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So, legit question, what does Afterbirth+ add to the game that is actually worthwhile? Afterbirth did have a lot of bullshit at launch, but that bullshit was worth suffering through because it added
Afterbirth+, by contrast, adds even more bullshit, but to offset that, it only has
There just doesn't seem to be enough good to offset the bad in this case. The word that keeps coming up in my mind when I think about Afterbirth+ is lazy. There seems to be very little new content and what new content does exist seems very uninspired and tacked on. The portals, especially, just strike me as the laziest possible 'enemy' you could come up with, one that completely breaks with the base game's aesthetic (before, Isaac enemies were all current or former 'living' things, even the skellingtons and spooky ghosts). All the 'new' stuff is so underwhelming that I can't help but wonder; what were they doing with all the dev time they spent on it? Is mod support really that hard to implement? How can it be when there were already extensive mods to the game before it even came out? Add that to the fact that we also have Antibirth, which not only adds a bunch of new stuff, but seems to have, like, design incorporated into it. The alt floors are harder, but they always give you a choice in your item rooms. The alt enemies are harder too, but in ways that are unique that almost always feature a 'trick' or weakness you can exploit. Take the enemies in the mines that shoot bomb flies. They have a lot of health, but they also create bombs that can be hit back at them with your tears. The idea is pretty clearly for you to use those bombs against them, and while it's not always easy, it's usually doable. Another cool one is the stone sliding poops; they have a lot of health, but every time they slide into a wall, they damage themselves. After three or so slides, they split automatically, so you can either take them on directly if you have enough damage, or just avoid them until they destroy themselves. It's not perfectly balanced by any means, but it's clearly a passion project with a ton of work put into it. New assets, new music, new enemies, new floors, new characters with new mechanics, new items that have new synergies with existing items (Eye of the Occult + Brimstone is cool as gently caress), etc. And not only is the stuff in it cool, but the devs made sure that all the cool stuff fit in with the existing Isaac aesthetic while also being unique in and of itself. You can accuse Antibirth of being many things, but lazy or uninspired are absolutely not among them. And Antibirth is free, while Afterbirth+ costs money. I just... I don't understand how the actual Isaac devs could get it this wrong. 
Spergatory fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 16:04
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Spergatory posted:[*] official mod support "Only" That by itself seems pretty important!
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Jan 5, 2017 16:21
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Supremezero posted:"Only" Yeah. It is actually "modding support tools DLC", along with a bunch of other stuff that maybe should be more "peripheral" and have less impact to the game's bullshit level. Also, they have said something about monthly updates with community mods integration(?) or something along those lines...
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Jan 5, 2017 16:27
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Supremezero posted:"Only" Seemed a lot more important before antibirth came out. Seems like the modablity of this game is doing just fine without mod tools.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:31
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There's a lot of unique new items and most of the ones that play on existing effects are fine to play with too. People keep saying the items seem uninspired but I'm not seeing it.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:36
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I'm gonna stick with Antibirth and pass up on Afterbirth+ at least for now. I'll have to see how the Antibirth integration into the Afterbirth content works out and whether the new bosses will be changed to be more reasonable (ie. they can conceivably be beaten with the Lost and have reduced HP pools/scaling).
Connoisseur fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 16:47
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Supremezero posted:"Only" It would if, as I already mentioned, there wasn't already a ton of Isaac mods, with at least one widely-known full-conversion/massive expansion.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:49
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I think I've just overplayed the game because I'm not getting into this at all, the new items are interesting but I have no motivation to slog through the hard new greed mode or to do delirium with all the characters. The super duper final ending still confused me some, maybe I'm a big idiot since it shows the story in the clearest way possible but he clearly, beyond a doubt suffocated to death, but also is running away over the hill in the last shot? Indicating the two paths you can take?
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Jan 5, 2017 16:51
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Irony Be My Shield posted:There's a lot of unique new items and most of the ones that play on existing effects are fine to play with too. People keep saying the items seem uninspired but I'm not seeing it. It's just leaning a bit too much on tear effects and red health sacrifice. Then again I feel like Afterbirth wasn't THAT different, it just had more items.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:58
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Spergatory posted:Afterbirth+, by contrast, adds even more bullshit, but to offset that, it only has [list] I'm not a true platinum god but this seemed like hyperbole as I checked the items over and counted about 10 that were repeats.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:14
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Princeps32 posted:I think I've just overplayed the game because I'm not getting into this at all, the new items are interesting but I have no motivation to slog through the hard new greed mode or to do delirium with all the characters. The super duper final ending still confused me some, maybe I'm a big idiot since it shows the story in the clearest way possible but he clearly, beyond a doubt suffocated to death, but also is running away over the hill in the last shot? Indicating the two paths you can take? Edmond has always said isaac dies in the toy box. Imagining his toys as weapons to defeat his enemies, then imagining she's right and he is a demon, then beginning to die and dream of heaven and hell, and now flashing back over his life as he becomes delirious. I don't think he really is outside on a hill, he's just dead and free now. I wouldn't even say it's meant to be that he's a literal ghost, that is just how stuff always shows "he's free now".
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Jan 5, 2017 17:23
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Binding of Isaac AB+ mod but it's four player co-op and everyone is Robbie Rotten (stingy is ultra greed)
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Jan 5, 2017 17:49
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I'm curious to see what are bugs and what things are on purpose with the bugfix update. The half soul heart not working like sticky nickels seems like a mistake.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:50
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I'll be surprised if Void keeps working with single use items. It seems way too good with diplo or pandora's box.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:53
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I actually meant the other character, it sounds very fiddly and possibly more annoying than Isaac's Heart. A character requiring a lot of programming work and a character being fun to play are not the same thing. I've had no problem with them. They might be one of my favorite characters, actually, since you basically start with 20/20 and can do some goofy stuff. Their speed stat is shared, so it's easy to keep them together most of the time, and you can hold down the drop key to make one stand still, which lets you do stuff like take both items from double item rooms simultaneously. It does make flight a really bad trait to take, which is interesting.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:57
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Carecat posted:I'm not a true platinum god but this seemed like hyperbole as I checked the items over and counted about 10 that were repeats. Let me see if I can list them out...
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Jan 5, 2017 18:05
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a - just like b, but different
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Jan 5, 2017 18:07
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Zo posted:a - just like b, but with extremely marginal differences that allow you to technically count it as a new thing ftfy
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Jan 5, 2017 18:11
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Spergatory posted:ftfy nah like half of those are just plain different, sorry for your broken brain?
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Jan 5, 2017 18:12
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If they're different enough to count as exciting and fun new items for you, then good for you for being super easy to please, I guess. Hey, I have this exciting new thing I'd like to sell you, it's called Happy Money. It's like regular money, but way cooler, because I drew a smiley face on it! And I've got a great deal for you-- I'll sell you one Happy Dollar for two of your boring old regular dollars. It's a steal, man. I mean, let's not just poo poo on Afterbirth+. Some of the new items are cool! Sulphuric Acid is a cool effect that lets tears sometimes break rocks and doors and walls. That's something they couldn't really do before! The Dog Tooth item that howls when there are secret rooms and trapdoors is cool too-- there wasn't an item that highlights trap doors before. Booger Tears is a great new effect. And a lot of this is subjective; Parasitoid is a combination of existing effects (Mulligan, Infested 2, Spider Bite, Tough Love), but the combination is enough for me to appreciate it as its own thing rather than just a slight variation of something I have already seen. It's not that Afterbirth+ doesn't have anything worthwhile, it's that it doesn't have much, and it doesn't have enough to justify the terrible bullshit that it also includes (empty item rooms, mimic chests, horrible new bosses, the lazy remix final floor, the godawful final boss that can and will teleport on top of you and launch screen-spanning beams in a single frame). Spergatory fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 18:23
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Whenever I try to play Afterbirth+ I end up quitting because I'm rolling my eyes so hard it starts to hurt  The stone fatties, monster spawners, The Blastocyst Room™, unavoidable damage after unavoidable damage. And then I pick up a new item and it's like "oh, it's literally just one of the old items but it drops a random trinket on pickup  ". Everything feels cheap and I legitimately think Antibirth feels more "official" than this expansion.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:30
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I thought Afterbirth+ was a free expansion for the normal dlc.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:35
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I don't understand the complaints about new items having old effects minus or plus another thing. It feels like it'd give more shots and finding synergies, and I'd take duplicatish items, providing they're decent since less chances to find spacebar items I hate is a plus. Also, items added in Wrath of the Lamb, Rebirth and Afterbirth can probably be described in similar ways. I'd be curious to see the ratios of totally unique among those. The base game had like 5 different "gives you 1 hp" items and like 5 more "gives you 1 hp and something else" 
Oxyclean fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 18:37
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:It feels weird that the last boss isn't "god". The last ending implies that Isaac made literally everything up and his mom was just some nice if not sad lady so fighting god might not of gelled well with that reveal.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:44
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Oxyclean posted:I don't understand the complaints about new items having old effects minus or plus another thing. It feels like it'd give more shots and finding synergies, and I'd take duplicatish items, providing they're decent since less chances to find spacebar items I hate is a plus. That's part of the problem, really. The item pools are already fairly diluted with repeats. We don't really need more. When you play an expansion, you want to see new content. Yet there are countless times in AB+ where I pick up a new item all excited, wondering "oooh, what does this do?  " only to later find out and be like "oh. " I'd rather have a smaller number of unique items that do interesting things and have cool synergies, than a bunch of Remixes cluttering up the already-cluttered pools.It'd be different if AB+ also fixed/added a bunch of synergies like AB did, but I haven't seen anything new so far.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:52
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Having only 30% of items being loose variations on an extremely large starting item pool actually seems like a very good rate. I imagine previous expansions had similar or higher rates (even the original game had quite a few items that did similar things). Also all of those items seem like good additions to me. I'd much rather have solid variations on existing items than lots of gimmicky trash that dilutes the pool. I also find some of those questionable, eg Wait What? has a different cooldown and effect to Mega Bean. Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 18:58
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Yeah, I don't think the ratio for Afterbirth was any different, and I'm not sure where Antibirth lands. Eventually you just hit a game design wall unless you do a complete revamp, and AB+ IS a bit of a rushed affair because wasn't it supposed to be just the mod tool until Edward decided "nah, it's an expansion"?
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Jan 5, 2017 19:08
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Spergatory posted:Let me see if I can list them out... Tell us more about how less than 30% of the new items can be directly compared to the 436 that already existed, and why this is bad. While you're at it, tell us how you would do it better. There are plenty of valid criticisms of AB+, and some of them are being addressed already. Stop making up more so you can keep justifying hating on it.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:20
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In retrospect, a lot of the cool stuff in Afterbirth wasn't even new items, but a significant change in how items worked together. Like picking up Triple Shot and Quad Shot; in Rebirth, they overrode each other. In Afterbirth, they stacked, giving you Septuple Shot. Synergies make the game for me, even if a lot of them are rare, they're something to look forward to and really enjoy when they arise. They add a real sense of discovery and possibility that keeps you playing and wanting to see more. Rapid-firing octuple face-lasers that bounce around the room and curve to hit enemies is a pretty unique and memorable experience.  And to be fair, there are a lot of questions that have yet to be answered about AB+ items. Like, for example, do Mom's Purse and Belly Button stack? Can I hold three trinkets if I get both? If not, that's dumb, but if so, that's awesome. I want to see if any of the AB+ stuff had cool synergies, but a lot of it seems like it's just kinda there for the sake of being there.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:22
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Jedit posted:Tell us more about how less than 30% of the new items can be directly compared to the 436 that already existed, and why this is bad. While you're at it, tell us how you would do it better. Literally just don't include them in the game. That's it. That's what I would've changed. Don't give people poo poo that they already have. Don't inflate your 'new item' count and dilute the item pools with barely-changed reskins of existing items. That's all.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:28
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The items listed aren't reskins though, they just make use of existing effects in different ways. Getting the Tammy's Head effect on-hit is actually very different in practice than using it once per room. Having fire for tears is very different to having it on a bad spacebar item. And so on.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:40
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So I didnt see this in the op, but is there a reason Afterbirth and Afterbirth+ both exist? I mean if i wanted the "complete experience" would I just need BOI rebirth and afterbirth+?
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Jan 5, 2017 19:41
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strategery posted:So I didnt see this in the op, but is there a reason Afterbirth and Afterbirth+ both exist? I mean if i wanted the "complete experience" would I just need BOI rebirth and afterbirth+? Afterbirth+ is an add-on for Afterbirth, which itself is DLC to the base game, BoI: Rebirth. To play AB+ you need Afterbirth.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:56
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https://twitter.com/edmundmcmillen/status/817072299975131136 Seriously why is he so intent on ruining Isaac?
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Jan 5, 2017 20:03
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Sounds good.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:04
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I won't be the least bit surprised if sister vis retains 2x800 hp and they only nerf the brimstone and maybe slow down the rolling mechanic. Probably reading too far into his words but I doubt hp of anything is going to be modified. Edit: and like past updates I doubt there's a changelog so hurray to suffer more bullshit to remotely know what is "balanced" in Ed's brain. flyboi fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 20:06
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Okay, I'll hold off on buying AB+ and try antibirth for now. i tried it, but it crashes when i start a game. I uninstalled Afterbirth by going into the properties > DLC menu and unchecking it. I also installed it to a folder on my desktop because there was no default destination and the website didn't say where to put it.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:10
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Supremezero posted:"Only" Or it would be if the mods had any proper documentation and could actually be used by normal players. As it stands, people are having to kind of bash their heads against things until they work out how to use them and most players will never make anything because it would require knowledge of coding to do it. Everything is too complex for the average player of Isaac to ever make a mod with. I was just hoping for something to make custom challenge maps with, like that thing that existed for Rebirth/Afterbirth. Presumably it'll eventually update for AB+ but it still won't be official so what's the point? Without a centralized place to show off what you do and go "Hey look at this/these!" you'll basically only be able to play your own stuff. Being able to release, say, a collection of 5 challenge maps as a pack would've been a cool little thing to be able to do. flyboi posted:https://twitter.com/edmundmcmillen/status/817072299975131136 Because he's clearly sick of the series and wants to move on, so he's sabotaging the gently caress out of it so people quit asking him to make more? Either that or he's just that drat stupid. Take your pick.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:31
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flyboi posted:I won't be the least bit surprised if sister vis retains 2x800 hp and they only nerf the brimstone and maybe slow down the rolling mechanic. Probably reading too far into his words but I doubt hp of anything is going to be modified.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:57
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gently caress I can't launch the game now... Anyone else have a problem where the game just won't start?
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Jan 5, 2017 21:01
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