What is broken with hard mode?
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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth |OT| Pixel Heart Mother
- Thread starter NotLiquid
- Start date
What is broken with hard mode?
SerTapTap
Member
Hard mode is only supposed to nerf heart drops from clearing rooms and such, instead it nerfs all drops, making it very common to be unable to access/use multiple item rooms/secret rooms/shops. It's fixed in 1.031. Hard Mode is still possible but occasionally infuriating on Playstation.
Oh, huh. It's occasionally hard to tell with ed. It's still on the Vanilla wiki with no counterpoint
Their store (which is currently closed) sells them, though they're often limited
edit: Here's a CRAZY run, Monstro's Lung, Cancer (trinket), Sacred Heart (on depths 2), later you find the Curved Horn too. Get My Reflection from boss rush, it makes them float around longer for the homing effect
FNCN L3HD
Played on PS4, should work on all platforms though
Huh... I guess I've been playing it the hard way all this time. thought that it was intentional, it does definitely add extra challenge, being conservative with your keys and bombs.
RelentlessRolento
Member
I forget can you get trophies and endings via seeds?
SerTapTap
Member
No...unless you use the seed exploit (enter seed, exit out to Save Select, go back in, start run as normal, you're using the seed ) Patched out of PC, still in PS. The catch is you need version 1.03 to be able to platinum the game regardless because Nicalis programming.
IMO game is way more fun if you don't abuse it....EXCEPT for the BS 100% item collection, meat boy, and probably The Spoiler.
I wouldn't really call it challenge, it's just arbitrarily losing out on an item. You're supposed to be conservative in most cases anyway, but when you're most likely not even going to get enough keys to get all items...bleh.
It's a damn shame, because fixed hard mode is super fun, but I play normal because runs are less interesting with less items and that's the main effect of Hard right now.
SerTapTap
Member
It's kind of a shame some items have really cool visual changes that are very hard to see on a character with many items. Abbadon apparently does this all on it's own:
You need a Mom's Heart kill with each to unlock the co op babies each character has. Just play all on Normal and do one run for Mom's Heart IMO. If you're unskilled or just unlucky, the items you lose in Hard can ruin runs, it's far more significant to gameplay than the actual intended challenge (which is frankly pretty minor if you understand how champions work and have a good level of skill). Worst part of normal hard mode is probably just the curses because of crap like Blind
edit: That's for PS. If you're on PC go nuts with hard mode it sounds great
You need a Mom's Heart kill with each to unlock the co op babies each character has. Just play all on Normal and do one run for Mom's Heart IMO. If you're unskilled or just unlucky, the items you lose in Hard can ruin runs, it's far more significant to gameplay than the actual intended challenge (which is frankly pretty minor if you understand how champions work and have a good level of skill). Worst part of normal hard mode is probably just the curses because of crap like Blind
edit: That's for PS. If you're on PC go nuts with hard mode it sounds great
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Wow, still no EU patch. This is getting silly.
YianGaruga
Banned
I'm not sure if I entirely believe that. Whatever the cause, the combination of SCEE and Nicalis doesn't seem to work, so I'll be avoiding it in the future.
BackwardsSuggestions
Member
The fact that PS4 users in EU are still on 1.01 is ridiculous now. Wish SCEU would get their act together.
SerTapTap
Member
It's not as bad as it seems, keep an eye out for items that can exploit the lack of red hearts. Whore of Babylon is a solid, constant damage up, Polaroid triggers after every hit (so does The Negative, to less useful effect), Abbadon has no negatives. Mitre, Dark Bum and to a lesser extent Gimpy improve survivability a lot. ??? is largely dependant on Devil/Angel room items if you can get them.
Also I'm pretty sure ??? will never die when picking up Devil Deal items that add soul hearts even if you can't afford them. Been a while but I'm pretty sure it reduces you to 0 then immediately adds the hearts from items like The Pact or Abbadon immediately, keeping you alive.
If you're on PS, just use the seed exploit to use a Holy Mantle seed. If on PC...uh...restart until you get one of extremely few items that make it an almost sane challenge--mostly just Holy Mantle, though Gnawed Leaf has lots of (painfully boring and cheap) synergies to kill any boss by sitting still while familiars do the work.
BTW, devil deals are free for The Lost. I think that's about the only benefit, other than flying. If you can get spectral tears you can cheap out lots of normal rooms.
SerTapTap
Member
Doubtful, you can get Little Steve though. Steven is a Steven pool item not a boss pool item, unless some special exception was made it shouldnt' show up in a boss pool, just like A Pony, White Pony, meat/bandages won't spawn.
God dammit I hate this item
PC...
SerTapTap
Member
You're doomed. Holy Mantle is a great start though, lets you actually use Curse rooms in addition to the hit protection. Don't use it on devil beggar/blood machine, you'll just die.
Do NOT treat the boss rush as a free item, unlike a normal run. The boss rush is probably the hardest part of The Spoiler IMO. Only thing worse is an extremely unlucky Dark Room with stuff like 2 Adversaries. Once you get the boss rush kill you'll probably want to ignore it. Even when crazy overpowered it's easy to take an accidental hit.
Dead Cat still works and (as always) Guppy is a decent path to success, but without being able to use Curse Rooms (exiting will kill you without a teleport or active Holy Mantle) it's much harder to complete. You won't see your lives counter, but the floating cat head disappears when you're on the last life. All other 1 up items work, but character changing ones will waste your run as always.
Hoarde invincibility items. The invincibility rune plus basically any damaging orbital will allow you to kill even Blue Baby pretty easy. I might have had BFFs at the time, but I did exactly that to end one run with a lvl 1 or 2 Meat Boy. Also be on the look out for OP stuff like Blank Card and Chaos Card. Anything to skip a boss fight.
Don't run The Lost until unlocking The Stopwatch (999 coins), it makes dodging shots very easy. The music will drive you nuts but it's probably the single best item besides Holy Mantle and it's more common to obtain.
Basically to play The Spoiler you need to be looking to actively break the game whenever possible, though not having health prevents a lot of game breaking strategies (RIP sharp plug)
Be glad he's in the Basement. If Daddy Long Legs had a rare drop I'd go insane.
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Has there been any update on when the EU patch might be coming?
Nope. And I had a quick look on Twitter and those tweeting Nicalis about it are simply ignored. Lovely.
My strategy:
1. Abandon all hope ye who enter here
2. Devil room items are probably most important, they can make or break a run
3. Among these Dead Cat is incredibly powerful. Early Goat Head will give you a ton of devil rooms, thus a lot of (potentially) great upgrades).
4. Reset until you get a) adjacent treasure room with a powerful item b) Basement XL. For a), I reset until I got Holy Mantle*, ???'s Only Friend, Ludovico Technique, Mom's Knife, Max's Head, 0.5 Tech, Mutant Spider, Death's Touch and Lil' Brimstone, though obviously some of these boil down to personal preferences. I also took Cupid's Arrow/Saggitarius since I found piercing shots incredibly helpful. Earlier on I took +all stats items too, but after I got 2/3 objectives I narrowed it down to items listed above (though I might be missing some). Getting a good item at first floor is important since you will get a lot of items that are completely useless later on (+hp, anything with hp regeneration or effect on touch). Unless, b) I ran with Basement XL since Cellar is significantly harder, Basement bosses are all easy and you go straight to devil room.
5. Focus, don't panic. Unless you have Holy Mantle/Dead Cat to fall back on you will lose a ton of promising runs. There is such a ludicrous number of random factors that can screw you up that you can't be prepared for it's not even funny. The game is absolutely not balanced around no-hit runs and you will learn it the hard way.
6. Unlock Stop Watch! If you don't already have it, this can be a lifesaver, though obviously you still need to watch out as it screws up patterns of several enemies.
7. Good Luck!
*Holy Mantle is amazing but is not a run-winner. Unless you get decent damage you are screwed, there are situations where no matter how good you are you are still going to get hit. Even if you have Holy Mantle if you get to Necropolis/Womb with base damage, no tears up or damage up, I swear you won't be able to do it since base damage is abysmal even for Cellar.
Birgitte2004
Member
I was playing on a second file just because I wanted to play mindlessly with fewer unlocks.
One of the first items I found was 1up. Arrggh. Why oh why couldn't that have happened on my main file?
One of the first items I found was 1up. Arrggh. Why oh why couldn't that have happened on my main file?
So I need to unlock
. Are seeds for the first three steps no longer working? I did it last night, seemingly correct, without an unlock.
On another note, I hope they patch the NA copy more to fix the invisible texture/sprite glitches and in-game infinite loading screen, both of which can ruin runs and require a game reload or floor restart.
The Lost
On another note, I hope they patch the NA copy more to fix the invisible texture/sprite glitches and in-game infinite loading screen, both of which can ruin runs and require a game reload or floor restart.
Worked for me, on this most recent PC patch. Used the PC seeds listed here:
http://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.com/The_Lost#Helpful_Seeds
I forgot to mention I am PS4. I used seeds in the guide. I'll try again later. Maybe one thing went wrong.
Fun fact: There actually are no platform-specific seeds. Their results probably vary depending on which items you have unlocked.
I have used both PS4 and PC seeds on my Vita version and most of the time they worked as advertised.
Shame that this misconception has spread all over the internet such as the wiki listing seeds separated by platform for items and stuff.
I have used both PS4 and PC seeds on my Vita version and most of the time they worked as advertised.
Shame that this misconception has spread all over the internet such as the wiki listing seeds separated by platform for items and stuff.
SerTapTap
Member
They vary slightly depending on what update version, but no, they're not platform specific. I've editing many wiki pages noting this in the edit notes every time, but the damage is done
HappyBivouac
Member
Dear NeoGAF,
I just got the
in a non-seeded run. One man ought never be trusted with this much power. I think I have over half the items in the game, and I could keep going if I wanted.
I just got the
d20 and the sharp plug
Cheat Code
Member
Beat Boss Rush, Blue Baby and The Lamb with The Lost.
Isaac's Heart trophy didn't pop.
If that trophy fix doesn't work I'm gonna kill Nicalis.
Edit: I'm gonna kill Nicalis.
Isaac's Heart trophy didn't pop.
If that trophy fix doesn't work I'm gonna kill Nicalis.
Edit: I'm gonna kill Nicalis.
SerTapTap
Member
Arg, savescum before you get the last of the trophies. You can just exit the game at any point (don't do it in a room with enemies), upload your save to the cloud, play normally, redownload if it glitches out and get it again. I was lucky that none of my The Spoiler trophies didn't break. Worst case, use a second file and seed exploit to get the trophies again. I don't have much hope that Nicalis will fix the trophies and if they do I don't expect retroactive ones.
What's the chance of that trophy fix working anyway? Seems it doesnt' work for a lot of people
(are we still bothering with spoilers, feels kinda pointless by now)
evilchicken
Member
This is the best advice. I had a lot of trouble until I unlocked this. I completed the game with Lost after roughly the 3rd time finding stopwatch.
Cheat Code
Member
Honestly, The Spoiler is mostly a running joke at this stage.
Anyway, with any luck Nicalis will pull their finger out their arse and update the EU version. I need to get Dead Boy and Godhead, and then they might add in the re-unlock all the secrets from the PC version.
Birgitte2004
Member
I had an Eden game start with the Book of Revelation so got Super Meat Boy! Woo-flippin hoo.
In addition to SMB, I was a Brimstone rockin' Guppy with Rotten Baby and Dark Bum.
Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the enemy.
In addition to SMB, I was a Brimstone rockin' Guppy with Rotten Baby and Dark Bum.
Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the enemy.
My mistake was dying in basement instead of caves for the second portion. Despite reading it half a dozen times.
Meanwhile us EU folk still can't unlock Godhead yet. Fuck you Nicalis (or the Sony EU branch that won't publish the patch).
Birgitte2004
Member
I have tried a dozen times at least and simply can't get the update trophy trick to work. Either I'm doing something wrong or I'm really unlucky.
I think the only trophy that I'm missing is kill Mom 9 times but even then I really don't want to run on another file long enough to get to 9 Mom kills, just to hope that it might unlock this time.
I think the only trophy that I'm missing is kill Mom 9 times but even then I really don't want to run on another file long enough to get to 9 Mom kills, just to hope that it might unlock this time.
I am missing about 5+ trophies. I have tried over and over to unlock them. No dice.
Birgitte2004
Member
I was missing all the basic unlock trophies. Like, all of them.
But it didn't take too long to run another file long enough to unlock them.
But I'm not ok with running Mom's Heart 9 times + another run to unlock Mom's Heart.
Haunted
Member
I expect a balance patch for MB/BG, similar to the Polaroid changes in the original.
Not sure they're going to do something for The Spoiler, it's just supposed to be ridiculously hard I guess. Getting all the ____ Boy achievements on one run is just outside of my skill level, fuck that.
Not sure they're going to do something for The Spoiler, it's just supposed to be ridiculously hard I guess. Getting all the ____ Boy achievements on one run is just outside of my skill level, fuck that.
GreatMightySymp
Member
Got two runs tonight with Holy Mantle and Guppy's Paw. sogood.jpg
Noticed on PS4 that the 8th Mom kill trophy didn't unlock but the 9th one did. Any ideas of how to get it to unlock since it glitched out?
Noticed on PS4 that the 8th Mom kill trophy didn't unlock but the 9th one did. Any ideas of how to get it to unlock since it glitched out?
SerTapTap
Member
It's a bug. There's a trick that seems to not always work, where you upload your save, delete all local saves and redownload the same (ingame, I think, not PS+) and they all pop, but plenty have reported it not working for no apparent reason.
But there's a Ludovico Technique seed you can use with Azazael to beat Mom or Mom's Heart within 3-4 minutes each run that makes getting those trophies not too bad. TOok me a couple hours to get all the missed ones, but I'd freak the fuck out if any of The Lost or plat/real plat god trophies glitched. You should upload a save right before unlocking those just in case they don't pop.
I dunno why it doesn't work, has anyone found any reasons why, commonalities of when it does/doesn't work?
Banana Aeon
Member
Man, first floor Goat Head makes any run a breeze.
That or any damage up is always welcome from my curse rooms.
That or any damage up is always welcome from my curse rooms.
I don't know what exactly I expect but I keep screwing up the runs where I'm trying to unlock The Lost. Four times now, back to back, I've been past Mom's Heart with Azrael, find a dice room and decide to reroll just to see what I would get. Twice I've gotten garbage tier builds and the other two it gave me revival items that change me to a different characters. I need to stop but I never see dice rooms other wise. It's just so tempting.
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I learned quckly to never take those kind of dice rooms. They've done nothing but screw me over.I don't know what exactly I expect but I keep screwing up the runs where I'm trying to unlock The Lost. Four times now, back to back, I've been past Mom's Heart with Azrael, find a dice room and decide to reroll just to see what I would get. Twice I've gotten garbage tier builds and the other two it gave me revival items that change me to a different characters. I need to stop but I never see dice rooms other wise. It's just so tempting.
Birgitte2004
Member
SerTapTap
Member
Honestly one of the surprisingly biggest annoyances with The Spoiler is you can't (reasonably) use Curse Rooms. You can get Holy Mantle, use an item to teleport out, or go in hoping to get a Dead Cat and die if you don't. On any given run you're probably abandoning at least one good collectable by skipping all curse rooms.
Yeah I never use the "reroll my items" dice rooms. Only the 5 will I use often (lets you reset the floor but keep your current items, free items before The Womb!). 2 pips is okay if there's lots of junk pickups in the room, I mean why not. The other ones require too much planning or thought to make count, I don't realy want to check all pickups/items on the floor then rush back to the dice room.
GreatMightySymp
Member
I was using Azazel to do it, assuming I'd need to do the eight Mom Heart kills with someone else if the save trick doesn't work?
GoldandBlue
Member
I've been doing nothing but runs to try and get Meat Boy all week. Only one where I almost got him (double sized boss room in the Womb ruined it) and actually almost did the blank card trick where you use Jera and keep cloning batteries. Only problem was I didn't have the Monster Manuel to follow it up, ugh.