The key to a good game now a days is to balance the butt hole factor. The number one complaint I have heard on multiplayer if people turn it on is the person joining goes crazy killing rivals destroying the ability to spawn the reaper now.
The easy fix is to remove the ability of other players to attack rivals unless the host tracks a rival. Like a switch or something in multiplayer settings.
This should fix it so that folks will open up more multiplayer sessions.
Hmm yeah good idea , wonder how easy it would be to do ?
That sounds like a tricky one to implement. Anyhow, this is because the reaper spawning mechanic is a bit illogical IMHO. He’s like the… bringing in the “BIG GUNS”, but only spawns when you don’t kill rivals? Why the big guns then? The reaper doesn’t have the ability to hunt you down and it’s pretty much just there for the slaughter. Also, having your map full of rivals equated to failure but now it’s a requirement for end-game content. Things are not lining up here… than again, I’m old, what do I know 
This is the issue right here. Imho, the way they implemented HOW the reaper spawns is possibly the worst idea they’ve had so far, and I’m confident that will change in the next patch. Grinding away at the critters while avoiding rivals is annoying beyond belief, that mechanic simply must change.
Seemingly easy on player side but very hard to implement and it can also cause issues on player side.
E.g: i have several spots on the map where there are 2-3 rivals in close proximity. Let’s say this idea is a thing; i can track only one rival at a time and other rivals would be immune to all damage, while nothing stops them to join the fight and firing back at players. This makes it hard to differentiate between which rival is the tracked one and which aren’t. Moreover since other players in my game are unable to see which rival i’m tracking. Only i can see that.
Guys, that discussion would merit it’s own topic.
Ot is there it works and to an extent requires a little bit of grinding. The mechanic refinements will take months to fix
No you make perfect sense, what does not make sense is the logic( use the term loosely) to the current Reaper spawn dynamics as programmed by the game devs. This game has so many absolutely beautiful area’s, mountains with trees swaying in the wind as an example, but they seem to have trouble with good systems design.
Having dabbled in coding myself to make some things work I can tell you they made the reaper spawn dynamic, “work” Functionality is another matter along with dynamics and game balance.
Random MP games are one of GZ’s most sorrowful aspects. Sometimes everything (every player) just clicks, and we end up having a super fun time! But sometimes, oh my g… 
If I’m host, I always present 2 simple rules: Talk to each other -and- Only kill rivals if host says so.
If they break these, I’m not hesitant to click that “kick” button.
But why does it have to be such a struggle to find good random sessions? And why can’t we get a list of games to choose from, where you can see how many players are currently there, what level they are, and what difficulty they’re using? If a game is garbage, you could just go back out and try another one…
And just why is every random game set on Adventure difficulty, huh? I joined a game some time ago, we were 4 players on Adventure with scaling turned off. What a joke… 
Rant over.
FYI it was a good rant, , , , in my opinion