Thread of Ideas to balance Repentance

[legitch]

Even though Repentance brought along a lot of new features, creatures, and TV preachers, it also was a bit rushed out the door and is not fully balanced. I'm not saying the original Rebirth and its prior DLCs were balanced aswell, but I am saying Repentance could be tuned a bit more before its considered the full Isaac experience + Isaac 2. Below is a list of my brain-fueled ideas for balancing patches that could be implemented in later updates, along with some commentary of why I believe this. These change ideas are based on online community discussions (Basically Reddit, Steam Forums, and Amino), my personal playtime experience, and watching other people play.

Characters

> General
> A lot of characters are balanced around their active items and are made because of them (ex. Keeper with his Wooden Nickel & Apollyon with the Void), but what sucks is starting a run and having the first treasure room item be an active item, followed by having it occur on the second floor (which is also likely possible.) Binding of Isaac can easily be more luck oriented and reliant than it can be on skill, and since the main drawback of active items are the fact that you can only hold 1 at a time, along with the new gameplay mechanics introduced in Repentance, I felt that it's time characters could hold a bit more than they can.

1. > At the start of the game, the character's current active item(s) are put into their consumable slot, similar to that of Tainted Characters.
   
2. > Basically Isaac has a permanent D6, Magdelene gets a permanent Yum Heart, Judas gets a permanent Book of Belial, Eve gets a permanent Razor Blade, ??? gets a permanent The Poop, Eden gets a permanent random active item, The Lost gets a permanent Eternal D6, Lilith gets a permanent Box of Friends, Keeper gets a permanent Wooden Nickel, Apollyon gets a permanent Void. Bethany is unaffected since her Book of Virtues is a hybrid passive/active item, so it's not counted.
   
3. > Challenges are also affected by this. (But could just as easily not be)
   
4. > Eden's Blessing is now restricted to just passive items. (Suggested by HeraldOfOpera.)

> Older Plain Characters
> A few of old characters in the Binding of Isaac are very plain. Compared to the Tainted Characters who have unique effects no one else has, a lot of times a single item combo can accidently replicate a character, like Bucket of Lard + Yum Heart for Magdelene, Low Health + High Damage + Book of Belial for Judas, Lucky Foot + Stapler for Cain, even just having Bloody Lust is just being Samson. So, I thought in order to make runs more interesting for those characters instead of just feeling like repeats of a slot machine, they need their own unique special abilities.

1. > Magdelene now has the Maggy Bow and Maggy's Faith tied to her character without the respective item and trinket in inventory (Being Maggy gets double healing and at the start of each floor she gets an eternal heart), but at a cost, red hearts do not spawn at all, and takes double damage from contact hits.
   
2. > Cain now has the Cain's Eye effect (25% for the Compass effect each floor, with 100% at a max of 3 luck), however, he has tunnel vision, and can only see within an approximately 180 degree cone of his attack view, with stuff outside that vision being heavily darkened like pre-nerf curse of darkness, and despite his increased luck, pickups spawn less for him.
   
3. > Judas now has the Judas' Shadow effect (If he dies, he becomes Dark Judas), the Judas' Tongue effect (2 Heart devil deals cost only 1 heart) and Devil Deals and Angel Deals are guaranteed (The one that spawns depends on which percentage is higher basically), but Judas himself cannot pickup Soul Hearts. It's not like Bethany where they go to a soul charge, its like ??? where he just cannot pick it up. Items that force Soul Hearts still work like The Soul, but not Squeezy. Dark Judas is not affected. He also has a bigger hitbox that's the increase of a reverse size down.
   
4. > Eve now has the Eve's Bird Foot effect (Chance to spawn a dead bird for the room on an enemy kill, increased by luck), aswell as a blessing and a curse, she cannot find items or trinkets that generate blue spiders, blue flies, locusts, wisps, familiars of all kinds, and orbitals, or any item or trinket related to them like BFFS! or Hive Mind. She also cannot charm or control any familiars.
   
5. > Samson now has Samson's Chains on him (Giving him a ball and chain on him which can deal damage and block shots), and Samson's Lock effect (Chance to increase damage for room on killing enemy which increases with luck). In addition, Samson has increased proficiency with his ball and chain, which can allow him such actions as to spin and have it extend and become an orbiting ball of destruction and defense, or to move at a fast speed and go back to make it act as a whip attack. As a new downside, he will slowly lose damage in a room until applies a -1.75 damage max. Leaving a room or damaging a boss for long enough will revert the downside. Damage down does not affect ball and chain.

> Tainted Jacob
>Tainted Jacob, while a lot of fun in my opinion, could use a bit of tuning due to him have the worst late-game of any character and a punishment that is either way to hard on the player, or works on their favor. A clash of differing gameplay philosophies needs a tiebreaker, and Tainted Jacob could stand to have Dark Esau be a bit more interesting.

1. > Dark Esau is now immune to hazards that affect flying enemies, like Red Poops or Spiked Rocks.
   
2. > Anima Sola also makes Dark Esau immune for the duration of his chain.
   
3. > When Tainted Jacob is hit by Dark Esau, Dark Esau will perform a "Magic Skin" on the player, revoking either 1 red/bone heart (or up to 2 soul hearts if a heart is not available), and give them a single broken heart, but not giving an item. When Dark Esau is killed, he simply just grants a Broken Heart without taking any. Dark Esau does not grant broken hearts when the player has 9 or more, but he will deal a full 2 hearts of damage instead for both contact and on death. Now you really got to "Repent for your sins", loser. Tainted Jacob does not become Lostified like before, but... in the next note below.
   
4. > Tainted Jacob now starts with Astral Projection if its unlocked, but it only works if Dark Esau hits them (while also revoking health and granting the Broken Hearts in the note above)
   
5. > Dark Esau's stage HP is now 25 instead of 20, and they have the same armor as Mega Satan (which is 90). (G. also says that this should probably be the only change made to Tainted Jacob & Dark Esau, and in my opinion this is the simplest and best out of all of them)
   
6. > At the start of an uncleared room, if the game detects that the room is a singular line (such as the room in the caves with the Boom Flies), Dark Esau is automatically chained for 20 seconds.
   
7. > Dark Esau is now their own character (whilst still being the hazardous obstacle/pursuit). Dark Esau can now perform the unthinkable, picking up items. Dark Esau can pick up an item if it intersects with their charge, which will actually grant effects. Any stat changes to Dark Esau will actually have their own unique modifier on him, Speed grants Dark Esau speed when not charging, Tears determines the cooldown of his charge attack, Damage is obviously damage, Range is how far Dark Esau goes when charging, Shotspeed is how fast he goes when charging, and Luck goes to him aswell. Any contact effects apply to Dark Esau and the fire he spews when charging are affected by tear modifiers but not the stats (Like poison shots). Any familiars Dark Esau picks up will shoot only when he charges and does it in his general direction, any of tear copiers like Incubus or Fate's Reward instead shoot Fire/Bird's Eye tears, but they don't target nor damage the player. Dark Esau also now has his health represented like another player, but it doesn't mean he goes down in X amount of shots, it can be healed or affected by other hearts. When Dark Esau gets half a heart of any type, its the equivalent of +50HP on him, each performing their own effects as if another player picked it up, and that half heart is lost by taking the 50HP damage it represents, it does activate any effects tied to health (Like items such as the Polaroid or general health like Black Hearts). If Dark Esau has an active or consumable, he will only use it when the player hits that respective key to use it while holding CTRL.

> Tainted Lost
>Tainted Lost can easily be one of the most infuriating or most fun characters to play as, depending on luck and skill. However, Binding of Isaac has seen the light and made a switch to more skill oriented gameplay by its obvious balance changes to the game in Repentance. With that in mind, it feels Tainted Lost was made without consideration with the changes to these, and I feel he could get some buffs, similar to that of when Rebirth Lost was upgraded in Afterbirth.

1. > Tainted Lost now starts with Wooden Cross if unlocked, but does not start with the Holy Card. (XZero also suggested to just give Tainted Lost a blank card to reuse Holy Card at a 4 room charge, while overkill imo, and another idea that the Wooden Cross is imbeded into Tainted Lost as the new Holy Mantle is, still adding since this is a collaborative thread of ideas.)
   
2. > Tainted Lost now cannot find items with a quality of 0 or 1, similar to Sacred Orb. Those items are automatically rerolled into a random item with a quality of 2.
   
3. > Tainted Lost, ontop of his already existing multiplier, now has a +2/3 Damage on their tears, which is applied after the tear is shot and multipliers, similar to Blood Clot or Lump of Coal.
   
4. > Tainted Lost is immune to Blood Donation Machines, Devil Beggars, Sacrifice Spikes, Red Poop, Curse Rooms, Spike Rocks, basically all non-enemy damage.
   
5. > The list of items Tainted Lost can find is changed. Instead of only items from the "offensive" item tag list, it now only does items not from the "nolostbirthright" list, with some expunges to a number of immensely good defensive items that trivializes the character, these include: Holy Mantle, Dead Cat, Gnawed Leaf, 1UP!, Lazarus Rags, Juda's Shadow, Ankh, Unicorn Stump, Pyromaniac, Host Hat, Stopwatch, Guppy's Collar, Taurus, Inner Child, Anima Sola, Ball n' Chain, Belly Jelly, Big Fan, Blank Card, Blanket, Bloodshot Eye, Book of Shadows, Book of Virtues, Book of the Dead, Broken Modem, Censer, Circle of Protection, D1, Clear Rune, Cone Head, Dark Arts, Divine Intervention, Dry Baby, Echo Chamber, Esau Jr, Farting Baby, The Game Kid, Guardian Angel, Halo of Flies, My Little Unicorn, Glowing Hour Glass, Infamy, Isaac's Heart, Lost Contact, Metal Plate, Pause!, Pluto, Psy Fly, Sacrifical Dagger, Slipped Rib, Spirit Shackles, The Soul, The Swarm, Sworn Protector, Tooth and Nail, Tinytoma.
   
6. > Tainted Lost now also has a list of banned trinkets, which reroll into either another trinket or a random positive pill, these include: A Missing Page, Apple of Sodom, Bag Lunch, Bat Wing, Bible Tract, Black Lipstick, Blessed Penny, Blind Rage, Blood Penny, Broken Ankh, Callus, Cracked Dice, Crow Heart, Cursed Skull, Daemon's Tail, Finger Bone, Hollow Heart, Isaac's Fork, Judas' Tongue, Maggy's Faith, Missing Poster, Mom's Locket, Mom's Pearl, Monkey Paw, Mother's Kiss, Panic Button, Red Patch, Sigil of Baphomet, Stem Cell, Swallowed Penny, Tonsil, Umbilical Cord, Wall Nut, Wish Bone, Your Soul.
   
7. > Tainted Lost also now has a list of banned consumables, which reroll into a Holy Card or a specified card which will be in brackets nearby it: V - The Hierophant, VI - The Lovers, XII - The Hanged Man, XIV - Temperance (Turns into Wheel of Fortune), Reverse Magician (Turns into I - The Magician), Reverse Hierophant, Reverse Death (Turns into XIII - Death), XIX - The Sun (Turns into a Tears Up Pill), 2 of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Era Walk (Turns into Reverse Empress), Rules Card, Card Against Humanity, Rune of Algiz (Turns into XI - Strength), Soul of Magdelene, Soul of Judas, Soul of Lazarus, Soul of the Forgotten, Soul of Bethany, Soul of Jacob and Esau.
   
8. > Hearts touched by Tainted Lost become flies or spiders
   
9. > Tainted Lost cannot have bad pills.

> Tainted Lazarus
>This character is incredibly bad. Alongside having no worthwhile upsides, he has the major downside of requiring almost twice as much luck and twice as much endurance just to make it through. Tainted Lazarus doesn't have as big overhauls as the other characters, but has something to make him worth playing.

1. > When any form of Tainted Lazarus picks up the boss item pedestal in a boss room, it automatically flips to the other character and also provides another boss item for that character. Picking that item up aswell flips the character again but does not provide an additional item then.
   
2. > Devil Deal & Angel Deal chances are now seperated between the two characters but are merged for the both (with the chance of the second player occuring if the chance for the first player failed for both deal types and occuring vice versa). This also means taking a devil deal will only cancel Angel Deals on the character who picked it up. Example: Living Tainted Laz has 36% of a Devil Deal and Dead Tainted Laz has 16% for an Devil Deal. This means the percentage for a devil deal after the boss for either character is 0.36 + 0.16(1 - 0.36), which is also equal to 0.16 + 0.36(1 - 0.16), repeat this logic for Angel Room.
   
3. > A Devil Deal can still spawn even if an Angel Room spawned, but its not like duality where its a forced spawn when the other did, making it still useful.
   
4. > If a devil or angel room spawned, neither will despawn for any reason.
   
5. > Flip is now a four room item charge instead of six.
   
6. > Both Tainted Lazari now share a health bar similar to the Forgotten, up to 12 hearts. Living Tainted Lazarus can only have red, rotten, and bone hearts, while Dead Tainted Lazarus can only have soul, black, and eternal hearts. However, unlike the Forgotten, the amount of hearts one has can extend past the limit of 6, up to a maximum of 9 for either, and the other cannot collect hearts if the amount of hearts goes over 12.
   
7. > The Birthright effects makes it so the character who picked it up flips every 2 rooms instead of every room.

>Other Characters
>Small adjustments to other Characters that I felt did not deserve their own big extension on this already long page.

1. > Bethany no longer loses Devil/Angel deal chances on red heart damage.
   
2. > Jacob & Esau get an additional boss room item.
   
3. > Everytime Jacob & Esau enter an uncleared non-curse room without any bosses in it, there is a small chance that Mom's Hand will drop down and abduct one of the brothers for the room. They return once the room is cleared. The chance of who is abducted is increased if they have less items (up to a maximum of 75% percent)
   
4. > Boss room items no longer take up room in Tainted Isaac's item inventory.
   
5. > Tainted Isaac's ability of rotating item pedestals is now converted into an active item in the consumable slot called "The D2", which rerolls an item into another one, but rerolling your new item gives the old one back, like his current mechanic. Does not affect items dropped by the player. 0 Room Charge for Tainted Isaac himself. 4 Room charge on any other character.
   
6. > Tainted Isaac & both Lilith are immune to Curse of the Blind (Curse of the Blind has too much of an impact on Tainted Isaac, Lilith is simply cause they're blind), both Losts are immune to Curse of the Unknown & Curse of the Lost (Unknown doesn't affect either, Lost cause its funny), both Eves are immune to Curse of the Darkness.
   
7. > Tainted Cain can pickup boss room items without them disappearing.
   
8. > Tainted Cain's recipes are randomly generated at the start of each run, but every item now has atleast 1 guaranteed recipe that never changes.
   
9. > The velocity and damage of Tainted ???'s poop throws is also affected by speed, direction, and shot speed.
   
10. > If holding the fire key when Tainted Samson becomes berserk, they automatically charge their jawbone to full.
    
11. > Tainted Lilith's C-Section does not deal as much damage as a whip attack, but now the umbilical cord attached to the baby now deals damage equal to the velocity/speed of the cord as its moving.
    
12. > Tainted Keeper no longer has to purchase boss room items.
    
13. > Tainted Keeper has a 1% that a spawned shop is a 2x1 room with a vast quantity of options to buy. Chance is increased by 20% for each shop that was skipped by not entering it. They contain the following for sale:
    • One Shop item, one Boss Room item, and two Treasure Room items.
      
    • Four other terminals that can be keys, bombs, cards, pills, trinkets (which will be sold for 5 cents), or more Shop/Treasure Room items.
      
    • A Trinket for 15 cents.
      
    • An Item for 15-30 cents but will not cost less than its regular price. Items will be from the Secret Room, Shop, Devil/Angel Room, or Boss Room items; there can be multiple items from different item pools. Devil/Angel room items can cost up to 50 cents, and Secret Room items can cost up to 99 cents.
      
    • A Card/Rune/Soul Stone for 6-8 cents.
      
    • A locust trinket for 5 cents.
      
    • An item from the Angel Room Item Pool for 15 pennies.
      
    • A key for 5 pennies.
      
    • Holy Card Holy Card for 5 pennies.
14. > The price of Tainted Keeper's items is dependant on it's quality, costing [(quality + 1) multiplied by 5] cents/coins. Devil Room items cost 5 more coins, Angel Room (not from The Stairway) items cost 10 less coins.

Rooms

> Treasure Rooms
> Because of the game's general difficulty increase, at times you are heavily influenced, both positively and negatively by luck, and especially the items that luck gives. I feel if the Binding of Isaac wants to test the players mettle, especially in scenarios of life or death and to unlock completion marks, there should be a system that helps to guide unlucky players to a better path.

1. > At the start of the floor, if you have an active item (not in the consumable slot) and the Treasure Room's only item(s) are active items, then it will be a choice room (similar to the alt paths) where the choice item is a passive but it's also the blinded one.
   
2. > At the end of each floor once the player goes into the floor transition, the game looks at the players items and their luck. It takes 4 minus the average quality of items the player has (Total quality of items divided by number of items, including held actives), adds +0.05 for each luck point they have, and rounds it to a whole number either up or down, whichever is closer (but rounds it up if its a .5), and thats the guaranteed quality of the next Treasure Room item (or Planetarium). Formula: rounded([4 - (totalQuality/totalItems)] + 0.05luck)
   
3. > Rerolling the item via the D6 or Dice Room will not reroll into an item of same quality.
   
4. > Choice item rooms generated will have the same quality for both items.
   
5. > If the determined quality is above any existing item in the item pool (5 or more for Treasure Room and 4 or more for Planetarium), the room will be a double treasure room, holding twice the goodies to collect, their total quality being the determined quality.
   
6. > If the determined quality is above 9 or more, the Treasure Room will have two quality-4 items and 1 Death Certificate in the middle (only if Death Certificate is unlocked), and if above 8 or more, the Planetarium will generate an extra Zodiac item to add to the total quality.

> Boss Rooms
> Lets be honest, no one likes getting range ups in the boss item room. They're incredibly situational, and if you get 2 in a row with potentially 1 bad item from the treasure room, that's a run that's said its prayers and moved out. So, Boss Item pedestals are getting a upgrade, half of it anyways.

1. > At the end of the second floor for each chapter (<chapter> II or <chapter> XL second boss), the boss item is guaranteed to be a damage or tears up.
   
2. > If the player has taken a devil deal at all, it will instead become any item that gives an HP up (and also Marrow).

> Devil & Angel Rooms
> Same idea about luck applies here, give players items instead of leaving them unlucky and forcing them to reset a run, due to how valuable every item is now due to the difficulty changes.

1. > The first Devil or Angel room encountered is guaranteed to provide an item, instead of a room variant with chests or no item/pickups only)
   
2. > The first Devil deal is guaranteed to give sell an item that has a quality of 3 or more.
   
3. > There are new Devil Rooms and their layouts are mirrors of Angel Rooms, with eternal hearts becoming black hearts instead, angel statues to devil statues, and key blocks to just regular rocks, and obviously using the Devil Room/Sheol aesthetic.
   
4. > Soul Heart deals are changed from 3 soul hearts to 2 if the item is a 1-red-heart devil and to 4 if the item is a 2-red-heart deal.
   
5. > This also means Mom's Hand and Imps cannot spawn in Devil Rooms.
   
6. > Angel rooms are ACTUALLY guaranteed when skipping the first available Devil Room, instead of just making it so Devil Room chance is added ontop of an Angel Room (seriously, if you're really unlucky you can potentially fail a Mega Satan run even if you never lose a red heart, happened to me)
   
7. > If the current floor has Curse of the Labyrinth, there is guarenteed to be 2 angel statues in the Angel Room.
   
8. > If the player skips the first devil deal and goes for the guaranteed angel room, the next floor nothing happens, but then after that floor there is a 100% devil deal chance, and then skipping that deal then gives another guaranteed angel deal. Imagine it like the first 3 floors rules on deals looped again if the player is going for guaranteed angel rooms. This change also makes it so Mega Satan can never be inaccessible due to luck by always providing an Angel Room on floor #3 and #6 if not going for devil deals.
   
9. > If the player has taken a devil deal before and has 2 or less hearts when the next devil deal spawns, it has an increased chance of having a layout with only free pickups.

> Sacrifice Rooms
> When Booster Pack #5 came out with the Forgotten's quest, sacrifice rooms pay out with a bomb if the player has the conditions to make it there but were unlucky enough. With the addition of alt-paths, it seems fair to do the same.

1. > Sacrifice Rooms will payout keys or bombs if on the first floor possible to enter the Sewers and Mines respectfully.

True Co-Op

> Revival
> True Co-Op feels too powerful in its current state, especially since revivals are free and there is no real penalty for death (especially for those who lack red heart containers to lose deal chances), so the I felt that it should be nerfed a bit as to maintain a good balance for the game.

1. > Revivals by beating a boss will take a single soul heart from a random player (but priorities the one with the most soul hearts), if no living players have a soul heart, 7 coins are deducted from the players, and if less than 4 were deducted, all players get a broken heart.
   
2. > A revival can occur earlier when using a sacrifice room. Using a sacrifice room has a 50% chance to revive a randomly dead player, but at a cost, that player now has 3 extra broken hearts (but does not go any further as leave the player with less than 3 heart spaces/more than 9 broken hearts). Both Keepers and Losts are not affected by this broken heart (unless the Keeper has an extra heart container via Greedy Gullet or Mom's Kiss, which will be taken until the Keeper is at a max of 3 coin hearts or 3 broken coin hearts were made).

> Conditional Rooms
> Because of the increased resources for True-CoOp, there are a lot of times where the setbacks or qualifiers for entering a room are negated. This really isn't super important but I felt True-Coop should be nerfed.

1. > Curse Rooms only allows the players who entered the spiked door to spawn in the room. (Secret Room doors allow all players)
   
2. > Challenge Rooms open if atleast 1 player has 1 heart or less, but it only permits entry to that player if they enter through the main door.
   
3. > The Mirror in the Sewers only accepts those in Lost form and bars entry to those not in lost form.
   
4. > The Abandoned Mine with the chase sequence will prevent additional players from entering if they entered the area without pressing all the buttons.

Misc. Content

> Challenges
> Binding of Isaac went back to the past in order to fix for the new, but in their conquest to make the game better and repolish old works, there seems to be 1 overlooked thing that was forgotten: Challenges. Outdated and old challenges don't fit the game as well, some being really easy now, some really hard, and not 1 update to them in order to fit the style of the game anymore. Challenges, while not as important as updating a character, should get changes to them to make them fresh again.

1. > "Pitch Black" now has a permanent Curse of the Blind effect, and the player starts with Glaucoma.
   
2. > "High Brow"'s starting items are changed to: Almond Milk + Number One. Challenge end-goal now goes to Mom's Heart/It Lives.
   
3. > "The Tank" gets additional starting items of Orphan Socks, Dr. Fetus, and Rocket in a Jar. Player also starts with a damage down. Challenge end-goal now goes to Isaac.
   
4. > "Solar System" gets an additional starting item, Friend Zone. Challenge end-goal now goes to Isaac.
   
5. > "Suicide King" has the player start with the Suicide King card.
   
6. > "Cat Got Your Tongue" gets additional starting items, Guppy's Eye, Guppy's Collar, Judas' Tongue. Challenge end-goal now goes to Isaac.
   
7. > "Demoman"'s starting character is replaced with Cain.
   
8. > "Glass Cannon" gets an additional starting item, Glass Cannon. Challenge end-goal now goes to ???.
   
9. > "Beans!" gets additional starting items of Linger Bean and Gigante Bean. Challenge end-goal now goes to Mom's Heart/It Lives.
   
10. > "When Life Gives you Lemons" & "It's in the Cards" gets additional starting items of 4.5 Volt, Jumper Cables. "It's in the Cards" also gets Tarot Cloth & Car Battery. "When Life Gives you Lemons" end-goal now goes to Mom's Heart/It Lives, "Its in the Cards" end-goal now goes to Isaac.
    
11. > "Computer Savvy" gets an additional starting item, Tech .5. Player now suffers a permanent retro-vision effect.
    
12. > "Waka Waka" gets additional starting items of The Gamekid, Cartridge, and Big Chubby. Player now has a permanent 0 shot-speed. Challenges end-goal now goes to Isaac.
    
13. > "The Host" starting items are changed to: Infestation, Spiderbaby, The Intruder, The Tick, and Best Bud. Challenge end-goal now goes to Mom's Health/It Lives.
    
14. > "The Family Man" gets an additional starting item, Isaac's Tomb. Challenge end-goal now goes to Satan.
    
15. > "The Purist" will damage Isaac whenever his devil deal chance increases outside of the starting room or by items, but heal him whenever his angel deal chance increases (or give a soul heart if at full HP).
    
16. > "SPEED!"'s starting character is replaced with Cain.
    
17. > "Pay to Play" gains an additional starting item: Deep Pockets, Player starts with Credit Card. Shops are now upgraded to Tainted Keeper's shops. Player starts with Keeper's Box, Member Card, The Stairway, and a Keeper's Bargain effect. Challenge ends at Mega Satan.
    
18. > "I RULE!" is now completely different, so previous rules and conditions do not apply here as this is entirely new. The challenge starts with Isaac with an undroppable left hand, going down the forced path. After the Mom fight, players are forced to defeat Boss Rush to continue. After the Mom's Heart fight, the Hush door does not open. After the Isaac fight, the chest to the Chest instead leads to the Sheol. After the Satan fight, the chest to the Dark Room instead leads to the Chest. After the ??? fight, the end chest instead leads to the Dark Room. After the Lamb fight, the end chest instead leads to Corpse II. After the Mother fight, the end chest instead leads into Mega Satan's room. After Mega Satan, the end chest instead leads to Ultra Greed's floor on Greedier mode. After Ultra Greedier, the end chest instead leads to the Void. After Delirium, the end chest instead leads to Hush's floor (???). After Hush, a beam of light will appear that leads to home. The run ends when the player beats the Beast.
    
19. > "BRAINS!" has additional starting items of The Mind, and Rotten Baby. Challenge end-goal now goes to Mega Satan.
    
20. > "PRIDE DAY!" has additional starting items of Fruit Cake and The Wafer. Player starts with the Soul of Eden. All enemies are champions, and have an additional 5% of being a rainbow champion. Challenge end-goal now goes to Isaac.
    
21. > "The Guardian" is reworked. The starting character is Jacob & Esau, with Jacob being the victim, and Esau the guardian. Jacob is blindfolded and has Thunder Thighs + Bucket of Lard but still only has 3 heart containers. Esau is also blindfolded and has Holy Grail + Spear of Destiny, and has a permanent shield on him.
    
22. > "Backasswards" is reworked. The player starts in the Genesis room where they pick up items from choices of 3 before ascending to the challenge. The item pools they get in order to pick from are: Treasure Room, Shop, Library, Curse Room Boss, Secret Room, Devil Room, Angel Room, Golden Chest, Red Chest, Beggar, Devil Beggar, Key Beggar, Bomb Beggar, Planetarium, Crane Game, Rotten Beggar, Battery Beggar, Old Chest, Wooden Chest, Mom's Chest, Baby Shop, and Bumbino's Drops, and then finally, 1 guaranteed Dogma (the item). The beam of light then takes them to the fight with Mega Satan and the challenge continues as normal with some changes: Instead of players losing an item and heart container every floor, they lose a number of items depending on the current floor they ascended to: 2 on Womb II, 2 on Womb I, 8 on Depths II, 4 on Depths I, 8 on Caves II, 4 on Caves I, 8 on Basement II, 4 on Basement I. For every item the game tries to take without the player having one, they get the "Magic Skin" effect and lose a heart container (or 2 soul hearts if 1 isn't available) and get a broken heart.
    
23. > "April's Fool" is completely different, so previous rules and conditions to not apply here as this is entirely new. Items with a quality of 3 or 4 are automatically rerolled. Items with a quality of 2 have a 66% chance to be automatically rerolled. Player starts with -50 Luck. Increased room difficulty chance. Challenge end-goal now ends at Mom.
    
24. > "Pokey Man" is reworked. Player has an additional starting item: Mercurius. Player can only use Friendly Ball on charmed enemies. Charmed Enemies deal x2 damage. Challenge end-goal now ends at Satan.
    
25. > "ULTRA HARD" is completely different, so previous rules and conditions to not apply here as this is entirely new. 5-6 more rooms generate each floor. Standard rooms with a difficulty of "2" or less cannot generate, and rooms from the Ascension can appear (if they contain no bosses or tainted enemies). Enemies have a base 35% chance to become Champions instead of only 5%; additionally, they do not award pickups. Hearts do not drop after completing a room. Hearts have a 33% chance of despawning when dropped from a non-room source. Bosses will not drop hearts. Floors have a 4/5 chance of having a curse. Beggars require a minimum of 12 donations before paying out. Blood Donation Machines & IV Bag cannot spawn. Blue Fires do not drop Soul Hearts. Enemies with increased shot speed or movement from hard mode have that bonus multiplied by 2. After the Mega Satan fight, the end chest leads back home. The end-goal is changed to The Beast after beating mega Satan. While fighting in Hell/against The Beast, the player takes double damage from all sources. Player starts with Sacred Orb.
    
26. > "Pong" is completely different, so previous rules and conditions to not apply here as this is entirely new. Player's starting character is replaced with the Forgotten without the Soul. Starting items are Ludovico Technique, Dead Onion, & Rubber Cement. Bone club deals no damage, and the tear summoned by Ludovico Technique never slows down/decelerates, it will always keep moving in the direction it was hit.
    
27. > "Bloody Mary" has an additional starting item, Shard of Glass.
    
28. > "Baptism by Fire" has an additional starting item, Pyromaniac. Challenge end-goal now ends at Satan.
    
29. > "Isaac's Awakening" has additional starting items of Schoolbag, Boomerang, and The Ladder. Challenge is in Hard Mode. Shops spawn near the starting room. Floor goes through a fixed path of regular chapter floor on each first floor and the alt path chapter floor on the second floor of each chapter.
    
30. > "Hot Potato" has additional starting items of Buddy Bombs, and Hot Bombs.
    
31. > "Delete This" has additional starting items, Broken Modem, GB Bug, Dataminer, and Glitched Crown (even though the functionality of it is practically useless), and Error. Challenge end-goal now goes to The Lamb.
    
32. > Any Challenge beaten now has the option to play the challenge in Hard Mode (except for Isaac's Awakening). If the challenge started with Isaac, they also have the option to change their character to one of their choice. Ultra Hard's hard mode is instead the original Ultra Hard.

> Armor
> Boss Armor is a balancing gimmick that sometimes feels fine, justified, or downright ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and is more heavily swayed by RNG. I feel players should have some way of reducing boss armor without it being too simple or easy as to always do it, but more as an extension for each bosses entry condition.

1. > Hush's Armor is now reduced based on how quickly they entered the floor. The Hush's Armor starts at 0 when the run begins, and once the timer reaches 3:30, it linearly scales up to 160 armor until it reaches 30 minutes (approximately 10 seconds = 1 armor point) in which the counter stops. The counter also stops once the player reaches the Hush's floor itself.
   
2. > The sleeping gatekeepers now have more to offer. If the player has both key pieces and is not holding the filigree feather, they were drop an "item" pedestal that when interacted with, gives the player a free "holy" wisp. It's similar to Seraphim where it fires sacred heart shots and does not block or interact with enemies and their projectiles, but it also orbits around the player, and they're unrerollable/irremovable by other items. When the player encounters Mega Satan themselves, at the moment the fight starts, the wisps stop orbiting the player and immediately dive bomb into Mega Satan himself. Each wisp deals 625 damage (1/8th of his max hp) that pierces Mega Satans armor, and also removes 30 armor from him on top of that. If the damage dealt is enough to trigger a wave summon, it will skip that wave. A maximum of 4 wisps can be held ever.
   
3. > Ultra Greed (and his Ultra Greedier counterpart) lose 15 armor for each silver treasure room skipped (and by skipped, I mean not entered at all).
   
4. > If the player is able to construct and bring Mom's Shovel to the corpse, there will be an additional empty room with a Hush-like fetus embedded into the ground, and digging there will cause "Mother" to scream, revoking 25 armor and also spawning 4 golden chests that are guaranteed to have items.
   
5. > No changes to Dogma or the Beast since they are balanced enough as to not warrant any armour changes.

> Misc.
> This is also just a list of minor stuff I felt don't fit into any category made, but could help to overall improve the Isaac experience.

1. > Update the list of items or abilities involved with Dead Sea Scrolls, Mongo Baby, Monster Manuel, Rainbow Baby, and Black Feather.
   
2. > The colors for the achievements of B-Side Characters to be unique per goal.
   
3. > Add more rooms variations to the Mom's Shadow Knife Piece 2 chase sequence and make it so the shape/layout of the sequence is randomized, but follows a similar pattern of what room sizes each room is in the path. Maybe even mirror/flip the rooms, just make it unique and put the Rogue back in Roguelite.
   
4. > The Siren's song for stealing your familiars is longer per familiar you own, or has a downside when she does it per familiar.
   
5. > Make Mullighouls fly over pits but not rocks but eventually return back the ground if over a pit for sometime.
   
6. > Killing Blasters with an explosion creates a new death animation.
   
7. > Let players continue the game after beating Mother (and/or possibly the Beast), as a full run for just 1 completion mark is annoying. (Suggested by PreLife.)

While I'm done with my ideas, and I'm probably going to add more if this thread gains traction, this is an open-ended discussion and I would like to know your ideas on how Repentance could be a bit balanced so its more fun when played casually, both in normal and hard mode. I'm mostly going to be adding all suggestions/ideas into this discussion as this is a collaborative thread.

[Junior]

I like almost everything except the quality changes, i rather the game be random and having to need to use a item to get better quality items, characters having their item not being the space bar is the best thing ever.

[legitch]

Publicado originalmente por Andy:

I like almost everything except the quality changes, i rather the game be random and having to need to use a item to get better quality items, characters having their item not being the space bar is the best thing ever.

Yeah, I think what I said about Treasure Rooms should instead go to Devil Rooms because of how situational and underpowered they feel right now, or maybe even the Shop, eitherway I think the idea of your presented items being determined by your current run setup should be items that are bought/have a price to them.

[Sapatos]

Yeah, been playing Tainted Laz today. I'd say it's not a fun experience.
Nothing really helpfull, there's literally no benefit whatsoever for having two characters.
You'll always feel useless and weak.

[PreLife]

if "the lost" doesn't get the item quality changes you have on the post, I'd recommend that he just starts with blank card. the game is too random to have a character like tainted lost. same with "Jacob" id just recommend he takes a flat full heart when he gets hit by/kills Esau.
in terms of items, a lot of items need to be straight up removed or the whole item pool needs to be reworked. repentance added in some good items but it didn't fix so many bad items that shouldn't be in treasure pools. bomb upgrades and passive items that do nothing bloat the game to the point where I just ignore item rooms. move them out of the treasure pool. as for tainted laz, there's a really simple solution: allow laz to use flip whenever you want, like the forgotten. the same catch will apply where they can only have 6hp each at any given time. planetariums should have the zodiac items moved to the planetarium pool as well, like in antibirth. more variety and it helps to unclutter the treasure pool. I like your ideas, but they seem like full on reworks which devs probably won't go for, so I'm just throwing out my simpler solutions. Edit: this is from someone who beat delirium as both "lost" and "Jacob". "Laz" is a character that I refuse to play because he sucks

[HeraldOfOpera]

The idea I keep floating for J&E is to give them all the benefits of True Co-op on the basis that that's basically what they are. The fact that they instead have none of them despite debuting at the same time still confuses me.

Letting Dark Esau pick up items looks way too difficult to code. Letting him consume them for healing is fine, it's the level of hardcoding interactions that's the issue leaving Birthright and Tainted Apollyon unfinished.

On the general character changes, lock Eden's Blessing to passive items outright to dodge the issue, and don't give Eden the benefits you outlined for them. They're already RNG: the Character so feelsbad moments caused by that are an intended part of the design.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Publicado originalmente por PreLife:

if "the lost" doesn't get the item quality changes you have on the post, I'd recommend that he just starts with blank card. the game is too random to have a character like tainted lost. same with "Jacob" id just recommend he takes a flat full heart when he gets hit by/kills Esau.
in terms of items, a lot of items need to be straight up removed or the whole item pool needs to be reworked. repentance added in some good items but it didn't fix so many bad items that shouldn't be in treasure pools. bomb upgrades and passive items that do nothing bloat the game to the point where I just ignore item rooms. move them out of the treasure pool. as for tainted laz, there's a really simple solution: allow laz to use flip whenever you want, like the forgotten. the same catch will apply where they can only have 6hp each at any given time. planetariums should have the zodiac items moved to the planetarium pool as well, like in antibirth. more variety and it helps to unclutter the treasure pool. I like your ideas, but they seem like full on reworks which devs probably won't go for, so I'm just throwing out my simpler solutions.

Making the Zodiac items unavailable from non-Planetarium sources would make it nearly impossible to unlock Planetariums, though?

(Also, the Tainted Cain rework is something Edmund proposed himself as a solution to how mods break the existing recipe guides)

[PreLife]

Publicado originalmente por HeraldOfOpera:

Publicado originalmente por PreLife:

if "the lost" doesn't get the item quality changes you have on the post, I'd recommend that he just starts with blank card. the game is too random to have a character like tainted lost. same with "Jacob" id just recommend he takes a flat full heart when he gets hit by/kills Esau.
in terms of items, a lot of items need to be straight up removed or the whole item pool needs to be reworked. repentance added in some good items but it didn't fix so many bad items that shouldn't be in treasure pools. bomb upgrades and passive items that do nothing bloat the game to the point where I just ignore item rooms. move them out of the treasure pool. as for tainted laz, there's a really simple solution: allow laz to use flip whenever you want, like the forgotten. the same catch will apply where they can only have 6hp each at any given time. planetariums should have the zodiac items moved to the planetarium pool as well, like in antibirth. more variety and it helps to unclutter the treasure pool. I like your ideas, but they seem like full on reworks which devs probably won't go for, so I'm just throwing out my simpler solutions.

Making the Zodiac items unavailable from non-Planetarium sources would make it nearly impossible to unlock Planetariums, though?

(Also, the Tainted Cain rework is something Edmund proposed himself as a solution to how mods break the existing recipe guides)

maybe that only happens after you unlock planetariums, idk. Constellation items feel really out of place as they are right now

[PreLife]

another suggestion: let players continue the game after the beast/ mother. a full run for just one completion mark is really really annoying

[Billy]

I don't think I quite agree with the true-coop nerfs, I'd say what should be done is to make rooms more difficult/prices higher like Risk of Rain's coop system; making it so you have to buy people back kind of kills the fun and original purpose of it and could just dissuade people from even trying that since if someone dies they could have to wait eons to come back in if the game's being picky on cash; not only that, but they will likely be left weaker and thus easier to die depending on the character.

[legitch]

Publicado originalmente por BillboDragons:

I don't think I quite agree with the true-coop nerfs, I'd say what should be done is to make rooms more difficult/prices higher like Risk of Rain's coop system; making it so you have to buy people back kind of kills the fun and original purpose of it and could just dissuade people from even trying that since if someone dies they could have to wait eons to come back in if the game's being picky on cash; not only that, but they will likely be left weaker and thus easier to die depending on the character.

Yeah that's a good point, didn't really think about that. I'll go back and edit it so the True CoOp nerf isnt just limiting the CoOp itself.

[ICANDOTHAT2]

i like most of the crap here, the only issue is stuff relating to the rooms and coop. i think those are fine for the most part.

[XZero]

Tainted Lost should start with Blank Card so they can reuse their Holy Card.
Much like how Lost was given the Holy Mantle since the optimal strategy was to get the ability to actually survive hits.
The game isn’t really designed to never get hit ever.

At the start of the game, the character's current active item(s) are put into their consumable slot, similar to that of Tainted Characters.

I really like this idea.

planetariums should have the zodiac items moved to the planetarium pool

Are the Zodiac items as good as Planetarium items? Considering you have to sacrifice an item(s) for decent chances of finding one.

[PreLife]

Publicado originalmente por XZero:

Tainted Lost should start with Blank Card so they can reuse their Holy Card.
Much like how Lost was given the Holy Mantle since the optimal strategy was to get the ability to actually survive hits.
The game isn’t really designed to never get hit ever.

At the start of the game, the character's current active item(s) are put into their consumable slot, similar to that of Tainted Characters.

I really like this idea.

planetariums should have the zodiac items moved to the planetarium pool

Are the Zodiac items as good as Planetarium items? Considering you have to sacrifice an item(s) for decent chances of finding one.

gemini is the only one that i think isn’t good enough for that pool, scorpio, libra, cancer, Virgo, sagittarius, capricorn, Leo, and even aries and aquarius are good enough now to warrant the asking price imo

[Simoko]

They should remove some of the BS rooms where I'm forced to take damage to pass.

[Dyne]

I feel like pretty much everything you said for T. Jacob is overkill af lol - he isnt that bad honestly, all he needs (if anything) is Dark Esau's health to increase a lot more per floor than it does already.