The Path of Exile is known to introduce several new gameplay mechanics with its quarterly patches known as Leagues. These challenge leagues are an effective option for players to analyze their personalized builds in new content, while simultaneously trying out new mechanics.

The latest leagues for Path of Exile include Harvest and Heist. And with the Harvest, the game has enabled players to farm seeds that allow players to grow monsters. Moreover, slaying the newly produced monsters will drop high-tier crafting modifiers that have proven to shift the meta for Path of Exile. Needless to say, from progressing your characters to the ramifications on the base game, the following are the reasons that make the league great, and abysmal.

Awesome: Leveling Up

The first few days for new league mechanics are always tedious to deal with. In fact, the veterans are often seen to avoid using league mechanics since they mainly hinder the leveling aspect by not providing high-tier loot. 

The harvest, however, has improved on that aspect, making it possible for players to craft and upgrade their equipment throughout the opening act. Mechanics such as increased damage, movement speed, and even aesthetical modification simply cannot be overlooked. Thus, leveling certainly feels a lot seamless in Path of Exile. 

Awesome: Refreshing League Mechanics

The development team of Grinding Gear Games has been following a distinct yet redundant formula for its leagues. And while the challenge leagues are fun to participate in, have become rather formulaic — interact, kill enemies, farm loot, and proceed with the event.

The formula is quite simple and has worked for PoE, but it had become quite repetitive as of late. But, Grinding Gear Games managed to break the mold by introducing Harvest and somewhat rewarding the players with the option of crafting gear rather than mere drops. 

Awesome: Seamless Gear Upgrades

If there’s one thing that has turned off most players, it is Path of Exile’s tedious upgrade system. After acquiring a new item, the player has to add quality, sockets, link the sockets, followed by coloring them as well.

With Harvest, the entire process has become seamless and significantly easier. Players are now capable of swapping items with little to no friction, or, simply crafting more modifiers for their current gear, making it viable to participate in upcoming content.

Awesome: Game-changing Crafting

Harvest easily delivers the best experience to players for crafting items in Path of Exile. The deterministic crafting aspect enables the community to experiment with limitless builds, be it niche or versatile items. 

Prior to this feat, PoE has only come close to a great crafting system during Bestiary or Delve. But, even then, the mentioned leagues relied heavily on RNG and pure luck. 

Awesome: Rewards Players for Preparation

Path of Exile is amongst the few games that necessitate extensive preparation and planning. Interestingly, the game has several community tools just to plan out skill trees, gem setups, items, and Atlas strategies. 

But unlike previous leagues, Harvest integrates the concept by having players anticipate the modifiers they may obtain. Needless to say, players will have the luxury of spending extensive time brainstorming ideas for craftable items. 

Flaw: Garden Management

After initiating the Harvest league, Oshabi will provide the players with a small garden. Considering the min-max playstyle of the game, the community spent countless time optimizing the proper setup for the garden. 

With discovering the right setup, the garden management is mainly comprised of planting seeds and harvesting. Working in the garden is extremely tedious and mundane. Plus, it further acts as a diversion from the core game and its mechanics.

Flaw: Base Game Requires an Overhaul

Despite the refreshing deterministic crafting in Harvest, Path of Exile is likely to be dealt a huge blow once the league ends. In other words, the game would be completely broken if these mechanics were to be implemented in the standard game. 

Harvest’s playstyle does not suit PoE’s difficulty scaling. And since Grinding Gear Games mentioned an overhaul to the Harvest, it is likely these mechanics will not be implemented into the standard game. While it may come off as a buzzkill, the dev team made the right call here. 

Alas, considering every game and new content has its ups and downs, Harvest is certainly a league to invest your time in. But before investing in the game’s loop, why not go ahead and buy yourself some PoE items from Eldorado.