Hold R until playable

[John Orbit]

Most of the advice I see for "how to beat X hard thing" involves "hold R until you get OP item." The sad thing is, most of the time, that's all the advice there is to give. Why? Because the devs have no clue what game balance is.

Keeper is barely even playable unless you have the right items. The only way to win some challenges is to become stupidly OP. With 400+ items, most of them being crap, the odds of geting what you need to win the hard stuff are insanely slim. At that point, it's not a challenge of skill, it's just a question of luck.

The flip side to this is that it makes everything else way too easy. If you find one of those stupidly OP items on an Isaac run, you're just shooting fish in a barrel. The underpowered characters need overpowered items to beat the cheap-♥♥♥ bosses, which makes the normal characters suddenly overpowered.

In most games, all characters are a mix of merits and flaws, but not in this game. Keeper is all flaws and Isaac (+D6) is all merit. With that kind of range, it's impossible to balance the game between them.

[burn1none]

R op please nerf

[guts' theme (Cut & Looped)]

ok

[53bload53]

I only hold R when I play as The Lost, The Keeper and sometimes with Lilith. Basically, the 3 hardest characters to play as. All the others are OK.

[Plazy]

Every run is winnable. It's just that some runs are easier to do then others.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by The Big Bad Wolf:

I only hold R when I play as The Lost, The Keeper and sometimes with Lilith. Basically, the 3 hardest characters to play as. All the others are OK.

That was my point. The crappy characters need OP items, which makes it easy for everyone else. This also applies to challenges, particularly Ultra Hard and Back Asswards.

[John Orbit]

Back Asswards is actually the perfect example here. Literally the ONLY way to beat Mega Satan to even play the rest of the challenge is to hold R for a good start, unless you're good enough to pull a no-hit win on Mega Satan with 3.5 damage. I've even started that run with less than base damage because of Soy Milk or Tech 2. That is completely unplayable, unless you restart a dozen times.

The worst part is, this is completely preventable. All they have to do is change the item pool for that challenge to guarintee at least a decent start. But no. That challenge is 90% starting luck and 10% skill.

[Yes]

Or you just get gud?

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by Syobdaed:

Or you just get gud?

Did you read a thing I wrote?

[Plazy]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Back Asswards is actually the perfect example here. Literally the ONLY way to beat Mega Satan to even play the rest of the challenge is to hold R for a good start, unless you're good enough to pull a no-hit win on Mega Satan with 3.5 damage. I've even started that run with less than base damage because of Soy Milk or Tech 2. That is completely unplayable, unless you restart a dozen times.

The worst part is, this is completely preventable. All they have to do is change the item pool for that challenge to guarintee at least a decent start. But no. That challenge is 90% starting luck and 10% skill.

I will agree. The only reason I even beat that challenge is because I started with two Brimstone lasers after multiple restarts. This game is a huge RNG gamble at times and that can be a bit of a mood killer.

[Chizzler]

The point is, when you're asking for advise, you're looking to maximise your chances of winning that challenge (or character)... What better way to tip the odds in your favour than restarting until you get a great item.

Alternatively, you can go look up the challenge or character on the wiki where it gives strategies, and lots of suggested items to look out for to make the challenge easier. With so many items though, there's no guarantee you'll get any of them, that's just how this game works... sometimes it gives you a tough run, sometimes it gives you an easy run.

In terms of balance, just playing normally, you won't find yourself in an unwinnable run too often, and you won't be stupidly overpowered too often. It's never felt like their goal was to make every run follow the same power curve, but just not to screw you over so often you quit playing, or make every run a cakewalk.

The challenges and certain characters tip the odds against you, and that's rather the point of them, they're supposed to be challenging... Abusing the restart mechanic to make it easier is entirely optional and is done because you want to take the path of least resistance and not spend 20-30mins on a run which you were never going to win.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by The Lazygineer:

This game is a huge RNG gamble at times and that can be a bit of a mood killer.

This is a big part of why this bugs me. I probably could have beaten Ultra Hard by now, but I don't want to sit around for a half-hour restarting until I finally find an OP item. I'd actually rather play with what I get and lose than push one key forever.

[Plazy]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Originally posted by The Lazygineer:

This game is a huge RNG gamble at times and that can be a bit of a mood killer.

This is a big part of why this bugs me. I probably could have beaten Ultra Hard by now, but I don't want to sit around for a half-hour restarting until I finally find an OP item. I'd actually rather play with what I get and lose than push one key forever.

Well then play that way. Deciding to restart over and over is just an option for people to play the game. If you want to play a run no matter what items you get then go ahead.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by The Lazygineer:

Well then play that way. Deciding to restart over and over is just an option for people to play the game. If you want to play a run no matter what items you get then go ahead.

Your name sums up my point here. It's lazy engineering. They're relying on the randomness to balance the game instead of actually making the game balanced.

[unknown soldier]

Thats why i like the dailies so much, it takes away the temptation to R. I didnt do too much restarting in +, maybe that had a lot to do with having new items to find. I 100% did R in the end with ultra hard though. That was the 1st and only isaac challenge i actually thought i might not beat in the end, so resorted to holding R until a library spawned. My conscience is clear on that 1 though, screw ultra hard!

[ChillMad]

Funny thing is that ''Getting gud'' is actually a real thing in Isaac. Sure there's still some RNG involved in every run, but that didn't stop me to get to a 45 Winning streak as Eden Latelly, and still going. The thing is to know how to deal with the RNG. When to buy blue candle even tho you have a good use item, simply because your damage is lacking. I will agree that The lost and The Keeper are kinda bad design, mostly the lost.