It's not the Difficulty, it's the Characters

[John Orbit]

One “feature” of this game is that some characters have their own difficulty, completely unrelated to how hard the game is. The same run could be easy and fun for Samson, but a frustrating nightmare for The Keeper, which is the point. But now, Jacob & Esau and the Tainted Characters have amplified this feature into a huge issue for me. But, I'm not here to complain without offering solutions.
There are ways to make some characters more playable, without changing the difficulty of the game at all. First though, I have to cite my issues with three new characters (I haven't played all of the new ones yet, for the record, but I do have everyone unlocked)...

For Jacob & Esau the problem is simple: the game wasn't designed for a character with two hit boxes. Unavoidable damage is everywhere, but you have to divide all your health, and half your attention is occupied with just keeping them together. It's not just the difficulty, it's the constant stress. Once I get all J&E's completion marks I will never play them again, because there's no fun to be had there.

(SPOILERS for Tainted Characters incoming...)

The (original) Forgotten is a great gimmick character, and fans had been asking for a melee character for ages. He makes the game harder, but has versatility to compensate. But Tainted Forgotten is a hot mess. He's a gimmick for the gimmick's sake, that doesn't work with the game's mechanics at all. And (as Hutts pointed out) the fact that the already-invincible Body gets ALL the items, including defensive items like Orbitals, leaving the squishy Ghost completely vulnerable, makes me (and Hutts) wonder if there was any thought put into making this thing playable.

And then there's Tainted Lost. No-Mantle-Rebirth Lost was practically impossible for most players, which is why he got the Mantle in Afterbirth. Now, history is repeating, but worse this time. No Mantle, no 9 Lives, no Guppy, no Orbitals at all... nearly everything that might make Tainted Lost almost playable has been restricted.

Ed has said he'll consider adjusting the difficulty at some point, but the difficulty of the game isn't the problem. Adjusting the game difficulty to work for all characters would be literally impossible – the only solution is to adjust the characters to fit the game mechanics.

So here are some possible solutions:
If they won't give Tainted Lost a Mantle, they could at least restore some of the orbitals, defensive items, and extra lives. Maybe get rid of some more of the trash items too.

Tainted Forgotten's Ghost should get the defensive items and the Body can have the rest. I'd also test some different mechanics for the Body Throw. Should the Throw range be shorter? Should the Body's clubbing range be longer? Maybe a better tear rate, so he can throw the bone faster? Maybe Recall should be a starting item? Like... anything to make this weird gimmick a functioning mechanic within the game?

As for Jacob & Esau, they could share certain defensive and utility effects like Flight, Bomb Immunity, and Temporary Invincibility (Polaroid, Gnawed Leaf, Algiz, etc.). That would help with some of the unavoidable damage and give more time and opportunities to regroup.

[HeraldOfOpera]

J&E should get all the benefits that True Co-op gives to compensate you for being two people. That they instead get none of those despite the simultaneous debut will never stop baffling me.

Gnawed Leaf actually gets BETTER for the fact that it's keyed entirely off of the bone pile's actions. The Soul still gets the invincibility, but movement won't cancel it. Not even if you're holding the bone pile, because that's treated as like when enemies are pushing your statue form around.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

J&E should get all the benefits that True Co-op gives to compensate you for being two people. That they instead get none of those despite the simultaneous debut will never stop baffling me.

Gnawed Leaf actually gets BETTER for the fact that it's keyed entirely off of the bone pile's actions. The Soul still gets the invincibility, but movement won't cancel it. Not even if you're holding the bone pile, because that's treated as like when enemies are pushing your statue form around.

I've never played True Co-Op. What are the benefits of which you speak?

As for the Gnawed Leaf... That's always the go-to in times of complete BS. It says a lot about this game that so many strategies revolve around 1 super rare invincibility item out of over 700 items. It's nice that it works well for Tainted Forgotten, I guess, but the fact that you can't even get Gnawed Leaf as Tainted Lost is insult to injury.

[MelloSnail]

Personally I feel like Jacob and Esau are super fun to play as, sometimes damage is unavoidable which is a problem in some rooms but getting two items from alt path and having two active items, cards/pills and double potential damage is so useful and fun, playing them in true co-op is funny too.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

J&E should get all the benefits that True Co-op gives to compensate you for being two people. That they instead get none of those despite the simultaneous debut will never stop baffling me.

Gnawed Leaf actually gets BETTER for the fact that it's keyed entirely off of the bone pile's actions. The Soul still gets the invincibility, but movement won't cancel it. Not even if you're holding the bone pile, because that's treated as like when enemies are pushing your statue form around.

I've never played True Co-Op. What are the benefits of which you speak?

As for the Gnawed Leaf... That's always the go-to in times of complete BS. It says a lot about this game that so many strategies revolve around 1 super rare invincibility item out of over 700 items. It's nice that it works well for Tainted Forgotten, I guess, but the fact that you can't even get Gnawed Leaf as Tainted Lost is insult to injury.

Bosses will give an item for each player, and you have to all die on the same floor to lose. Individual deaths turn into a near-useless baby until the floor's boss is defeated, which revives you with all of your items. There are also a bunch of other nuances caused by specific character gimmicks that don't apply to this discussion.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by MelloSnail:

sometimes damage is unavoidable which is a problem in some rooms

It's not just in "some rooms" - it's a lot of the boss achievements, which is the real problem. Bullet hell bosses like Hush, Delirium, Mother, and Dogma don't leave enough space for two people to dodge effectively, and neither does Isaac's Holy Light attack. The whole "every attack is dodgeable" thing goes right out the window with two hit boxes.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Originally posted by MelloSnail:

sometimes damage is unavoidable which is a problem in some rooms

It's not just in "some rooms" - it's a lot of the boss achievements, which is the real problem. Bullet hell bosses like Hush, Delirium, Mother, and Dogma don't leave enough space for two people to dodge effectively, and neither does Isaac's Holy Light attack. The whole "every attack is dodgeable" thing goes right out the window with two hit boxes.

The Holy Light attack was actually changed so that the gaps between them are more significant. Asking you to dodge them all on the fly like that is probably not reasonable for a relatively early boss like Isaac, but that's more a problem with how he and Blue Baby were switched at birth.

[John Orbit]

The Holy Light attack was actually changed so that the gaps between them are more significant. Asking you to dodge them all on the fly like that is probably not reasonable for a relatively early boss like Isaac, but that's more a problem with how he and Blue Baby were switched at birth. [/quote]

That may be. I already beat Isaac as J&E and I'm never doing that to myself again. But there's still the issue of all the other bullet hell bosses. As I said, this game was never meant for a double character like this.

[mentally stable tf2 gamer]

these characters are all so easy. T. lazarus and T. jacob are the only actually hard ones. It's okay for there to be hard things. It's literally end-game content in a game that's known for its difficulty.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by sol☀:

these characters are all so easy. T. lazarus and T. jacob are the only actually hard ones. It's okay for there to be hard things. It's literally end-game content in a game that's known for its difficulty.

You are statistically correct that T Laz and T Jaco are marginally harder, but calling T Lost and T Forg "so easy" is an insult to over 99% of players. Literally over 99%.

Only 0.85% of players have beaten Mother and Beast with T Lost and/or T Forg.
For T Laz and/or T Jaco, it's only 0.6%.

Hell, 4 years after AB+, only 5.8% of the players have their 1,000,000% (myself included, for the record). This extreme difficulty is only "so easy" for a small portion of the player base.

[January 2035]

Mmm, I really don't want them to do anything about the difficulty of the tainted lost. He's the secret hard version of the secret hard character, and removing all cheeses whilst nearly guaranteeing a powerful build leaves him the most functional difficult character in the game. Adding more defence would reduce the amount of offensive items he'll encounter and make it more likely to be cheesable, which defeats the point.

It's totally ok for that difficulty to be too much for the average player.

If I were to do anything, I would give him a sympathy mechanic for guaranteed holy cards if the player is unlucky enough (eg, one per 3 floors if none are seen). Just because most runs as him use every card the player finds, and currently that can make it a bit too luck based.

[John Orbit]

Originally posted by Cactus Kez:

Mmm, I really don't want them to do anything about the difficulty of the tainted lost... It's totally ok for that difficulty to be too much for the average player.

Again, the whole reason Lost got Holy Mantle in AB was because Rebirth Lost was unplayable for the vast majority of players. Even with the Mantle, only 5.8% of players have 1,000,000% in AB+. The "average player" would be the 50%, not the 6%. The "git gud" crowd is very vocal, but also very very small.
It would be nice if y'all would stop trying to shut down legitimate complaints from the vast majority of players, who are also fans of the game.
I got my 3,000,000%. I got gud. But Repentance is full of BS.

[MelloSnail]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Again, the whole reason Lost got Holy Mantle in AB was because Rebirth Lost was unplayable for the vast majority of players. Even with the Mantle, only 5.8% of players have 1,000,000% in AB+. The "average player" would be the 50%, not the 6%. The "git gud" crowd is very vocal, but also very very small.

I wouldn't use completion percents to say something is hard, there is the same percent of people that beat satan, lamb, isaac, and blue baby with tainted blue baby than people who beat satan, lamb, isaac, and blue baby with the tainted lost.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by MelloSnail:

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Again, the whole reason Lost got Holy Mantle in AB was because Rebirth Lost was unplayable for the vast majority of players. Even with the Mantle, only 5.8% of players have 1,000,000% in AB+. The "average player" would be the 50%, not the 6%. The "git gud" crowd is very vocal, but also very very small.

I wouldn't use completion percents to say something is hard, there is the same percent of people that beat satan, lamb, isaac, and blue baby with tainted blue baby than people who beat satan, lamb, isaac, and blue baby with the tainted lost.

That's probably more due to how new it is, how many people are waiting for them to polish Repentance properly before even buying it, and the rounding errors inherent to the tiny percentages. All that is why we're using 1,000,000% instead of Dead God.

[UwU]

Originally posted by John Orbit:

Originally posted by Cactus Kez:

Mmm, I really don't want them to do anything about the difficulty of the tainted lost... It's totally ok for that difficulty to be too much for the average player.

Again, the whole reason Lost got Holy Mantle in AB was because Rebirth Lost was unplayable for the vast majority of players. Even with the Mantle, only 5.8% of players have 1,000,000% in AB+. The "average player" would be the 50%, not the 6%. The "git gud" crowd is very vocal, but also very very small.
It would be nice if y'all would stop trying to shut down legitimate complaints from the vast majority of players, who are also fans of the game.

You shouldn't look at steam %. A lot of people dont own dlcs, a lot don't play the game at all or played a little. So it can be at 50% at the end, we can't know that sadly.
Also it's opposite for the "git gud" and "rep is bad" crowd, dk where you've got this info.
And I wouldn't call your complaints "legitimate" (especially for T Lost), more like it's your opinion, as anyone else can also have their different opinion, so don't be so angry if somebody doesn't agree with you.

Never understood guys like you. You're angry that we don't want a game to be changed this or that way so you can have your own "fun", without thinking and caring at the same time about players who like those things right now and if everything was changed the way you want, sides would've changed and "git gud" crowd became "rep is bad". It's one thing to talk about Holy Mantle, devil deals and other staff like this. Most of the players can agree that it should be changed. But yours solutions are more "complicated" and not something everyone wants.

Don't really care about J&E and T Forgotten. Maybe something should be done with J&E to make them less unfair in some rooms/fights. Should keep everything else tho. Never had problems with T Forgotten, even without birthright effect, so dk how he's not working with the game mechanics.
But T lost should stay as he is. Holy mantle/card frames should be buffed soon, some missed items should be removed (like rotten heart). Yes, rebirth Lost was garbage and ended up being (hold R until dead cat) and T Lost is the one of his reworks, where his "hold R" mechanic was removed (and I bet thats what the devs wanted) but he's got more offensive with a little bit of defense from holy cards. Holy card chances can be buffed for him, cause right now you can rarely get even one in a whole run. Nothing else should be done about him. He's the ultimate glass cannon character right now.

[vegetable juice]

hoes mad