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The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ |OT| 200 More Hours of Bad Keeper Runs

C

Camjo-Z

Member
Is anyone else having trouble using the Pro Controller in co-op on Switch? Every time I try it, it stops working when a Joy-Con is added as second player, so I'm forced to just use two Joy-Con.

Also, is Greedier mode supposed to be an unlock or something? I saw it appear once and never again since.
 
M

mstevens

Member
I was having a lot of fun during my first few days with this, but now I'm thinking this game might not be for me. I've killed Mom's heart 4 times now so I'm doing okay, but the game seems much harder now (rooms start off with way more enemies than they used to, harder enemies, much harder first bosses, etc) and it's not being offset by better items from what I can see. In fact, my last 10 runs or so were pea-shooter runs the entire way through. It's not a lot of fun trying to kill several fast jumping spiders with the smallest, weakest tears over and over, or to go into a tiny room and be unable to kill things fast enough to avoid several projectiles in a tiny space.

I get the appeal of the game for sure, and I might push through, but this is definitely a rough patch. Two full days of getting worthless items too. I can't remember the last time I got an increase in damage, and the harder bosses are making devil's deals really rare for me now. When I do get them, they are trolls and/or I have to play with 2 or 1 hearts because I haven't gotten any hp upgrades in forever either.

edit: I could be missing something obvious. It just seems odd that I'm having much more difficulties as time goes on rather than things getting easier.
 
dickroach

dickroach

Member
mstevens said:
I was having a lot of fun during my first few days with this, but now I'm thinking this game might not be for me. I've killed Mom's heart 4 times now so I'm doing okay, but the game seems much harder now (rooms start off with way more enemies than they used to, harder enemies, much harder first bosses, etc) and it's not being offset by better items from what I can see. In fact, my last 10 runs or so were pea-shooter runs the entire way through. It's not a lot of fun trying to kill several fast jumping spiders with the smallest, weakest tears over and over, or to go into a tiny room and be unable to kill things fast enough to avoid several projectiles in a tiny space.

I get the appeal of the game for sure, and I might push through, but this is definitely a rough patch. Two full days of getting worthless items too. I can't remember the last time I got an increase in damage, and the harder bosses are making devil's deals really rare for me now. When I do get them, they are trolls and/or I have to play with 2 or 1 hearts because I haven't gotten any hp upgrades in forever either.

edit: I could be missing something obvious. It just seems odd that I'm having much more difficulties as time goes on rather than things getting easier.
Click to expand...

sounds like you're just getting shitty luck
try using Azazel for a while.
 
R

Rizzi

Member
caVOgiG.jpg
Click to expand...

When you get Gnawed Leaf and a Leech and couldn't be bothered fighting Ultra Greed, why not cheese it. :D
 
S

Spoony Bob

Member
SomewhatGroovy said:
Just started this tonight. I have no idea what is going on lol. Is the File system a joke because everyone I die I I start from zero.
Click to expand...

The files are working just fine. Depending on your progress during a run, there are items or mechanics that are unlocked that alter what you might come across in a run among other things.

Each run, you start fresh.
 
D

deoee

Member
Finally beat mom and unlocked Azazel in one run.

Had 5 minions and great devil deals :)

C73FnPKVsAAZbYw.jpg


I feel like pills are not really worth it
 
T

Tendo

Member
deoee said:
Finally beat mom and unlocked Azazel in one run.

Had 5 minions and great devil deals :)



I feel like pills are not really worth it
Click to expand...

Congrats!

And I agree on pills. As I'm learning and progressing through the game I find they have caused me more trouble than they are worth. Maybe I am just very unlucky but it seems I constantly get bad trip, tears down, health down.
 
E

Erigu

Member
Tendo said:
I agree on pills. As I'm learning and progressing through the game I find they have caused me more trouble than they are worth. Maybe I am just very unlucky but it seems I constantly get bad trip, tears down, health down.
Click to expand...
Yeah, without something like PHD, they really can suddenly fuck your run up, no matter how far you are. Not worth the risk overall.

(And yet I keep trying my luck anyway, like an idiot.)
 
T

Tendo

Member
Erigu said:
Yeah, without something like PHD, they really can suddenly fuck your run up, no matter how far you are. Not worth the risk overall.

(And yet I keep trying my luck anyway, like an idiot.)
Click to expand...

Same. "This will be the time they help! SHIT!" haha
 
M

mstevens

Member
8th mom kill was an interesting one. Got Lord of the Pit and Brimstone which is awesome of course, but earlier I had gotten some DMG down items and rolled with 1 damage tick the whole way through the game. The Mom's Heart fight was classic shoot-em-up.
 
C

Cru Jones

Member
chubigans said:
What a cool idea! Honestly though I think the damage add makes it too overpowered. The concept of a golden heart with money is solid enough I think.
Click to expand...

I disagree, without the power equals money modifier it's a pretty bland item as a 6 charge. The damage modifier only works for the room it's used in (I assume)
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
chubigans said:
What a cool idea! Honestly though I think the damage add makes it too overpowered. The concept of a golden heart with money is solid enough I think.
Click to expand...

At 99 coins, it adds about 4 damage.

Book of Belial is a 3 room charge item and adds 2 damage, along with increasing your chance of a Devil Deal.

Before the damage boost, I was going to max out your hearts as Gold Hearts, but then take them away once you leave the room. Except there's no way in the API to remove Gold Hearts, so I had to go back to the drawing board.

Cru Jones said:
I disagree, without the power equals money modifier it's a pretty bland item as a 6 charge. The damage modifier only works for the room it's used in (I assume)
Click to expand...

Yes, it's just temporary. And what a god damn chore it was to figure out how to make it only one room...

It's an Angel room only item (it doesn't even spawn in a Library, because it seemed too overpowered for a Library). And they're generally not very good, so one pretty good item in the pool seems fine.
 
F

feelingkettle

Member
Erigu said:
Yeah, without something like PHD, they really can suddenly fuck your run up, no matter how far you are. Not worth the risk overall.

(And yet I keep trying my luck anyway, like an idiot.)
Click to expand...
The nice thing about pills is that once you use it, good or bad, when you pick up that same pill, it will identify what it is.

Think of it this way...you get a bad pill, you only have to use it once. When you get a good pill (health up, pretty fly, etc.), you have the chance to get it multiple times. The chance of getting pretty fly or health up is always worth chancing it for me.
 
T

Triforce141

Member
I finally "unlocked" those portals that spawn waves of enemies on the Switch version.

What kind of pin headed idea like this got through the way it did?
 
M

Meia

Member
Tendo said:
Congrats!

And I agree on pills. As I'm learning and progressing through the game I find they have caused me more trouble than they are worth. Maybe I am just very unlucky but it seems I constantly get bad trip, tears down, health down.
Click to expand...


There are ways you can mitigate the risk, and ways to greatly benefit from pills you wouldn't think possible.


For example, a pill cannot kill you, as in it's not allowed to. If you have empty hearts and you're on your last full heart, a bad trip pill will become a Full Health pill. If you only have one red heart container and you have a Health Down pill, it will turn into a Health Up pill. If you use a Hematemesis pill in a cathedral super secret room that has one half eternal heart, it spawns more half eternal hearts around you. You can either hold onto pills until you're ready to take the risk, or just roll the dice whenever you pick up one.


But yeah, nothing you can do about the tears/range down ones, except to know that your "tears" stat can only go up so much and caps fairly easily as it is. I've also had runs where I've capped my tears stat purely from pills. Having done largely everything in the game at this point, I just pop pills whenever I pick one up now for the most part.
 
K

Ketch

Member
made it to mom's heart twice in a row, but i never have enough health to live through the bullet hell. I need to be less greedy with the early game devil deals because while they make the first 5 levels really easy, it makes the last boss fights really hard.
 
M

-Mikey-

Member
Beat Mom for the first time today on Switch. I bought the original release way back on Steam and then again on PS4 and never cleared Mom once. Pretty excited to see how far this rabbit hole goes...
 
C

_Clash_

Member
Yo dudes,

Amazon has stock in of BoI Switch and I e-mailed to ask, can confirm it's first print

Grabbed one after play asia couldn't meet my order

good stuff
 
C

Conrad Link

Member
I use to always pop pills whenever I had them in the old days, but in Afterbirth+ I've found it just not worth it anymore.

Luck I know etc, but just feels like its always something bad lol.
 
E

Erigu

Member
feelingkettle said:
The nice thing about pills is that once you use it, good or bad, when you pick up that same pill, it will identify what it is.
Think of it this way...you get a bad pill, you only have to use it once.
Click to expand...
Sure, but that doesn't really help in that case I mentioned, when you're already far in your run and get screwed over.
And then, there's also the case of that curse of the maze-inducing "???" pill, where you're just going to have to remember the color (and I never do)...
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
AB+ balance day one was AWFUL

- Ridiculous HP and boss armor on Big Horn. On top of that, he could damage you with his pits before his arms even came out
- Sisters Vis were faster, had an obnoxious amount of HP (more than Mom, despite appearing in the same chapter!) and had no tells at all on any of their attacks so they'd just randomly hurt you.
- Void portals would spawn enemies forever, at a faster rate, and had more HP
- Stonies were faster, more common, and never got tired. You couldn't shoot through them with piercing tears.
- Delirium had no animations and would just randomly damage you for no reason what so ever.
- That Blast room in the Womb which was impossible to not take damage
- That caves room with the spiders and mushrooms that was impossible not to take damage in
- That caves boss room that was a soft lock if you lacked bombs to go down the hole
- Appollyon could restart floors as many times as he wanted with Forget Me Now, and could get unlimited items via Pandora's Box. And don't tell anyone, but this bug still exists for the newly added Mystery Gift. Goat Head plus a couple batteries and you're in business.
- Unlimited lives with Smelter + Missing Poster.
- Greedier mode was basically unplayable. You couldn't even buy an item on the first floor, since you only got like 7 coins total. And remember Sisters Vis basically being a run ending boss? Well imagine fighting 4 of them at the same time.
- Some achievements literally did not even work.
- Pop ups for AB+ unlocks were the completely wrong color for some reason

And even now, after most things have been balanced, remnants of Plus' poor balance still live on. Blisters (the spider enemies that shoot Little Horn balls) still have way too much HP and are too common. They also replace Greed Heads, which is dumb when Greed or Ultra Greed summon random spiders that have no relation to them. Ultra Greedier is still stupid. The Sisters Vis are too easy. Delirium is still pretty janky. Portals are still too common (according to my bestiary, they're as common as Red Flies). Booger tears can soft lock against those worm enemies in the Womb. All of the achievements still share the same boring background and aren't properly color coded like every other achievement in the game. Most of the content isn't behind unlocks even when there's no real reason it shouldn't be (like Appollyon)

But it's a lot better now. AB+ for the first few weeks was a mess. Had they not fixed it as quickly and as good as they did, Isaac might have likely lost a lot of popularity, because it made the game just stupid to play. It wasn't even fun in a challenging way.
 
S

Spoony Bob

Member
My (least) favorite reminder that Nicalis didn't know what the hell they were doing was the Champion version of Brownie. Spawned drowned chargers instead of the dips that a normal Brownie spawns.

So a boss that spawned 3 HP mobs when damaged is now spitting out mobs with 22 hp and that also explode in diagonal shots when they die. It was ridiculous.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
Spoony Bob said:
My (least) favorite reminder that Nicalis didn't know what the hell they were doing was the Champion version of Brownie. Spawned drowned chargers instead of the dips that a normal Brownie spawns.

So a boss that spawned 3 HP mobs when damaged is now spitting out mobs with 22 hp and that also explode in diagonal shots when they die. It was ridiculous.
Click to expand...

I totally forgot about that. That was run ending unless you were completely broken by that stage of the game.

They must really like Drowned Chargers, since they seem to throw them everywhere even if they're annoying enemies to fight.

I'm not really a fan of champion bosses anyone. The tint effect on the sprites looks awful with the large detailed sprites of bosses. I'd rather have a dozen cloned bosses that were technically separate bosses, but functionally the same as champions. Even if they were just recolors. But actual, proper recolors, not just tinting the sprite and pretending that looks good enough. The only sprite it actually looks okay on is red Dingle because he matches red poops. But even then, they could have recolored him to look nicer.
 
G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
Playing this on Switch. I've never spent much time with BoI before now.

It's easy to see how this could be addictive, with the crazy item and enemy variety ensuring no two runs will ever be the same. And not only that, but will feel TOTALLY different. That said, it isn't really grabbing me so far.

I've done a few runs and beat Mom twice (once in normal mode and once doing the dark challenge). But the pure obtuseness of the item descriptions is a big turn-off. I'm open to meeting a game halfway and figuring out the intricacies of an item, but when I'm picking up pills and cards and items and clothes that all have some jokey description, with NO in-game encyclopedia or other method to learn more... that's a turn off.

I made it near the end of one run and had the option to swap between two held items, neither of which had a clear description of what they were doing for me. Not to mention all the stuff I'd picked up and could see in the pause menu, but can't seem to highlight or expand on.

It's also a little unclear of what my "progression" path should be, now that I've "beaten" my first run. Beyond just, you know... "keep going." Switch characters? Switch to hard mode? Work on challenges? Unsure of the right way to unlock stuff and keep moving forward.
 
dickroach

dickroach

Member
GDJustin said:
Playing this on Switch. I've never spent much time with BoI before now.

It's easy to see how this could be addictive, with the crazy item and enemy variety ensuring no two runs will ever be the same. And not only that, but will feel TOTALLY different. That said, it isn't really grabbing me so far.

I've done a few runs and beat Mom twice (once in normal mode and once doing the dark challenge). But the pure obtuseness of the item descriptions is a big turn-off. I'm open to meeting a game halfway and figuring out the intricacies of an item, but when I'm picking up pills and cards and items and clothes that all have some jokey description, with NO in-game encyclopedia or other method to learn more... that's a turn off.

I made it near the end of one run and had the option to swap between two held items, neither of which had a clear description of what they were doing for me. Not to mention all the stuff I'd picked up and could see in the pause menu, but can't seem to highlight or expand on.

It's also a little unclear of what my "progression" path should be, now that I've "beaten" my first run. Beyond just, you know... "keep going." Switch characters? Switch to hard mode? Work on challenges? Unsure of the right way to unlock stuff and keep moving forward.
Click to expand...

1) always play hard mode.
2) beating Mom a few times unlocks new floors.
3) beating those new floors with each character unlocks a new thing.
4) beating challenges unlocks new things.
5) keep going.
 
U

uncle_koploski

Banned
I accidentally got to Satan last night.

I got some combination of weapons that made my attack a circular huge red laser beam.


I beat mom and then on the last level? I used a Shovel to skip it? And it brought me to another level. Then I died to Satan even though it was a close fight!!!

What the hell...
 
U

UCBooties

Member
_Clash_ said:
Yo dudes,

Amazon has stock in of BoI Switch and I e-mailed to ask, can confirm it's first print

Grabbed one after play asia couldn't meet my order

good stuff
Click to expand...

What's the significance of the first print? Something extra included or just good for collectors?
 
V

Vlad

Member
I'm glad that the daily run at least tells you what character it uses. There's no way I'm risking resetting my win streak for today's Lost run.
 
dickroach

dickroach

Member
Vlad said:
I'm glad that the daily run at least tells you what character it uses. There's no way I'm risking resetting my win streak for today's Lost run.
Click to expand...

first two floors were crap, and then I died to Krampus in the first devil room :(

also, you can totally cheese it with the Holy Mantle. exit and continue and the effect resets
 
I

Ionic

Member
I typically take pills when I find them. The reasoning is that I'll only ingest a tears down pill once, but I'll eat tears up every single time I find it.
 
A

AoM

Member
Vlad said:
I'm glad that the daily run at least tells you what character it uses. There's no way I'm risking resetting my win streak for today's Lost run.
Click to expand...

Check the subreddit's daily thread to see whether a run is worth playing (unless you think that makes it too easy).
 
W

Will F

Member
GDJustin said:
Playing this on Switch. I've never spent much time with BoI before now.

It's easy to see how this could be addictive, with the crazy item and enemy variety ensuring no two runs will ever be the same. And not only that, but will feel TOTALLY different. That said, it isn't really grabbing me so far.

I've done a few runs and beat Mom twice (once in normal mode and once doing the dark challenge). But the pure obtuseness of the item descriptions is a big turn-off. I'm open to meeting a game halfway and figuring out the intricacies of an item, but when I'm picking up pills and cards and items and clothes that all have some jokey description, with NO in-game encyclopedia or other method to learn more... that's a turn off.

I made it near the end of one run and had the option to swap between two held items, neither of which had a clear description of what they were doing for me. Not to mention all the stuff I'd picked up and could see in the pause menu, but can't seem to highlight or expand on.

It's also a little unclear of what my "progression" path should be, now that I've "beaten" my first run. Beyond just, you know... "keep going." Switch characters? Switch to hard mode? Work on challenges? Unsure of the right way to unlock stuff and keep moving forward.
Click to expand...

The game being needlessly obtuse is probably the biggest issue for people new to it, you almost have to spend some time with one of the wikis to be able to really appreciate the game. It wasn't until I watched some streams and started referencing a site like http://platinumgod.co.uk/ while playing that it really clicked. The more you play the less you'll need a site like that.

Hold off as long as you can since discovering as much of it as you can on your own is part of the fun, but at some point you'll also want to read through one of the wikis. There is a lot of things that are not obvious. Don't want to spoil anything, but a simple one is the donation machines, if you've come across them you'll notice that the number of coins you've donated persists across runs. There are a number of unlocks that are do something x times across any number of runs.

In terms of progression, keep going there is a ton of items/bosses/etc left (in the stats screen under secrets you can see that there are over 300 to unlock). After you kill Mom the first time a couple new floors will open, and eventually even more floors beyond that. Challenges unlock items. Try to unlock more characters - just do whatever is the most fun. There are a ton of room types and mechanics you likely haven't seen yet.

Unless you want to, I don't think there's much reason to play on hard mode until you unlock
It Lives
which you should have a ways to go till that happens, and it'll just take you longer to get there. But once that's happened you might as well only play on hard mode (and at that point you also might as well look up what Completion Marks are in a wiki - which are a big set of things to eventually work towards).
 
A

aygomyownroad

Member
I killed Hush with the Lost and managed to get Delirium down to a smoother of health before I died.

Getting a lot better with the lost and he is now one of my favourite characters
 
V

Vlad

Member
aygomyownroad said:
I killed Hush with the Lost and managed to get Delirium down to a smoother of health before I died.

Getting a lot better with the lost and he is now one of my favourite characters
Click to expand...

Unlike Keeper, the Lost actually has some decent upsides to counteract the downsides. I've only got to kill Delirium with Keeper and Lilith, and I've been stuck for days on Keeper. At least with lost you can limp your way to that first devil room and have a decent chance of getting some good offense going.

I thought I was so slick in a recent Keeper run. Swimming in money as always with him, managed to find a Joker card and a shop with Diplopia. I figure I'm going to warp in there and steal all sorts of good stuff. I use the card, and end up in a devil room with Plan C, Dark Bum, and a Book of Sin.

I was able to at least complete a Bookworm with the book, but that was still a waste.
 
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