Support NeoGAF

[giga-ganon]

So, do I just keep replaying and hope to get good items? I never get overpowered stuff. All I need to do is get the items at treasure rooms and after bosses, right? Anything I'm missing?

always check for secret rooms too, they mostly are next to 3 other room (north, east, est for exemple), so bomb the wall when you think there might be a secret room, sometimes there's good item in it!

Alsp make sure to take no red heart damage at bosses! If you do so, you get more chance to get a devil or angel room appear! Check out the shop too when you can, lots of good item in there (donate money too to get more item in the shop later)

 

[syllogism]

Why is doing it alone the legitimate way? Considering how obfuscated it is and what it unlocks, I can see it being meant to be crowd sourced.

I didn't mean to imply that, but even crowd sourced it was always going to be (and was being) solved with the aid of cheats. It was definitely intended to be a community effort, but it wasn't designed to be solved legitimately.

 

[Stoze]

I've to say that the intended method for acquiring the information necessarily for unlocking the Lost was very poorly designed. To do it legitimately, the player had to first find one of few specific items, then a sacrifice room and then intentionally suicide the character, only to obtain one puzzle piece out of potentially hundreds. It was a secret that was essentially designed around making the player cheat to at least get the necessary item. No one is ever going to legitimately obtain the required information on their own.

It was designed to essentially be a community based arg within the game. Edmund and Tyrone did an interview with Vinny from Vinesauce yesterday and addressed it.

This is from a summary on reddit of him talking about it:

Edmund: "There was some stuff in the original Isaac that I thought wouldn't be uncovered for awhile. It ended up being uncovered legitimately, but faster than I thought it'd be. I thought I'd go even further [with Rebirth], but I think I've learned that there's no point in really doing that stuff, and the best way to hide a secret is to lock it in a very challenging area. I think if we end up doing anything like that in Rebirth, it'll just be behind a barrier of entry; having a certain amount of skill. Not something that I thought was going to be a really fun and community-based ARG, which would have been nice if it was allowed to take place, but you know... whatever."

Also here's a link to the interview if any of you guys want to check it out. It's long so I'll probably listen to it over the next few days.

 

[syllogism]

It was designed to essentially be a community based arg within the game. Edmund and Tyrone did an interview with Vinny from Vinesauce yesterday and addressed it.

This is from a summary on reddit of him talking about it:

Edmund: "There was some stuff in the original Isaac that I thought wouldn't be uncovered for awhile. It ended up being uncovered legitimately, but faster than I thought it'd be. I thought I'd go even further [with Rebirth], but I think I've learned that there's no point in really doing that stuff, and the best way to hide a secret is to lock it in a very challenging area. I think if we end up doing anything like that in Rebirth, it'll just be behind a barrier of entry; having a certain amount of skill. Not something that I thought was going to be a really fun and community-based ARG, which would have been nice if it was allowed to take place, but you know... whatever."

Also here's a link to the interview if any of you guys want to check it out. It's long so I'll probably listen to it over the next few days.

What I'm saying is that the design inevitably invited the community to use cheat engine to obtain the necessary items, instead of tediously and very slowly playing through the game hoping to find the required item, the required room and then suiciding the character you had invested time on, only to obtain one usually completely useless piece of the puzzle. You would frequently get puzzle pieces already found by the community. If they truly expected that to happen, they were very misguided.

 

[Stoze]

What I'm saying is that the design inevitably invited the community to use cheat engine to obtain the necessary items, instead of tediously and very slowly playing through the game hoping to find the required item, the required room and then suiciding the character you had invested time on, only to obtain one usually completely useless piece of the puzzle. You would frequently get puzzle pieces already found by the community. If they truly expected that to happen, they were very misguided.

I can't really comment further because beyond reading your posts I have no idea how to unlock him and won't look him up until I have everything else done with the other characters. Edmund hoped/designed it to collectively take a few weeks or months for the community to find it without the help of people looking into the game's code.

I agree with the bolded though, the devs included a readme in the game that said "please don't reveal any secrets from datamining at least for a few months" which of course isn't going to stop information from being revealed.

 

[wetflame]

Having looked into the way that the information was being revealed, and trying not to spoil things, it was at the stage where the general idea of what needs doing was there, they were just grinding through revealing all the details. One of the first legitimate pieces of the puzzle came on a stream with about 30k viewers, so I'm sure that a large chunk of the community were on the case from the start. While I can see why he'd be annoyed, I think Edmund may not have realised how quickly that stuff was getting out there and I doubt it would have taken a month or so for it all to get revealed, it's possible it may have been a matter of days before it was figured out. However, the specific method of unlock was revealed through data mining which is obviously going to be upsetting for them. It's a shame as it'd be awesome to have more little secrets like this in future expansions.

 

[Impeccable]

I finally beat mom with Az and it felt so good - had only half a heart left and I thought I was toast but I think one my orbitals finished it off and saved the day. This game is SO addicting and I still suck so bad. Unlocked a whole host of stuff too.

One thing that made me sad was I had another GREAT Az run going and figured I'd be beating the Womb but I picked up an item that gave me mega tears or something then Az didn't shoot anything anymore and I literally just had to die (I think).

I have to suck it up at some point but I hate the actual tears compared to Az's puke blood everywhere.

 

[syllogism]

Having looked into the way that the information was being revealed, and trying not to spoil things, it was at the stage where the general idea of what needs doing was there, they were just grinding through revealing all the details. One of the first legitimate pieces of the puzzle came on a stream with about 30k viewers, so I'm sure that a large chunk of the community were on the case from the start. While I can see why he'd be annoyed, I think Edmund may not have realised how quickly that stuff was getting out there and I doubt it would have taken a month or so for it all to get revealed, it's possible it may have been a matter of days before it was figured out. However, the specific method of unlock was revealed through data mining which is obviously going to be upsetting for them. It's a shame as it'd be awesome to have more little secrets like this in future expansions.

They were in the process of grinding it with the cheat engine, sure. I don't have a problem with that as that was the reasonable and most fun method of solving it, but if they intended the community to do it by just playing the game, that was completely unrealistic.

Also no, twitch streamers didn't discover anything, everything they found was being fed to them by the chat and people playing offline.

 

[Stoze]

Having looked into the way that the information was being revealed, and trying not to spoil things, it was at the stage where the general idea of what needs doing was there, they were just grinding through revealing all the details. One of the first legitimate pieces of the puzzle came on a stream with about 30k viewers, so I'm sure that a large chunk of the community were on the case from the start. While I can see why he'd be annoyed, I think Edmund may not have realised how quickly that stuff was getting out there and I doubt it would have taken a month or so for it all to get revealed, it's possible it may have been a matter of days before it was figured out. However, the specific method of unlock was revealed through data mining which is obviously going to be upsetting for them. It's a shame as it'd be awesome to have more little secrets like this in future expansions.

What stream was that by the way? At some point when I'm ready to unlock the character I'd like to go through things like this and the reddit archives to see how the community discovered things together, I always find that enjoyable.

I loved going back through old Neogaf and Gamefaqs threads and seeing people hunting down info and gradually figuring things out about some of FEZ's crazy hidden secrets back when it was released on XBLA.

 

[xkramz]

Sweet Jesus my best run ever. Mind u I suck in this game I beat satan in like 5 seconds lol

http://youtu.be/0HkgXK_Vu20

 

[Puru]

Dead cat best item, single handedly made my

Spoiler

D6

unlock possible.
My only damage was like 4 power in tears, really high fire rate and poison touch.

I had it from the first level of caves, i think i never died to a single boss in that run, that includes the dreaded

Spoiler

Adversary

, even the hierophant (2 soul heart card) i got before

Spoiler

Isaac

wasn't necessary. I still had 4 lives to go at the end. It was intense.

Nice to see the Vita patch fixed the ending bug for attempting an early

Spoiler

Sheol

.

 

[SerTapTap]

It's not so helpful in The Womb onward, but Whore of Babylon activating at 1 heart instead of 1/2 makes me hate Eve a lot less. Plus Dark Hearts make keeping non-red health much easier.

It's so much easier to get crazily overpowered in this vs. the original. Beat Mom with no hazzle already on the second run on the PC version, and I still struggle with that in the original

I think that's mostly due to insanely good items working together instead of overriding each other or completely ruining each other's effects. Though there are more than a few new insane items. And what I've heard of the

Spoiler

Dark Room

level makes it sound like being OP is basically a requirement

 

[wetflame]

They were in the process of grinding it with the cheat engine, sure. I don't have a problem with that as that was the reasonable and most fun method of solving it, but if they intended the community to do it by just playing the game, that was completely unrealistic.

Also no, twitch streamers didn't discover anything, everything they found was being fed to them by the chat and people playing offline.

I think they intended for people to grind away at it, maybe by playing seeds which favoured unlocking parts more quickly, I don't think they intended people to stumble upon them in regular play but that they thought people would intentionally try to unlock the parts together.

What stream was that by the way? At some point when I'm ready to unlock the character I'd like to go through things like this and the reddit archives to see how the community discovered things together, I always find that enjoyable.

I saw someone mention in a comment on a reddit post about all this that one of the streamers unlocked part of the puzzle while playing, although annoyingly I can't find which one now. Take that with a pinch of salt I guess.

 

[stump sock]

So Ludovico Technique and Ipecac have terrible synergy, there goes a potentially good run down the toilet.

it's just a green ball that doesn't explode and does crap damage.

 

[Theodran]

Finally beat the Cathedral with Judas. I though he was a lame one before trying him out, but as long as you have a steady stream of fresh hearts, he makes quick work of any enemy. It didn't hurt that I had The Wafer as well.

Glad they finally patxhed cloud saving. i love gaming on my Vita, but being able to load it up on the PS4 when I'm at home and avoid the slow down in the large rooms for a few hours each night is like a blessing from God.

 

[syllogism]

I think they intended for people to grind away at it, maybe by playing seeds which favoured unlocking parts more quickly, I don't think they intended people to stumble upon them in regular play but that they thought people would intentionally try to unlock the parts together.

Based on my understanding, the same seed will always produce the same puzzle piece, even if you die in a different sacrifice room. At any rate this happens if you try to save scum for puzzle pieces.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

I'm digging this now that I'm getting the hang of it and figuring out more of the items. Made it to the first Mom boss once is the furthest I've gotten so far.

 

[Celegus]

Machine gun Ipecac is truly the most dangerous game.

 

[Bluenose]

Any word on a Vita patch for EU region?

Id love to know this too. Just bought a vita so I can play this on the move but the sync is still not working

 

[SerTapTap]

I'm super iffy on the reroll rooms. I had an acceptable but low-damage Dr Fetus build but got rerolled into a base damage or worse Parasite build. Seems to me if my build was so bad I want it rerolled I'm likely to have died or quit before finding a reroll room. Am I just unlucky or what?

I'm liking Judas and Samson more than I thought I would. Book of Belial makes quick work of early boss fights, and is really better than most use items anyway, I kept it through the whole run. Samson's damage buff is way better now, though it's less useful on later floors since (best I can tell) you take twice the damage to get the same damage buff?

Ludovico Technique is fantastic with the right upgrades, but I got it early in a run and it is soooooo annoying early on/against certain enemies/bosses. What stat affects movement speed of the giant tear?

 

[SamVimes]

So i guess if you respawn with Judas' Shadow you're basically judas, right? Didn't unlock anything with Lazarus.

 

[Celegus]

I'm super iffy on the reroll rooms. I had an acceptable but low-damage Dr Fetus build but got rerolled into a base damage or worse Parasite build. Seems to me if my build was so bad I want it rerolled I'm likely to have died or quit before finding a reroll room. Am I just unlucky or what?

I ran into my first one last night, not realizing what was going to happen. And, of course, it was the LAST room next to Satan. Had an awesome chocolate milk mega tear thing going on, and it got replaced by technology 1 and some flies. Also some weird upgrade that pulls enemies towards you when you fire, which made even the first form of Satan entirely impossible. Now I know what those rooms do and to not go in them on a good run.

 

[ampere]

That boss rush room is freaking amazing. God damn. Also managed to beat the cathedral for the first time in this version.

Pretty sure I got the boss rush room yesterday... it was like 4 items to chose from then 12 or so boss waves. It was crazy

Almost not worth the item for the risk of dying to the bosses lol.. but I did have the Daddy Long Legs passive which will eventually kill everything if you dodge stuff.

 

[SerTapTap]

So i guess if you respawn with Judas' Shadow you're basically judas, right? Didn't unlock anything with Lazarus.

Yes. Similarly, the Ankh literally turns you into ??? and Lazarus's rags literally turn you into Lazarus. You will also lose your character's starting items, which makes them...almost useless to Azazel.

I ran into my first one last night, not realizing what was going to happen. And, of course, it was the LAST room next to Satan. Had an awesome chocolate milk mega tear thing going on, and it got replaced by technology 1 and some flies. Also some weird upgrade that pulls enemies towards you when you fire, which made even the first form of Satan entirely impossible. Now I know what those rooms do and to not go in them on a good run.

I guess they're a way to salvage a bad run, but unless you're going for win streaks it just doesn't seem that useful.

On the other hand, if you have say a billion Range and Speed and Luck upgrades and they're not really helping you at all, will a reroll room potentially turn some of those (non-item-based points) into damage/tears?

 

[buy teh haloz]

Yes. Similarly, the Ankh literally turns you into ??? and Lazarus's rags literally turn you into Lazarus. You will also lose your character's starting items, which makes them...almost useless to Azazel.



I guess they're a way to salvage a bad run, but unless you're going for win streaks it just doesn't seem that useful.

On the other hand, if you have say a billion Range and Speed and Luck upgrades and they're not really helping you at all, will a reroll room potentially turn some of those (non-item-based points) into damage/tears?

I got a pretty good reroll room recently, it turned a setup which wasn't really getting anywhere to one that beat the Chest.

 

[Grief.exe]

I'm super iffy on the reroll rooms. I had an acceptable but low-damage Dr Fetus build but got rerolled into a base damage or worse Parasite build. Seems to me if my build was so bad I want it rerolled I'm likely to have died or quit before finding a reroll room. Am I just unlucky or what?

I'm liking Judas and Samson more than I thought I would. Book of Belial makes quick work of early boss fights, and is really better than most use items anyway, I kept it through the whole run. Samson's damage buff is way better now, though it's less useful on later floors since (best I can tell) you take twice the damage to get the same damage buff?

Ludovico Technique is fantastic with the right upgrades, but I got it early in a run and it is soooooo annoying early on/against certain enemies/bosses. What stat affects movement speed of the giant tear?

I ran into my first one last night, not realizing what was going to happen. And, of course, it was the LAST room next to Satan. Had an awesome chocolate milk mega tear thing going on, and it got replaced by technology 1 and some flies. Also some weird upgrade that pulls enemies towards you when you fire, which made even the first form of Satan entirely impossible. Now I know what those rooms do and to not go in them on a good run.

I got a pretty good reroll room recently, it turned a setup which wasn't really getting anywhere to one that beat the Chest.

Is that what those are?

 

[SerTapTap]

Is that what those are?

Yeah the big red die rooms. They're in 2 key rooms. If you walk over the die it rerolls all your items.

I can't tell if the number on the die face matters. Okay, here's what the die faces do, good to know. Had almost gotten used to stuff not being on the wiki

 

[Celegus]

Yeah the big red die rooms. I think they are supersecret rooms? If you walk over the die it rerolls all your items.

I can't tell if the number on the die face matters.

I think so. I've run into several of the rooms before with no discernible effect. The one last night had only one pip, and rerolled all of my items.

 

[SerTapTap]

The line "The dice rooms are still not well understood, and sometimes have different effects than described above" isn't particularly encouraging

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

Finally got the D6! God, that was pretty tough/time-consuming.

Also, I'm sure it's been touched on already, but the Vita patch fixed my skipped ending problem.

Anybody know if the missed trophies thing on the ps4 is fixed?

 

[Grief.exe]

So this is why it had no discernable effect last night.

4 pips - Rerolls any items that have appeared on the floor but weren't previously grabbed like D6.

 

[stump sock]

Finally got the D6! God, that was pretty tough/time-consuming.

Also, I'm sure it's been touched on already, but the Vita patch fixed my skipped ending problem.

ugh any tips except just trying over and over until you get items that make ??? not be a garbage character? it was not this hard in the original game.

 

[Rizzi]

I feel cheap.

 

[SerTapTap]

ugh any tips except just trying over and over until you get items that make ??? not be a garbage character? it was not this hard in the original game.

Best I can tell that's about all you can do. Are Whore, Scrapular and Polaroid still the only items particularly good on him?

Does The Wafer still completely cheese out the soul heart cost for ??? ?

 

[Love Deterrence]

As great as I thought vanilla Isaac was, I never had the addiction to it that I have to Rebirth. I've found Rebirth to be an improvement in almost every aspect (with the exception of "Divine Combat", of course)! Excellent game.

 

[stump sock]

Best I can tell that's about all you can do. Are Whore, Scrapular and Polaroid still the only items particularly good on him?

the Demon Buddy or whatever he's called that eats red hearts and spits out grey hearts is kind of a game-changer. but yeah other than that it seems like your best bet is to hope for the damage upgrades to come fast and early.

If I could just get Brimstone...

 

[Stoze]

I saw someone mention in a comment on a reddit post about all this that one of the streamers unlocked part of the puzzle while playing, although annoyingly I can't find which one now. Take that with a pinch of salt I guess.

Ah alright. Probably Cobalt/Richard I'm guessing.

Also I had the most awful feeling during a run last night. Got 99 bombs with pyro, pop a pill a few minutes later, get Bombs are Key. 99 Keys, 1 bomb. Fuck.

Luckily next floor I get the pill bottle and crank out enough to where I get Bombs are Key again.I used it instantly, at 99 bombs again. Then I bomb a secret room and find the key beggar, give him the lowly 2 keys I have and get nothing.

Moral of the story; explore the entire floor before popping pills if you've got things like 99 bombs or keys on the line.

 

[wetflame]

Ok, let's talk weird favourite items. Not the usual stuff like Brimstone or Mom's Knife, but the stuff that when you see them you give a little cheer. For me, one of these is the X-Ray Specs. I love those things. Makes it so easy to find the secret rooms, meaning you get to save all your bombs. I know it's not a super powerful item, but it's really helpful.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

seems like syncing finally works in a consistent way. finally can play away from home again

 

[SerTapTap]

Is it just me or is the chance to get the blood bag/dollar waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the hell lower? I've still never seen the blood bad and only a couple dollars.

Ok, let's talk weird favourite items. Not the usual stuff like Brimstone or Mom's Knife, but the stuff that when you see them you give a little cheer. For me, one of these is the X-Ray Specs. I love those things. Makes it so easy to find the secret rooms, meaning you get to save all your bombs. I know it's not a super powerful item, but it's really helpful.

X Ray specs are great, as is Spelunker. I thought I'd hate Taurus but it's great. PHD and Safety Cap are a favorite pair, lots of stat ups if you're even slightly lucky.
Leo is SUPER fun but I've discovered several ways to get myself hurt/killed with it. Don't stomp mushrooms, skulls or Mom's weird fleshy "rocks"

 

[wetflame]

X Ray specs are great, as is Spelunker. I thought I'd hate Taurus but it's great. PHD and Safety Cap are a favorite pair, lots of stat ups if you're even slightly lucky.

Yeah, Spelunker's good but has the drawback of just telling you where the secret rooms are, not automatically opening the pathway. You still have to bomb them. Does it have any other benefits I'm not aware of?

 

[Celegus]

Ok, let's talk weird favourite items. Not the usual stuff like Brimstone or Mom's Knife, but the stuff that when you see them you give a little cheer. For me, one of these is the X-Ray Specs. I love those things. Makes it so easy to find the secret rooms, meaning you get to save all your bombs. I know it's not a super powerful item, but it's really helpful.

Definitely Leo for me. I love stomping all the rocks - there's a surprising number of things hiding under them. Items, tons of money, and trap doors to secret shops and such.

Leo is SUPER fun but I've discovered several ways to get myself hurt/killed with it. Don't stomp mushrooms, skulls or Mom's weird fleshy "rocks"

Why not mushrooms? I've gotten several mario mushroom items from them (+1 all stats).

 

[Conor_Fool]

I played this game until 4am and am now awake at 8am. All I want to do is skip my homework and keep playing. Sooo addicting!

 

[stump sock]

Ok, let's talk weird favourite items. Not the usual stuff like Brimstone or Mom's Knife, but the stuff that when you see them you give a little cheer. For me, one of these is the X-Ray Specs. I love those things. Makes it so easy to find the secret rooms, meaning you get to save all your bombs. I know it's not a super powerful item, but it's really helpful.

the glasses that give you double tears are a good one. not super powerful on their own but they synergize with almost everything. when I grab those early on in a run it almost always turns into a good one. I think it's better than the quad shot by a good margin because it doesn't nerf your RoF.

 

[SerTapTap]

Yeah, Spelunker's good but has the drawback of just telling you where the secret rooms are, not automatically opening the pathway. You still have to bomb them. Does it have any other benefits I'm not aware of?

Reveals room type, letting you not waste keys or bother going into sacrifice rooms. If you have X Ray Specs and Compass it's useless, but it's sort of a nice in between on it's own.

Definitely Leo for me. I love stomping all the rocks - there's a surprising number of things hiding under them. Items, tons of money, and trap doors to secret shops and such.



Why not mushrooms? I've gotten several mario mushroom items from them (+1 all stats).

If you have spare health it's fine since they can drop mushroom items or pills, but they also release poison gas. Infinite bombs are the ideal way to exploit mushrooms. Or if there's a ton in a small area, it's often worth a bomb anyway.

 

[Wuthering_Heights]

I love Soy Milk, so much fun.

 

[Archaix]

Yeah, Spelunker's good but has the drawback of just telling you where the secret rooms are, not automatically opening the pathway. You still have to bomb them. Does it have any other benefits I'm not aware of?

It tells you what's on the other side of a door, so the map will show whether a store, library, or greed is behind a locked door. It will also show the type of room behind a double wall/double lock to save you some guesswork.

 

[giga-ganon]

Wow, just got an insane combo! Quad Shot + bouncing tears + piercing tears + shielded tears.... And some other upgrades I let you imagine, every room cleared in 2 seconds, bosses too!

I love Soy Milk, so much fun.

It could be awfull to, depends of what tears and upgrade you get with the soy milk!

 

[stump sock]

I had soy milk and polyphemus or something and it was giant, rapid fire tears that only went half the screen. it was a wall of death. hilarious.

 

[Kid Ska]

Wow, just got an insane combo! Quad Shot + bouncing tears + piercing tears + shielded tears.... And some other upgrades I let you imagine, every room cleared in 2 seconds, bosses too!

I had this in one of my early runs, minus the shielded tears. Soooo good.