Dissecting and analyzing Harvest Manifesto + Data collection. A clash of philosophies.

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I don't think I've mentioned the player gap getting wider again, and if I have, I feel like this may have been written under the influence (as in, anger ^^;) and the likes.

My opinion on the matter about the player gap is, I simplly don't care about it. Why look into someone else's bowl if I am happy with mine? Comparing yourself with others that are more succesful always will sap out enjoyment out of you, or has at least for me.

I am glad however that you've found enjoyment (and baffled you found the time and stamina) to read trough all of this! It may actually need a lot of cleanup, but, I think I've done enough to put my opinion trough!

Let's have some faith in GGG :)

Oh, it was a great read!

Maybe I've mixed up different forum threads in my head, sorry about that. I was in the middle of editing my text, because some of the things that I wrote, I felt, had to be clarified a bit further.

The gap itself personally doesn't bother me either. There will always be somebody who's putting in more time and effort than you do, and they have every right to have a stronger character than you because of it. I'm just trying to see it from the perspective of a lesser experienced player and how the gap would affect their approach to crafting (or not crafting at all), specifically in trade league, and how crafting your own items would fill a great role of joy and accomplishment that the current crafting system might not fill when looking at the comments regarding the manifesto. Maybe that wasn't explained clearly enough on my part - again sorry about that!

Anyways, time for some mapping! Gonna enjoy harvest while I can! ;)

"Using currency items like Exalted Orbs or Chaos Orbs on your gear is a powerful, risky and exciting way to improve it."

You are wrong about this statement.

It's risky, not very exciting and POTENTIALLY powerful.

The issue is that the odds of that power being realised, and hence the "excitement" are so infinitesimally small.

Do GGG not realise they have a system where most people who engage with it will fail and end up disappointed?

If you spend several days worth of currency, and fail to achieve your crafting outcome, that is very demoralizing, and likely to cause players to quit a league ... I'm speaking from experience there.

"Let's have some faith in GGG :)"

Let's not ...

- Harvest was a great league, but let's not forget that the entire second week had a bugged rate of good crafts, and GGG didn't figure it out despite being told about it.
- Heist as a terribly designed league. The whole premise was a league where the main mechanic was channeling on doors. You also lost all your loot when the instance crashed, which happened a lot.
- I was having multiple client crashes per hour for 3 whole weeks at the start of Ritual league.
- When a design team member 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.", nobody else in the room called them out on their BS.

Until recently, GGG have been a great developer, but they have stopped listening to the community (well, 99.9% of the community).

They need to do better.

"

Gumlass wrote:

"Using currency items like Exalted Orbs or Chaos Orbs on your gear is a powerful, risky and exciting way to improve it."

You are wrong about this statement.

It's risky, not very exciting and POTENTIALLY powerful.

The issue is that the odds of that power being realised, and hence the "excitement" are so infinitesimally small.

Do GGG not realise they have a system where most people who engage with it will fail and end up disappointed?

If you spend several days worth of currency, and fail to achieve your crafting outcome, that is very demoralizing, and likely to cause players to quit a league ... I'm speaking from experience there.

I do hope you realize that the reason why this was mentioned is because it was a direct quote from the manifesto I took the time to analyze. My personal fluff on it was that it's a great way to start with currencies, as mentioned in the spoiler below, as to what exactly is powerful / potentially exciting way to BEGIN a craft.

"

Gumlass wrote:

"Let's have some faith in GGG :)"

Let's not ...

- Harvest was a great league, but let's not forget that the entire second week had a bugged rate of good crafts, and GGG didn't figure it out despite being told about it.
- Heist as a terribly designed league. The whole premise was a league where the main mechanic was channeling on doors. You also lost all your loot when the instance crashed, which happened a lot.
- I was having multiple client crashes per hour for 3 whole weeks at the start of Ritual league.
- When a design team member 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.", nobody else in the room called them out on their BS.

Until recently, GGG have been a great developer, but they have stopped listening to the community (well, 99.9% of the community).

They need to do better.

What harvest was as a league when it came out is irrelevent to discuss because harvest in 3.13 is nothing in comparison to the tediousness that was harvest in harvest league, so not quite sure what your point is to mention this, apart from throwing negativity into the mix...

Nothing about heist was mentioned as a league mechanic, again, not sure why you bring this up as it's irrelevent...

(well, 99.9% of the community). - I even gave you a statistic up there that is closer to 80%. Yes, majority, but not everyone. Take that into account. Only because you are in the upset masses, which I am also part in, doesn't make my point more relevent or valid.

-" When a design team member 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.", nobody else in the room called them out on their BS."

Your point? That GGG has an idea for a game they want to make? And that it is their right, no?

Please temper / cool down your nerves because changes been introduced that contradict what me and you want, and look at it objectively, rather than emotionally. Having faith into GGG is the same trust you've put into the game for these years, judging by your supporterpacks anyway, and it's fair and valid to voice your opinion, as long as you can do so in a constructive way, and I am glad that you have, honestly, but refrain yourself please to be overly one-sided in your perspective <3 CHeers

+1

Incredibly well made post!

+1

Using post counts on a forum isn’t really useful, especially when moderation is removing posts. Also, the vast majority of users don’t post here and I would imagine a significant number don’t even bother reading forums. That said, it demonstrates that there are issues with the player base.

But I have to wonder, Harvest league was known to be an issue by GGG for making crafting easier. The fact that they decided (after several months time) to add the crafting aspect to core was their process. GGG had to understand what would happen with TFT and trading in general. The question now is - what’s next? How can anyone have faith in their process - regardless of how you feel about this change specifically.

"

Gumlass wrote:

"Let's have some faith in GGG :)"

Let's not ...

- Harvest was a great league, but let's not forget that the entire second week had a bugged rate of good crafts, and GGG didn't figure it out despite being told about it.
- Heist as a terribly designed league. The whole premise was a league where the main mechanic was channeling on doors. You also lost all your loot when the instance crashed, which happened a lot.
- I was having multiple client crashes per hour for 3 whole weeks at the start of Ritual league.
- When a design team member 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.", nobody else in the room called them out on their BS.

Until recently, GGG have been a great developer, but they have stopped listening to the community (well, 99.9% of the community).

They need to do better.

I have had faith in GGG for many years, I've not always agreed with the direction they take the game, but I've respected their decisions.

Over recent times though, I've lost that faith, maybe they have become too big and far removed from the experience of the player base, maybe they have come to buy into their own reputation as a great developer with good player relations (a common corporate occurrence), or maybe they have a master plan (PoE2) where they make can address all these issues and the current decisions are to make way for this grand utopia and we can't see where they're going...

I am not hopeful though, their statements have become increasingly detached from reality and their reach seems to be exceeding their grasp.

"

brushmonkey wrote:

I have had faith in GGG for many years, I've not always agreed with the direction they take the game, but I've respected their decisions.

Over recent times though, I've lost that faith, maybe they have become too big and far removed from the experience of the player base, maybe they have come to buy into their own reputation as a great developer with good player relations (a common corporate occurrence), or maybe they have a master plan (PoE2) where they make can address all these issues and the current decisions are to make way for this grand utopia and we can't see where they're going...

I am not hopeful though, their statements have become increasingly detached from reality and their reach seems to be exceeding their grasp.

While I see why you would say in recent years they have had questionable changes, I would argue, that it could also be narrow-minded, or that we take good things for granted.

If anything, their most RECENT post on the matter is something that, yes, I can understand your negative feelings from, but you can't say that the game hasn't been improving over the years. And doesn't have things in the works to look forward to (PoE2 = Complete skill socket system rework, better looking, etc). Besides, we both know that with this kind of outcry of the community, there is bound to be a follow-up on the matter. Not necessarily one that may accomodate the angry / disappointed mass, but at the very least a follow-up on their philosophies, further explaining their views, or to clear up things (Because quite frankly, a lot within the Manifesto can be understood multiple ways, or could have been written better :x)

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JoeUtopia wrote:

Using post counts on a forum isn’t really useful, especially when moderation is removing posts. Also, the vast majority of users don’t post here and I would imagine a significant number don’t even bother reading forums. That said, it demonstrates that there are issues with the player base.

But I have to wonder, Harvest league was known to be an issue by GGG for making crafting easier. The fact that they decided (after several months time) to add the crafting aspect to core was their process. GGG had to understand what would happen with TFT and trading in general. The question now is - what’s next? How can anyone have faith in their process - regardless of how you feel about this change specifically.

To adress a little bit of what you've mentioned. The forum post stuff counting I've done purely out of my own curiousity and decided to share because, why not really :D I did mention that I believe that the number of people FOR the changes would probably be higher for various reasons, but the point stands that, regardless if posts are being deleted or not, the vast majority is still going to be a negative outcry

I do feel kinda that if Hamewerk Hamlet didn't exist in it's "Glory" or "Horror", depending on who you ask, Harvest might not have been as impactful to the broad playerbase as it was.

I agree with the statements, but to be fair, on further analyizing, the biggest problem I saw with their Manifesto was poor translation. I truly believe that their sentiment is that they want the game, and personal improvements, to be as risky as possible and time consuming. Saying however that it has to be done trough Exalt-Slamming, was the wrong way to convey their vision of the game.

Thanks however for your input the two of you!

This is def the best harvest-related thread on this forum, so kudos!
Its nice to read a nuanced post, instead of just yelling at/bashing GGG for whatever reason.

To add my 2 cents, I think the main area where they fucked up was to add it to core in its current state even after knowing the impact of harvest on the crafting meta/economy back in harvest league. Otherwise, the changes make sense because either they had to update every other crafting system to bring it unto par (seeing that harvest makes most of those obsolete) or they had to nerf harvest. Obviously they took the easier route, as they have finite time and resources for development.

A lot of people suggested having the augment/annul harvest crafts require you to spend those actual currencies as well. I loved this idea, because that would automatically fix the issue of exalts/annuls being useless for crafting. Unfortunately they chose to remove one of these instead, which I don't think was the best way to go.

Another thing they overlooked was the crippling limit of 10 for the crafting bench. Imo this was one of the main reasons for people going to TFT coz they felt pressured to sell their crafts. Nerfing the no. of possible crafts instead is a bad solution for this and hurts SSF players a lot. Allowing storage of certain no. of crafts by tier (so having 50 limit for targeted chaos/alch, 30 for resist swaps, 10 for aug/annul, 3-5 for tier 4 crafts etc) would've been a much cleaner solution imo.

So to sum up, harvest changes were very much required and I support the ideology of perfect items being extremely difficult to obtain. But they didn't handle the whole thing very well by introducing it into core game then taking it away.