River Hags for a Harcore game

Game Mode: HC SSF
Hours on Record: 483
Character: 72 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag), 55 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag)

This topic has likely been raised before, but the near-instant drown mechanic has made me hesitant to continue playing, as I exclusively play HC SSF.

First Death: At level 55, I died to a River Hag. I had no idea what the water globe mechanic did, even though I was 20 levels over-leveled (returning to kill the Lava Boss). The encounter came as a nasty surprise.

Second Death: At level 72, while mapping T4, I was killed by what I assume was an offscreen Hag near water at the edge of the map. I couldn’t see anything, just noticed my screen flash. I instantly used Roll and Time Freeze, but it made no difference—I was dead in an isntant.

I understand that avoiding the Hag’s mechanic is relatively straightforward under normal circumstances, but eventually, situations arise—like offscreen Hags or odd map layouts—that feel fundamentally unfair.

As a hardcore player, I heavily invest in defenses. A mechanic that bypasses all defenses and kills almost instantly feels counter to the spirit of hardcore mode.

Despite being hyper-vigilant after my first death to a Hag, dying again in such a way drained my enthusiasm to continue. I strongly urge you to consider changing this mechanic. Avoiding entire areas of the game because of one mechanic isn’t enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind if it dealt significant damage, but an instant drown mechanic is incredibly frustrating.

For now, I’ll be stepping away from the game until this is addressed.

I’ve always appreciated how GGG understands what hardcore, SSF, and Ruthless modes are all about—the gritty struggle where difficulty feels steep, but always fair. This mechanic, however, seems to deviate from that philosophy and feels cheap.

Legit problem.


If there was a charm of 'holding breath' to counter it I would never unequip it.

"

Ragestorm26#0930 wrote:

Game Mode: HC SSF
Hours on Record: 483
Character: 72 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag), 55 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag)

This topic has likely been raised before, but the near-instant drown mechanic has made me hesitant to continue playing, as I exclusively play HC SSF.

First Death: At level 55, I died to a River Hag. I had no idea what the water globe mechanic did, even though I was 20 levels over-leveled (returning to kill the Lava Boss). The encounter came as a nasty surprise.

Second Death: At level 72, while mapping T4, I was killed by what I assume was an offscreen Hag near water at the edge of the map. I couldn’t see anything, just noticed my screen flash. I instantly used Roll and Time Freeze, but it made no difference—I was dead in an isntant.

I understand that avoiding the Hag’s mechanic is relatively straightforward under normal circumstances, but eventually, situations arise—like offscreen Hags or odd map layouts—that feel fundamentally unfair.

As a hardcore player, I heavily invest in defenses. A mechanic that bypasses all defenses and kills almost instantly feels counter to the spirit of hardcore mode.

Despite being hyper-vigilant after my first death to a Hag, dying again in such a way drained my enthusiasm to continue. I strongly urge you to consider changing this mechanic. Avoiding entire areas of the game because of one mechanic isn’t enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind if it dealt significant damage, but an instant drown mechanic is incredibly frustrating.

For now, I’ll be stepping away from the game until this is addressed.

I’ve always appreciated how GGG understands what hardcore, SSF, and Ruthless modes are all about—the gritty struggle where difficulty feels steep, but always fair. This mechanic, however, seems to deviate from that philosophy and feels cheap.

yup this just happened to me at lv 92.8.. I thought I was unkillable cuz I never dropped below 80% shield in maps. Then laid down and did some easy t10ish maps cuz I was tired, and a random instant death on a hideout I was giving someone for free, i was in bubble for about .2 seconds, mob was hasted or was a graphic glitch or something, I will never know.. I legit killed all the pinacle bosses, then died to helping someone get hideout LOOL..

Let me know when you encounter a River Hag with Temporal bubble & Shroudwalker, proper pinnacle boss right there. No counterplay beside flinch logout

- Anime steps behinds you and whispers sweet death poem for you to instantly die.

"

RamenL#4657 wrote:

yup this just happened to me at lv 92.8.. I thought I was unkillable cuz I never dropped below 80% shield in maps. Then laid down and did some easy t13 maps cuz I was tired, and a random instant death woke me.. I legit killed all the pinacle bosses, then died to this..

Usually I would say "Skill issue".
(To joke and tilt you a bit)

But this river hag gig is so dumb... So dumb man...
It is not even funny. Like 3 years old are responsible to balance stuff. So dumb man... Plain stupidity...

I totally share your point of view, yours and the other guys.

Any mechanic that can cause death with no damage does not belong in an ARPG. Especially one that has as much visual clutter as POE2 has.

"

Ragestorm26#0930 wrote:

Game Mode: HC SSF
Hours on Record: 483
Character: 72 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag), 55 Chronomancer (dead, River Hag)

This topic has likely been raised before, but the near-instant drown mechanic has made me hesitant to continue playing, as I exclusively play HC SSF.

First Death: At level 55, I died to a River Hag. I had no idea what the water globe mechanic did, even though I was 20 levels over-leveled (returning to kill the Lava Boss). The encounter came as a nasty surprise.

Second Death: At level 72, while mapping T4, I was killed by what I assume was an offscreen Hag near water at the edge of the map. I couldn’t see anything, just noticed my screen flash. I instantly used Roll and Time Freeze, but it made no difference—I was dead in an isntant.

I understand that avoiding the Hag’s mechanic is relatively straightforward under normal circumstances, but eventually, situations arise—like offscreen Hags or odd map layouts—that feel fundamentally unfair.

As a hardcore player, I heavily invest in defenses. A mechanic that bypasses all defenses and kills almost instantly feels counter to the spirit of hardcore mode.

Despite being hyper-vigilant after my first death to a Hag, dying again in such a way drained my enthusiasm to continue. I strongly urge you to consider changing this mechanic. Avoiding entire areas of the game because of one mechanic isn’t enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind if it dealt significant damage, but an instant drown mechanic is incredibly frustrating.

For now, I’ll be stepping away from the game until this is addressed.

I’ve always appreciated how GGG understands what hardcore, SSF, and Ruthless modes are all about—the gritty struggle where difficulty feels steep, but always fair. This mechanic, however, seems to deviate from that philosophy and feels cheap.

yeah I'm worried whether they will fix it or not by game full release, it's super anti fun and im excited to play hc again in full release and beat new bosses in hc since I beat all the ones now including pinnacle

River hag's drown completely ruins hardcore.

Players look to a few things in hardcore to not die.
1) their health bar
2) known boss actions. This is to avoid one hits (which are basically all tankable if you really want to equip for that)

In a bossfight you know you need to watch out for heavy hits from bosses that can instakill you. You learn that in act 1 in the first area on the first boss.

Having a mechanic like this first time on f****** level 40 is just horrible and extremely discouraging, it is bad game design.

One could argue "oh this spices things up".
I would argue no, it does not, because it is a single disappointment where you cannot learn from it. You can learn "oh i lost this character after 40 hours of playing, next time i need to roll dodge out of it" only to realize there are situations where you cannot get out of it and have zero chance to react, to e.g. a health bar that is shrinking.

Now you can think "oh but there is visual cues you can react to". Yes, but they are too bad and they cannot get good enough / learnable unless instadeath is introduced as a common mechanic. Which would be TERRIBLE for hardcore.
Reacting to river hag's drown would be possible if visual cues where a really good thing in this game. They are not, there is too much clutter, even for experienced HC pros to safely distinguish. Enough examples of river hag kills have been described in the forums already.
The game design problem with this is : the only safety is full screen clear from far away. Thats how basically all top HC players play. And for good reason. This makes for a very poor gaming experience at top level.

Players need a cue to know when they can be onehit or instadeathed. I think there is no other instadeath in the game, so you cannot be prepared for this. If instadeath would be a constant thing in the game it would be fine, but then in my opinion nobody would be playing hardcore, since you would not have a feel of control / reaction possibility. It can feel like a meteor falling down suddenly from the sky killing you instantaneously, especially further in the late game where things get harder. How many players would play hardcore if there is this instadeath possibility, just by dice. This is what river hag's drown in reality, in the game with the visual clutter that it has (which i like!) actually feels like.

visual cues just dont work reliably except in boss fights where you can prepare / repeat, there can be too many, too overlayed in non boss fight situations. This includes the debuff on the upper left.
The only thing that actually works for non boss fight situations is the health bar. And even in bossfights its a big percentage of the "exit to character selection" decision making. Yes. Hardcore is about exiting on time when things get hairy. Pausing with ESC is possible. This is a good thing. It should remain to be. Without a red button logout option people would not invest the time in hardcore, most likely.

Yes, it is good to die on high levels in hardcore. But only to things that you can actually, reasonably prevent via learning effect. River Hag's drown often cannot reasonably be prevented.

I stopped playing the game now, i guess until drown / hags are removed, since i only play hardcore. Hardcore is pointless with this in it.
The differentiating visual gradient of the "danger" state compared to the "no danger" state is just not steep enough and in a completely different dimension compared to all other dangers of death. Making the visual cue more intense does not fix it. Making the drown wait longer does not fix it. The chosen dimensions for conveying the "death" cue are wrong, and the embedding in the player's learned experiences so far and into the learning gradient at lvl40 is a complete mismatch.

YOU MUST REMOVE DROWN ENTIRELY
Do not tweak it.
Either introduce instadeath in other spots (please dont) or remove DROWN.
At least for Hardcore.
The punishment to learning ratio is completely absurd for Hardcore.
For Standard its fine since you do respawn, only losing a few minutes at most.
Removing things only in Hardcore is bad game design yet again.
So remove it entirely, i urge you @GGG

Feel the same as rest. Any oneshot mechanics in games is made not for fun play, it's made just to troll players.
I know you, GGG, are busy with a lot of stuff. Just asking as others to make her bubble do freeze or slow for now, before all balance and further work. This troll river hag is the problem only for hardcore play. I would play normal game, but it's easy as hell and i don't ask any balance, just take away one shot mechanics.
I hope you will find 2 C++ developers soon and all be get much faster for you.