Players of Path of Exile have the opportunity to collect seeds while playing the game, which they can then use in the Harvest expansion to cultivate monsters. This is what makes it so wonderful (or so terrible).

Path of Exile is not new to the practice of implementing game-changing mechanics in the form of quarterly competitions called leagues. Players have the opportunity to test out new and experimental builds in a new economy while also interacting with a new gameplay mechanic when they participate in challenge leagues.

The Harvest Path of Exile league is the most recent one to be released. When playing Harvest, players have the opportunity to collect seeds throughout the game, which they can then use to cultivate various monsters. Killing these monsters rewards you with potent crafting modifiers that have had a significant impact on Path of Exile's development, both for the better and for the worse. From the ability to level new characters to the impact it has on the base game, here are the five aspects of Path of Exile's Harvest league that are both the best and the worst.

10: Excellent: Reaching New Heights

The first few days of any Path of Exile league are typically fraught with peril as a result of the game's vast majority of league mechanics. Due to the fact that league mechanics slow down leveling and don't provide particularly valuable loot in the early acts of the game, many experienced players will choose to ignore them entirely.

The developer of Harvest has done an excellent job addressing this issue by introducing the ability for players to deliberately craft or upgrade the equipment that they require. During the first few days of a league, any added damage, increased movement speed, or even the ability to recolor items is extremely valuable for any player. The progression of levels in Path of Exile has never felt more satisfying.

9 out of 10: Give Up; DiscouragementCarnival Games

Because of the way that most leagues are structured, party play has been relegated to the background for the vast majority of them; however, no league has been as actively detrimental to groups as Harvest.

• Instead of granting seeds to the entire team, seeds that drop in each instance can only be used by the player who is currently hosting that instance

• In contrast to previous leagues, the actual league mechanic cannot be fully embraced by every player within a party

• This means that while the monsters that can be found within the Harvest gardens do indeed drop a good amount of loot, it is not possible to find magic find bonuses on them

8 - Outstanding: Disrupts the Norm of the Majority of League Mechanics

Because Grinding Gear Games has created so many different leagues for Path of Exile, the designs of those leagues have become somewhat predictable. Up until the Harvest league, the vast majority of the leagues required players to engage in some sort of activity, kill enemies, collect loot, and then advance in some kind of meta progression system.

It's a formula that has been used quite frequently as of late due to the fact that it works so well. This pattern is broken to some extent by the fact that the reward in Harvest consists of crafting options rather than item drops. To make matters even better, participants in this league are not required to use clear speed builds in order to maximize their experience with the league. Instead, they are free to work through the mechanic at their own pace.

7 - Flop: Does Not Interact With Other League Mechanics; This Card Is A Waste Of Space

By changing almost every enemy that was present on a given map, Delirium did an excellent job of interacting with the other league mechanics that were present.

Harvest only has an effect on Bestiary and Delve's crafting options, so its interaction with those mechanics is limited, but it has no bearing on the other game systems in any way. Because Harvest has no effect whatsoever on the monsters that are found on maps, it is a separate system that is not noticeable while playing through the vast majority of Path of Exile's content.

6 - Excellent: It Is Possible to Upgrade Your Equipment

Path of Exile's item upgrades are a laborious process to go through. Once a player locates an item that is superior to what they already possess, they must first improve its quality, then add sockets, then link those sockets, then color those sockets, and only then can they start using the item.

This league has made it an order of magnitude simpler to six-link gear and to change the color of sockets. Players now have the option of crafting new modifiers for their existing gear in order to gain an advantage in the majority of the game's content. Alternatively, they can choose to swap items with much less friction than ever before.

5 - Flop: Disrupts Game Flow

Players will need to pause their current map run in order to enter their garden, plant seeds, kill the monsters that have matured, and then craft. This is because the Harvest event takes place within a garden that is disconnected from the maps. This gameplay loop contrasts the increasingly rapid clearing that the game has transitioned to in recent leagues.

It is a terrible feeling to go from clearing out entire rooms full of enemies to waiting for enemies to spawn and managing multiple submenus after you have just finished clearing out entire rooms. The repetitive nature of Harvest's gameplay is probably one of the primary reasons the game won't be going core of .

4 - Excellent: Planning For Rewards And Making Preparations

Path of Exile is a game that places a strong emphasis on planning ahead. There are a lot of community tools that can help you plan out character passive trees, item setups, skill gem configurations, and strategies for completing the Atlas.

In contrast to the majority of leagues, Harvest fully embraces this aspect by enabling players to speculate about the crafting modifiers they may acquire. The process of selecting which items to craft and how to do so can take a player anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. It does so in a way that is both natural and rewarding, thereby contributing to the overall depth of PoE's builds.

3 - Flop: Garden Management

When players begin the Harvest league, Oshabi will present them with a small garden to tend to and work in. It should come as no surprise that the community spent the first few weeks of the league figuring out the best configuration for the garden, given that Path of Exile is a game built around the concept of "min-maxing."

After this was realized, the management of the garden consisted of little more than sowing seeds and gathering produce. The disconnection between the Harvest league mechanic and the main game is exacerbated by the fact that achieving a perfect state in one's garden requires an enormous investment of time from Latest Game News.

2: Excellent: The Use of Deterministic Crafting

To say that the crafting system in Harvest fundamentally alters the gameplay would be an understatement. The majority of the player population is able to create rather specialized builds or items that are very close to being perfect using this form of deterministic crafting.

Bestiary and Delve are the leagues in Path of Exile that come the closest to having a forgiving crafting system, but even these leagues still rely on random number generation to some extent.

1 - Flop: Requires an Upgrade to Get to the Core

Crafting with determinism, on the other hand, has a significant negative impact on the overall health of Path of Exile. If the league were to be implemented to Standard with only a few adjustments, the game would be completely broken.

To put it more succinctly, the gameplay loop of Harvest and its powerful crafting do not at all fit the difficulty curve of Path of Exile. It's likely that Grinding Gear Games was aware of this, which is why they plan to give Harvest at least a little bit of a facelift before incorporating it into the game. It's for the best, but it's a shame that a league that fixes so many problems with leveling up and upgrading gear couldn't make it into the core game as it is. However, there is no doubt that GGG chose the best course of action in this situation.