Tainted Lost and the Blanket....

[Pastapockets]

Why am I denied the glory of the mantle but a strictly inferior version of it is available as a pity item in the shop? Is it a cruel joke or a crumb of mercy steak from Edmund's table?

[Viking Mana]

Because the character is deliberately designed to be unwinnable. Whether through ignorance or malice, the devs conveniently "forgot" that one of the main reasons the original Lost needed Holy Mantle is because this is not a game that you can no-hit in that sense. There is far too much random damage for that. Striping The Lost of Holy Mantle at this stage is to create a character is entirely RNG. No amount of skill will ever prevent you from taking random damage on entering certain rooms, often before you're even allowed to react and respond.

The "Better Items" part of the character desription is a complete lie. A deliberate troll, because implemented bad features is apparently funny. It's the sort of thing that's really going to make the community happy. It supposedly works by only giving you high-tier "offensive" items, yet Tainted Lost's Birthright, which is effectively a 1-Up that respawns you in the current room, is apparently offensive, while Dead Cat and the actual 1-Up are defensive? Blanket is apparently also an offensive item, but Holy Mantle is strictly defensive, and going by the character description, a bad item. And not, you know, an absolute necessity for the character to be even remotely playable.

You cannot win as Tainted Lost unless you manage to cheese an absurdly rare combo of 4.5 Volt, Book of Shadows and Panic Button. Tainted Lost's gimmick is that you hold R until you spawn next to library, and then hold R again if Book of Shadows isn't in there. Because you cannot outskill him. That's simply not how the game works. Even if you get instant room-clear from the first floor, there are rooms designed to punish that.

Tainted Lost is a broken mess of a character. It's not designed to be fun or challenging, it's designed to be unwinnable. I have spent more than 40 hours on this character, with close to if not more than 100 serious attempts. While some have certainly been lost to mistakes, many have been lost to factors entirely out of my control.

It's a deliberate troll. A big middle-finger to the game's audience from devs who apparently find it funny to demand your beat impossible odds to progress, because they got annoyed that streamers with thousands of hours in the game sometimes got high win streaks.

Or, as you put it, a cruel joke. A condemnation of long-time fans of the IP. Enjoy getting bobbed forever.

[Juno Brier]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

(essay)

Just play better.

[Robo Chicken]

Because edmund for some reason likes to make piece of ♥♥♥♥ characters (original lost, pre repentance keeper). No holy mantle lost was kinda fine in original rebirth because there wasn't that much of a bullet hell but since they added ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like hush continuum attack or delirium it just doesn't work

[Omertoso]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

Whether through ignorance or malice, the devs conveniently "forgot" that ...

...

It's a deliberate troll. A big middle-finger to the game's audience from devs who apparently find it funny to demand your beat impossible odds to progress, because they got annoyed that streamers with thousands of hours in the game sometimes got high win streaks.

Or, as you put it, a cruel joke. A condemnation of long-time fans of the IP. Enjoy getting bobbed forever.

holy hostility! combine that with a butt-load of hyperboles and you end up looking like you're just having a bad day instead of whatever you're talking about. well, 40 hours is a lot of time to spend constantly failing, so I guess it's not surprising for an outburst like this. but still, take it easy and try again later.

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Juno Brier:

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

(essay)

Just play better.

"Just outplay the unavoidable damage" - Insightful.

Originally posted by Foreigner:

holy hostility! combine that with a butt-load of hyperboles and you end up looking like you're just having a bad day instead of whatever you're talking about. well, 40 hours is a lot of time to spend constantly failing, so I guess it's not surprising for an outburst like this. but still, take it easy and try again later.

Criticism is not the same hostility. Yes, I'm frustrated that the game is significantly worse now. Yes, it bothers me that it has deliberately been made to be this way. No, this was not an angry outburst.

[Pastapockets]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

You cannot win as Tainted Lost unless you manage to cheese an absurdly rare combo of 4.5 Volt, Book of Shadows and Panic Button. Tainted Lost's gimmick is that you hold R until you spawn next to library, and then hold R again if Book of Shadows isn't in there. Because you cannot outskill him. That's simply not how the game works. Even if you get instant room-clear from the first floor, there are rooms designed to punish that.

I mean... I don't entirely disagree with the general sentiment there man, but it's not THAT impossible. Heck my Mother run I managed without a single defensive item or holy card shield aside from a lone meat nugget. Was it exhilarating? Sure. Was it worth the near heart attack? Probably not. Obsessive foreknowledge of what to expect from each floor is the best bet. Like not walking into new rooms in Gehenna with your tear button held because of those eyeball obstacle things that move when you shoot.

Originally posted by Robo Chicken:

Because edmund for some reason likes to make piece of ♥♥♥♥ characters (original lost, pre repentance keeper). No holy mantle lost was kinda fine in original rebirth because there wasn't that much of a bullet hell but since they added ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like hush continuum attack or delirium it just doesn't work

Hush's continuum attack is honestly an easy dodge. It fires into a triple lane of branching 'lanes' The safest place to be is right in front of Hush's face. The only attacks that really rankle me are Mother's attack where she sucks in bullets from behind you before spitting out a chaotic bouncy bullet (particularly with J+E as the suction bullets spawn in based on Jacob's position and can unfairly spawn directly on Esau) as well as... well... all of Delirium.

[Omertoso]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

Criticism is not the same hostility. Yes, I'm frustrated that the game is significantly worse now. Yes, it bothers me that it has deliberately been made to be this way. No, this was not an angry outburst.

that was criticism? oh dear. who on earth do you think is going to listen to criticism that baselessly accuses devs of "deliberately trolling", "giving the middle-finger for the game's audience", possibly maliciously making something that you don't like, and only making challenging things because "they got annoyed that streamers with thousands of hours in the game sometimes got high win streaks"? those aren't even related to the game, you're just bashing the devs.

you do have decent arguments, but the amount of hyperboles mixed in don't do them any justice. in fact, as seen with the "just play better" comment you got, they make you unconvincing and silly looking.

which is why I think you're just having an angry outburst. I'm not saying this to humiliate you, but you definitely need a break.

[Viking Mana]

I'm sorry, but in what universe are such accusations "baseless" when Edmund himself has stated that he enjoys trolling players and gets frustrated when the game seems too easy and people win too much? Being a troll is literally what he is known for as a developer. And yes, this has been reflected in the design of Isaac over and over again - a game that literally has "Troll Bombs" as regular drops from chests.

Not to mention that he personally designed many of the items most infamous for doing more damage than harm to whoever picks them up.

I'm not making any of that up. Yes, they're deliberately trolling. My problem with it is that they're doing it a lot harder than they used to. But it's always been core to the design of Isaac. Why that would seem outrageous to you I don't understand.

As for being malicious in their approach to design: The original Lost needed Holy Mantle because it frankly wasn't a lot of fun to try and beat the game on a character that would randomly die at any moment. Taking that away, and stripping a number of other powerful items out of the item pool, to recreate that issue, but at a point in time where unavoidable or random damage is far more prevalent, is malicious design. The character is, by design, going to fail the vast majority of his attempts, and that's the intent. Either that, or the team has suddenly become ignorant of the reasons why The Lost needed the Holy Mantle buff to begin with. If you'd rather go with that explanation, you may. I don't know which is worse though. Lastly, removing Holy Mantle is one thing, but stripping out a lot of other items generally associated with powerful Lost builds, such as Nine Lives, just further proves that the character is intended to be a severely nerfed version of The Lost. A nerf that's hidden behind the clearly absurd claim that it's actually a buff, as the "Better Items" character description is a blatant lie.

Compare Birthright or Missing Poster, which are allowed, to 1-Up, and you will find that there is really no rhyme or reason behind these design decisions except that the team felt like removing items The Lost relies on to be playable.

Not to mention that consumables are unaffected. You will still get loads of Full Health and Health Up pills. You will still have plenty of Lover's or Temperance cards.

As for the "Git Gud"-comment.. Yeah, that was not triggered by my post. That is what people just post when they want to claim that you're wrong but don't feel like substantiating their arguments. You will get those if you criticize any aspect of the game, regardless of how collected you are.

And please do refrain from telling me what I need, thank you. I'm perfectly capable of stating my opinions without you looking after my emotional state. If you want to argue that I'm wrong, please, go ahead. If you want to refute me on the basis that: "U mad bro" then I'm not interested. It's extremely crass and belittling. I'm here to discuss the character, not for therapy.

[The Unmobable spés]

It's true. Tainted Lost is really difficult and not fun. Yeah i got 9-11 damage in Caves 1 but at that point my holy card is gone and i'd maybe find one or two in my entire run (which usually does end very quickly because i-frames are not present anymore). I feel like Greedier will be the easiest for me since the amount of good and useful items is very dense there.
But in general it's way harder than AB+ Lost.

[Calamity Heart]

I dunno, the fact that T. Lost is designed to be such a tense and miserable experience is part of his charm for me. I've cleared his post-it note, and there were definitely times during my attempts where I would just hold the R Key when I got tilted, which is, of course, a remarkably easy state of mind to achieve with this character, especially when going for the literal hardest endgame bosses in the game. Beating Mother and Delirium as T. Lost were more a relief than a victory, but the same went for killing those dumb bosses on literally every other character that I've thus far beaten them on.

But I miss playing as T. Lost now that I'm done with him for now. When I've completed all of the post-it notes finally, I actually feel like I would like to go back and try to go Dark Room streaking with him or something. Even though he's stressful, it's been a fun sort of stress for the most part.

He's very much a love him or hate him kind of character, and I love him. And I understand why people would hate him. He's deliberately designed to be much more fragile than the other characters, than even the real Lost, and is very easy to lose with. And there's some things like Blanket which is not at all an offensive item that seem weird and should be fixed. But there are some 'grievances' about him that just come across as kind of silly to me. "Better Items" is worded fine; not having access to Dead Cat doesn't invalidate the rest of the effect of T. Lost's gimmick, which encapsulates what 'better items' is supposed to mean just fine. Birthright is by design supposed to give powerful effects related to a character's gimmick. It being one of very few hardcoded exceptions to the 'no 1-Ups' part of Tainted Lost's schtick seems perfectly and simply reasonable to me. Trinkets I'm not really sure of my opinion on, really. Missing Poster and Wooden Cross are powerful and defensive, but I just don't feel as though trinkets themselves are really worth treating the same as items for the purpose of limiting what T. Lost can pick up, since the majority of them are so odd and varied and not necessarily either offensive or defensive in a lot of cases. I don't think it's a bad thing that T. Lost has a bone or two that can be thrown to him every so often.

[Eprico]

Tainted Lost is one of the more fun characters imo. Apart from greedier mode and delirium where you get off screened and telefragged most of the time

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Eprico:

Tainted Lost is one of the more fun characters imo. Apart from greedier mode and delirium where you get off screened and telefragged most of the time

Which, of course, also happens constantly in regular play, so I don't see why Greedier would be worse.

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Calamity Heart:

I dunno, the fact that T. Lost is designed to be such a tense and miserable experience is part of his charm for me. I've cleared his post-it note, and there were definitely times during my attempts where I would just hold the R Key when I got tilted, which is, of course, a remarkably easy state of mind to achieve with this character, especially when going for the literal hardest endgame bosses in the game. Beating Mother and Delirium as T. Lost were more a relief than a victory, but the same went for killing those dumb bosses on literally every other character that I've thus far beaten them on.

But I miss playing as T. Lost now that I'm done with him for now. When I've completed all of the post-it notes finally, I actually feel like I would like to go back and try to go Dark Room streaking with him or something. Even though he's stressful, it's been a fun sort of stress for the most part.

He's very much a love him or hate him kind of character, and I love him. And I understand why people would hate him. He's deliberately designed to be much more fragile than the other characters, than even the real Lost, and is very easy to lose with. And there's some things like Blanket which is not at all an offensive item that seem weird and should be fixed. But there are some 'grievances' about him that just come across as kind of silly to me. "Better Items" is worded fine; not having access to Dead Cat doesn't invalidate the rest of the effect of T. Lost's gimmick, which encapsulates what 'better items' is supposed to mean just fine. Birthright is by design supposed to give powerful effects related to a character's gimmick. It being one of very few hardcoded exceptions to the 'no 1-Ups' part of Tainted Lost's schtick seems perfectly and simply reasonable to me. Trinkets I'm not really sure of my opinion on, really. Missing Poster and Wooden Cross are powerful and defensive, but I just don't feel as though trinkets themselves are really worth treating the same as items for the purpose of limiting what T. Lost can pick up, since the majority of them are so odd and varied and not necessarily either offensive or defensive in a lot of cases. I don't think it's a bad thing that T. Lost has a bone or two that can be thrown to him every so often.

The effects of T. Lost's gimmick is not invalidated by him missing out on Dead Cat, not. It's invalidated by the impossibility of avoiding situations that will straight-up end your run at any given moment. He's invalidated by the fact that you need luck more than anything to get anywhere with him.

And that's not to say that luck isn't generally a major factor in Isaac. Of course it is. You need luck to beat Delirium with any character. But T. Lost needs luck to do everything. You can't even consistently clear up to Mom on chapter 3 because of the random chance that your run ends immediately upon walking through any given door. Again, my favorite personal example: I walk through a door, a Boom Fly is spawned right next to me. Before it's possible to dodge, a fly of my own slams into it and boom. Run over. That's what invalidates the character. You have to rely on the game allowing you to proceed, and then skill becomes a factor.

[Eprico]

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

Originally posted by Eprico:

Tainted Lost is one of the more fun characters imo. Apart from greedier mode and delirium where you get off screened and telefragged most of the time

Which, of course, also happens constantly in regular play, so I don't see why Greedier would be worse.

not from my experience

[Viking Mana]

Originally posted by Eprico:

Originally posted by Viking Mana:

Which, of course, also happens constantly in regular play, so I don't see why Greedier would be worse.

not from my experience

Well, in my experience it only took a couple of hours to beat Greedier, but I have made it to the Dark Room once, and that's the furthest I've ever gotten in regular play, with the vast majority fo runs ending somewhere around Depths 2 and Womb 1.