Risk of Rain Unlocking Origin Sniper

The Artifact of Origin is obnoxious to unlock.

The good, first: I do like how the game subtly hints at the unlock requirement with Providence's boss arena including images of the Artifacts where the relevant ones light up if you have them active. It's not a huge leap from there to figure out you need all the displayed Artifacts on to meet some requirement, and so end up unlocking Origin. Just remember you do need to also pick it up after killing Providence. (Again)

I elected to do a Sniper for this for a few reasons; firstly, I've been meaning to test if Distortion even could lock Sniper/Reload. At this point I'm confident the answer is no, as in addition to this video never locking it I had a few other failed runs in which it never got locked. I'd wondered how the game would handle that, given that the Sniper is the only class that can be rendered completely helpless by not having access to his basic attack. (Since you have to Reload after a Steady Aim shot) I'd sort of guessed the game would let you Reload while still denying Snipe, but this was probably easier to code and honestly it's a bit of a relief to not ever be forced to use Steady Aim in Distortion.

Secondly, I actually kind of figured the Sniper would be one of the better classes for this run, in part based on how well my Honor Sniper went. Originally (As in, before I ever started recording at all), I used the Engineer -and from poking around on the Internet, it sounds like using the Engineer to unlock Origin is kinda normal- but I wanted to do something different this time, and in particular wanted to get a better idea of how realistic it was for each class to be used to unlock Origin.

But now let's get to the bad about unlocking Origin.

The fact is, unlocking Origin is way more of a crapshoot than anything else that isn't explicitly luck-based. The combination of Kin, Sacrifice, Command, and Honor in particular leads to given levels ranging all the way from 'infinite hordes of weak airborne enemies that rain chests upon you' to 'lol here's like 5 Greater Wisps. For the entire levelMaybe you'll get one item.' Since item collection is the main thing that controls how powerful you are, you're very much at the mercy of the RNG in a way that simply is not true normally.

Spite further compounds things, and unlocking Origin is much more why Spite's lack of a consistent correlation to points cost vexes me. Getting Parents when trying to unlock Origin assures you of a decent number of items... assuming you survive the endless rain of Spite Bombs as you whittle them down. Getting Clay Men, on the other hand, ensures you'll get a massive number of items and won't have to deal with Spite Bombs at all.

Glass also means that it's incredibly easy to die if you don't get lucky with an early Uncommon chest for Infusion -which is not only an example of luck in itself, but is further compounded by the wildly uneven enemy numbers you can get. Not only are Greater Wisps going to generate probably no items at all, but even if you get lucky and the very first one that dies drops an Uncommon chest, you're going to get maybe 4 hit points out of the level. Getting the same Uncommon chest from first enemy scenario when the level has generated, say, Lemurians, will easily add dozens of HP and make Glass practically all upside.

Then of course Distortion is a direct example of luck, particularly when your class has uneven move utility. Or where their base utility is fairly even, but the other Artifacts make them uneven! For example, one of my more successful failed runs was a Mercenary who died right after Eviscerate was locked, pretty much because it was locked -it was my primary tool for offense and defense that didn't put me in danger of instantly dying if I made even a tiny mistake, thanks to Glass and Honor ensuring enemies could easily kill me.

And so too is Enigma another bit of RNG, though honestly it's probably the least frustrating Artifact in the list. Even Command contributes more problems, since it makes it harder to get items safely! You can see me making some iffy choices because enemies spawn in or the like and I panic and am forced to click something and get out before they kill me.

Ultimately, Kin is the linchpin of why collecting Origin is so frustrating; collecting Origin would be hard, and have unusually high RNG influence, but it wouldn't swing wildly between highs and lows if it weren't for Kin. The only upside is that bosses are almost certainly not going to be happening, aside Providence and company, which I mostly place as an upside because it means you don't have to worry about Magma Worms or Cremator -the other bosses aren't particularly nightmarish, and bosses always give you an item when killed, so if it weren't for how easily Magma Worms in particular can end runs I'd probably place this is another disadvantage imposed by Kin.

Speaking of killing Providence, I'm quite amused at how badly this Sniper brutalized Providence and his Wurms. I outright one-shotted the laser Wurm!

Anyway, unlocking Origin is the main thing I had in mind as far as 'bad game design that's not at the core of the game design'. If you care about 100%ing the game, or care about the Origin Artifact in particular, it's infuriatingly awful. If you don't care about either of those... whatever. You don't have to engage with how RNG-screwy unlocking Origin is. Just watch me and then never do it yourself, or whatever.

Now, this run didn't end up showing off the highs and lows of unlocking Origin, so have some failed runs.

This run starts off okay, and then it gets Imps on the second level. This particular run got screwed over by the bizarre thing with the Imps refusing to teleport up until suddenly while I was climbing up the rope they all teleported on me simultaneously, but in general Imps are relentless and hit fairly hard. Overloading Imps in particular can be fairly infuriating, since they'll teleport on top of you and promptly zap you even if you don't get by their actual attack, which can lead to situations where you just plain can't flee to get a chance to heal, even with Spirit's backing.

Seriously, Greater Wisps are just awful to roll when trying to unlock Origin. This was just a no-win situation for a Sniper, really, and while the thing I did probably wasn't smart, I'm not sure what would have been smart.

This was a stab at a Huntress run, and it was going pretty decent!... up until a Bighorn Bison one-shotted me. Bighorn Bison are... generally one of the more frustrating things to get on such a run, unless you're one of a few specific classes and ideally also got Infusion-boosted HP ASAP. They can teleport in and attack with nearly no warning, which is always an issue but Glass+Honor makes it really hard to kill them before they attack and makes it a lot more likely they'll straight-up one-shot you.

This failed Mercenary run is both an illustration of the Kin-based highs and lows and an illustration of how Distortion can be a big factor; getting Claymen on the third level was a huge relief after two levels of Greater Wisps giving barely anything.

... or it was, until Eviscerate got locked and suddenly breathing room was not a thing I had.

Anyway, next time we see what all the hype for Origin is about.

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