N1njaSquirrel

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

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I...um...have logged like 300 hours between the original and Rebirth.  I kinda super got into Isaac. 

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Please give me some all of that knowledge. Seriously though, this is agonizing. This game really is great but my impatience is getting the better of me and I just want to jump to that point where I've internalized everything and stop making stupid mistakes.

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Haha, I still make stupid mistakes :)  I'm particularly prone to play later than I should, to the point where I'm tired enough that I end up doing stupid things and ruining a run.

 

I also still keep the item/card/trinket list open in a window, as there's still a handful of items that I just cannot remember exactly what they do or how they interact, even after all this time with the games. 

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Please give me some all of that knowledge. Seriously though, this is agonizing. This game really is great but my impatience is getting the better of me and I just want to jump to that point where I've internalized everything and stop making stupid mistakes.

 

My best advice is to not thinking about the games as a problem that has to be solved and instead just take everything the game throws at you as part of an experience.

 

Yeah, that sounds like a lame ass cop out answer but really, if you can hit that zone mentally, all the rogue-likes just open up a lot.

 

And average Isaac runs has fast enough iteration (unlike say, Ironman XCOM 2012 (which isn't a rogue-like but similar frustrations can apply)) to help you maintain that.  And with that care-free (or less stressed out) approach, you can experiment more, take more risks and learn more.  Afterall, the worst that can happen is... you restart the game and if the game is fun, that's no problem.  If the game is bad, well then time to just drop it and move on~

 

This applies to almost all gaming of course.

 

Sorry if that was too preachy.

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I fail to see how having some pills with negative effects is at all a desirable thing for this game to have.

 

It's all about showing off your Roguelike cred!

 

I'm not sure what to tell you about the original Isaac—I'm not sure it offers enough variety to make it worth sticking with, and I definitely had a harder learning curve with the original than with Rebirth.  In Rebirth, when I get frustrated with Maggie's slow movement or Isaac's low damage, I end up picking up a weird item that changes the way I play for the rest of my run.  Those moments are a lot more rare in the original Isaac.

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Haha, I still make stupid mistakes :)  I'm particularly prone to play later than I should, to the point where I'm tired enough that I end up doing stupid things and ruining a run.

 

I also still keep the item/card/trinket list open in a window, as there's still a handful of items that I just cannot remember exactly what they do or how they interact, even after all this time with the games. 

 

tired isaac is most of my failures.  or getting aggravated with decisions ive made (on purpose or pill effects) that made the run agonizingly slow or low damage - and i just start playing sloppy.  What is great is sometimes the ship will be righted with a few good drops and what would have been a normal "reset" would then get taken to the house/chest

 

zeus - its my favorite game; ever.  im not good either, this thread & the daily challenge remind me how not great the bulk of my play-throughs are.  But still, splendid time and always want to restart to go again

 

 

what helped me turn the corner when i first started playing was watching twitch streamers, specifically Cobalt, he is really good but also will talk through some of his item prioritization decisions.  also get to see the content / game played at a high skill level, could gleam some of the tips and make your experience better.  

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I guess I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet. I played some more last night and finally managed to get to the sixth area before going down. On my first run I ended up fighting a new boss that unlocked the Little Steven familiar. Then I lucked out again on my next run and got Little Steven right off the bat again. I love that little guy, he's the best!

 

My biggest struggle at this point is still getting through some of the mob rooms in the later areas. The bosses usually aren't too big of a deal and it's been pretty straightforward to learn all of their attack patterns. But man, unless I've gotten a good roll on multiple damage upgrades some of those rooms are still melting me way too fast. I think the ones I hate the most are when it's a small area with little room to maneuver and it is full of those little chubby guys that shoot fish out of their bellies. Also, the guys that you can only hurt by hitting them in the back or side kind of give me trouble too. And tiny rooms with 9 fat flies shooting 2 blood bubbles each. 

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I usually prize the mystery and confusion in BoI, but watching experienced players is an excellent way to get better and learn new stuff.
Northernlion doesn't have the Cobalt skills (then again who does?) but he commentates his runs very well and actively and has a huuuge archive of runs on his Youtube channel.

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I finally noticed there was an option to import save files from Rebirth to Afterbirth recently. I'll have to go through Greed mode again then, but that's not so bad since I still really like Greed mode. Also my third save slot now has the Real Platinum God image on it even though there is absolutely nothing unlocked on it, which is weird.

 

Probably the design decision I find most annoying in Afterbirth is the way Ultra Greed and the new super secret boss cap the maximum amount of damage they take per hit (or maybe it's not per hit, I don't know). It's true that in Rebirth most bosses, even right up to Mega Satan could become trivial if you ran into the right combination of items, but I never really saw this as a problem. To me, Isaac is the most interesting not when it hits a sweet spot of being the right amount of challenge, but when I get an interesting, unusual or particularly satisfying item combination. Getting those broken runs once in a while just makes up for all the annoying ones you had leading up to it, and personally I'm even guilty of rerolling runs until I find a nice item in the very first item room when I'm not in the mood to deal with Isaac's shit.

 

So even though the intended effect of this damage cap may have been to always put up a fight even when the player is incredibly OP, the actual consequence, for me at least, is that you now need to be incredibly OP in even more specific ways to deal with those guys. Glass cannon builds aren't really an option, since the game explicitly prevents you from dealing damage quickly enough to end the fight before you take more hits than you should. So now you want plenty of health mixed in there, and defensive items that help you not get hit, and of course you still want those damage and tears up for the rest of the run and so you can deal as much damage as you're allowed to in those fights.

 

Maybe it wasn't ideal that damage trumped everything else in Rebirth, but actually needing to have everything doesn't increase the amount of viable approaches.

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I usually prize the mystery and confusion in BoI, but watching experienced players is an excellent way to get better and learn new stuff.

Northernlion doesn't have the Cobalt skills (then again who does?) but he commentates his runs very well and actively and has a huuuge archive of runs on his Youtube channel.

 

Yeah, after watching a few videos, I think I do prefer Northernlion. I watched a couple of his earlier ones and it totally makes me feel better about my current skill level. It's nice to see other people making mistakes that I've actually managed to move past.

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I finally noticed there was an option to import save files from Rebirth to Afterbirth recently. I'll have to go through Greed mode again then, but that's not so bad since I still really like Greed mode. Also my third save slot now has the Real Platinum God image on it even though there is absolutely nothing unlocked on it, which is weird.

 

Probably the design decision I find most annoying in Afterbirth is the way Ultra Greed and the new super secret boss cap the maximum amount of damage they take per hit (or maybe it's not per hit, I don't know). It's true that in Rebirth most bosses, even right up to Mega Satan could become trivial if you ran into the right combination of items, but I never really saw this as a problem. To me, Isaac is the most interesting not when it hits a sweet spot of being the right amount of challenge, but when I get an interesting, unusual or particularly satisfying item combination. Getting those broken runs once in a while just makes up for all the annoying ones you had leading up to it, and personally I'm even guilty of rerolling runs until I find a nice item in the very first item room when I'm not in the mood to deal with Isaac's shit.

 

So even though the intended effect of this damage cap may have been to always put up a fight even when the player is incredibly OP, the actual consequence, for me at least, is that you now need to be incredibly OP in even more specific ways to deal with those guys. Glass cannon builds aren't really an option, since the game explicitly prevents you from dealing damage quickly enough to end the fight before you take more hits than you should. So now you want plenty of health mixed in there, and defensive items that help you not get hit, and of course you still want those damage and tears up for the rest of the run and so you can deal as much damage as you're allowed to in those fights.

 

Maybe it wasn't ideal that damage trumped everything else in Rebirth, but actually needing to have everything doesn't increase the amount of viable approaches.

 

Apparently it's not just a cap, but a cap that's variable based on how strong your current build is.  Someone posted a video the other day of Ultra Greed being unbeatable because he could heal faster than they could do damage (their shots were also spawning coins, which I think can heal him, so the whole run was kind of a mess for that person).  Edmund has acknowledged the balance is off and it's one of the things they are supposed to be working on. 

 

With the unlocks, Afterbirth had a bug that unlocked everything for everyone.  I don't know if it's been fixed yet or not, or what the trigger condition for it was.  It happened on my primary save, but not on my secondary save (which is brand new, thought it would be fun to start from scratch and see what that was like). 

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Oh, so apparently there's an actual ARG going on with Edmund dropping hints on Twitter and some hints hidden in codes in the achievement images (assuming people aren't jumping at shadows, but based on Edmund's tweets, they aren't).  Current thought is pointing towards there being real life clues somewhere in Santa Cruz (where Ed lives).  Looking to see if someone has a coherent writeup of the hunt so far. 

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Finally got to mom last night but ended up dying. Progress!

I've come to realize one of the dumb things I've still been doing that has hampered my progress is that I've been wasting keys on the shop rooms when I only have like 5 cents and then I just buy whatever I can afford. It seems like the better strategy is to wait until I have around 15 coins and buy one of the better items instead of wasting my money on bombs, hearts, and keys. Obviously still some randomness to that so it's not always gonna work out but I've noticed myself doing just a bit better since I've been smarter about what I spend my money on.

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I almost never buy bombs hearts or keys from shops unless I need them immediately and I've otherwise cleared the floor. You're right that opening shops when you can't afford a major item is rarely useful, mostly because you'd rather save your keys for item rooms.

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I am really bad at using bombs.  I mostly use them to get other items.  I rarely use them offensively, unless I get an item that makes it extra appealing.  I think it is a flaw in my kills at the moment.

 

As far as keys go, I rarely use them on a store room unless I have a lot of keys or have an obejective.  If I have 15 gold, I'll check to see if I get some good item.  If I need HP or or a bomb, I might open it.  Otherwise, I try to save my keys for either the double key bonus rooms later or a key feeding boy.

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Some of the new store items in Afterbirth are game breakingly good (Chaos and Refresh), which makes the store even more compelling.  If I've got 15 coins, I already consider it worth the time to open every time for a shot at Blank Card or one of the batteries if I've got a good active item. 

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So the ARG wrapped up over the weekend, secrets were found, new stuff was added to the game.  There's a complete writeup of it here.  Pretty neat that they actually pulled this off. 

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So I used cheat engine to finish off Greed Mode.  If you don't know, there are unlocks all the up to putting in 1000 coins in the machine now (after the ARG was done).  But, each character has an increasing chance to jam the machine, meaning that it will take up to a hundred Greed runs in order to do it legit.  Fuck that.  I like this game a bunch and I do enjoy Greed mode, but I do not want to have to run that mode that much. 

 

Spoilering the rest for people who don't want to know what gets unlocked.

 

 

You get the Keeper, a new character who looks kinda like one of the store keepers.  He gets 2 coins instead of health, and always takes 1 full damage, no half damage.  He also can't increase his health past 2.  So he's a lot like the Lost with the Holy Mantle.  His advantage is he starts with triple shot.  Neat character, but definitely challenging.  I beat the Blue Baby on normal difficulty with him last night, which honestly shocked me.  I've never even made it past Isaac's Mom with the Lost, even with Holy Mantle.  But I got Mom's Knife (triple knife with his starting ability) and the book that gives you temporary invulnerability, and that combo could kill any boss in a few seconds. 

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There is now an external site that displays Daily Run scores: greedbutt.com!

 

I looked myself up and my score looks terrible compared to when I do the challenge early in the day.

 

Also, Nicalis completely broke the Mac version of the game yesterday for what I guess was a special Iwata run?  They fixed it today, but I missed out!

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ALSO

A huge fan-mod of Rebirth came out just a week or so ago. It's still in development to some degree, but they've done some really impressive stuff with the game from what I've seen so far. This is essentially an Afterbirth-sized expansion, but made by fans instead of the devs. I intend to check it out more, and may try streaming it some over the next week or two. Check it out: https://antibirth.com/

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