So..how do people feel about ROR2's Scavengers?

[Blu]

I'm personally not a fan of ROR2's version of them. While the concept is certainly more interesting than the ROR1 Scavenger always having a single preset of items that you can also pick up, it was infinitely more balanced than this version while still being dangerous.

I've already had multiple monsoon runs get stopped dead by a Scavenger doing something like picking up gas cans and murking an entire group of enemies a mile away from me, but still hitting me with about 1K worth of just burn damage in a second, having an item set that makes them virtually unkillable, or blowing my ass away with an instant Royal Capacitor followed by an item proc before I could even blink. This game is so much fun, but personally it feels like a monstrous slap in the face when this happens and makes me not want to play anymore at times, at least passed the first loop. I don't think the devs understand that certain items that were specifically designed for the player don't fit on a boss with a hundred times your health and become especially broken when he's allowed to have massive stacks of them.

[Conga Lyne]

I really like it personally, makes a late game enemy with some fun diversity~
Much more interesting than the RoR1 scavenger, I didn't even know he was meant to mimic owning items other than visually

[Blu]

Originally posted by Conga:

I really like it personally, makes a late game enemy with some fun diversity~
Much more interesting than the RoR1 scavenger, I didn't even know he was meant to mimic owning items other than visually

I like the idea too, but I do sincerely believe they should have blacklisted /rebalanced more offensive items than just the Razorwire, and maybe some defensive items like tougher times. It's cool to see an enemy that is implied to be scavenging for items just like you and see him "give you a taste of your own medicine", but some of the items just come off as insanely unbalanced when they're slapped on the biggest bullet sponge in the game because they're designed to be on the player character who has a tiny health pool in comparison and can get one shot by a lot of said items.

[Zeddy]

I think it's fine for lategame to be broken. You're supposed to approach a 100% certainty of death, which keeps things more exciting than running for 8 hours being functionally immortal.

Makes incorruptible the game's hardest achievement by a pretty big margin, but I guess that's why drizzle exists.

[Senki]

I never really had any issues with them, they usually just implode when I look in their general direction because of all the items I have.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Zeddy:

I think it's fine for lategame to be broken. You're supposed to approach a 100% certainty of death, which keeps things more exciting than running for 8 hours being functionally immortal.

Makes incorruptible the game's hardest achievement by a pretty big margin, but I guess that's why drizzle exists.

technically mercenary's ethereal is the hardest one just because you cant abuse command and/or drizzle while doing it.

[Blu]

Originally posted by Zeddy:

I think it's fine for lategame to be broken. You're supposed to approach a 100% certainty of death, which keeps things more exciting than running for 8 hours being functionally immortal.

Makes incorruptible the game's hardest achievement by a pretty big margin, but I guess that's why drizzle exists.

There's a major problem though. This can happen as early as the first loop on Monsoon after skipping Mythrix, and has happened multiple times even. I don't think a single enemy that can spawn in around stage 8-10 should be capable of ending your run the moment you spawn into the level. It's brutally anti climatic as opposed to getting taken out by an impossibly large horde of elites and overloading worms. They're already quite dangerous considering they're already the biggest single dps check you can run into at almost any point, and just carrying things like ATGS and Daggers in combination with equipment like missile launchers and Primordial Cubes. Even gasoline which is a mediocre item becomes absolute absurd when used against you because he gets multiple stacks and can potentially curbstomp a large group of fodder a mile away to burn you to death in seconds.

[Edifier]

Scavenger at least gives you a fighting chance. The last boss does not in long runs.

So I don't have an issue with scavengers.

[Blu]

Originally posted by Edifier:

Scavenger at least gives you a fighting chance. The last boss does not in long runs.

So I don't have an issue with scavengers.

Depends on what items they get really. I walked into the line of sight of one the other night and got absolutely destroyed by capacitor with an ATG proc on just stage 11. If I had shaped glass on anybody I would have just died before the proc because Capacitor does an ungodly amount of damage. Not much you can do about a near instant lightning strike with a monstrous hitbox sending your ragdoll to the moon from full health, especially if he gets you before you even realize he has it. At the very least you can camp mythrix from the top platforms and pick him off to get your items back. Mythrix having the same issue though just proves my point that certain items designed for the player should not be carelessly slapped on bosses for the sake of novelty. The update to the fight arguably made it worse because now you can't possibly stop him from stealing your items and rolling you to death. They seem extremely committed to the item stealing/picking up thing with Mythrix and Scavenger but it's blatantly obvious they have no clue how to implement it properly considering even the Scavenger only has mostly useless items blacklisted and is allowed to pick up so many run ending combos so early in the game when he shows up.

[Edifier]

Originally posted by Boberto:

Originally posted by Edifier:

Scavenger at least gives you a fighting chance. The last boss does not in long runs.

So I don't have an issue with scavengers.

Depends on what items they get really. I walked into the line of sight of one the other night and got absolutely destroyed by capacitor with an ATG proc on just stage 11. If I had shaped glass on anybody I would have just died before the proc because Capacitor does an ungodly amount of damage. Not much you can do about a near instant lightning strike with a monstrous hitbox sending your ragdoll to the moon from full health, especially if he gets you before you even realize he has it. At the very least you can camp mythrix from the top platforms and pick him off to get your items back. Mythrix having the same issue though just proves my point that certain items designed for the player should not be carelessly slapped on bosses for the sake of novelty.

On long runs I've done the Scavenger hasn't been an issue. But the last boss is literally impossible after he has taken your items if you've played for longer than 20 to 30 minutes. Depends on if you use Command or not.

[Sir bunny sheep]

The royal capacitor has a delay to it. If a scavenger gets one and you die to it, it means you werent moving and thats your fault

[Frisky]

back when they first launched they were awful, one of the worst enemies in this game due to ceremonial dagger, now though after all that crap they went through they're fine, sometimes they're a bit cheap but usually if your build is good enough scavengers just become a snowballing effect for your build improving
decent enough enemy and provides a decent threat

[Rhadamante]

Originally posted by Boberto:

There's a major problem though. This can happen as early as the first loop on Monsoon after skipping Mythrix, and has happened multiple times even.

I've obliterated a fair amount of time, before and after 1.0, in all level of diificulties and I barely see Scavengers, let alone OP ones. They usually start appearing at the 2nd loop from my experience, and are usually manageable then.

So, either your runs are too long (in duration or number of stages) in which case such run-ending enemies are imho fine, or you have some rotten luck, in which case, RIP.

[Mmm mada ide yo]

scavengers, void reavers, and late game elites are supposed to ♥♥♥♥ u up. they mixup the game and actually threaten ur god run. scavengers have ♥♥♥♥ aggro range but because they can stock up on items its supposed to be a priority to focus as well as giving u a nice ass reward for killing it. having a new objective/threat is good for challenge. game wouldnt be fun if looping didnt have actual consequences

[Loken Stoneheart]

Pretty indifferent. Them having dios usually gets me though.

Maybe I just haven't come across a bad one yet. Or, by the time I see them, I have enough to deal with them before they get bad.

[Blu]

Originally posted by joinks:

scavengers, void reavers, and late game elites are supposed to ♥♥♥♥ u up. they mixup the game and actually threaten ur god run. scavengers have ♥♥♥♥ aggro range but because they can stock up on items its supposed to be a priority to focus as well as giving u a nice ass reward for killing it. having a new objective/threat is good for challenge. game wouldnt be fun if looping didnt have actual consequences

Mixing up the game and being hard for the sake of it isn't an excuse for bad game design. You can avoid void reavers fairly easily and elites aren't that big of a problem. Elites have massive damage output and can swarm you, but are very much predictable and have manageable health pools. These Scavengers show up as early as stage 8 if you're moving at a decent pace and have the chance to be total pushovers who you may not even have to fight or total run enders standing between you and the next stage. Typically they aren't always going to be run enders, but it's a total mood killer to get nuked in one shot by something you couldn't coming or run into one that has something hilarious like tougher times stacks and Dios. The point of a game is for it to be fun. It's not particularly fun to suddenly have to play a game of russian roulette when the Scavenger comes around. I know they were much worse before, but them being better now doesn't mean they're still well balanced enemies. They're too often total jokes or absolute gods of destruction instead of just being a decently challenging enemy to overcome.

Originally posted by Rhadamante:

Originally posted by Boberto:

There's a major problem though. This can happen as early as the first loop on Monsoon after skipping Mythrix, and has happened multiple times even.

I've obliterated a fair amount of time, before and after 1.0, in all level of diificulties and I barely see Scavengers, let alone OP ones. They usually start appearing at the 2nd loop from my experience, and are usually manageable then.

So, either your runs are too long (in duration or number of stages) in which case such run-ending enemies are imho fine, or you have some rotten luck, in which case, RIP.

Two of my runs that followed each other back to back were ended by insane Scavengers who pretty much gave me no chance to fight them back, and they were the very first ones I even ran into in both runs after skipping the celestial portal once. It wasn't like I was too slow to keep up with the difficulty because I was doing perfectly fine before that. I did decent damage to them at first glance, but the first one nuked me with RC+ATG the literal moment I was forced to engage him and the other nuked a group of fodder behind a wall and killed me off of massive burn stacks from gasoline. I practically didn't get a chance to fight them before they looked in my general direction and slapped me back to the title screen. I guess that's pretty garbage luck, but it can happen to anybody, but it really shouldn't.

However, I still don't think an enemy having the chance to be an automatic run ender by looking in your directon because you're apparently doing well is particularly great game design. This was not an issue in the first game and you can go for hours before dying or deciding to fight Providence if you do well enough.