Yet Another River Hag Rant

So after I had River Hags roll into an Augury, here are my slightly rage-induced thoughts about them.

A "gotcha" mechanic is a term used in game design when the game subverts its own design language in a way that the player does not expect, inevitably resulting in a failure state that the player had no way to predict or avoid. This kind of mechanic is almost never fun, and can be very frustrating for players who don't realize how they are triggering the failure state. Many games (including PoE 1) are guilty of including "gotcha" mechanics in their boss battles as a way to "increase" the difficulty.

Since the clearly-established rules of the game are that death (the failure state) occurs if hit points reach zero, the river hag's drowning balls represent a clear subversion of the regular rules, as they can cause death regardless of the player's hit points. This amounts to a "gotcha" mechanic, something that is only grudgingly accepted by most players in boss fights since many developers lack the talent or creative spark to build a good boss battle without falling back on "gotcha" mechanics to impose artificial difficulty. "Gotcha" mechanics have absolutely no place in the core gameplay loop of any game - their only function is to waste the player's time, something Path of Exile 2 has already become somewhat infamous for doing.

My suggestion - remove the shaper's drowning balls from river hags, and give them a standard frostbolt spell as a replacement. That would allow them to continue to be annoying from behind other monsters without the risk of setting off that spark of rage in the player's mind that may end up costing you MTX sales or hurt word-of-mouth advertising. This would be a much smaller step than completely re-doing the endgame, yet it would still demonstrate a commitment to fixing the elements of the game that are purely there to waste the player's time.

I completely agree! A better (although still annoying) usage of this mechanic in PoE 1 is in the eater of worlds fight. In that fight it can be excused since there's a controlled environment where the rules of engagement that are set by the existance of this mechanic do not get too meddled with by other things (such as tight corridors, other mobs in front blocking movement etc.)
The River hag introduces this mechanic in an uncontrolled environment (interracting with monster modifiers, varying layouts etc.) that creates very negative gameplay patterns, especially for melee characters. An orb spawned inside a pack of enemies may mean that there is no way of engaging, or if spawned after engaging one may be unable to move out due to being blocked by other units. This is not something that can be built around other than using blink or having "enough damage" to delete all other mobs that may block your path. The game already have enough issues with snowballing, and punishes you for being "too weak" beyond the content juts being more difficult and this is yet another example of this.

Don’t stand in them problem solved

Game doesnt need to change because of play skill issues

These are my most hated mob in the game. Though I wouldn't change them, as we need difficult mobs in the game.

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Poe2WarriorMan#6401 schrieb:

Don’t stand in them problem solved

Game doesnt need to change because of play skill issues

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mikeab79#3627 schrieb:

These are my most hated mob in the game. Though I wouldn't change them, as we need difficult mobs in the game.

There's no other mechanic in the early game that kills you regardless of your life. There's not even a boss fight with a remotely similar mechanic. So basically a random white trashmob is much more difficult than any boss fights up until that point in the game. It's very bad game design.

Difficulty is good when it's consistent. The game teaches you that standing in stuff kills you but it also teaches you that if you invest in defensive layers then you can stand in stuff a bit longer before it kills you. Then enter the River Hag and it completely ignores all the things that the game has been teaching you for hours. It's confusing, it's bad game design.

Dont stand in the ball.

Easy counter play.


A surprising death mechanic ≠ bad game design—it just means you need to adapt.


Which you are refusing to do, and instead asking the game to change for you

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mikeab79#3627 schrieb:

These are my most hated mob in the game. Though I wouldn't change them, as we need difficult mobs in the game.

Its all "fun and games" until you meet a Regeneration + Minion gets damage first + Minion Revival with River hag minion rare XD

I hate them but just have a good aoe or move fast enough to single them out and take care of them. We need hard mobs.

nice design

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Kraivan#1745 schrieb:

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mikeab79#3627 schrieb:

These are my most hated mob in the game. Though I wouldn't change them, as we need difficult mobs in the game.

Its all "fun and games" until you meet a Regeneration + Minion gets damage first + Minion Revival with River hag minion rare XD

Then double that, if you have the passives in your Atlas tree set for that. Ya, I ran into many combinations of the hag and other mobs that make it very difficult. As a non-meta Warrior, it's a challenge.

Died one time when fighting a rare with the time warp bubble and some hags decided to jump into the fight. Their bubbles were all over inside the time warp bubble. Good times.