Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

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Unshiftables wrote:

Thanks for clarifying that I don't need to budget for a supporter pack next season.

D2:R will be the same price as a Supporter Pack for me.

I didn't buy a Ritual pack because of the atrocious texture streaming and constant crashes in the presence of other players wearing mtx.

I've never before posted on the forum, and this was such a major screw up that it managed to get me out of my passive mode.

I haven't played for few years, but I got word from friends that this league was amazing so I gave it a try. It felt like playing a new game, there was so much new content. But what made it even better was that now I could pick a build from the community without investing days in researching, start playing and actually have a shot at getting great items for the build without investing 10+ hours a day.
This made the game viable for the entirety of the leagues. In previous leagues I was just hitting a wall, where without unreasonable investment of time I was not able to progress.

Now thanks to the harvest crafting I can play for fun, without worrying too much about efficient currency acquisition, since I have the option to pick up decent items of the market and be able to progress and upgrade them over time via the harvest craft.

I really liked this new pace of the game and I was planning to start playing regularly again each league. I even decided to support the game by buying a supporter pack. Now I regret this decision.

So story time over. I would like to address some of the points in the GGG post and why I think while the problems they list might be legitimate concerns, the solutions they are implementing are terrible for the stated problems.

First of all I hope GGG realizes their the majority of their target audience is not pre pubescents kids, due to the sheer complexity of the game systems and the commitment necessary to learn the game. Event without having concrete data I think it's a safe bet most of the player base are working people or at least people with enough real life commitments that they are probably playing the game casually.

The ability to gradually upgrade your gear for such people (as myself) is something that makes or breaks the game. It's the difference between - "I'll play 1-2 weeks each league just to see the new mechanic" or "I'll play every few leagues for a while" and "I'll play for the full duration of the league as it is engaging and I have actual goals I might achieve."

The major concerns from the GGG original post can be summarized as harvest makes standard crafting obsolete and it also promotes out of game trading and higher value items are easier for crafting new.

The last part I think is not an issue at all it's actually a benefit, it just have to be balanced around some changes addressing the first two points.

The trading can be addressed easily by introducing in game craft trading. Just add some option to the crafting window that will allow a player to "sell" a craft directly from the trade and receive currency in exchange. Nobody will go risk his 200+ exalt item on discord when they have an option to buy craft directly in game.

As for the currency and other crafting systems issue I think there is another issue here that GGG are beating around the bush and not saying out loud, but is the most concerning one. Introducing targeted exalt level crafts that basically cost noting, made spending currency obsolete. Who will be crazy enough to spend the currency for crafting instead of buying ready made items or buying targeted crafts. This creates surplus of currency items that has probably never before existed. None is spending exalts as craft materials, they are just changing hands as currency. And I think this is one of the major issues GGG is trying to address without actually saying it out loud.
And the baffling thing is that this is so easy to fix. Just make those crafts cost what they emulate. You want to add fire to your item, then you will have to find the craft or buy it, but also pay an exalt that will be consumed in the crafting itself. That way you can have your cake and it it too. There will be money sink for the exalts, they will not just stay in the economy and there will still be relatively easy way to upgrade equipment in deterministic way, which is apparent that the community wants now they we had a taste of it.

Sorry for the long rambling post, but I had to get that out of my chest.
I hope GGG listens to the outcry and instead of breaking one of the best changes implemented in the game instead opts in to balance it but keep the benefits to the player base at large.

I may have a way to get GGG's attention about this issue...


I think we should try to organize a 24hr boycott of MTX purchases. I'm pretty sure like any company that wants to make money this will be heard loud and clear.

If you want to slam garbage items with closed eyes, gl with that.

Me and alot of people wont play the game after.

Boring game it's going to be.

You see this -> icon GGG? Guess what, there gonna be more next league, just because u made all these harvest cucks mald, best change IMO, although the Harvest league should not exists in first place.

This wouldn't be so bad if the reasoning wasn't so out of touch. I have to say it, but who tf slams an exalt on like that? Literally when I learned how to play the game, everyone says that no you're wasting currency if you do that. Save up and buy new items with it.

It's fine if you wanna nerf harvest, sure, but man if pre-harvest crafting was an actual viable strat for most people to upgrade their builds people wouldn't care to begin with.

I feel like this will make me stop playing the game, harvest has helped me during my time with my new job and make my gearing experience feel very engaging instade of rolling the slots, especially how time limited I am now.

Just ran out of popcorn. Thanks all!!

Time to go buy more.

Logically explained, why this is stupid idea apriori, no matter what they say:

You don't want to have 1000 players who play 12+hours/day in your game online.

You want to have 100 000 players online who play 2-4 hours/day.

I assume you know maths here, why don't you make basic calculations?


It's not just that, there is more maths incoming:

Those 1000 players will still play your game, no matter what you do to it.

Otherwise, 100 000 players... They aren't that much in love in your game to play it no matter what.



I'd personally ignore full-day gamers opinion in this case, cause you can do anything you want with them, as developer to player, they wont leave you.

Are you sure ready to leave urself with that low active player count in next league?

great way to fuck 99% over due to fear of the 1% having too good items.

"slamming exalts" how can you be so disconnected from your own game.