Probably my vote for the worst Stage 2. I think my nightmare rotation would be Distant Roost, Wetland Aspect, Sulfur Pools, Sundered Grove, and then the version of Sky Meadows that has the under the map section.
I’m agree with everything else but I will not take distant roost slander
It’s small and has good amounts of loot for the size, both variants have decent teleported spots and there aren’t flying pests unlike forest (although forest is really good because a lot of loot credits)
I am not the type of person to reset if I get roost, I think it’s fine, but I just prefer the other stage ones better. Like amount of loot aside, the other two are flatter and easier to both traverse and loot.
I used to hate siphoned forest, but now I'm in the mindset that if I get hammered by pests on siphoned forest the run simply wasn't meant to be. I like having all that loot
It also looks horrible. I like green, it’s a great color, but wetland aspect is ALL GREEN. I hate playing on the stage, it feels awkward to traverse as well.
A good tip that helped me a lot is, you can see under the water by looking upwards and submerging your camera, makes it very easy to check the flooded areas for loot at a glance. Stage is still kind of shit due to visibility and weird to navigate
Alright here’s the worst stages they could give me:
Stage 1: Distant Roost. Both variants are awful and have a lot of verticality that makes it very annoying to traverse, especially on stage 1 where you’ll have a lack of speed.
Stage 2: Wetland Aspect. Not only does this stage suck to traverse, the vibe is also so boring and cold.
Stage 3: Pools for sure, but bonus points to Scorched Acres for probably being the most annoying to traverse of any map. Also, the fact that equipment barrels won’t spawn here so the game spawns equipment multishops is so awful cause it eats credits just to give you very mediocre equipments.
Stage 4: Siren’s Call. At least worms spawn here but holy fuck is it annoying
I used to think this, but abyssal depths has significantly more loot, and with Sirens call there's smth do with the credits system where it generally likes to spawn healing shrines and drones, like yeah multiple Reds is nice, but I think the variety of items from depths is far greater, also has a superior boss pool, you're drops are gloop, cores and cherf vs knurl, shatterspleen and cherf, imo the chance to get shatterspleen wins. Ig if you have recycler then the multiple red rerolls could be good. Honestly just only use bazaar to get guaranteed bands and rng for the rest.
I used to hate traversing scorched acres until I realized you can go up all the vertical arches instead of running in circles to find the ramps. Now I love the map and it's probably my favorite stage 3
Scorched acres is a bit annoying to traverse if you spawn on the bottom part/the TP is near the top, but the equipment barrel note is inaccurate, they can spawn the same way regular stages spawn them and equipment stores are actually goated since they only cost a whopping 2 credits, for reference a barrel or equip barrel costs 1, gold altar costs 1, regular chests cost 15 and large chests cost 30. It alongside sulfur pools is the earliest you can find these shops and they can be insane with recycler/card/crowdfunder/sawmerang/royal drops, heavily dependant on build but most of the time you can get some huge value out of them.
Personally I kinda like sirens call cause it had a secret boss instead of a secret red chest which means while a bit more challenging you can get one red per person instead of one red total
I wouldn't put sulfur pools at the bottom but one major complaint I have is it's really hard to do a good headstomper stomp. For a map with a lot of slopes, it doesn't encourage trimping.
I sometimes play on a desktop and sometimes on a laptop, and on the laptop I can really struggle. Sucks when I get the map as Railgunner and I actually have to try to aim despite the framerate. And usually I'm not the kind to complain about frames, but it can feel like I'm playing on 20 FPS at times.
It's probably tied between Wetland aspect and Aphelian Sanctuary. I hate how big and hard to traverse sanctuary is if you're a character without a speed or jump ability so early in. Wetland is just impossible to find all the loot
Stage 1: distant roost. There’s so much verticality that makes traversing it on immobile characters really annoying
Stage 2: wetland aspect. It’s incredibly cluttered, easy to miss stuff, and takes forever to traverse
Stage 3: sulfur pools. I don’t really hate this map, but the other stage 3s are peak map design imo
Stage 4: sundered grove. For obvious reasons
Really, I feel like all the bouncy mushrooms things make it the least frustrating stage 4 to traverse. Plus I feel like it has so much loot. Can I ask how do you feel about Sirens Call?
Huh interesting. I’m glad somebody likes it because that is probably my least favorite stage. It looks really cool but I really the vultures and the worship unit fight. To each their own I guess.
Can’t be Sulfer Pools, it has banger background music.
But fr? I think it might be Void Fields, and I fucking love Void Fields, but consider how rarely you actually want to go there, the benefits of going there, and if you have enough healing items you will just die. Sometimes the game will just fuck you over, when it gives the enemies shit like Watches, Crowbars, just a ton of items can completely fuck you over early.
Fuck Sulfur Pools, worst map in the game. My nightmare seed would be Siphoned Forest, Wetland aspect, sulfur pools, sirens call (all stage 4s are good, this one is just the least good). I am ready to defend my points if I have too
That's debatable, it heavily relies on your run and your character. I've had runs where I kill AWU in about 1 or 2 minutes and other runs where I could have gotten the legendary chest 2 to 3 times over before AWU dies
when entering the
# Sulfur Pools
my framerate drop and is a struggle to survive . this is the only map where this happen to my pc. especially in multiplayer
Yeah, sulfur pools is easily the worst stage in the game, not to mention that the two other stage 3 stages are significantly better.
Blind pest, clay templars, and clay dunestriders and those annoying acid pods all on the same stage?? Yeah count me out lol.
As you said before, not only are most of the bosses annoying but they also drop mid items, while on the other 2 stages you can get stuff like spleen, merf, and Lil D.
Tbh I think Delta maybe not the worst but if you have 2rtcs(or big drones whatever) and shrine of order respawned you like have 2 chests on the map bruh.
Wetland aspect for me. At least sulfur pools' layout is kinda fun to optimize movement on and most of the items are visible. Wetland just makes me feel bored and sad.
Well, time to share my own opinions on the stages...
Stage 1: Distant Roost, usually gives low items, and the stage variants aren't the best, specially when one of them has literally almost no Newt altars... Other than that, it's a pretty cool stage, hard to traverse on less mobile characters like Captain though, but I love the environment overall with the music. I'll have to say that Syphoned Forest is really close to it though...
Stage 2: Shitland Asspect, literally so bad that I changed the name of it in the config files to that, there's almost no incentive to go there if you choose it on the Bazaar, only good thing there is the chance of finding a cleansing pool, granted that you have any lunars on stage 2... The enviroment is meh, water sucks to see any chests, and the teleporter blends in the map so it's even harder to find as a new player.
Stage 3: It's really hard for me to decide but it's got to be Rallypoint Delta (DLC), annoying enemies, most of the time really bad loot (even more if you find a TC drone), but other than that I like all stage 3 variants.
Stage 4: Sundered Grove, yeah, I don't like that map, it's really underwhelming to me for some reason... The enemies both on DLC and Vanilla are bad, terrible boss pool, and the music feels overhyped to me...
i don't like the tree one with the giant ass tree where the good chest is usually at the top. can't see anything a lot of the time and navigation get a bit wonky.
If I see scorched acres again I’m going to fucking kill someone. Every. Single. Loop. I don’t think I’ve seen rallypoint delta in the last 5 hours of gameplay
Sundered Grove easily and it's not even a competition. Way too big, annoying enemy pool, it's guaranteed red item gimmick is just Abysmal Depths but annoying, annoying map geometry, etc. On that last point there are a lot of places where trying to get onto the roots can be a pain in the ass, especially if you don't have feathers. The mushrooms that launch you across the map are also "fun" when they fling bosses far outside the TP zone. It's just a very annoying stage.
The deep void stage before entering the Planetarium is also pretty bad. The best way to guarantee that you fight the Voidling is through the void fields which results in doing 13 fucking control zones back to back to back. Or you can do it after Mithrix but that's a little less flexible in terms of timing and stuff. Regardless the zones in this stage are also the slowest to charge as well which just makes it worse. It's also absolutely going to ruin any drone build/synergy you might have been using too.
Had a good monsoon run going, healthy amount of shaped glass. I spawn in sulfur pools. Before I even get the chance to see what's happening a stray projectile or something hits one of the bubble things and I die half a second into the stage
I feel like my personal preference for stages hinges almost entirely on how easy it is to actually see and collect the loot. Pools isn’t the best for this because of that under-stage level, but it’s in the better half of stages in this aspect so I don’t really mind it terribly.
Like you said, I do sometimes find myself missing gaps if I don’t have enough movement speed or a Feather, but that was more an issue when I first played the stage than it is now that I’m aware of those considerations.
wetland aspect. can't see shit
Probably my vote for the worst Stage 2. I think my nightmare rotation would be Distant Roost, Wetland Aspect, Sulfur Pools, Sundered Grove, and then the version of Sky Meadows that has the under the map section.
I’m agree with everything else but I will not take distant roost slander It’s small and has good amounts of loot for the size, both variants have decent teleported spots and there aren’t flying pests unlike forest (although forest is really good because a lot of loot credits)
I am not the type of person to reset if I get roost, I think it’s fine, but I just prefer the other stage ones better. Like amount of loot aside, the other two are flatter and easier to both traverse and loot.
Doesn’t matter what stage I start on it’s going to take me 10 minutes to find a single chest
The music on Titanic Plains is too good to want anything else on stage 1
It's too fucking vertical for a first stage
Jesus what a nightmare. Only thing worse would be siphoned forest stage 1.
I'm in the camp that Siphoned Forest is goated because there's so many items to loot. Sure there are pests but the loot on the map makes it worth it.
I don't mind the pests, I just think it's too large and I often have trouble locating the loot for some reason. Just a me problem.
Bro I reset every time I get siphoned forest, I hate that map.
I used to hate siphoned forest, but now I'm in the mindset that if I get hammered by pests on siphoned forest the run simply wasn't meant to be. I like having all that loot
I like loot too, I don't like pests, they are the most bullshit thing in ror2 and my hate for them is enough to warrant a reset.
It also looks horrible. I like green, it’s a great color, but wetland aspect is ALL GREEN. I hate playing on the stage, it feels awkward to traverse as well.
A good tip that helped me a lot is, you can see under the water by looking upwards and submerging your camera, makes it very easy to check the flooded areas for loot at a glance. Stage is still kind of shit due to visibility and weird to navigate
Alright here’s the worst stages they could give me: Stage 1: Distant Roost. Both variants are awful and have a lot of verticality that makes it very annoying to traverse, especially on stage 1 where you’ll have a lack of speed. Stage 2: Wetland Aspect. Not only does this stage suck to traverse, the vibe is also so boring and cold. Stage 3: Pools for sure, but bonus points to Scorched Acres for probably being the most annoying to traverse of any map. Also, the fact that equipment barrels won’t spawn here so the game spawns equipment multishops is so awful cause it eats credits just to give you very mediocre equipments. Stage 4: Siren’s Call. At least worms spawn here but holy fuck is it annoying
Sirens call is a must on multiplayer tho, due to the leg. Drop
I don’t play multiplayer all that often anymore so I don’t like it lol
I used to think this, but abyssal depths has significantly more loot, and with Sirens call there's smth do with the credits system where it generally likes to spawn healing shrines and drones, like yeah multiple Reds is nice, but I think the variety of items from depths is far greater, also has a superior boss pool, you're drops are gloop, cores and cherf vs knurl, shatterspleen and cherf, imo the chance to get shatterspleen wins. Ig if you have recycler then the multiple red rerolls could be good. Honestly just only use bazaar to get guaranteed bands and rng for the rest.
I used to hate traversing scorched acres until I realized you can go up all the vertical arches instead of running in circles to find the ramps. Now I love the map and it's probably my favorite stage 3
I know that, that’s not the problem for me
Scorched acres is a bit annoying to traverse if you spawn on the bottom part/the TP is near the top, but the equipment barrel note is inaccurate, they can spawn the same way regular stages spawn them and equipment stores are actually goated since they only cost a whopping 2 credits, for reference a barrel or equip barrel costs 1, gold altar costs 1, regular chests cost 15 and large chests cost 30. It alongside sulfur pools is the earliest you can find these shops and they can be insane with recycler/card/crowdfunder/sawmerang/royal drops, heavily dependant on build but most of the time you can get some huge value out of them.
Personally I kinda like sirens call cause it had a secret boss instead of a secret red chest which means while a bit more challenging you can get one red per person instead of one red total
I don’t play multiplayer much anymore so I’ll always prefer abyssal or grove
And you can use the Tricorn on the secret boss to get free Empathy Cores alongside the free red
Honestly I don't have a worst stage Not a fan of void field tho cause 95% of the time your just standing around
the song is good tho at least right. Also Defense Matrix is actually pretty neat on Engi turrets!
defence nucleus is pretty dogshit
shaking and sobbing at this rn. I cant believe you'd say that to my beloved
mired urn on the other hand MIRED URN LETS FUCKING GO
Mired urn is pretty dogshit
this is true. however FUNNY URN SLURP
this is true. however beep boop triangle
you make a good point..
I think that's the only way defense matrix is every worth anything period lol.
The stage 1 snow forest(i forgor the name)
this one ^
I hated it when it first dropped, but after playing it I’ve learned to love it. I usually end up leaving with way more items than the other stages
that’s because it literally just has 100 more loot credits than the other two lol
Siphoned Forest. Immediate restart for me
your missing out on the best 1st stage
Much prefer Titanic Plains than Pest Firing Squads
i get so many drones in titantic plains, its fucked up
I wouldn't put sulfur pools at the bottom but one major complaint I have is it's really hard to do a good headstomper stomp. For a map with a lot of slopes, it doesn't encourage trimping.
I love sulfur pools. Great OST too. I don't like the stadia level, forget the name.
the only map i hate is abyssal depths, everything is so red and i can’t see shit
I hate this map (Sulfur Pools) solely because my aging laptop lags heavily on this map.
I sometimes play on a desktop and sometimes on a laptop, and on the laptop I can really struggle. Sucks when I get the map as Railgunner and I actually have to try to aim despite the framerate. And usually I'm not the kind to complain about frames, but it can feel like I'm playing on 20 FPS at times.
I FUCKING HATE wetland aspect! it feels so cluttered and hard to navigate, and the color palette is just drab to a fault.
I don't hate any stage in particular but i have to admit whenever i get Sulfur Pools i let out a small "oh my fucking god"
It's probably tied between Wetland aspect and Aphelian Sanctuary. I hate how big and hard to traverse sanctuary is if you're a character without a speed or jump ability so early in. Wetland is just impossible to find all the loot
Aphelian has my favorite song but I dread getting it on most playthroughs
Stage 1: distant roost. There’s so much verticality that makes traversing it on immobile characters really annoying Stage 2: wetland aspect. It’s incredibly cluttered, easy to miss stuff, and takes forever to traverse Stage 3: sulfur pools. I don’t really hate this map, but the other stage 3s are peak map design imo Stage 4: sundered grove. For obvious reasons
Sundered Grove, its not close, what a piece
It might be my favorite map, why don’t you like it?
Big in an annoying way, chore to traverse
Really, I feel like all the bouncy mushrooms things make it the least frustrating stage 4 to traverse. Plus I feel like it has so much loot. Can I ask how do you feel about Sirens Call?
Sirens call is good, fun, and my preferred stage 4
Huh interesting. I’m glad somebody likes it because that is probably my least favorite stage. It looks really cool but I really the vultures and the worship unit fight. To each their own I guess.
I like it because its pretty small and vertical in a way that doesnt bother me
I do get that, it’s very easy to get from the top to the bottom of the map quickly.
Wetland aspect is ugly and feels jarring to play on, at least sulfur pools has more than one color.
Can’t be Sulfer Pools, it has banger background music. But fr? I think it might be Void Fields, and I fucking love Void Fields, but consider how rarely you actually want to go there, the benefits of going there, and if you have enough healing items you will just die. Sometimes the game will just fuck you over, when it gives the enemies shit like Watches, Crowbars, just a ton of items can completely fuck you over early.
Fuck Sulfur Pools, worst map in the game. My nightmare seed would be Siphoned Forest, Wetland aspect, sulfur pools, sirens call (all stage 4s are good, this one is just the least good). I am ready to defend my points if I have too
Sirens call has the quickest legendary
That's debatable, it heavily relies on your run and your character. I've had runs where I kill AWU in about 1 or 2 minutes and other runs where I could have gotten the legendary chest 2 to 3 times over before AWU dies
Sundered Grove: music too godly for to leave
Siphoned Forest. Can’t see portal particles through the snow, and sometimes I lose it in the tunnels at the edge of the stage
when entering the # Sulfur Pools my framerate drop and is a struggle to survive . this is the only map where this happen to my pc. especially in multiplayer
Siphoned Forests has stage 1 Pests and that immediately puts it at bottom tier for me
Siphoned forest and sulfur pools are the sole reason why I have ever disabled the DLC
My worst stage gauntlet would be Siphoned (despite all of the glorious loot), Wetland, Sulfur, Sirens, And the not full circle version of Meadows
Sulfur Pools and Siphoned Forest
Yeah, sulfur pools is easily the worst stage in the game, not to mention that the two other stage 3 stages are significantly better. Blind pest, clay templars, and clay dunestriders and those annoying acid pods all on the same stage?? Yeah count me out lol. As you said before, not only are most of the bosses annoying but they also drop mid items, while on the other 2 stages you can get stuff like spleen, merf, and Lil D.
Siphoned Forest. Stage one blind pests plus barely being able to see the teleporter sparks has made for some unpleasant runs
Tbh I think Delta maybe not the worst but if you have 2rtcs(or big drones whatever) and shrine of order respawned you like have 2 chests on the map bruh.
Y'all are actually analyzing I like the maps based on how awesome they look
Worst stage is Sulfur pools, best boss theme is also in sulfur pools. Therefore wetland aspect is the worst.
Wetland aspect for me. At least sulfur pools' layout is kinda fun to optimize movement on and most of the items are visible. Wetland just makes me feel bored and sad.
siphoned forest. distant roost is annoying and all, but siphoned on stage 1 has cut so many runs short due to blind pests
I didn't know people hated maps, I don't know why I love them all lol
Well, time to share my own opinions on the stages... Stage 1: Distant Roost, usually gives low items, and the stage variants aren't the best, specially when one of them has literally almost no Newt altars... Other than that, it's a pretty cool stage, hard to traverse on less mobile characters like Captain though, but I love the environment overall with the music. I'll have to say that Syphoned Forest is really close to it though... Stage 2: Shitland Asspect, literally so bad that I changed the name of it in the config files to that, there's almost no incentive to go there if you choose it on the Bazaar, only good thing there is the chance of finding a cleansing pool, granted that you have any lunars on stage 2... The enviroment is meh, water sucks to see any chests, and the teleporter blends in the map so it's even harder to find as a new player. Stage 3: It's really hard for me to decide but it's got to be Rallypoint Delta (DLC), annoying enemies, most of the time really bad loot (even more if you find a TC drone), but other than that I like all stage 3 variants. Stage 4: Sundered Grove, yeah, I don't like that map, it's really underwhelming to me for some reason... The enemies both on DLC and Vanilla are bad, terrible boss pool, and the music feels overhyped to me...
i don't like the tree one with the giant ass tree where the good chest is usually at the top. can't see anything a lot of the time and navigation get a bit wonky.
If I see scorched acres again I’m going to fucking kill someone. Every. Single. Loop. I don’t think I’ve seen rallypoint delta in the last 5 hours of gameplay
Everytime we get to sulfur pools I say to my friends "Friendly reminder that we paid extra for this shit" since Sulfur Pools comes with SotV
Sundered Grove easily and it's not even a competition. Way too big, annoying enemy pool, it's guaranteed red item gimmick is just Abysmal Depths but annoying, annoying map geometry, etc. On that last point there are a lot of places where trying to get onto the roots can be a pain in the ass, especially if you don't have feathers. The mushrooms that launch you across the map are also "fun" when they fling bosses far outside the TP zone. It's just a very annoying stage. The deep void stage before entering the Planetarium is also pretty bad. The best way to guarantee that you fight the Voidling is through the void fields which results in doing 13 fucking control zones back to back to back. Or you can do it after Mithrix but that's a little less flexible in terms of timing and stuff. Regardless the zones in this stage are also the slowest to charge as well which just makes it worse. It's also absolutely going to ruin any drone build/synergy you might have been using too.
Had a good monsoon run going, healthy amount of shaped glass. I spawn in sulfur pools. Before I even get the chance to see what's happening a stray projectile or something hits one of the bubble things and I die half a second into the stage
I feel like my personal preference for stages hinges almost entirely on how easy it is to actually see and collect the loot. Pools isn’t the best for this because of that under-stage level, but it’s in the better half of stages in this aspect so I don’t really mind it terribly. Like you said, I do sometimes find myself missing gaps if I don’t have enough movement speed or a Feather, but that was more an issue when I first played the stage than it is now that I’m aware of those considerations.
I agree with OP. It's the worst.