Unlocks are making the game more difficult.

[Stormlock]

In general, this would be true even if all the items you unlocked were still good, since many of the best items (sticky bomb, ukelele, gasoline/wisp, anything adding attack speed or move speed) are better when you have multiples of the same item. It's much better to have 4 sticky bombs than 1 bomb, 1 syringe, 1 crit and 1 dagger.

But it's much, much worse since most of the unlocks are bad items. Wax Quail, both bands, rusty keys, medkits, scythe... these items add negiligble damage or utility compared to other items unlocked from the beginning, even ones of lower rarity.

The problem is only going to get worse as more items get added as well. I suggest making 3d printers more common as you unlock more items, so your chances of finding a printer with a useful item remain roughly the same with full unlocks as they do when you start out.

[Rain]

honestly i think its fine as is, and i dont know how many hours you have in ror2 but thinks work just fine, for being what they are of course. i can only suggest, get better.

[Derolis]

Don't you ever bad mouth Wax Quail again.

I see your point though. When I first started playing I would get Bustling Fungus like mad on Engineer. Now that I have all the unlocks it's a rare treat to see the elusive Fungus. Unless I'm not playing Engineer, then that thing is in every damn chest.

If you prefer playing with less though, you could always just make a new profile I guess. I honestly prefer having more items in the pool, more variety is fun, even if it's harder.

[Ethical Lune]

Yeah it's a bit counter intuitive for the game to get harder when you unlock more stuff, even more so when you unlock some legendary items and get garbage drops like wake of vultures or brain stalks when you could've gotten a tesla coil or brilliant behemoth, but we can only hope the devs make a lot of good balance changes during early access until all items are at least useful.

Wax Quail is amazing tho, hop hop.

[Dopamine]

While more trash is added into the pool, it does increase the value of reds. Especially the clover. I do feel that printers in single player are common enough (1-3 a map it seems). Another option is if you're getting garbage early is to just roll the dice and use a shrine to sequence. One of my better runs started off with how you were feeling and then I got 15 will-o-wisps and 40 teddy bears. Or another which was a decent amount of sticky bombs and predatorys.

[Zeddy]

https://riskofrain.fandom.com/wiki/Challenges

I'm looking over the list of challenges and the items they unlock, and I see maybe 5 bad items.

Whites.

• Rusted Key. Not a bad item. You either only get a few and it's no big deal, or you get many and a steady source of greens.
  
• Paul's Goat Hoof. Game is unplayable without this.
  
• Bundle of Fireworks. Top tier.
  
• Crowbar. Very good on certain characters, and for everyone else very good with Royal Capacitor.
  
• Tougher Times. People can't get enough orally praising this one.
  
• Armor-Piercing Rounds. Pretty good.
  
• Backup Magazine. Essential for half the survivors.
  
• Med Kit. Bad.

Greens

• Predatory Instincts. Pretty decent. Eventually becomes just two more syringes. The attack speed going back and forth feels good and makes the game fun.
  
• Fuel Cell. God tier.
  
• Runald's Band. Pretty good.
  
• Kjaro's Band. Pretty good.
  
• Infusion. Helpful early game for some survivors. dOeSn'T sCaLe WeLl which would be terrible if the game had any content beyond deicide/long run and anything needed to be balanced for that point. As it stands, a single infusion is anywhere from a 90% to a 5% HP boost.
  
• Harvester's Scythe. Very good. Great synergy with lensmakers and Opinion.
  
• Wax Quail. A commando-roll without cooldown, but for everyone. So amazing that when Merc picks up just one, he can save his entire skillset for combat and just spam jump.
  
• Berzerker's Pauldron. Incredibly good.

Reds

• Sentient Meat Hook. Clumps enemies together so chain procs can chain proc better. Top tier.
  
• Dio's Best Friend. It's good, but I don't like it. I don't usually feel like I wanna keep going after I die.
  
• Unstable Tesla Coil. God tier.
  
• Brainstalks. Not as good as bandolier, but not bad.
  
• Soulbound Catalyst. Not bad.
  
• N'kuhana's Opinion. God tier if engineer, otherwise just good.
  
• Rejuvenation Rack. Doubles all healing, including your natural regen rate and the supposed 10% hp per second provided by Corpsebloom, turning it into 20% per second. Incredibly good.
  
• 57 Leaf Clover. Effectively doubles all proc/crit chances. God tier.

Blues

• Gesture of the Drowned. Breaks the game with how god-tier it is. Enables blatant AFK.
  
• Hellfire Tincture. I don't know about effectiveness, but a Corpsebloom/Rack/Tincture build on merc would probably look pretty rad.
  
• Glowing Meteorite. Legendary for trolling.

Oranges

• Gnarled Woodsprite. Kind of a crappy foreign fruit. The health regen boost is appreciated.
  
• The Backup. Pretty good for drawing fire. I hardly see this die before their time.
  
• Radar Scanner. Underrated. I always pick it up, even if I have another equipment, just to activate it and switch back. Can't possibly be claimed to make the game harder.
  
• Preon Accumulator. Preon Accumulator tier.
  
• Royal Capacitor. This one's my favourite.
  
• The Crowdfunder. Not great, but people always whine about things that dOn'T sCaLe. This one scales like mad, and is pretty amazing lategame.

But sure, if you want a game where you only increase attack speed and proc sticky bombs be my guest and re-lock your challenges.