The Corpse Alternate Path is Stupid - Change My Mind (may be some spoilers)

[Coach's Coach]

I love this game, and I love almost everything they did to rebalance and add to it for the final update, that Ed essentially calls Isaac 1.9. It really is almost a second game with the two extra final bosses and the alternate routes.

The problem I have is a valid one, as far as I can tell. Other people might disagree, but please refrain from the generic "git gud" reply, as I'm an Isaac veteran, and I have managed to beat all the bosses (besides the two new ones) with The Lost. I know how to dodge, and I totally understand the game is skill trumping RNG.

The issue as I see it has to do with just how many things need to go right in order to get to The Corpse. To me it's absurd, and 10x more difficult than going to fight Dogma and The Beast.

First, and easiest, is getting a key to get into the path to begin with. Okay, fine. Usually after the first two floors you can find one, but sometimes this means you skip the item room and/or shop on the second Basement/Cellar. That's a little annoying, but it's tolerable. I get it.

Second, you need two bombs to get into the Mine/Ashpit part of the path. Again, this is something you can usually find, and it's not a big part of my gripe.

Now you get to Mine/Ashpit II and what do you deal with? The worst part of the entire thing, that I think NEEDS to change. The second key piece where you evade the giant mother head. I know there is timing involved, and if you wait for her to take a charge at you, you can easily evade and then keep going with the puzzle of bombing your way out. It's a nifty idea in general, but to me it's TOO MUCH especially when you consider every time you get hit it's a FULL heart. Why? We're not beyond Necropolis yet. There is NO reason for a full heart to be taken.

I wouldn't even mind the full heart being taken if it weren't for that AFTER Mine/Ashpit II, that same damn floor, you're already required to give up two hearts just to get into the Mausoleum in order to remain on the final part of that path.

Does anybody else agree? I can't be alone in this. The game is great otherwise, but to me that one spot is too much. You should at least only get hit half a heart by the floating Mother head. That, and the animation for it should be mitigated, and made smaller. When you're in the long, vertical rooms trying to escape her, you often can't see your damn character behind her, so it's not even easy to gauge where you are in order to dodge in the first place.

I've made it out without her hitting me - 50% of the time I'd say I don't even get hit. But then when I do, it's a huge chunk of health, especially since you're only on the fourth floor so far, and often times you don't get lots of health by now. Couple this with the fact that you NEED 2 hearts just to continue on the path, any character with 2-3 health is almost guaranteed to be screwed, unless you have Dead Cat, or extra lives somehow.

Again, I know some of you will want to bust my balls and do the typical "git gud" thing, and I understand that mentality - I've told other people to git gud too. To me this isn't as much about getting better at the game as it is just being a tad bit TOO punishing.

I truly hope the developers see or acknowledge this in the base game and tweak it, even a bit. Half a heart from the mom head, and ONE heart to get into Mausoleum would be perfect, and more fair. This right now is overkill.

[slood]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2487769834 this mod lets you skip the chase sequence

[MetalGearSamus]

I would agree; the design of the challenge and the fact that most of the items you collect *don't matter* during the chase means that health trumps all else. All my victories against Mother have been the same: either I have max health and a full-health effect, or I have all soul hearts and the Polaroid so I can abuse invincibility.

I did manage to beat Mother with The Lost after ~40 attempts and probably a similar number of spam resets on the first level, but I had Dead Cat, two or three flies, *three* knives, and The Chariot. I rarely felt many of the choices I made mattered. It was just a matter of trying again and again until I got the right broken combo for enough dps.

[Dyne]

On one hand, I'd like to keep my items for the knife piece 2 section, but on the other hand, judging by how the DLC is as a whole, I dread to think of the amount of bugs and softlocks that having access to your items would cause in that area. Can't imagine something like Genesis working as intended at all lol

But yeah jokes aside, I actually like the alt floors but it can be a bit of a chore sometimes. Still like it overall.

[Loquatious]

I remember accidentally discovering an exploit where if you quit the game during the chase sequence and then hit continue, you'd get all your items back. Probably been patched out by now though?

[dorosh.similar]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

Originally posted by dorosh.similar:

Yeah, because when tainted keeper dies ten times in narrow poop corridor because of his low health, tears and speed , it's a little bit annoying, isn't it?. I just want to have good corpse run and not accidentally die in the middle because I was reset to my default stats.

That's one character who has real trouble, and he's also the most likely character to find the Sharp Key that lets you bypass the chase.

Thanks, I haven't known about sharp key.

[RattyRattington]

Originally posted by dorosh.similar:

Originally posted by DeadlyCreature:

It's weird seeing people complain about an easy chase sequence with a floating head that easily telegraphs its charges and lets you basically stand inside of it without getting hit since its hitbox is far smaller than how it actually looks. If anything, it's just time consuming.

Yeah, because when tainted keeper dies ten times in narrow poop corridor because of his low health, tears and speed , it's a little bit annoying, isn't it?. I just want to have good corpse run and not accidentally die in the middle because I was reset to my default stats.

You bait it to charge before brainlessly going into a 1 tile wide corridor and destroy any poop in the way from a distance where you can still safely evade the Mother head. Poop can also drop coins in Keeper's case. Ideally you shouldn't be getting hit at all during this sequence unless you're brand new. The Mausoleum door already eats 2 of your hearts.

[Nubarique Joe]

I've been watching a lot of NL playing Repentance lately, and he seems to be doing fine and enjoying the new challenge. Seems like the difficulty spike of (some of) Repentance content is targeted towards people like him, who are very good at the game and have many hundreds if not thousands of hours behind their belts.

[Paradox]

Originally posted by ⛧Black⛧:

Fun fact if you didn't know it. You can skip downpour 1 and still be fine, you can skip mines 1 and still be fine. But if you skip maso 1 your completely screwed.

Rip my blue baby run.

This is my biggest problem with the whole alt path. Can't tell you how many times I built the knife then ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off back to the normal path by accident.

[SrCalavera94]

man op, if you manage to only dodge her 50% of the time, i think you may just suck at dodging. im so sorry theirs not getting good at that. you have me condolences.

[Camille]

The thing with the mother run is that it is not something that you should push for. Like a Delirium run where you go when you are a powerhouse, you should take the mother path only if the first two floor have been great ( like psy fly + damage booster) . Since for most people it is the only thing left to do with the non tainted chars, it feels like you have to go there anyway and makes the mother path harder than what it should be. The only complain I have with mother (and beast as well), is that the run takes much more time than any other path.