also no one is forcing you to play a certain build.. there's tons of non-meta builds that are fun to play and doesn't cost a lot to build due to players not playing them.

One last thing, if you want the game to get better then criticize the changes without shouting because complaining about my comment will not chance anything but take out your uncontrollable rage.

And this comming from a player with 1 character past lvl90. Looking at the build you have this league, I would say that the majority of the content is hard for you.

I have 6 characters past level 89 and I've deleted about 30% of all of my characters..

And the content is easy for me, had all of my 32 watchstones in the first 2 weeks of league and I've made tons of exalts that I've gave to a new player yesterday because I wasn't interested in playing the league anymore.

If you really have nothing to say but to talk about my characters then don't speak to me, go outside, do something else.

"

RainbowIsHere wrote:

I would understand if you tell me that the game right now is difficult to beat in SSFHC but common.. really ?

With these nerfs there's a good chance for the next league to be a crafting one, and if not the devs are good enough with balancing to scale it correctly with the craftings available.

Also no one is forcing you to play a certain build.. there's tons of non-meta builds that are fun to play and doesn't cost a lot to build due to players not playing them.

One last thing, if you want the game to get better then criticize the changes without shouting because complaining about my comment will not chance anything but take out your uncontrollable rage.

After the Manifesto and all valid arguments people made in this thread, I don't think that "balancing" is what will happen. As it already has been stated that GGG does not want any deterministic systems in this game crafting included.

The disconnect from the whole situation is however, which is the most valid point people tend to make, that those gamers 8 years ago have now jobs and families, and treat POE as a hobby. They have the knowledge, they like the systems in the game, the like the complexity, but they don't have the time.
Even if you know how to craft an item it will not help you if you don't have the time.

If you do something more than few hours a week it's not your hobby anymore, it's like your second job, especially when it just becomes tedious. And that is exactly what is not fun.

And if you are forced to progress horizontaly through harder content that you know you aren't gated behind, cause you lack knowledge or skill but time, then why play altogheter not to be able to progress further then the last league you played.

This is not a game anymore where you can beat the Maven, Fearless, etc. with a Starforge on a mediocre build lvl 95. That is not happening.
And since all mellee builds or any other build considering Skill Tree, Links etc. are virtually the same, the only denominator that is different are the Items which are heavily gated by RNG.

As for playing an off meta build, yeah people could do that, but it is fact that you try not to gimp yourself on purpose. If you play enough you see the pattern that all characters aren't that different. Cold BV, Fire BV, MOM BV - virtually the same trees a little different items. Cyclone impale, Cyclone conversion etc. you get my point.

Why do starter builds are virutally the same every league. Because they are the most efficient on a low budget. You will never ever pick something that has a high ceiling for gearing. I played my share of cyclone each league.
I did my share of endgame. I even built the armour stacking aura stacker in Heist. But if the ceiling is so high that going into the league I already know that I don't have sufficient time to do it, I just won't do it in the first place.

And being difficult is not the same as being able to sink hundreds of hours into the game to progress.

So apparently voicing any displeasure gets posts deleted, so that's fun. But as I stated before, maybe we wouldn't need such precise crafting if trade wasn't needlessly difficult and frustrating. Even if GGG continues to outright refuse to add offline shops or auction houses, there are still better ways.

For one, requiring players to use up a portal to trade post game is completely opposed to the idea of open and fair trade. Countless people post trades they have zero intention of ever honoring while in maps, thus requiring buyers waste time sifting through dozens, if not hundreds, of trades to find a legitimate one. For this very reason I have quit post game many times, as finding equipment or items that I need to progress (maps especially) is often more trouble than it's worth.

That said, if there was a method of trading without leaving or requiring entry of someone into a map, that would be a start. Or perhaps a way to leaving just for trade that does not consume a portal. Like maybe a shop that is only accessible when a player is online, with a limited stock and buying limit to prevent bot abuse.

"

I have 6 characters past level 89 and I've deleted about 30% of all of my characters..

And the content is easy for me, had all of my 32 watchstones in the first 2 weeks of league and I've made tons of exalts that I've gave to a new player yesterday because I wasn't interested in playing the league anymore.

If you really have nothing to say but to talk about my characters then don't speak to me, go outside, do something else.

Yep, yellow maps are easy, sure :)))

You like.. insta-kill Sirus 9 and Maven with 4 link bow and 6-link belly of the beast almost 3 months into the league, bet the strength of the build comes from the 20c worth of rings and amulet ;)