Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

Interesting that this is what is prioritized with so many other technical issues that folks have pointed out.

This type of stuff, while inconvenient, doesn't really impact the streamers playing 16 hours a day, but makes it significantly more difficult for a casual player to hit some nice items.

Wonder if I can just get a refund on the packs I've purchased, feel a bit stupid having supported the game now that it's rather apparent that GGG is just further hammering the casual players.

Ive already quit playing
If you feel the same about the nerf
I implore you to boycott the game too

I never post on the forums, but I wanted to show my supporter packs. I regret supporting GGG by buying Harvest pack a few weeks ago. Have I known about these changes I would have not done it. I am not going to be petty enough to ask for a refund, but I think this is the last time I am supporting GGG until they show me their commitment to making item drops be "exciting" and primary ways of acquiring loot.

I think it is short sighted to nerf Harvest now when most of the dropped items are garbage and there is so many of them. Harvest changes should have been bundled with something positive. Like we are culling the quantity of loot and enabling smart loot to make drops better. They could have expanded Harvest storage or made nerfed crafts tradeable. Instead they just nerfed it into the ground and gave us nothing in return.

This is while making one of the most out of touch manifestos. I will still play the leagues. But as far as giving GGG money, I will need to see them stick to their design philosophies. Cause right now they claim the don't want Harvest to he be the source of the best items. Then what is the source then? It is definitely not item drops.

Yeah I don't really like those changes, but I see where you are coming from.

ALthough I feel the manifesto was somewhat poorly written (No offence...)

Saying that the sentiment of PoE is to have your eyes closed and exalt slam isn't exactly what I think you've tried to convey, rather than you do enjoy that there is risk to be taken when it comes to item aquisition and that Harvest managed to circumvent that. I get that this doesn't fit your vision with the game, and to an extent I agree with it.

It's a bit upsetting that you acknowledge the issues that TFT proposes in its existance, but past that, there isn't much of a word to it that applies a future change / considered change to fight that in any capacity.

I've had to read the part with player retention a few times to actually understand what you, I hope at least, mean that. The fear for you as a business, I assume at least, and as passionate devs, is that you want people to play for longer. THe way it is worded right now you believe that players will quit sooner, and people took it the wrong way because quite clearly, reading trough the pages as I have been for a while now (so exhausting x.x), this isn't the case. But it's not just this league you take into perspective, but potential future ones. A player that has achieved everything in one league, what reason may they have to return to the next one at all?

But this is where you are disconnected from the playerbase. A lack of faith even, if you will. Harvest, even in its current form, made people have goals within the league, made them delve deeper into the mechanics of the game, made them attempt previously unreachable bosses, especially given most, by the looks of it anyway, enjoy doing whacky builds, too. Even when people reached their ultimate, PERSONAL peak, there was still bosses to fight, farming to be done, and grinding to be enjoyed. And a sense of acomplishment, to continously improving your items YOURSELF, bit by bit. It was fun.

There is one thing I personally had to chuckle about. YOu complain about how, when people poll their craft together, it creates an unbalance in the league. But, this always was kinda the case. And yet we still played the game. Why? Personally speaking, because what does my enjoyment have to do with what others are doing? I got my share of fun, such as it was :D

I urge you to rethink the harvest changes. I agree a nerf is in order. I've spent a long essay in a post to attempt to dissect your post as best as possible and how I understood it, how I think a majority of the community understood it, and I think the changes are too drastic for the people to accept. We may have to anyway, I have faith in GGG personally and if this change is what the game needs in their opinion, then I am willing to give it my shot, but I see myself going back to 2-3 weeks each league playing bare essentials, despite how absolutly epic the mavenfight and boss-gauntlets are.

Just my two cents


Edit: I have to say I find it disgusting how so many showcase their supporterpacks etc, like it gives them some form of entitlement. It feels, unnecessary. You've bought them because you've supported the game until now. Which for many of you, is many years in the game. And suddenly a powercreep change irks you to revoke all that support in one go? It's, quite frankly, insane.

I don't go buy apples for 3 years, eat them with delight, and after finding one spoiled one, ask for refund of 3 years purchasing apples. Do you understand how insane that sounds?

"

SovietPride wrote:

I never post on the forums, but I wanted to show my supporter packs. I regret supporting GGG by buying Harvest pack a few weeks ago. Have I known about these changes I would have not done it. I am not going to be petty enough to ask for a refund, but I think this is the last time I am supporting GGG until they show me their commitment to making item drops be "exciting" and primary ways of acquiring loot.

I think it is short sighted to nerf Harvest now when most of the dropped items are garbage and there is so many of them. Harvest changes should have been bundled with something positive. Like we are culling the quantity of loot and enabling smart loot to make drops better. They could have expanded Harvest storage or made nerfed crafts tradeable. Instead they just nerfed it into the ground and gave us nothing in return.

This is while making one of the most out of touch manifestos. I will still play the leagues. But as far as giving GGG money, I will need to see them stick to their design philosophies. Cause right now they claim the don't want Harvest to he be the source of the best items. Then what is the source then? It is definitely not item drops.

That's probably one of the only ways of reaching GGG at this stage. What would be good to hear is what they feel they can achieve up until POE 2.0 in relation to the ongoing issues with the game. I'd like to hear a proper, down-to-earth response rather than the same attitude we've been getting league after league. Maybe there is one that I haven't seen yet...

"

Tenzarin_MyNameWasTaken wrote:

Wow I just heard about this news. Props to GGG to removing the item editor and saving POE! It was far to easy for some people to get good items.

Would you stop lying :)?

"

Zepepsico wrote:

"

Poulak08 wrote:

....but they have to respect the wish of others who want to play one character and min maxed him.

I disagree. Everyone may want a min-maxed character, but it should not be obtainable unless with serious and extreme efforts!
I am nowhere near a min-maxed character, but it gives purpose to tend towards it. Have a bunch of upgrades at 5-10 ex, and maybe even one big 50 ex upgrade if I persist in the league.

But reaching that min-maxed state for everyone will kill the game. No more goals, and the usual "When everyone is super, nobody is super".

I still remember the best MMORPG of my life, where my build had a chase item I really wanted.

I still remember its name: Eriny's Charm.

Maybe 5-10 players per server had it. It would have made my build perfectly min-maxed. I was slowly building up to get enough guilds to help me get it.

And then, under the whining of the playerbase, they made all artefacts super easy to get. Everyone had every dream artefact. Owning one no longer meant anything in terms of achievement, or in terms of power differential. And unsurprisingly, the game went quasi dead within a year, because everyone ticked their bucket list, and no longer had anything to do. Everything was served on a platter. Players got borded and left the game. The game died. I still miss the game.

You should always keep some items, some dream items to a handful of players (and I am far from being one of them), because it gives something to aim towards. If we all could get our dream items or 95% of our dream items, we would have nothing left to do. AS I said earlier, I stopped playing Diablo 1 when I started using an item editor. I had everything at my fingertip, I thought it would be fun, it disgusted my from the game!

Thing have to be hard to earn in order to be enjoyed, many developers from various MMORPG said so: making things easy kills their games. But often the marketing and finance guys have to bend to the crowds and yield, resulting in killing their golden goose.

What do you call an extreme effort ?

100 h of grind ?
1000 h of grind ?

Before the need of min-maxing a character there is some middle ground.
My main character has 590k DPS and is not able to kill A1 sirus without dying... when in my grind will i have the money to "buy" the power needed to kill A1 or maybe A9 Sirus ? Not that i want to buy that power, i would prefer crafting it for the sense of accomplishment, and yes you eared me well, i said crafting not gambling...

With Harvest, having the power to do end game softly still require an extreme effort needing to grind maps for bases and needing hundreds of harvest to get the good crafts... This take week and maybe month when you play 2-3 hours a day...

And no you can't compare an ARPG with a raid in DAOC with targetable loot...

"

Rakushi wrote:

Yeah I don't really like those changes, but I see where you are coming from.

ALthough I feel the manifesto was somewhat poorly written (No offence...)

Saying that the sentiment of PoE is to have your eyes closed and exalt slam isn't exactly what I think you've tried to convey, rather than you do enjoy that there is risk to be taken when it comes to item aquisition and that Harvest managed to circumvent that. I get that this doesn't fit your vision with the game, and to an extent I agree with it.

It's a bit upsetting that you acknowledge the issues that TFT proposes in its existance, but past that, there isn't much of a word to it that applies a future change / considered change to fight that in any capacity.

I've had to read the part with player retention a few times to actually understand what you, I hope at least, mean that. The fear for you as a business, I assume at least, and as passionate devs, is that you want people to play for longer. THe way it is worded right now you believe that players will quit sooner, and people took it the wrong way because quite clearly, reading trough the pages as I have been for a while now (so exhausting x.x), this isn't the case. But it's not just this league you take into perspective, but potential future ones. A player that has achieved everything in one league, what reason may they have to return to the next one at all?

But this is where you are disconnected from the playerbase. A lack of faith even, if you will. Harvest, even in its current form, made people have goals within the league, made them delve deeper into the mechanics of the game, made them attempt previously unreachable bosses, especially given most, by the looks of it anyway, enjoy doing whacky builds, too. Even when people reached their ultimate, PERSONAL peak, there was still bosses to fight, farming to be done, and grinding to be enjoyed. And a sense of acomplishment, to continously improving your items YOURSELF, bit by bit. It was fun.

There is one thing I personally had to chuckle about. YOu complain about how, when people poll their craft together, it creates an unbalance in the league. But, this always was kinda the case. And yet we still played the game. Why? Personally speaking, because what does my enjoyment have to do with what others are doing? I got my share of fun, such as it was :D

I urge you to rethink the harvest changes. I agree a nerf is in order. I've spent a long essay in a post to attempt to dissect your post as best as possible and how I understood it, how I think a majority of the community understood it, and I think the changes are too drastic for the people to accept. We may have to anyway, I have faith in GGG personally and if this change is what the game needs in their opinion, then I am willing to give it my shot, but I see myself going back to 2-3 weeks each league playing bare essentials, despite how absolutly epic the mavenfight and boss-gauntlets are.

Just my two cents

Spoiler

Shameless link to people wondering what post I am talking about. Warning, long. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3070005

Very thoughtful response. Thanks man.

Big big issue with the TFT trading not being addressed even though it was highlighted as an undesirable outcome.

Also, would like to point out that creating a community for a game to better improve your experience is quite an impressive achievement - bar the scamming, but that happened well before TFT harvest trades anyway.

This game is too much a solo grind fest, it's a loners game. Wish there was more work done to improve and promote group play.

whatever you do now, making me join a hidden and exclusive elite socienty like "the forbidden trove" to craft the best items possible, killed the game for me.

how could you not foresee players using methods outside the game for sharing crafts when you FAILED to provide something ingame?

or did you intentionally push players to rely on resources outside the game?

Chris, I think you've "manifested" a belief that you know what your customers want.