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Zain
Dec 6, 2009

It's only forever, not long at all

CzarChasm posted:

Disappointed that the boss' name is "Gorgun" and not "Meduzi"

:suspense: Yes please... So sad this isn't the name now.


berryjon posted:

I got to admit, I loved how Scruffy's opinion of the Pox' changed over the video. At first he was dismissive of it, with nothing better to use, but by the end, he was practically swearing by it. ;)

I was expecting the Shotgun and the Pox to be munched though just to see for something else.

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Vorpal Cat
Mar 19, 2009

Oh god what did I just post?

CzarChasm posted:

Disappointed that the boss' name is "Gorgun" and not "Meduzi"

Your not the only one, the devs confirmed during one of the launch streams that actually was her name in beta which is why she uses dual Uzis. But apparently they decided to change it for reasons that are beyond me, so now we're stuck with the inferior version.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Her name is still Meduzi, guys. Her title is Gorgun. From the Ammonomicon:

quote:

The Gorgun, Meduzi, has been the end of many novice Gungeoneers.

Her presence can temporarily turn firing mechanisms to stone, and her shrieks call forth bullets from beyond the Curtain.

Trick Question
Apr 9, 2007


GeneralYeti posted:

Don't pick up keys until you've reached the shop. Even if one spawns, as long as you don't pick it up the shop is guaranteed to have a key for sale. Opening chests isn't a problem.

Unless the shop is locked.

Valgaav
Feb 21, 2012
The Warp? If we didn't know they played 40k before...

Any chance of seeing a Wallmonger fight without you cheesing it with fire immunity? That's been a real roadblock.

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻



Valgaav posted:

The Warp? If we didn't know they played 40k before...

Any chance of seeing a Wallmonger fight without you cheesing it with fire immunity? That's been a real roadblock.

Really? I'd say it is the easiest of the Hollow. You can dodge through all its attacks and they follow a pretty distinct pattern.

Edit: Sorry, in retrospect that sounds really elitist. What do you find hard about it?

Blacksuit
Oct 9, 2012
The big difference I see between Isaac and really most other rougelikes is that Isaac seems to be built on contempt for the player. It's a mean, ugly setting full of mean, ugly things, and loads of items and synergies that actively cripple the run. There's no in-game source of information about what any of the items do, even after the fact. Furthermore, Isaac starts the player off in what feels like a weakened state, then demands luck just to survive, or at least stop the game from being tedious. EtG is far kinder. It has friendly NPCs, a sense of humor, and a steady curve. EtG lets the player feel at least capable of surviving the first floor without upgrades and even the toughest, most crowded rooms go by at a satisfyingly fast pace.

Ultimately, I think that the joy of playing Isaac isn't actually playing Isaac, but getting the right upgrades to tear the game to pieces after countless runs of abject cruelty. The fun of EtG is in the playing itself, with frustration stemming from RNG problems and a questionable rewards system.

dscruffy1
Nov 22, 2007

Look out!
Nap Ghost

Valgaav posted:

Any chance of seeing a Wallmonger fight without you cheesing it with fire immunity? That's been a real roadblock.

I'm sure I'll run into it a few more times, I will almost definitely not have fire immunity next time. The trick for Wallmonger without fire immunity during that phase is to either run through the fire and roll it out or to roll through the giant wall of bullets. Both are entirely possible! Also contrary to what Samovar says, I think Kill Pillars are the easiest floor 4 boss.

As far as the keys and brown chests, the reason I say that is that brown chests usually contain crap and it's not worth using a key on it. You may be REALLY HURTING for a gun but that gun could be the unfinished gun, or the mega douser. You can make use of it, sure, but something you will rarely have in a run is more keys than you need.

e: oh hey new avatar. Weeeeeird. Thanks, someone!

Agent Interrobang
Mar 27, 2010

sugar & spice & psychoactive mushrooms

Blacksuit posted:

Ultimately, I think that the joy of playing Isaac isn't actually playing Isaac, but getting the right upgrades to tear the game to pieces after countless runs of abject cruelty. The fun of EtG is in the playing itself, with frustration stemming from RNG problems and a questionable rewards system.

This is kinda where I'm at. How many Isaac runs begin and end with 'well, my first treasure sucked so I'm restarting the floor'? While skilled play of Isaac is eminently possible, most wins rely upon the RNG being kind to you. If you just never get any damage, fire-rate-up, or other decent upgrades, it becomes an unfun slog, especially given how many items can actively penalize you for picking them up unawares. By contrast, Enter The Gungeon is stingier about HOW it gives you items, but items are always improvements, or at least don't penalize you for picking them up. Especially since you can just drop ones you don't like, a convenience Isaac does not have. And the challenge of Enter The Gungeon feels a lot more fair because even if you get unlucky and get absolutely nothing of worth, you CAN still beat the game with the default pistols without too much trouble as long as you play smart. I mean, you've got a dodge-roll that has i-frames, screen-clear bombs that replenish every floor, half the characters start out with a bonus weapon... it's not THAT cruel, nor is it anywhere near as completely down-to-chance as a given Isaac run.

I do think taking an armor hit in a boss fight shouldn't count for Master Chamber qualification, though. That part actually is kinda dumb.

White Coke
May 29, 2015

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

Really what's weird to me is that keys aren't considered precious drops that R.R. would steal like the ammo boxes, there may be relatively bad guns but if they're better than the sidearm in any way besides marking secret walls that's still another ammo pool so I'd have thought either both would be precious or neither of them would be.

Maybe the R. R. doesn't take keys because he's trying to find the shop first?

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015

Agent Interrobang posted:

I do think taking an armor hit in a boss fight shouldn't count for Master Chamber qualification, though. That part actually is kinda dumb.

Word.

pumpinglemma
Apr 28, 2009

DD: Fondly regard abomination.

You want to talk about Isaac being an rear end in a top hat, the really egregious thing is the curses. Every time you start a new level, there's a random chance you get hit with one. Curse of the Lost means you have to get out pencil and paper and make your own map. Curse of the Maze means you sometimes get teleported into a room you've already visited and sometimes rooms switch around. Curse of Darkness means you have to increase your gamma settings. Curse of the Blind means that you no longer know what any of the items you're about to pick up are, and there's a small but significant chance any one of them could end your run. All of them just dick you over in ways that range from petty and obnoxious to randomly game-ending, and if you want to get all the unlocks then you have to play on hard mode where they're much more common. They're the one thing I can think of that should just straight up not be in the game.

pumpinglemma fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jan 3, 2017

Agent355
Jul 26, 2011


I've got 100+ hours in both gungeon and isaac and my hot take is that my worst gungeon run is still better than my worst isaac run.

The base pistol is 100% capable of clearing the first 2 floors easily (except the pilot who has the most horrible gun ever), and even after that I'll regularly keep using it to clean up later rooms after the harder enemies have been eliminated.

The bosses are horrible bullet sponges if you're stuck with only trash level guns but that is a really rare occurrence and even then they still feel more fun than isaac bosses in the same scenario.

I clear the dragun most runs in gungeon and don't bother resetting the first floor if I don't get anything good, while in isaac I"ll straight up reset forever until I get an A-tier drop from the first secret room because even the first floor can be an unfun slog. I've quit runs before I found the secret room just because I got into a very large room with 12 spider enemies and I didn't feel like spending 90 seconds chasing them down.

Also I didn't know about the key/shopkeeper interaction until I saw this video and the 'don't open brown chests' is hardly some super secret top level strat, you'll realize after a few runs that keys are rare and valuable and brown chests generally contain junk. It won't take long until you decide it's better to save your keys for chests more likely to give you good rewards.

I was real surprised to find out that the internet seems to take so many issues with gungeon as I had nothing but fun when I played it. I still haven't quite unlocked everything, the hunter quests we'll see later in the LP I'm assuming are complete horrible garbage and never should've been implemented as they are, but I definitely played through it enough and still feel like it has the most fair runs of this sort of roguelike.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

I think some of it is due to the perceptions of someone who is getting frustrated a couple of hours in vs someone who has played for dozens of hours. Once you reach the level of play dscruffy1's on the game is fundamentally different, same with Isaac. I assume (it's been a while since I played) that the very early experience of playing Isaac is still a bit better (in the least) than he very early experience of playing Gungeon; I certainly remember managing to make it far further (relatively speaking) in Isaac vs what my overall experience in Gungeon was like, like very reasonably clearing the first 2 or 3 floors almost every time in Issac an hour or two in vs being stuck on 1 and sometimes 2 in Gungeon several hours later. :shrug:

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011
I think it's easiest to say both games have their issues; they're incredibly different games to me. Isaac is typically incremental upgrades, Gungeon is massive power swings as you find a really good gun, subsequently run out of ammo, and don't find any ammo boxes, meanwhile enemy health continues to inflate for some godawful reason so your back up poo poo gun is now even shittier and gently caress this game is luck based fun.

Isaac resolves quicker, there are few outright trash items (Tiny Planet and Soymilk not withstanding) and is much faster paced.

Like for real I would like gungeon so much more if they just chopped enemy health down a fair amount. I get really bored with slogs. Like i'm not the greatest at it but I have beaten it a few times. I just don't have the patience to deal with it a lot of the time, so my runs end early

Agent355
Jul 26, 2011


I find isaac way more of a slog than gungeon, enemies on the first floor go down in only 3 bullets and only 4 bullets on the second floor. The pistol is more than capable of handling that. There are a few tougher enemies, the big knight dudes on the first floor take 20 shots right off the bat I think, but thats about it.

Enemies in isaac take more than 3 shots from the get go and you shoot slower and it's harder to control/can't shoot diagonally so you spend longer in each room even though the rooms are smaller.

I think the biggest thing is people undervaluing the pistol. Especially the better pistols like the marine's and the criminals (one of which is very accurate and holds more bullets, the other of which has much higher dps at the cost of needing to be closer because of it's inaccurate nature) which I regularly use just to preserve ammo of the more valuable guns.

I can't speak for how other people experienced the early game of gungeon but my experience wasn't like scruffy's. I didn't clear the dragun on my tenth run, I'm pretty sure I didn't even SEE the dragun for 20+ hours of playtime, but I made incremental progress constantly, I was regularly getting the master round for the first floor before I was reliably beating the third floor and unlocking guns all the while.

Just the exploration of not knowing what crazy gun you're going to find next made the game more than fun enough while I was exploring.

And while I'm sure this is not an opinion many people share after playing gungeon I have no more desire to play BoI. If I want to play a randomly generated run around and explore/shoot things I'm going to play gungeon. Sure they are very different in alot of ways but at the end of the day I'd rather never feel pressured to reset on the first floor and not experience that absolutely insanity inducing slog that late game isaac becomes if you haven't found anything good.

Skippy Granola
Sep 3, 2011

It's not what it looks like.
Look at all these millennials assuming that they're owed success.

Sometimes you just gotta pull yourself up by your bandoliers and put in an honest day's work.

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻



Agent355 posted:

And while I'm sure this is not an opinion many people share after playing gungeon I have no more desire to play BoI. If I want to play a randomly generated run around and explore/shoot things I'm going to play gungeon. Sure they are very different in alot of ways but at the end of the day I'd rather never feel pressured to reset on the first floor and not experience that absolutely insanity inducing slog that late game isaac becomes if you haven't found anything good.

Definitely true for me. The teleporters help with that immensely.

It's odd, really. Of all the guns that are in this game, they didn't include the fleshgun from eXistenZ, which I thought would be damned high on the list.

RedWraith
Feb 20, 2013

Agent355 posted:

I find isaac way more of a slog than gungeon, enemies on the first floor go down in only 3 bullets and only 4 bullets on the second floor. The pistol is more than capable of handling that. There are a few tougher enemies, the big knight dudes on the first floor take 20 shots right off the bat I think, but thats about it.

Yes. A Gungeon run is more like 'Well, I've got an hour to waste' and Isaac is more like 'Ugggh there goes my evening'. It also doesn't "hurt" as much getting killed in Gungeon because wherever you are it never feels that far from the start. It's "only" five floors after all. In comparison failing an Isaac run on a later level often feels like gambling away your firstborn.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

Graphics in roguelikes?! In my days you climbed a hill of ASCI and learned to interpret what they meant, damnit!

Trick Question
Apr 9, 2007


RedWraith posted:

Yes. A Gungeon run is more like 'Well, I've got an hour to waste' and Isaac is more like 'Ugggh there goes my evening'. It also doesn't "hurt" as much getting killed in Gungeon because wherever you are it never feels that far from the start. It's "only" five floors after all. In comparison failing an Isaac run on a later level often feels like gambling away your firstborn.

This is the opposite of my experience. An isaac run I can finish in, like, half an hour if I find good items, forty minutes if it's bad. Most gungeon runs I've seen online are at least an hour minimum.

I also don't think it's fair to complain about isaac loving you if you don't know what items do beforehand when gungeon does the same, but permanently; if you don't look at a wiki and accidentally buy a piece of garbage with your hegemony credits, that garbage is in your loot tables forever. Isaac adds trash to you loot table, too, but at least you didn't have to buy it with an extremely limited pool of trash sight-unseen.

Isaac will also occasionally give you red hearts, while empty heart containers in gungeon are basically a running total of how many times you've hosed up and serve no other purpose.

For reference, I've played Gungeon for like... I think 50 hours but steam says 16? Anyway, never made it past the fourth floor.

...I do wonder if the reason I'm negative towards this game but not Isaac is because I played Nuclear Throne between those two and feel that NT is sort of the platonic ideal of this sort of game.

RedWraith
Feb 20, 2013
Ok, I need sigificantly longer for an Isaac run. It's at least 90 mins for me I think.

Trick Question posted:

Isaac will also occasionally give you red hearts, while empty heart containers in gungeon are basically a running total of how many times you've hosed up and serve no other purpose.

Yes. Can you even get health upgrades besides beating bosses flawlessly? That's kinda annoying. Oh you got the boss down to a T and don't need additional health at all? Have some additional health!

I love the dodge roll though.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Yes, there are items that can give you HP that are not the Master Rounds, they're just not nearly as common as health ups are in Isaac.

Trick Question
Apr 9, 2007


I'm not even talking about permanent health ups, I'm just talking about health. Granted, health ups aren't really more valuable than straight health in this game.

ZenVulgarity
Oct 9, 2012

I made the hat by transforming my zen

Trick Question posted:

I'm not even talking about permanent health ups, I'm just talking about health. Granted, health ups aren't really more valuable than straight health in this game.

I'd pay good money for DLC

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


ZenVulgarity posted:

I'd pay good money for DLC

Good thing it's coming to you for free later this year. With an additional boss on the floor with only 2, a few balance changes and some new items. Also pasts for the secret characters

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Trick Question posted:

I'm not even talking about permanent health ups, I'm just talking about health. Granted, health ups aren't really more valuable than straight health in this game.

While red hearts aren't nearly as prevalent as they are in Isaac, you definitely get them as drops and from certain items in Gungeon.

Trick Question
Apr 9, 2007


senrath posted:

While red hearts aren't nearly as prevalent as they are in Isaac, you definitely get them as drops and from certain items in Gungeon.

Oh I'm sure they technically can drop. I'm sure it's technically possible to play this game without getting resource hosed, but I've never had it happen.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


I think you're drastically overemphasizing how many times you've gotten hosed over in Gungeon vs how often it happens in Isaac.

Fabricated
Apr 9, 2007

Living the Dream
The "only get health upgrades when you beat bosses without getting hit" thing seems kinda asinine.

Trick Question
Apr 9, 2007


senrath posted:

I think you're drastically overemphasizing how many times you've gotten hosed over in Gungeon vs how often it happens in Isaac.

Well, I can't say anything to that other than "I think you're wrong, I think I have gotten hosed over repeatedly." I'm not gonna record my runs to prove you wrong.

Morbidmind
Feb 24, 2013
The real bullshit of Gungeon is hitting 10 curse when you didn't even know there was a curse stat.

Vorpal Cat
Mar 19, 2009

Oh god what did I just post?
There are passives from regular chest drops that can give you more health, and you can unlock more in the store. That's what all those heart bottle and hear lunchbox items due. There's even at least one gun that gives you an extra heart as long as its in your inventory. Once you unlock a few get good at flawlessness the first floor bosses not having enough max health isn't really a big problem anymore.

Morbidmind posted:

The real bullshit of Gungeon is hitting 10 curse when you didn't even know there was a curse stat.

To be fair the creepy skulls over your head whenever you pick up a cursed item are at least a hint that something is off about those items. And you should start seeing tons of jammed enemies long before you hit 10 curse. Unless you suddenly decided to go on a shopping spree at Cursilla's and get 7.5+ curse all in go.

Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jan 4, 2017

GeneralYeti
Jul 22, 2012

Look at this smug broken asshole.

Vorpal Cat posted:

To be fair the creepy skulls over your head whenever you pick up a cursed item are at least a hint that something is off about those items. And you should start seeing tons of jammed enemies long before you hit 10 curse. Unless you suddenly decided to go on a shopping spree at Cursilla's and get 7.5+ curse all in go.

Guess what I did the first time I encounter Cursilla? :suicide:

That run didn't last long.

Ayndin
Mar 13, 2010

Having just started playing Gungeon - I'd had my eye on it for a while, but this LP + the sale finally drove me to pick it up - I'm finding myself lean towards the 'Gungeon is hard but fair' camp. I've been steadily making better progress with almost every run, and that's even with runs where I see nothing but two brown chests on floor 1 and have to go after the boss with the base gun. Granted the furthest I've made it so far is the boss of the second floor so I'm maybe not seeing all of the problem yet, but so far it seems no worse than garbage luck with drops in Isaac...which maybe isn't the best model to aspire to, but you at least have the boon of the starting weapon being pretty decent for a while in most cases.

I'll agree that maybe there should be an explanation of curses somewhere in-game, but it's only come up once for me so it doesn't seem that important?

Ashsaber
Oct 24, 2010

Deploying Swordbreakers!
College Slice
Expect to see opinions turn more towards Gungeon being more fair than Isaac for a little while at least. The latest expansion for Isaac just came out and made people ask whether the devs understood balance at all.

My thoughts on the matter of Isaac or Gungeon being more fair... I don't think I've ever hit floor 4 in Gugeon, but have over 100 hours in Isaac, so take this with a grain of salt: Gungeon gives you a dodge roll and expects you to use it constantly. Things are much more hectic, and nearly impossible to deal with unless you know when and how to use your roll (I do not have that down). Gungeon runs are long, all of Scruffy's videos so far are ~1 hour long, while my runs of Isaac are rarely more than 40 minutes unless I find a room where I can grind for loot in the chapters after the time cutoff is done (there's a boss rush where you can get extra items if you complete floor 6 within 20 minutes), and I still explore the entire floor for the floors where that matters.

I feel Isaac is more newbie friendly (before this expansion) because even if you're not the best player you can get a lucky drop that carries you through the game and allows you to unlock new stuff, while in Gungeon if you get a really amazing gun it will carry you until your ammo runs out, and then be dead weight unless you get a lucky ammo drop you can use on it. Also unlocks are largely tied to Hegemony credits, and those you only get one or two for the first boss, so if you're like me and can't reliably beat the second boss (or even the first) it takes a long rear end time to unlock a reasonable amount of anything.

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015
Well, I think I managed to unlearn not using blanks.

Now I need to unlearn over saving ammo, losing HP in room fights. :v:

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

Ashsaber posted:

Expect to see opinions turn more towards Gungeon being more fair than Isaac for a little while at least. The latest expansion for Isaac just came out and made people ask whether the devs understood balance at all.

My thoughts on the matter of Isaac or Gungeon being more fair... I don't think I've ever hit floor 4 in Gugeon, but have over 100 hours in Isaac, so take this with a grain of salt: Gungeon gives you a dodge roll and expects you to use it constantly. Things are much more hectic, and nearly impossible to deal with unless you know when and how to use your roll (I do not have that down). Gungeon runs are long, all of Scruffy's videos so far are ~1 hour long, while my runs of Isaac are rarely more than 40 minutes unless I find a room where I can grind for loot in the chapters after the time cutoff is done (there's a boss rush where you can get extra items if you complete floor 6 within 20 minutes), and I still explore the entire floor for the floors where that matters.

I feel Isaac is more newbie friendly (before this expansion) because even if you're not the best player you can get a lucky drop that carries you through the game and allows you to unlock new stuff, while in Gungeon if you get a really amazing gun it will carry you until your ammo runs out, and then be dead weight unless you get a lucky ammo drop you can use on it. Also unlocks are largely tied to Hegemony credits, and those you only get one or two for the first boss, so if you're like me and can't reliably beat the second boss (or even the first) it takes a long rear end time to unlock a reasonable amount of anything.

Everyone knows edmund mcmillen doesn't understand balance already.


Vorpal Cat posted:

There are passives from regular chest drops that can give you more health, and you can unlock more in the store. That's what all those heart bottle and hear lunchbox items due. There's even at least one gun that gives you an extra heart as long as its in your inventory. Once you unlock a few get good at flawlessness the first floor bosses not having enough max health isn't really a big problem anymore.


To be fair the creepy skulls over your head whenever you pick up a cursed item are at least a hint that something is off about those items. And you should start seeing tons of jammed enemies long before you hit 10 curse. Unless you suddenly decided to go on a shopping spree at Cursilla's and get 7.5+ curse all in go.

Extra hearts are fairly rare outside of master rounds even with a bunch unlocked. IMO extra hearts are only going to be valuable to 'bad' players by virtue of coming filled in, as health drops are fairly rare in the game.

Doopliss
Nov 3, 2012

Ayndin posted:

Granted the furthest I've made it so far is the boss of the second floor so I'm maybe not seeing all of the problem yet, but so far it seems no worse than garbage luck with drops in Isaac...
The game most definitely gets more RNG-intensive as time goes on. On floor 2 the enemy life totals are still pretty reasonable, but as you reach floor 4-5 you're looking at a full clip of your sidearm or more to kill the most basic bulletkin and about a full clip of one of the game's "decent but below average" weapons to kill a shotgunkin. Flat running out of ammo (as in, everything except your sidearm and maybe something crappy like a t-shirt launcher or gamma ray) is a pretty consistent risk, particularly since your primary source of ammo is random drops that may or may not happen. Imagine Scruffy's first run, except not finding the single most ammo-efficient room-clearer I've yet to see in the Mega Hand. I've been enjoying the game quite a bit - beat the Dragun on one occasion and came close on another - but the continuously-upscaling health can be really infuriating.

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Deceitful Penguin
Feb 16, 2011
Yeah, new BoI is terrible; I mostly just look kindly on it back when it was still in Flash.

It was a good game, that's kinda turned to poo poo

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