Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth

[talah]

I searched and there's nothing here on this?
WOW JUST WOW.

I've gotten into Isaac having been corrupted and overtaken by Twitch generally, watched a few games and then got sucked into the speedrunning antics of ProblemsIRL and the slow-playing and streaking stuff from the likes of Diabetech, Cobalt and NorthernLion.

I'm officially an addict and have been finishing up my working days lately by coming home and playing a few games on the latest version of the BoS weekly challenge (and IMO best racing iteration of Isaac Rebirth ever) - the Jud6s mod.

So.
I'm looking forward to Afterbirth, have pre-ordered for a few bucks and mainly want to see what happens with the Isaac community meta when all the new items, item synergies, characters and transformations are in effect. I'm less jizzy about the leaderboards and Greed mode, but i'm sure I'll try them out.

It releases on October 30th! Yay a thread about Isaac Afterbirth!

[Donempire]

The only thing im looking after is that pokemon ball thingy
Everything else seems meh

[talah]

Mmm, mm. Mm.

So this pokeball thingy. I guess I missed the memo.

I was sort of thinking that all the additional items, item synergies and transformations would be pretty cool.

[Errantparabola]

Its not my favorite roguelite but i like it enough to preorder it.
Im definitely looking forward to item synergies.

[Ythan]

There are about five dozen games I'd compare it to before Rogue but sure.

[Ythan]

Someone make me a mod so I can ban everyone who uses the word rogue without playing rogue.

[Errantparabola]

There are about five dozen games I'd compare it to before Rogue but sure.

Isnt that what the word roguelite is for?
Like, a rogue-like-like?

[Ythan]

That's advertising garbage with literally zero actual meaning.

[Errantparabola]

Like, people trying to ride off the success of roguelikes?

[Ythan]

I don't understand it either it's not like they make money. But yes.

[chamber]

Isaac is pretty blatantly a roguelite. It has heavy roguelike elements. Its just in the form of an action game.

[Ythan]

It's the equivalent of saying

rich Corinthian leather

.

[Ythan]

I'm sure it will be a very fun game.

[talah]

One of the main synergies they've spoiled is the Rubber Cement working with - well almost everything now.

There are probably going to be some stupidly OP combinations which are rarer due to the increased item count.

So Tammy's Head and Brimstone it won't have much bearing on because it was stupidly OP anyway :D but say triple shot Technology with rubber cement (and I think 20/20 will combo with a bunch of other items it didn't used to as well)... these are going to make meaningful balance in an SRL environment pretty interesting.

We shall see! It's going to be fun to watch the full achievement runs on Twitch - I think Dick and Cobalt are planning to complete the game on release day.

[Donempire]

Meh, i never liked rubber cement as an item, but it'd be cool to see some OP combinations. Besides that it would be hard to get them anyways with shitton of items.

Also, where is the twitch link? Im a bit uninformed about that so if you could pls give me the link .-.

[talah]

The main rebirth category is here on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/The ... %20Rebirth
Afterbirth will obviously have a different game category as it's a different game.

The final/championship Rebirth Weekly Balls of Steel VoD (prior to Afterbirth) is here: http://www.twitch.tv/bostv/v/22377924
10 hours of nice business sorting out the best of the best using the Jud6s mod

Diabetech - host of the BoS weeklies and a really nice dude who plays other games as well
Cobaltstreak - who has said he'll be running the new 111% True Platinum God when Afterbirth comes out along with Richard Hammer (who appears to be staying at his house for the week to do so heh)
Problems - one of the notorious 7-character runners
Hyphen - winner/titleholder of several major Isaac speedrunning comps
Anti - possibly the best Isaac Rebirth speedrunner around
Brain - fantastic and entertaining runner who is growing into 7-11 character speedruns

There are dozens of other really great racers, most of them play on SpeedRunsLive (SRL) - although I mainly just catch them on Twitch :)

[Davsto]

The most OP combo I ever got was Soy Milk+Libra.

Soy Milk maximises shot speed to hilariously high amounts but minimises damage.
Libra balances out all stats.

Basically, my shot speed was still fairly high but fell a bit, but everything else skyrocketed. It killed Gurdy in about 10 seconds.

For the record, am I correct in remembering that people that own Wrath of the Lamb get Afterbirth for free? Or am I imagining that?

[talah]

I can't say I've ever actually gotten the Soy Milk + Libra combo, but yes its reputation is well known. Possibly something you'd be more likely to end up with while Eden streaking, as each of the items on their own are basically run-killers and not something you'd usually pick up in isolation.

(I did take soy in the chest recently after I already had quad shot / scythes and that was pretty hilarious.. Then found ipecac in another chest room... Apparently cac/scythes isn't an instant death sentence with soy heh)

Far as getting the Afterbirth DLC for free, I don't think that's a thing. AFAIK it's DLC for Rebirth so you need Rebirth anyway. I bought Rebirth / Wrath when they were on sale together a while ago, so if I'm wrong I just wasted my $6.66 buying Afterbirth. After release date the DLC wil be $9.99 USD. Apparently you'll get the Afterbirth soundtrack for free if you already bought the Rebirth one.

Edmund (creator)'s sitey bloggy thing with all the info is here:
http://bindingofisaac.com

[talah]

http://platinumgod.co.uk/afterbirth-countdown

(expired on 2015-10-31 04:00:00)

[talah]

It's... interesting, I'll give it that.

I don't know that I'll play much Greed mode after I get all the unlocks from it.
I think normal mode with the different room layouts might be pretty good with the new items.
D4/D100 seem to work a lot better with more synergies (not so much a high-risk nerf anymore).

Found that pokeball thing you were talking about.

Also, it seems to upgrade the entire game (ie, it's not going to be easy for anyone to say, 'Screw it I'll continue speedrunning the un-upgraded Rebirth').

[talah]

I'm... kind of having trouble enjoying the game as much as I did before, and I'm not sure if that's just because I was comfortable with Rebirth dynamics (had like 875 hours), or if it's just that diluting the item pools and adding an additional amount of similar ratio crap-to-good items has just made it a lot harder to attain those rare synergies you used to get, therefore harder to realistically look forward to them.

Might also be that I'm going for challenges/achievements. Haven't touched Greed Mode since getting the post-it note achievement for each character. (Fuck you "The Lost", if that even is your real name.)

*sigh* Maybe I just need to move on to Fallout 4 or something. Rebirth used to be so fun though trying to run through quickly to the Chest a couple of games a night.

[chamber]

I had the same experience between isaac and rebirth.

[talah]

I empathise I guess and did wonder if it was similar.

The past week of Edmund/Tyrone tweets and "community unlocks" have been utter bullshit IMO. Not even enjoyable to watch from the sidelines. I'm actually really angry that Edmund's calling people who are saying it was time-gated (let me look up the quote(s))

"you sir are an idiot ..."
"How is it that people think extra bonus content that wasn't in the game or part of the description was "gated content"? :| INTERNETS!!!!!"
"you also aren't the only misinformed fool either sadly :/"

More like an agressive mafia game than the release of DLC which he was worried about secrets being exposed too early
considering he participated proactively in the secret "unlocking" and no-one but a few core folks could participate in it anyway.

No fun.

[talah]

So anyway I unlocked Keeper yesterday.

Got up to Sheol in Greed mode with him with a fairly sustainable build. (Lots of Tears-up, Spectral and Flight and some Damage ups.) And then got double-tapped by 2 x Adversary Brimstone.

I don't know that it's going to be fun playing Lost for Hush / Greed / Mega Stan and Keeper for everything.
Guess I just love dat punishment doe.

[Om of the Nom]

I am really bad at greed mode with Azazel but everyone else I can do in like 2 tries at most. It's really weird.
Tech X is quite possibly my new favourite item

Also, Guardian challenge: bullshit or no?