Seeing Double challenge (long-ish rant)

[Sgt. YippyYap]

Seriously, who made this
Like, the whole Repentance is an unbalanced mess.
But there are a specific few things that are just pure nonsense

This challenge is not a challenge that's something a main game should have! This challenge is a challenge that you would see in a mod. And it would be a troll challenge, or something that seems good on paper but has no thought put into it

Something like "Dad's Home +". The thing all of the Isaac Streamers and Youtubers played
But even that gave you the chance. You had item rooms, you had a chance to get a good item. You had a chance to get a good combo. And it was only to the end of the second floor

This is pure nonsense. You don't even get item rooms. You are stuck with your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ starting items and whatever you get in the shop, which is not really that significant. Devil and angel rooms are off the board because you will never earn those, except the first devil deal which is "fairly" easy to get, compared to everything else
And of course, you play these two stupid farts which are hard and extremely infuriating to play as on their own, due to their constant splitting and getting stuck, as well as the wonky controls.

Like, I had decently good runs where I thought I would make it. But no. ONE ROOM IS ALL IT TAKES. One room that is difficult without doubled enemies while you play as one character. But now you play as two characters with doubled enemies with literally nowhere to go, without any items that would make you OP to be able to blitz through the room because there are no item rooms.
I had Godhead in one of those runs and managed to buff my damage to be over 5 (difficult to do because of the low starting damage and bad items). The one I got from an ultra secret room. But how often do you find a red key and get lucky finding that room, or finding "The Moon?" card. And then I entered one room and lost all of my health because the two characters got split and I couldn't do anything. One of them got lost in the gang of enemies and I literally couldn't even see where they were on my screen to even try to attempt a rescue
And of course they had to take even more fun out of the game, so 20/20 got nerfed because it now reduces your damage

And all of it for what? For some trinket that's not even worth it. Whow, it makes it so that there is a "chance" to add an extra item to the item room that you can't even see. SO it gives you an ability to risk everything and end your run probably. Cool. And you can see the second item if you go to an alt path. COOL!
ALSO IT'S A TRINKET! A thing that you probably will never see, or will get when it's too late. Or you'll replace it by a better trinket. AMAZING!

It's just bad decision on bad decision on bad decision on bad design

And yes I know this challenge was in Antibirth. I don't remember if I beat it there
But Antibirth is a MOD. Like I said, I expect these things in a mod, like a troll challenge or a thing that someone spontaneously got an idea for but didn't actually think about it and then they put it into the game. At least the reward in Antibirth was better...

[T1N1->Casper_Ksta]

I hate so many challenges, they're not fun, they're a mess.
XXXXXXXXL
Ultra hard (was that the name?)
Solar System
Cat got your tongue
Guardian angel
Family man

THEY'RE NOT FUN
At least they mostly just give dumb runes, I already got Perthro and Jera so I don't wanna bloat the rune pool.

[UwU]

Originally posted by CryoSpider:

I hate so many challenges, they're not fun, they're a mess.
XXXXXXXXL
Ultra hard (was that the name?)
Solar System
Cat got your tongue
Guardian angel
Family man

THEY'RE NOT FUN
At least they mostly just give dumb runes, I already got Perthro and Jera so I don't wanna bloat the rune pool.

In repentance, all non unlocked runes can appear as rune shards. Which is a weaker version of regular runes. So you better unlock them (or never buy repentance) :)

[Death Grips]

"Seeing Double" is one of those challenges where you kind of just have to throw yourself at it repeatedly and hope for the best. You need to luck out with some good boss drops, Devil/Angel Rooms, Shops, and secrets. It is one of the more luck based challenges in the game.

[Dark Bison]

This challenge was horrible before the recent patch, would run into rooms that were beyond impossible to get through. Post patch it is very doable now with there not being super broken/utter bs rooms anymore. Pre patch you would constantly get rooms with over 30 to 40 tanky enemies that overwhelmed your characters who had base damage or you would get rooms in the depths with four bosses inside normal-sized rooms with no damage upgrades.
Now it seems as if they just turned the difficulty of the challenge to normal mode and did away with some room types that spawn an unholy amount of enemies.

[Coach's Coach]

Originally posted by Death Grips:

"Seeing Double" is one of those challenges where you kind of just have to throw yourself at it repeatedly and hope for the best. You need to luck out with some good boss drops, Devil/Angel Rooms, Shops, and secrets. It is one of the more luck based challenges in the game.

That repetition is tantamount to rouge-like or rouge-lite games. You already look for runs over and over. The challenges are simply that - CHALLENGES! Anybody complaining so much about this needs to realize that fact. It is meant to be hard. Maybe you need to focus better. Maybe you just won't be able to beat it. That's life.

Every time you play you are training your brain. You get better with each attempt. Will you succeed and surpass the challenges, or falter and whine on Steam discussion forums?

[Death Grips]

Originally posted by Coach's Coach:

Originally posted by Death Grips:

"Seeing Double" is one of those challenges where you kind of just have to throw yourself at it repeatedly and hope for the best. You need to luck out with some good boss drops, Devil/Angel Rooms, Shops, and secrets. It is one of the more luck based challenges in the game.

That repetition is tantamount to rouge-like or rouge-lite games. You already look for runs over and over. The challenges are simply that - CHALLENGES! Anybody complaining so much about this needs to realize that fact. It is meant to be hard. Maybe you need to focus better. Maybe you just won't be able to beat it. That's life.

Every time you play you are training your brain. You get better with each attempt. Will you succeed and surpass the challenges, or falter and whine on Steam discussion forums?

"Seeing Double" was definitely a bull-s h i t oriented challenge compared to other ones. You would quite often get rooms where damage was impossible to avoid. Apparently it got patched in a recent update, but my only experience with it was clearing it pre-patch.

[Junior]

Originally posted by Volodya Walrus:

Originally posted by CryoSpider:

I hate so many challenges, they're not fun, they're a mess.
XXXXXXXXL
Ultra hard (was that the name?)
Solar System
Cat got your tongue
Guardian angel
Family man

THEY'RE NOT FUN
At least they mostly just give dumb runes, I already got Perthro and Jera so I don't wanna bloat the rune pool.

In repentance, all non unlocked runes can appear as rune shards. Which is a weaker version of regular runes. So you better unlock them (or never buy repentance) :)

the shards was added to balance the game and to prevent exploit not purchasing it is literally choosing to cheat and play a unpatched unbalanced version.....

[Korkowicania]

that was one of the easiest challenges in this dlc :c

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Korkowicania:

that was one of the easiest challenges in this dlc :c

Huh? Scat Man was accidentally trivialized by the existence of the Oh Crap transformation (it was ported directly from Antibirth). "Delete This" and Cantripped are so weird that you can't even really measure them by normal metrics, Baptism by Fire and Isaac's Awakening are only remotely a struggle at the absolute end boss (and in the former case only if you haven't saved enough ammunition to kill him)... A regular run with Jacob & Esau is harder than half the new challenges, and Seeing Double is harder than that.

[Korkowicania]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

Originally posted by Korkowicania:

that was one of the easiest challenges in this dlc :c

Huh? Scat Man was accidentally trivialized by the existence of the Oh Crap transformation (it was ported directly from Antibirth). "Delete This" and Cantripped are so weird that you can't even really measure them by normal metrics, Baptism by Fire and Isaac's Awakening are only remotely a struggle at the absolute end boss (and in the former case only if you haven't saved enough ammunition to kill him)... A regular run with Jacob & Esau is harder than half the new challenges, and Seeing Double is harder than that.

try hot potato, that was hardest challenge for me, seeing double is very short and ends with finding the bible

[orian34]

Seeing double is simply that, a challenge.

[Sirius]

Originally posted by orian34:

Seeing double is simply that, a challenge.

And not a very well designed one as the challenging part comes from unavoidable or nigh unavoidable enemy formations.

[T1N1->Casper_Ksta]

Originally posted by Coach's Coach:

Originally posted by Death Grips:

"Seeing Double" is one of those challenges where you kind of just have to throw yourself at it repeatedly and hope for the best. You need to luck out with some good boss drops, Devil/Angel Rooms, Shops, and secrets. It is one of the more luck based challenges in the game.

That repetition is tantamount to rouge-like or rouge-lite games. You already look for runs over and over. The challenges are simply that - CHALLENGES! Anybody complaining so much about this needs to realize that fact. It is meant to be hard. Maybe you need to focus better. Maybe you just won't be able to beat it. That's life.

Every time you play you are training your brain. You get better with each attempt. Will you succeed and surpass the challenges, or falter and whine on Steam discussion forums?

Except regular run's design philosophy isn't perfect either.
Isaac's problem is that it's completely boring if you're underpowered, the game is only fun if you have fun items, that's why I reset Basement I a lot even though I can get somewhat good streaks
Seeing Double amplifies this problem, firstly, the enemies overpower you more easily, the threshold for being fun rises so there's less fun in that, lastly, the worst offender, you get less items, there's just not much fun playing Isaac with few items, at least not with "average and maybe somewhat above luck", those two problems synergize in the worst way to offer a boring and painfull experience.
Good games have sky-high highs and inferno-low lows, this is not it, this challenge is not-even-high highs and panfully-low lows.
You are glorifying mediocre game design.

[T1N1->Casper_Ksta]

Originally posted by Volodya Walrus:

Originally posted by CryoSpider:

I hate so many challenges, they're not fun, they're a mess.
XXXXXXXXL
Ultra hard (was that the name?)
Solar System
Cat got your tongue
Guardian angel
Family man

THEY'RE NOT FUN
At least they mostly just give dumb runes, I already got Perthro and Jera so I don't wanna bloat the rune pool.

In repentance, all non unlocked runes can appear as rune shards. Which is a weaker version of regular runes. So you better unlock them (or never buy repentance) :)

Oh I forgot.