Source
r/pathofexile•
Corus3

Why did we abandon the harbinger gear pieces system?

Fluff

I think the general idea of using gear pieces instead of full items dropping was quite nice, since the parts still allowed for a higher accessibility to the content, without making the gear to abundant. It also allowed for spreading the wealth generated over more people rather than a few lucky ones. Why wasn't a similar system employed for abyss liches or the bestiary endgame fights to make those fights more available from the beginning?

Posted Mar 19, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

57101
AndrewNargosAssassin•

Because Abyss and Bestiary are the opposite of accessibility.

Since GGG cares about the economy more than anything else, they torched everything good from Harbinger.

51
Oriathim•

Abyss was ok after buffs, it's really nice now, hopefully todays buffs will make Bestiary good enough.

11
n0c0Elementalist•

Judging from previous experience, they will make really good changes to bestiary about 3 months after league ends.

17
ogzogz•

maybe its time to start chilling in standard

2
SAKUJ0•

Man. I asked why people even play the new leagues and complain about not being able to run the rarest maps and rarest random encounters.

Surprisingly I received a lot of answers (and was at first quite upvoted). About 10 or so said they play the new leagues for fresh and healthier but still imperfect economy.

I would say GGG cares about the economy so much, because it‘s the main reason for people to come back to this game every three months.

(Instead of downvoting me because my preferences don‘t happen to overlap with yours, please click the reply button)

6
jalapenohandjob•

(Instead of downvoting me because my preferences don‘t happen to overlap with yours, please click the reply button)

One of the worst things about reddit (out of many) and people downvoting people they don't agree with or like, is that if you accumulate enough downvotes in any one subreddit, your posting is throttled to shit in that subreddit. Echo chambers become even bigger echo chambers, because posters of unpopular opinions eventually can only post once every 10 minutes. People basically use downvotes as a pseudo-censor in multiple ways. If a post gets enough downvotes, it's hidden from discussion, all but censoring it.

Honestly if the chans had better thread structure they would, imo, be a way better system for discussion than karma farming and vote-based-on-votes-already-there or i-know-that-account-name-so-upvote.

0†
SAKUJ0•

Reddit is shit and I moderated communities here for thousands of hours.

2
VulpesNox•

I would say GGG cares about the economy so much,

they let duped and exploited items stay in the game and allow ppl to control the market with them, they dont give a flying fuck about the economy

-2†
[deleted]•

[deleted]

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VulpesNox•

yeah im just lying /s

you realize there was a dupe with the bestiary crafting right ? and there was exploits with leaguestones in legacy, then there was a bug with the div card boxes in essence i think

noone banned (except some in leaguestone exploit), all items still in the market

-1
VulpesNox•

Since GGG cares about the economy more than anything els

they dont, but its nice to see you still fall for their lies. All they care about is rapidfire "develop" "new" content so they can sell you the next overpriced mtx

3
AndrewNargosAssassin•

You are only half correct.

The economy is cherished by the streamers and the whales, and they matter. They buy all the MTX.

1
Sir_Stashscion•

Abyss was only an issue because of a bug that they didn't figure out until late in the league and weren't able to correct.

Even then it was far more accessible than Bestiary.

2†
jharakal•

Please know the full story before you say "bug"...

There was a bug, yes - which allowed you to re-run an abyssal depths non-stop, letting you run as many lich fights as you wanted. People did it for a solid week. GGG then panic patched it by blocking such depths from spawning.

The later PR release was the "boost" to "balance" the shitshow caused by their quickfix patch. They never actually patched the damn thing and it's STILL not patched this league, the band-aid sits as is. Best of luck getting a depths in an area which has a sub-area attached.

So like every league, including this one. Some people made bank while the rest got fucked over coz GGG couldn't care less and couldn't care to give equal access to all. Same shit repeats.

It's only when it's publicly revealed do we even get the PR post from GGG saying how this had zero impact on the economy and league. You think the base duping and helm enchant duping would even get a response if it wasn't streamed live??

10
archevil•

Non stop? AFAIK the bug was to spawn abyssal depth by using portal from the elder guardian area, so basically the depth was always there, but you just don't have to open the abyss and kill all the mobs to reveal it. It was not non-stop, but this is AFAIK since even on here the mods censored any post talking about it.

1
jharakal•

You could refresh the depths basically. The depths weren't already open and there, spawned normally by following the crack etc.

I know coz i had a t13 mud geyser with a guardian on it which i didn't remove (coz that boss was scary :P) and i got depths on it a few times.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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Sir_Stashscion•

If they didn't have a fix for it, even if they had the numbers they had to figure out a fix before they deployed any changes or risk significantly messing up the league further. So, yes, it's a bug that caused the number to be low. A nasty, vicious bug, but still a bug.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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AndrewNargosAssassin•

because of a bug

"Bug"

0†
toilettruck1998•

I don't see why, the literal worst part of the game currently is trading. It's so bad I am never going to play non-ssf again, if they didn't introduce ssf I would have quit after breach.

2
EnrysSlayer•

Agreed. Caring about the economy but the mechanics of interacting with the economy are not fun.

That conversation has been done to death tho.

5
AndrewNargosAssassin•

I don't see why

How many whales and streamers you think are playing SSF?

1
FullPoet•

I got 3 characters to 85 in Abyss and I never saw a single liche.

1
Masteroxid•

Have you tried touching abysses

0
FullPoet•

Have you tried getting shafted by RNG?

The first abyss in maps I went into in Bestiary had a liche.

3
Masteroxid•

Just a yoke m8

0
One_ill_KevinJHierophant•

At the time, the community hated Harbinger's shard system.

46
MaritMonkey•

But people who are enjoying the game aren't the ones writing angry forum rants. There's a whole lot more "oh hey that kinda bugs me too" upvotes than people who are AS pissed off as (whatever) vehemently upset OP.

Once any forum gets big enough, it nearly always sounds like "the community" is unhappy.

10
FullPoet•

But people who are enjoying the game aren't the ones writing angry forum rants.

That doesnt mean their criticisms should be ignore and made fun of. There were legitimate complaints raised about Harbinger.

Let me rephrase your sentence for you:

But people who are enjoying the game aren't the ones writing angry forum reddit posts

Could be said about Bestiary. I thought low drops in Beast was more interesting, as I was not a fan of the loot pinata system we had(have?).

8
MaritMonkey•

I didn't mean to say anything about the validity of whatever criticism. Just that "the community hated <x> and now hates <y>" is a weird way to think about grievances because "the community" is often represented, at any given time, by the parts of it who are upset about something or other.

It makes you think "reddit feels <thing>" but really it's just "these are the people who are upset enough to make reddit posts right now."

1
FullPoet•

I didn't mean to say anything about the validity of whatever criticism

Sure, but the way you wrote it, made it feel as if you were just dismissing it because its just "angry forum rants".

[.....] is a weird way to think about grievances

I dont think so. If a specific, integral part of a league was disliked, why wouldnt people dislike the league overall?

It makes you think "reddit feels <thing>"

Reddit is an echochamber and going against will get you downvoting to oblivion very fast and reddit is not a very good place for discussion.

1
Moesugi•

If they're already enjoying then clearly you should shift focus on why there are other that don't, and how can you improve the experience for both.

That's not too hard of a concept to understand why dev still listen to these complains.

0
[deleted]•

[deleted]

8
PjatteriPath of Scammer•

Not the shard system itself, just the useless piece of shit shards that 8 out of 10 harbringers dropped. Even Chaos shards weren't too common even when it was only 1/20 of a chaos orb.

8
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Butwhythough12345•

We just didn't realize they could make it so much worse! Lol. Its only remembered fondly by comparison...

4
One_ill_KevinJHierophant•

I really enjoyed Harbinger and Abyss in real-time -- I've said this in other posts, but I don't mind that Leagues are experiments in new concepts. The purpose of a temporary league, in my mind, is to play around with things knowing that they may not work perfectly or be the community favorite.

I also don't hate Bestiary. I just wish we had more bestiary mobs in maps so they felt more omnipresent. The blood altar mechanic isn't really my thing, but that's fine. I just appreciate the difficult non-boss mobs in maps. That is a lot of fun.

9
PacmanZ3roElementalist•

I think the only real issue is that the league mechanic is just not really there. You get what, a single red beast every 5 maps on average? That should be 1-2 PER MAP for an active league mechanic. IMO league mechanics should be invasive. Sure, once it gets rolled into the core game lower it to 1 in 5 or 10 maps on average or something, but during the league it should be omnipresent throughout your playing.

3
FredWeedMax•

That's because we mostly got shitty shards tho, nobody complained about ex shards or ancient shards that i tell ya

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
One_ill_KevinJHierophant•

Harbinger items were collected in shards. This permitted earlier access to league specific end game content without debasing the value of the items obtained through the end game events.

Whether it's an exalt shard for a belt shard, conceptually the driving point is the same: a handicap on "end game" rewards without eliminating access to the endgame as the only way to handicap rewards.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

3
flyingpigmonkey•

Seriously, who needs transmute shards?

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
Keemslostpassword•

I'm all for incremental rewards, but the unique shards were horrible shit. No league uniques, just useless shards. That particular extra RNG hell of trying to get a complete unique was awful.

Ofc we still have some partial uniques, like Poet's Pen, golem jewels and such. Fuck those too.

[SSFBTW]

17
snuze•

This game isn't and shouldn't be balanced around SSF.

5
TheOnin•

Balanced? No. Designed? To some extent.

The majority if players do not trade. So GGG doesn't design systems that require trading to function properly.

3
Some1Random•

But the whole game is made to require trading to function properly. The drop rates are so abysmal that you are better off doing chaos recipes and buying gear than actually identifying said items and trying to equip them.

If they wanted to not require trading they would need to really up the drop rate or make zone level determine base tier or ilvl determine affix tier currently you can still get +3 max life on a ilvl 100 item and you still find simple robes in t16 maps. That is bonkers stupid.

3
FredWeedMax•

SSF is litteraly a game mode that GGG made because a small part of the community wanted to be able to prove they were SSF basically

This game is designed around a non existant trading system (i know i dont understand it either), not around ssf AT ALL

SSF is an extra challenge people take upon themselves

So GGG doesn't design systems that require trading to function properly.

Just like them bestiary orbs right ?

1
WizardOfDOSwitch•

poet's pen, partial ? what do u mean ?

1
Keemslostpassword•

It's kind of dead drop alone, need two of them before using it actually makes sense. It's a frustrating drop: "Oh look, cool and rare unique! Part 1/2, should go trade lol"

-6
Glasse•

There are plenty of builds that work just fine with one poets pen though.

7
likejaxirl•

what poets pen build doesnt get a massive boost from a second one?

3
Keemslostpassword•

Well, sort of. Unless I'm missing some cool combo, wouldn't 1 Poet's Pen be pretty much a caster build where you're stuck with a wand? You get equivalent to 4 ish support gems (2 sockets, +3 lvl, attackspeed instead of cast speed). But have to use a wand, and no other stats from weapon.

Seems just worse than taking a caster dagger and self casting with 5L or whatever.

0
inventoroftreez•

So every good unique that can benefit from also having a second one should drop in pairs? What?

1
Keemslostpassword•

Huh, sure. If they really have to add uniques that are pretty useless without finding multiples. There are way too many alch shard drops already.

0
Pvtsarge•

I think the gear pieces alone wouldn't have been that satisfying for someone that could only complete these encounters once or twice, considering the rarity, especially if you got differing ones. A lot of the playerbase doesn't engage in trading, and even with the people who do, trading pieces of a set can be somewhat tedious - doubly so if the completed item is a 1c unique.

Beachheads in Harbinger had a crapton of shards that dropped after the boss which offset some of the feeling you didn't get a shiny new unique, as well as the fact that it was a new idea as items had never come in pieces before.

6
GlobbiGladiator•

The shards from bosses were just like any other loot you get from maps. People ran beachheads just because it was good to get level 100. Even then it was common to do, but not super liked. There were so many posts showing loot from beachhead boss room complaining about shit rewards (even though there rewards were enough to chain the map forever in groups).

3
KinGGaiA•

thats not correct. harbinger maps were actually insanely rewarding, even when they were more expensive and popular.

i did countless of beachheads maps and got ridiculously rich just from ancient/exalted shards, mapdrops & the occasional tempest binding.

3
FredWeedMax•

People not engaging into trading are probably not flocking to T15 unique maps tho...

1
Cracticus•

There were 18 Harbinger unique pieces total, and you'd only get one piece a Beachhead at the very end. It was a cool idea, but incremental progress doesn't mean much when you're looking for 4 specific pieces with different values on the market for the item you want. Not to mention, Beachheads were pretty hard to get to begin with, and you had to roll a lot of them if you were planning on trying to get a unique's pieces all by yourself.

Uniques in pieces was a cool idea, but the implementation in Harbinger was more annoying than anything, imo.

4
Shiroum•

Beachheads were 1/7 chance of getting one.

1
Shiroum•

Source : I made 1700 beachheads over the course of the league

1
Cracticus•

I guess I forgot more about than that league than I thought. :x That sounds even more painful, then.

2
GlobbiGladiator•

People complained about the shards all the time. You needed to get not even just one mask but 4 different fragments. Every other unique and its fragments were worthless so there you had similar complains as everywhere else - rewards suck. Show me a post on Reddit or forums from Harbinger time that would praise getting unique fragments.

3
Some1Random•

Yeah they missed the mark there, all shards should be the same % drop and the rarity should be which item the shard comes from. Make mask shards scarce compared to belts, but make each shard the same so you don't have thousands of piece 1 and 3 waiting for piece 2

1
RealnoMIsHardcore•

Because its much more exciting to find an item than to find shards of an item.

3
FredWeedMax•

Well i prefer to find fucking shards (or cards) if it's to not ever find that item fully anyways, at least i can sell dem scraps

1
RealnoMIsHardcore•

Great, because there are already divination cards in the game. So you can go around farming them if you like and ill just keep on farming currency to buy the items i want.

And once in a while i will find one of the cool items that are worth a lot and feel so excited that i want to jump out of my chair.

0
GeosgaenoNecromancer•

I liked harbinger.

AMA

3
Nadnerb5•

How do you feel about Beastiary?

1
GeosgaenoNecromancer•

Tbh, I skipped it.

I don't usually play 2 leagues in a row, I burn out easily. And I played Abyss...

0
Zomgnerfenigma•

Because it is like: Whooo. A shard! Of...um..what? [google] Throws it away

2
Velvache•

Pretty sure people hated the idea of the harbinger gear piece system and shards in general.

It also allowed for spreading the wealth generated over more people rather than a few lucky ones.

Everything in the game works this way. People make money by selling things that they don't need so other people can use it. If I find a belly of the beast but will never use it, am I going to sell it or keep it in my stash? Of course I'll sell it. There's no need for this shard mechanic for uniques because it'll just annoy people more than it already does. Remeber when people actually farmed the shit out of vinktar square and had to go around buying 4 staffs each time? Not a fun experience tbh. Divination cards already take that space as well and they go for cheaper than the actual unique they give because no one wants to deal with the trading in the time they could of just ran a map and made back the currency.

2
Some1Random•

The point of making them into shards means they can make the encounter more accessible without "ruining" the economy by making the loot more accessible. If every item was 3 shards at least, some 4 and they multiplied the rate at which spirit beasts showed up by 4 times it would be the same amount of loot, but 4x the number of people would experience the fights and "engage" with the league.

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MyNameIsSalo•

Because it's fucking pointless

Why divide an item up into 4 pieces with equal drop chance when you could just divide the drop chance of the item by 4? It's the same impact on the economy

And in harbinger it was worse than that as the pieces were weighted. So instead of the drop chance being divided by 4, it was limited by the lowest drop chance of the 4 pieces. And you had heaps of excess of the other 3 pieces which were effectively useless. So even lower total drop chance and heaps of excess waste

Another example of this is atziri sets. 3/4 pieces are worthless. But for atziri sets this is balanced out as you can use the worthless pieces in the map device with other maps as a way of recycling them. Harbinger didn't have that recycle system so there was just a fuck load of useless unique parts that'll never be completed.

I get the intention was to make players feel like they were earning something, getting one step closer to completing that unique. Like divination cards. But it's just a bad and wasteful idea. It's unique and interesting and I'm happy they atleast tried it. But I never want to see it again

2
Apxa•

Because it's basically better version of Div cards.

1
BlowITAProphecy•

Oh, yeah, right... did you see the other post about how certain pieces of Harbinger uniques are yet to be listed on poe.trade? Wow, how accessible it is to everyone! Did you see the post of the other guy saying how much he would have to spend on average to get just a piece of the Harbinger uniques? Oh, yeah, that's surely how wealth spreads, right? Hell, no! Harbinger is the worst system ever, and I wish it never came back to the game to remind us of how bad it was. I played an entire month of Harbinger and didn't get a single Beachhead, had to buy one to run it once for... just a shitty piece of unique that I have no use for!. So I quitted that league just one month in. People that think that league was good were just wealthy nolifer bastards that ran beachheads all day. Abyss was an awesome league, the only unique I didn't get was the body armour which I didn't care about because all the other uniques made up for it, whereas Beachhead was a full month of nothing.

1†
Dephenestrata•

because ppl bitched endlessly about picking up all the pennies. too much negative feedback does not encourage ggg to keep working on and refining content.

1
FruiTdutchIGN: PureHealSlut•

Too much fun

1
francoroccoGuardian•

that could be nice add to this league,keep the guarantee drop for spirit beasts and add fragment of each part of the sets to the red beasts with mods respective to each boss

1
pumaofshadow•

It wasn't good. It was placebo. Its a sticky plaster over the wound. GGG can't actually balance shit for anyone but the streamers anymore.

1
Elune_Make Scion great again•

Splitting a belt in half would look weird

0
Esophallic#neverlucky•

And yet it was done in Harbinger

4
Elune_Make Scion great again•

Yep, looks weird to me

-1
Sixkay•

why? just glue it together

1
Elune_Make Scion great again•

Modern Wraeclast has not yet invented glue

1
KelloPudgerroKaom•

GGG doesnt want pieces, they want rng on top of layers of rng to get a single thing, not lesser rng to get pieces

0
FoxerHRJuggernaut•

Wouldn't pieces put more RNG? Instead of getting a chance at a whole item and not getting it, you could get the same part over and over again, reason I quit during the Harbinger league is because I kept getting shards of orbs and not whole orbs.

3