Consistent VS. Variable Roguelikes

[@Ptslammer]

Alright I wanted to make a few statements about clarifications and mistakes I made in my video 1. I claimed Isaac is too reset heavy and made it seem like this is a universal experience. I should have been more specific, there are a lot of people who like to take challenging runs that have little chance of success and manage their resources to get through to the end against the odds or people who find better items midway through. I should have touched on this more. When I say I reset to find a good item, I don't mean a god item. I mean like coat wire hanger or glass eye, something that gives a positive status effect to an important stat. I just get bored if by the third floor I have no good items and everything is still really slow, but that's just my preference. I'm sorry I misrepresented this. I'm also just not the best roguelike player and I think there is a discussion to be had from a more casual perspective. There are different types of players of games, but again I should have represented this better. 2. Most of my Isaac knowledge comes from the original binding of isaac rebirth, my first version was actually wrath of the lamb. In fact I didn't know about repentance until I was already deep into writing this. Repentance really helped add a lot of important items helping with the resets and I did not know much about tainted characters which do have much more unique abilities and change how you approach combat. Even with these points I still feel the main idea of my thesis stands for 70% of Isaac at least but I definitely had some knowledge gaps I should have filled in. Frankly I expected this to get watched by 40 people, not 20k. 3. My ROR2 knowledge is a little lacking as well. A lot of people have mentioned how late game is very item dependent. Again similar to isaac i feel my thesis still holds strong for most casual players just doing one run, maybe one or two loops but its something I should have known more about. I should have discussed further in depth about how monsoon vs easy mode creates different experiences 4. Focus crystal was a bad choice in item for the example. I probably should have picked crowbar as loader has a lot of one hit heavy attack moves while engineers turrets and bombs are more consistent lower damage attacks so don't get as much of a bonus from the items. 5. There were some things I just overlooked, one that comes to mind that was mentioned is I didn't talk about equipment in ROR2, I definitely should have. This is not the only oversight in the video for sure and I am sorry about that. Another good point was 3D printers and repeat items in ROR2. 6. There were also a few things I didn't mention because I felt they did not fall under the scope of the thesis. Lastly I do want to thank everyone for the support. There are definitely some people clowning on me (and as mentioned it was sometimes deserved) but overall people have been very encouraging about my little side project here and I hope I can continue to improve and learn from my mistakes in this video :)

[@Drip_Relyks64]

Goated response

[@silverdededestruction2197]

Good response, but honestly you should have taken more time to rewrite anything about Isaac. Rebirth is so different from Repentance in terms of Meta and Mechanics hell, the new characters of Repentance and the buffs to old characters make the game more consistent than variable

[@sethwaldron7508]

Well, because you can manipulate the odds to a ridiculous degree, if you haven’t found good items by mother it’s time to either look at the wiki and find out how to gamble properly, or just get good and stop taking red heart damage(I don’t mean this in a rude way, it’s just the truth)

[@ss3nm0dn4r8]

@@sethwaldron7508 if you have to look at the wiki to negate the luck to have a chance then luck is still a breaking point

[@shrekiscool4743]

I agree with 1. Realistically most casual players won't be resetting until they get brimstone or something, and if they do reset it'll just be until they get a solid item, not an OP one.

[@enricobersani8948]

Ironically enough, yhe further you go in risk of rain 2, the less your unique abilities matter

[@Ptslammer]

@@enricobersani8948 hi friend appreciate you leaving a comment! I’d love to hear you expound more on this. My thinking is that on the fifth loop while playing loader you’re still melee focused there’s not many items that would change that outside of lunar coin items and for railgunner the 5th loop would still be ranged focused and there aren’t many items that would change that but I admit I haven’t delved too deeply into really far runs into risk of rain 2, what about the later parts changes how you interact with your abilities and combat? Not asking to question if you are right or not, I’d just really love to learn more!

[@thew00dsman79]

@@Ptslammerit depends on what you have, but eventually you’re very likely to get a bunch of proc chain items like ukuleles, sticky bombs, AT missiles etc. and while every survivor has different proc coefficients, once you’re able to aoe down enemies, things sorta just fall over dead in seconds flat, unless you get hit with a debuff like Collapse from Void-Touched enemies from the first dlc Survivors of the Void, unless you have the “Ben’s Raincoat” if it decides to work

[@thedarter]

​@@Ptslammerby the fifth loop, more often than not you don't even need to attack enemies anymore. Something you have does it for you, which sets off a chain reaction that just kills everything on the stage automatically. At that point your primary, secondary, and special are all basically moot, and the only one still useful is your utility, *MAYBE*.

[@SkunkfapGaming]

​@@Ptslammer In early runs your abilities dictate what items you choose like you've said, but in late runs the items you've acquired dictate how you play. So if im playing railgunner, im gonna priorities items like crowbars and watches to deal more damage with her sniper, but later on along the way I might acquire some fuel cells, maybe a gesture of the drowned and a soulbound catalyst and suddenly my equipment has become my main source of damage. grab a disposable missile launcher and if you're lucky, a pocket ICBM and suddenly your no longer playing a patient and precise sniper but instead running around the map picking up every item like a lunatic, ignoring most enemies because your never ending swarm of homing missiles has already dealt with them before you even get a chance to aim down your sights. The later the run goes the more homogeneous each survivor becomes, because at a certain point, once enough items have been collected, every survivor just relies on endless proc chains and can effectively AFK the game.

[@rubinrobo2265]

Yeah I was thinking the same. My last run for example I was playing Commando and had an awesome bleed build. But I also had a proc chain so strong that most enemies died instantly (And I had enough items so the bosses die before I can even look at them) and all that in the first loop. I was kinda playing a unique build by stacking fireworks but even without them enemies mainly died to items.

[@sloppingfish946]

9:18 rolling the choc milk while talking about needing damage up is insane and made me very angry

[@Euphorion]

i would argue tractor beam is actually a better damage up in this scenario, as chocolate milk only really shines with tear proc synergies, very low tear rate or rock bottom

[@johankjellerup8198]

@@Euphorionbut its still a cool item

[@Trevowatt]

Tractor beam is one of my sleeper favorite items

[@HopeBFull]

Literally went down here to say this like- choco milk :(

[@strayorion2031]

The thing about isaac is that how much potential your runs have is heavily dependent on your ability to take advantage of the risk-reward presented in the game, and the more advanced that you are the more risk you can get away with taking, advanced players will use the sacrifice room for a chance of an angel item or room, will go into the cursed room for chance for a item from the cursed room pool, will always check the secret room and will wate minimal resources since they can quickly deduce where it is (idk why you said they are more utility items when the secret room pool is one of the most broken in the late game once you unlocked most of the items), will take one or even two demon deals if the run doesn't have a strong start even if it leaves them with one heart, or hell, if they know what they are doing they can always maximize their chances of a demon deal or angel room, I've even done runs in which I use the sacrifice room to get my health low enough for the boss challenge room, even if i have to fight two bosses with one heart, just for the chance of another item to turn the run around and I ALWAYS go into the boss challenge with the lost and I even use the alt rooms to always get the boss challenge rooms instead of the normal ones with the lost just for the chance of one more item, even if it's more dangerous. The game can and will 100% just decide to fuck you over sometimes, but I think one of the main things I like about isaac is that the more advanced you get the more you like to test both you and the game limits to see how much you can put in the line for better items, and most of the time the game will actually recompensates you for it

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

the fact people also have streaks of over 100 even with random or hard characters also testifies you really can win every run with just skill.

[@ileutur6863]

​@@nicklasbertelsen8717 Yeah, watching experienced Isaac players can be fascinating. They know how to use every single system in the game, so they can turn a losing run around in a single floor, even when the game is tossing useless items at them

[@SlopCentral]

That's what I was gonna comment but thank God you did it for me 😅. Really pissed me off to see what he said tbh. In Isaac you dont just hope to get lucky and make the most of it, you influence the luck onto your side.

[@silverdededestruction2197]

@@nicklasbertelsen8717 There's very few runs that can't be won, and it's all based on the actual variable character Eden, whose stats are randomized and can result in an uncontestable loss if they fight an enemy who can regen health

[@silverdededestruction2197]

@@SlopCentral Literally the main character Isaac gets a dice that can reroll items in hopes of getting something else The epitome of influencing luck to be more beneficial to yourself.

[@anusaukko6792]

One of the greatest parts about Enter the Gungeon is that if you're a genuinely good player, the items and guns are completely irrelevant. Beating the entire game with a starter pistol has been done before, many times, and isn't really even all that difficult. This is unlike most roguelike games where you are completely fucked if you don't get good stuff, since Gungeon is 100% skill-based, and does not rely on rng.

[@Akatesinomura]

Eclipse 8 has been done itemless on a few survivors in Risk of Rain 2 too

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

i mean even isaac has people LONG winstreaks and beating runs with very few or no items. A lot of good players could also win every game with at least half the characters. In fact i am pretty sure it has been almost completed on zero loses (a few require you to lose tho iirc.) But i do mostly agree, and i do prefer the boss fights and such in gungeon. But after 750 hours of Gungeon, the higher variety of Isaac became preferable (i have completion in both games)

[@Ptslammer]

I think there is definitely a lot of truth to this, like I said enter the gungeon was one I was pretty ignorant of. I still think this can somewhat be applied to a lot of roguelikes. I am sure many people have beaten Isaac as the lost with no items before just as many people have beaten dark souls blindfolded with a banana as a controller. This certainly comes in degrees though, the starting tools you are given in gungeon does seem to lean further into mastering it as a skill and more doable for challenges like that than many other roguelikes.

[@gamemincraft1234]

Honestly its one of the reasons Im not a fan of gungeon, plus the fact that to unlock stuff you need to be very very invested on being good, without really that many items that help. With amazing rng, the game is still really, really rough. Not sure I like that.

[@akus11037]

​​@@gamemincraft1234you don't need to be that good to unlock stuff, though? you can be struggling to get past floor 3 or 4 but you're still getting many credits to buy stuff from the shops while improving your skills so you can get further into the gungeon, and a lot of good items/guns are unlocked from the start so you can also just... get lucky. it also feels a lot more rewarding to win a run and learn the game mechanics properly with this kind of difficulty, but that's just how it feels for me.

[@mulattice3703]

I think another aspect that could have been touched on is the design philosophy for repeated item acquisition. ROR2 is built to have you stack items to increase their effects, making you choose to reinforce certain play styles. They even have scrappers and printers to incentivize doing this. If you’re playing Railgunner, you’re gonna sacrifice most of your other items for crowbars if you find a crowbar printer! This further emboldens the argument for “consistency” in ROR2. Conversely, in TBOI, you’re not gonna waste a Diplopia on Sacred Heart because the incredible effects you would get from it aren’t designed to stack with each other, so it actually just makes your build worse. Plus, it’s much harder to get copies of an item; you have to go fully out of your way to do so. They want you to go for a diverse array of items, rather than fortifying your current build.

[@ThylineTheGay]

and the most common way to stack the same item is essentially a punishment for getting all the unique items (breakfasting)

[@Ptslammer]

This is a good point I definitely should have touched on thank you for bringing this up here!

[@otamatonefan8996]

Personally i don't focus on crowbars usually, or at least for multiplayer 'cause of extra players that drop foes' health first.

[@wyn9693]

The easiest way to have more fun with isaac is to stop resetting. you could spend 5 minutes resetting for mom's knife, sure, but if you took the start with strange attractor you first saw you could notice that you can utilise your bombs to lure every enemy into one point and deal with painful rooms quickly. Boss challenge rooms will always exist if you're desperate for stats, and cards will constantly drop throughout a run for a supply of soul hearts, bone hearts, rerolls, sometimes whole items. The fact that it's a game of wild inconsistency where random items snap the game in two means you're constantly able to spend your resources to roll again and again, plus really the worst thing you can get from an item room is sad onion you are never at a true lack of resources. Have you ever managed to get an IV bag immaculate conception bloody penny build generating an absurd supply of soul hearts and familiars? not while resetting

[@InsertFunnyThingHere]

Or you can just reset until you get a half decent item to make the early game faster so it's not such a slog, and then the cool item synergies with potentially underpowered items can show up later. Like the resetting isn't meant to be a cheat code to instantly gain like brimstone + C section floor one it's moreso just to guarantee a half decent start because otherwise the early game of tboi is just kinda annoying, long, and not very interesting at all since synergies and interesting rooms only really start showing up around caves/necropolis and rarely by floor 2 if you're lucky (it's a bit character dependant though). And it's not like doing it instantly forbids any interesting synergies from ever happening afterwards.

[@bullet3417]

Finally someone who also uses bombs for damage

[@bullet3417]

​@@InsertFunnyThingHereno first floors is the most interesting ones when you don't have items that just clear rooms in 10 second and you need to manager your resources more than in late game

[@JohnSmith-kt3yy]

@@bullet3417 Yeah, I love doing everything I can to rinse that first floor of everything its got.

[@JohnSmith-kt3yy]

@@InsertFunnyThingHere I love early game tboi. That is when you know if you will have a decent run or not. I probably spend the most time on basement 1 over any other floor because of the rigging factor

[@mrgenry6055]

Dude, your analysys just screams skill issue both for isaac and for ror2 part. Isaacs biggest plus for me is replayability in a term that each character plays uniqly, especially tainted ones, they like COMPLETELY change playstyle and choices. And all the items are good if you know how to use them, every run is winnable and unique. Resetting instead of learning how to solve your run is like playing 25% of the game. It's so much deeper than that. Ror2 has eclipse, and you win ror2 mostly with mechanical skill, where isaac requires knowledge and minmaxing skills. Also, on monsoon and higher items are all, they play bigger role than lvl and char kit, because of the nature of scaling, you can easly fall behind and die because of bad rng, even on most busted characters. Also, on 2nd+ loop every char plays the same, exactly as in isaac, character matters only for the first half of the game. Playing on easy mode due to difficulty or resetting is totally okay, but true appreciation of mechanics and depth comes from challenging yourself to become better player, from learning, and achieving victory in most unlucky runs, despite the odds. Thats the most fun part in rogulikes for me.

[@bullet3417]

100% correct

[@jedisacoolboy]

15:17 talking about unlocking alt abilities with void fiend gameplay is ironic

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

5:28 Saying focus crystal is basically worthless on engineer while clearly standing within the distance to make focus crystal be effective is too

[@jedisacoolboy]

erm lidderally you said it yoursewf. Basicawwy. Its widdewy pwespective pal. Dont fweakin tawk to me wike you know shit okay buddy :3

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

@@jedisacoolboy what? I am unsure if this is agreement, disagreement, insulting, or jusr trolling..

[@jedisacoolboy]

@@nicklasbertelsen8717 mix of trolling and I'm js being a retard >_

[@friendo5502]

void fiend has a whole other moveset i guess it isnt unlockable and is already unlocked its still AN ENTIRE OTHER MOVESET except the heal move and hes the only character with no **unlockable** moves

[@carnegyballsackchungusprod4789]

Man the mispronunciation of all the issac items and rerolling chocolate milk and complaining that hard about cursed eye hurts me

[@brennanoconnor433]

Bro also risk of rain has broken items, why is he acting like that’s not a thing?!? If you find head stompers and get speed you just win, neither games are about pure luck, you need a little bit to get by but it’s also a skill thing.

[@joomer9511]

Tip for teleporters on ror2, they emit a large area of red sparkles, so if you see a sparkle that's where the teleporter will be. They're blue on stage 5 tho cuz different teleporter

[@trby7]

You beat me to it 😅

[@phiphi2209]

And with the seekers of the storm update you can enable a setting so they glow even brighter to the point where you can see them across the whole map

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@phiphi2209 The setting makes it so the sparkles get bigger the farther away you are from them. Unobtrusive if you're already next to the teleporter, but exceedingly easy to spot from far away

[@Ptslammer]

Totally forgot about this big oversight, thank you for bringing this up in the comments!

[@ThatNerdGuy0]

I’m not gonna lie I’m surprised you didn’t mention equipments in risk of rain 2, those are basically a 5th ability that is controlled by items

[@Ptslammer]

Very good point, just a big oversight on my part there honestly I appreciate you making mention of it here for people to see it warrants discussion

[@Monkayvr251]

I think this guy is just confused about Isaac, the only reason he isn’t getting good items is because he isn’t unlocking better items, and cursed eye is actually very great, as you just have to not get hit (easier than it sounds) and it can actually help you sometimes when you teleport out of a scary room. Isaac is a game about patience, and that shows when you watch a lazy Matt man or Vicfis video, where, most of the time, they start with trash items, and then near necropolis/depths/dank depths, they get op items that were really hard to unlock (e.g. rock bottom, using a character that is 2 characters and beating 30 bosses, and c section, beating the hardest boss in the game with a character that can’t shoot herself, but uses a demon guy to shoot that mimics her damage and tear effects).

[@CyanBlur]

If you don't loop in ROR2 the items and printers you DO find can drastically define the run while independent of your chosen character's abilities. A Forgive Me Please run is like collecting the Exodia (gas printer, the FMP equipment itself, a soulbound catalyst, and fuel cells and other on-kill items); a fireworks printer with a remote caffeinator and maybe ICBM is a similar, but easier to obtain combo of items; a headstomper, quails and some bands and focus crystals and you never have to attack again. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you loop a handful of times, your chosen character matters little because your build turns into a grey mush of overpowered (no disrespect to those that like that power fantasy). The whole game gets played for you off of item chains from your little disciple, or your 10 charges of equipment.

[@RenoReborn]

Cursed Eye actually got me through the Backassward challenge, didn't have to fight any of the bosses, just got teleported around everywhere, it was pretty funny

[@Ptslammer]

I think I should have been more fair to isaac and given examples of how at this point most every item can have some sort of use if you have the game knowledge or figure out how to use them effectively. That does sound very goofy!

[@sugarfreejelly5577]

Your isaac segment definitely recontextualizes your choice of Loader; because Loader will nearly always give you that God run on a silver platter. You'd have to get very unlucky to do poorly as her. If the Isaac developers actually wanted you to get that god run; killing the bosses near instantly every time you toss the game open; then why program them at all? Why add all the less impactful items like the buddies or the max health ups if the Soy milks and Brimstones are its Raison d'etre?

[@sterlander814]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking this, lol. Combine that with all of the Isaac and RoR2 footage being in Normal / Rainstorm mode, and it's very hard to take his opinion on these games seriously

[@tomekk.1889]

​​@@sterlander814I hate to say it but he's genuinely playing isaac wrong. You're not supposed to reset every run. You're supposed to have these harder tougher runs where you have to circumvent your lack of damage with other items or resources you have. He wants his every to be OP. There's a whole another layer of Isaac he has never experienced

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

@@sterlander814 i mean i still agree with his main point, of different roguelikes having widely different levels of variability. But i do disagree on a lot of his other criticism and details on several of the games, and a lot of his estimates. Fx. you really can't say most isaac characters are very similar with just some different starting items, when things like every single tainted characters and others like J&E, and Forgotten exist.

[@sterlander814]

@@nicklasbertelsen8717 I don't even think he's gotten far enough to unlock the Tainted characters, else he def would've mentioned them. The Tainted characters exist to fix up the design flaw of the original cast all being a bit too similar to one another. Also, I personally disagree with his main point. Simply because people have gotten far bigger Eden win streaks compared to Risk of Rain 2 Eclipse 8 win streaks. For a game that's supposedly far more variable, it sure is weird how people get bigger win streaks in it.

[@sterlander814]

@@tomekk.1889 I rolled my eyes when he picked up a table tech item and went "it's not the gun that 3 shots bosses so of course I'm gonna reset." I kinda just get the impression that this dude doesn't like roguelikes lol

[@TheFrosif]

4:47 quite possibly the best single sentence summary of the best survivor in ror2 Nice vid, quality was great especially with this being the first vid of the channel, hope to see you continue on

[@Yurok.]

this is really good for a first video, I agree with all your points. I often see small channels go for a "chill" style of voiceover that ends up feeling like they're unprepared or uninterested, but the voiceover here is in a perfect middle ground between chill and professional. subbed!

[@Ptslammer]

I really appreciate your kind words! I will say there are a lot of people in the comments giving great counterpoints to my essay that are well founded so if you want to learn more I'd recommend reading some more down here!

[@johnosburn6814]

This is well done! I was surprised when I saw this was your first video lol, the quality is very solid for a beginner. One cool thing that I like about Hades is that it uses its consistency very well. Because it is a story game, and wants you to get through to the end, the various upgrades you can get can help you get to the end of the story much more easily by improving the consistency of your runs. But before the game starts to get too stale from being too consistent, it allows you to apply a bunch of different challenges to your run to spice it up, especially the upgraded bosses. Anyway, keep up the great work!

[@Ptslammer]

Hey friend thank you so much for your kind words! That's a great point, I wanted to talk about how the progression system is a lot different with permanent upgrades I just couldn't quite think of the best way to go about it so I appreciate you bringing this up here. It's also one of the main reasons I think Hades is the roguelike I'd recommend as a first one because the upgrades will eventually make pretty much anyone strong enough to get through the final fight. But thank you again for the encouragement, I hope I can keep on improving the quality of my work :)

[@BiTreeFrog]

I entirely forgot that i beat hades a few times....

[@EvilCuteKitteh]

I kinda think Isaac is portrayed in a bit of bad light here, but I do get why the whole "reset until you get a quality 4 in the item room" exists! I will not hide that Isaac does have a lot more luck based mechanics in terms of getting stronger, but I think the best way to play the game is to stop trying to reset for a good start, and start learning how to OPTIMIZE your run! EVERYTHING in Isaac is a resource. Your health, your damage, your speed, cards, pills, trinkets, ect. ect. If you get something in the game, there is almost ALWAYS a way to take advantage of it. I personally think a huge part of why I like Isaac so much is because even if you get a bad start, you can almost always salvage the run in some way just by using your knowledge to your advantage. Got a card or item that makes you temporarily invincible? Use those iFrames to get into curse rooms for half the usual amount of health, or use it on a blood donation machine to generate lots of money to use in shops: now you have more health overall to work with, and potential more of other resources too! Got lots of health upgrades? Try going for the devil deal rooms to spend that extra health for potentially more power: devil items are usually pretty helpful, so now your run can be more comfortable! Got an item that upgrades your bombs? Those items always give you extra bombs just for picking them up, so use those to bomb machines, beggars, enemies, or even get into more secret rooms: all of these give you extra resources to use to keep optimizing! Where this really opens up is COMBINING all of these together, you start to be able to branch out your resource spending into more resource spending, into more items, into more damage, you get where this is going. It's recursive, the more you optimize, the more opportunities will arise to again optimize. I personally find this optimization of the game SUPER fun, like you're almost ALWAYS rewarded for using your resources. You can typically get nearly double the amount of items you'd normally get by doing this, and you'll get better at it the more you play the game naturally, and with more knowledge of how the game works. Again, EVERYTHING is a resource, and PLENTY of opportunities arise to spend them. The problem I have with resetting every bad start, is that you're just looking for an out to fly through the game, completely removing the learning of the more specific mechanics and ways to take advantage of the game. It's like if you ONLY played artificer on ROR2 since she's pretty strong on her own, even without many items to boost her stats, and then purposefully chose to pick up as little items as possible to just beat the game in 10 minutes and skip half of the games replay ability. Again, Isaac DOES require some luck, but i feel as though this video paints it as ONLY luck, which I personally do not believe is true. You're more than welcome to play the game as you want, but Isaac does have a lot of depth if you take a time to learn it's mechanics, just like ROR2. adhd version: isaac has a lot more depth than this video really lets on, so try to use everything given to you to your own advantage

[@melle_the_pelle]

I agree. What really makes isaac fun is trying to get the most out of every floor.

[@Ptslammer]

You're right, I regret my unfariness section of this video a good bit. I should have gone further in depth into resource management in Isaac. I felt it somewhat fell outside the scope of my thesis but I should have at the very least touched on it in defense of isaac so I appreciate you bringing this up here!

[@toasterarmy8727]

Wow you’re so talented especially for your first video nice job!

[@Ptslammer]

@@toasterarmy8727 thank you so much friend you just made my day!

[@davidwalker1144]

@@Ptslammer genuinely thought you were a more established creator dude. This is awesome

[@Ptslammer]

@@davidwalker1144 thank you my friend, hopefully someday I will be but I’ve been really happy with how kind the reception has been to my work it’s motivated me to work even harder on my next project which I’m working on as I type this :)

[@impliqued1910]

This adds a lot to my argument of "i think risk of rain 2 needs more alternative abilities" Thank you for making this.

[@cadenmyers1982]

And then the 3 new characters only had 1 alt each... Why Gearbox... Why?

[@paquixyz4000]

@@cadenmyers1982 and then the new dlc is completely garbage

[@impliqued1910]

@@cadenmyers1982 lets not even talk about our void friend :3

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

@@impliqued1910 i am actually fine with him, both because i love all his skills (apart from cursed special) and more importantly because he basically has a second set in his corrupt form.

[@Ptslammer]

I'm glad you enjoyed the video friend, I think there are some comments on this video that probably point out a lot of mechanics I didn't that make up for the lack of alternate abilities so I'd definitely recommend reading some peoples thoughts down here!

[@dodgymonkey447]

Nice vid bro! Saw this vid in my recommended.

[@Ptslammer]

Thanks so much friend! I was nervous about uploading, it's a vulnerable position to put your work out there publicly so I really appreciate the words of support :)

[@BurkMcGill]

The focus crystal is actually very very good on Engineer, especially in combination with the fungus, as it is very common for enemies to just swarm your turrets, especially melee monsters. This leads to your turrets doing a lot of fighting up close.

[@nicklasbertelsen8717]

yeah and the clip he shows when saying it, he is right next to the enemies. Focus crystal can be used quite well by almost every character by just slightly changing your playstyle. Fx. with huntress you have enough mobility and dashes to survive even while close to enemies

[@Ptslammer]

I mentioned this in my response comment up top but yeah, you're 100% right I should have picked a different item. I thought about it really late in editing this and I thought 'eh, 30 people are gonna watch this, I'm ready for my next project this is just a start' but I was wrong on that account and I should have put more polish into this video overall in general.

[@BurkMcGill]

@@Ptslammersorry I missed your original response comment. I really really liked your video though and I will definitely be looking forward to whatever you have cooking next! I was genuinely surprised when I looked at your channel and saw this was the first video on there because the quality was so incredibly good. Keep up the good work!

[@BrilliantBouncingBall]

I will say a huge replayability factor of RoR2 is easily the eclipse gamemode. Monsoon's pretty easy for me at this point but Eclipse adds a satisfying layer of difficulty and makes RoR2 (imo) 10x more replayable. It isn't usually talked about since it's pretty difficult and slightly hidden in the menu but once you start playing Eclipse it's hard to put RoR2 down. at least 250 of my 350+ hours are just Eclipse. If there wasn't an Eclipse gamemode I'd have probably stopped playing it by now. Also really good video. I like this topic alot and I think you explored it well.

[@Aleksandr_Tararin]

Simulacrum also caters to a specific playerbase, like myself. I know most people tried it once or twice and never again, but I legit think I've spent more time playing it than the base game (but I always use mods that increase difficulty of simulacrum, otherwise you have no chance of dying after like wave 15-20)

[@invenotrainworld]

i think eclipse is pretty meh honestly. eclipse 8 is the only good modifier imo. it punishes you for doing badly (like monsoon's lowered health regen) instead of just punishing you for playing the game (like the -20% gold drops modifier)

[@BrilliantBouncingBall]

@@invenotrainworld yeah when I say Eclipse I just mean Eclipse 8, prob should've specified. modifiers 1-7 (mostly) don't change your gameplay as much as eclipse 8 does. it kinda had to be that way though, or similar to that way, because if I had to do an Eclipse 8 run with the level of skill I was at doing Eclipse 1 it'd be really unfun. the slow buildup could've been shortened but it's necessary

[@finnangus1668]

​@BrilliantBouncingBall e8 is a big jump but id say the fall damage increase and the enemy cooldown decrease are the other main difficulty jumps

[@olesvren2906]

​@finnangus1668 some of the stages of eclipse also teach you a new thing, for instance e2 will teach you that it is OK to leave the teleporter if that is necessary to survive or kill the boss and hordes

[@ZenithTech35]

Great video, man! Very clear and concise explanations for systems which I wouldn't know how to put into words otherwise! Keep up the great work! : )

[@dusknone]

great video! an excellent introduction to your channel, can't wait to see more like this

[@Mazzifer03]

I love this idea! I had a similar kind of divide between Rogue-likes in my head, although its not the same wording. My 'divide' is Rogue-likes that dare the player to break the game (RoR2, Isaac, Noita) and Rogue-likes that limits the players power level so there isn't as much of a snowball effect (Hades 1 & 2). Great Video! Love this concept. p.s: I totally misspelt "rogue" like 6 times lol

[@Nullsaque]

As a rougelike nerd, I love this a lot. I was having a conversation with my buddy about how there's two sides to rogue likes, they fall more to one scale or the other. It'd be interesting to see you tackle this concept but with rogue-lites instead of rogue-likes

[@Ptslammer]

Thanks for the kind words friend! That's kind of how this video came to be, I started talking about it with my friend Bink (who is in some of the ROR2 footage) and it just sat with me until I had to write it down. I think I'm going to move on from this genre or similar genres for awhile at least, but maybe sometime I'll come back for rogue-lites :)

[@Metroidpikmin2]

Great video, subscribed, looking forward to hear more of your video game video essays

[@Ptslammer]

Thank you so much friend I appreciate your support!

[@Kimchinobi]

I legit had no idea this was your first video until i got to the very end! I think you did a great job at speaking from your experiences with the games you went over, good job!

[@Ptslammer]

@@Kimchinobi thanks friend you a real one

[@lifewithcatherinexo]

friend! i’m so proud of you!!! can’t wait to see where your channel goes❤️

[@Notdaedalus-nc1qv]

this video was great!! its fun to think about how roguelikes are different but similar at the same time!! hope you get more subs!! :D

[@mourn6378]

I never found Issac appealing im more of a ROR2 type of guy but man your video has changed my perspective for the better. I definitely will be trying Issac out & subbing. Thank you

[@thissideofmyworld7216]

Great video! I love how in depth your analysis is. I want more!!!

[@bungusofficial7028]

This guys gonna have some crazy yt growth I can sense it bro. I love the video its not too long but still long enough to be its own experience. Also i love RoR2 Like a mf and I was just drawn in from the start as a fan of roguelikes.

[@Ptslammer]

One of the nicest comments under here, thank you so much for your support friend I appreciate you and hope to see you at my next video which I am scripting right now :)

[@TheCrazybros2]

Fantastic video watch the whole thing. Can’t wait to see more.

[@CapnClown-]

Don’t usually comment on videos but good work can’t wait to see what else you make

[@ivandagiant]

Listened to the whole thing g on my drive home- great vid! Really enjoyed it

[@doctorsmiles4530]

Thank you for this nice essay. Id always wondered about this distinction

[@IAmBlindProphet]

Great video man! I love roguelites and roguelikes and your video helps me better articulate why I like some more than others. I’ll definitely be keeping variability vs consistency in the back of my mind now

[@IfritBoi]

While the character diversity is true in most gameplay aspects for TBOI:Rebirth, the incentive for unlocking characters are actually for their unlockables for each of their completion marks for the bosses. Some characters even have parts of their kit locked until they get one of these completion marks I.E: Isaac doesn't start with D6 until he defeats Blue Baby

[@rz6162]

the entirety of the keeper is just to make him easier to play which i find hilarious

[@Magikarpador]

but yeah i feel like games that are more consistent i guess is usually a bit less interesting to me. That's far from the most important factor of whether or not I enjoy roguelike but it's definitely a thing. Also in regards to risk of rain in particular not only do your items not affect your playstyle as much but id also say that outside of bosses the different enemy type dont really affect your playstyle much with most being dealt with the same way. It feels like youre kinda doing the same thing

[@Magikarpador]

lol i like games that are more variable i mean

[@katze8955]

this was an awesome watch thanks for making it!!!! :3

[@Ptslammer]

Thanks so much friend I appreciate your support!

[@ra1nyran]

12:30 -- i think it's helpful to note that the teleporter spawns on the opposite side of the map that you spawned on, so you can make a beeline to the opposite corner and almost always see the glowing red orbs that float in the air above it (especially with the new setting that makes those easier to see).

[@wolfi66]

9:20 im sorry did you just reroll chocolate milk???

[@Zach-804]

Chocolate milk is asscheeks early game when you have no sort of synergy with it

[@rz6162]

​@@Zach-804let me introduce you to: arthritis

[@doghotline3262]

Wow this is a really good video haha. I swear I had a conversation talking about these very differences and why I like Risk of Rain more than Isaac lol.

[@votebot3914]

only 5k? this video deserves much more

[@Ptslammer]

20k now my friend! I am very excited I appreciate your support :)

[@mageenta]

Isaac was specifically designed the way that game will try to make you lose each run. The previous version of this game, afterbirth plus, was too easy, and you had no challenge when you had godly builds each run. The game felt unbalanced and lame. Now its very balanced and you need to actually have good knowledge to break runs and main gameplay is relied more on minmaxing and surviving all the random hardcore shit that game drops at you. The game itself is winnable on almost all endings without any items (Except delirium with hush). The guy just didnt understood that tboi is supposed to be a hardcore game rewarding you with a chance to get anything at any rooms if you clean every room, find all secrets, feed all arcade machines etc, and punishing you for not being careful enough. Also, creator of this video was like 70% wrong about characters the same gameplay unlike ror2. It was true only in the old version before afterbirth was made. You have whole 32 characters and you only covered 3, one of which was Azazel, that literally has flight on start with short brimstone laser. Repentance introduced 16 new alt versions of existing characters, that has unique build-in mechanics on start, like Alt Isaac reroll every single item between 2, and only have 8 item slots, or Alt Eden rerolling all of his stats and items for each time he gets damaged. But, old characters were reworked to have game changing items on start, that changes their playstyle. Like Magdalene always having full health pill and healing active item. The main strategy for Maggy usually is to find sacrifice room to game out angel items or get back you hp as soul hearts. Cain, on the other hand, starts with lucky foot, that increases his chances to get reward from arcade machines and also makes all pill have positive effects. What im trying to say - the guy basically doesn't know what he's fucking talking about. Dude just restarted the game till he got good item on the start which considered as a skill issue and shameful in tboi community because you can win the game with a little tension with any build if you're good enough to understand the game or get game changing item on any floor so there's basically no point to restart the game when you can find good item at any time. That's the real reward for trying to win the run and getting a good easy win items after long suffering troughout the floors. Also the 1st two floors are the easiest part at the game so dude played like 50 hours at max and just dipped the game. If you call me a sweat or a nerd - stfu, this game isn't for casual players and like the most punishing game at the whole rogue like genre, basically dark souls of rogue likes. I hope the creator will give the game he reviews more than 10 minutes to not fuck up like this next time making a review video, cheers.

[@PotofGlue]

My favorite example of this is nova drift, where you have countless different builds with each ship depending on what abilities you're offered but it leans so hard into rerolls and very specific synergies that it becomes more about planning and strategy anyway

[@MagentaNimbat]

The thing with Cursed eye you mention for TBoI is that if you get it, now your main goal is to look for black candle, black candle is the item that removes all curses, INCLUDING the cursed eye teleport downside. Its all about making the best of what you have. After I learned to not reset to get a good item and work with what I am given, the early game becomes the best part of the game as late game Isaac becomes pretty boring as you are all powered up and just clearing rooms left and right. In the end it is about how well you can do with what you have

[@imjaymaybe]

i think another important thing to mention in terms of RoR2's consistency is the existence of printers and scrappers to turn the items you dont like into the items you do like, as opposed to every other rougelike where the things you get are the things you get

[@cadenduguid3680]

Hey! Awesome video and i can't wait to see what you put out next. Also just a tip for RoR2, if you cant find the teleporter there are little yellow sparkles around the teleporter so that even from a far distance you can spot it even if it's hidden behind a structure or underground in some cases.

[@Ptslammer]

Yeahhhhh I forgot about the teleporter sparkles, thats my bad but appreciate you bringing it up here and your kind words!

[@ughegh2647]

Hi, a game dev here who works on his rogue-like. I think you just opened my eyes. Thank you sir.

[@Ptslammer]

Thanks friend I appreciate your kind words! There are a lot of comments on this video going further in depth to mechanics I barely touched on so I recommend reading some if you want to learn more!

[@y_not584]

Another factor that might play into the topic is difficulty, especially in ror2 where in difficulties like eclipse 8 items matter way more than they do in the base game difficulty. Anyways awesome video, keep up the good work.

[@Ptslammer]

Thanks for the kind words friend! That is definitely something I should have expounded further on and an oversight on my end. Really I'm more of a casual player of roguelikes and these were some things that jumped out at me as a casual player but I should have done more due diligence.

[@otamatonefan8996]

Also with RoR2 multiplayer, extra chests means more choice for players to focus on a item setup more, but funny thing is, this also means if two players try to focus on the same setup, the items will be split more and there's a higher chance other items get wasted on a less benefitted character. Example is if there's Articifer focusing on the Band items and such, a Huntress focusing on Crit, a Captain focusing on Bands for the orbital bombardment and Crit, and a Commando focusing on attack speed and bleed. Sounds great, except one flaw: Captain and Articifer players are both banking on the Band items. This means they have to make a choice: who gets what band type for their character. It also means if they both want the Bands, their total effectiveness is split and it's less likely both players get what they wanted. There's also ways a item's effectiveness gets wasted because of a player's item choices. If a Railgunner goes for Bands and ATGs, then uses their rapidfire shots or another weaker source of damage, the ATG missile could fire off, and with 2 or more ATGs, the missile will waste the Bands before the Railgunner uses their more deadly single hit moves. Another player could've made better use of the Bands in that case.

[@SavoryParty]

Im going to recommend my two favorite rogelikes. Wizard of legend and skull the hero slayer. So to start of wizard of legend is weird where i feel it has a high amount of variability and consistency. So you're character starts off with 4 moves, standard (basic attacks), standard attacks (skills), signiture attacks (they are skills that can charge up a bar that when activated unleases an ultimate attack), and finaly dash attacks (not as important but still cool). There are also items and cloaks (cloaks change your stats). One more all of the aforementioned abilities come in there own element wind,fire,earth,water, electric, and a secret type, of wich there are 36 abilities in each element (and 24 for the secret). But what make the game so cool is in the hub you can take 1 of each ability, and you can take 1 of any item (excluding most cursed items). Also every ability can be upgraded (excluding your signature wich is already upgraded) (but only in the dungeon). The player can also pickup two extra standard moves and 1 more that essentially goes in you back pack wich you can switch out at any time. There are also about 170 items in the game. But something interesting about the game is it is fully skill based because you are never starting a run under prepared. All this in tandem makes for runs that are have a high levels of variability because there ar so many builds you are able to make. Imagine if there was only one character in risk of rain but it could use any combination of moves. Now here is my favorite, skull the hero slayer. I probably can't get into everything since there is so much but ill try In skull you have about 20 to 30 different characters witch come in raritys, common,rare, uncommon,and legendary. Each character has about 6 moves but can only have 2 at a time (it is random wich move they will have) (there moves also upgrade every time the character upgrades). But what makes it interesting is you can upgrade characters on a run by dismantling unwanted characters you find on a run. How it works is commons upgrade into,rare, uncommon, legendary. Rares upgrade into uncommon and legendary. Uncommon upgrade into legendary. And legendary cant upgrade. The reason i mention this is because there is no overlap. How it works is you will never find let's say a common character named wear wolf at rare or higher wear wolf will always be found in the wild at common. So ok we have characters out of the way let's talk about items. You can only hold 9 items at a time. Each item has its own ability and 2 inscriptions. An inscription is a set bonus that activates depending on how many of the same inscription you have. An example is you have an inscription that when you 2, increase physical attack by 40% (almost all inscriptions have bonuses at 2 4 or rarly 6) So how this translates into gameplay is you have an item with an effect you really like but you come across an item with a bad effect that would give you your final inscription needed, so you need to choose if you get rid of the good item or grab the bad item for the inscription. Final thoughts. If you play the game ill let you know that it is probably the hardest rogelike i have ever played, and for context im good at gunungon and have played both dead sells and darkest dungeon. One last thing once you beat the game you unlock a harder difficulty that lets you be able to have more control over your runs (like being able to pick a character not at random) or being able to pick a common item of your choice (which you will need because it actually gets harder). Sorry for the long post but i just wanted to give my two scents.

[@Ptslammer]

I really loved reading this you have a lot of passion for these games! I’m definitely gonna have to check them out I haven’t played either of them but I’m excited to learn some new games :)

[@naranja1129]

Hey, there great video! One note I would make referring to Risk of Rain 2 is that there is much more variability in interaction and synchronization between both items and abilities than you seem to understand. Many items you can find in ror2 greatly affect the other items you have and can create totally crazy builds. For example if you have something like polylutes + plasma shrimps you can create a proc chain, which can then go on to proc many of your other proc based items. I'm not a ror2 expert or anything, i just feel as though your argument lacked some depth regarding how items in ror2 interact. Even so i like the concept you talk about and hope you continue seeing success with these types of videos as they're very interesting!

[@Ptslammer]

You are definitely very right, one of my big regrets for the video was not going further in depth to later game ROR2 and some of the combos you could focus on. I still stand by my general argument, even when you have proc chains the items are not as horizontally focused as isaac but I should have fleshed out more on the possibilities so thank you for bringing this up here!

[@brusnitska]

great video! I mostly agree with the points made here!

[@mrjukeboxparty4563]

Isaac is one of my favorite games because even after completing all three save files I have never once had two runs that were the same, it is difficult ever single run

[@juanrodriguez9971]

The only runs that feel the same are the stats runs where you get nothing actually special, other than that all I can say on any run after 1k hours of gameplay is "Wait, does this work? Oh shit it does!"

[@TheOverArchiver]

I will say that in Into The Breach, the weapons, utility, and passives you can find in a run can definitely affect your playstyle (there’s a whole section of deployables, for example). I’d say it’s closer to 85-90% consistency, and 15-10% variability.

[@Copier777]

I feel like in roguelites it's comes down to run control. In RoR2 (which I prefer over RoR1/RoR:R for that exact reason, because those suffer from lack of player choice as well IMO) there are many more ways to control what items you're getting that are consistent (tri-shops, item printers, command artifact) than in TBoI. That's why players are generally more prone to restarting TBoI runs, you just know that if your run is screwed, it's down to luck to correct it. And god forbid you pick up an item that breaks your build in TBoI, because there's almost zero chance you're getting rid of it without also screwing your build over. Item combos are also more interesting in RoR2 since utilizing many of those requires an understanding of game mechanics deeper than "uhhh ludo + brim = ludo brim I guess". And then Hades, I'd say, is the best roguelite I've played in terms of run control, because you have almost complete control over your choices (every boon is a choice of 3, every room is a choice of 2, etc.)

[@screamingcactus1753]

Also in RoR2, you're just getting way more items in general than you are in tboi. You don't get two to four items on your first level, you get eight to ten, maybe more. The rule of large numbers is going to kick in and give you a half way decent run regardless of how crap your initial luck is.

[@Copier777]

@@screamingcactus1753 "give you a half way decent run regardless of how crap your initial luck is" That's ironic to read today. Had a run where out of 7 greens I got by stage 2, 5 of them were the harpoon xD But yeah, that's a factor too. In TBoI if the first treasure room gives you a bad item roll, you know you're not getting another shot at it until the next floor AND you're not even guaranteed to be able to access it since you need a key for it.

[@Ptslammer]

This was some interesting insight! I agree with a lot of this and wish I had touched more on it in my video so appreciate you bringing this up here

[@thelocalmothman]

keep spitting your shit man i didnt relise you were a small channel with less then 10k until the end of the video

[@Ptslammer]

This is probably in my top 3 favorite comments on this video thank you for your support :)

[@natalimoina]

Consistent are good, but variable clears hard. Nothing can beat games like Isaac and Gungeon.

[@_3ther_636]

31:00 HOLY SHIT, in to the breach mentioned grate vid, never thought about loving so much rouglikes

[@Ptslammer]

For real, Into the Breach deserves way more attention and love than its gotten

[@sauceinmyface9302]

I havent played too much of it, but I think slay the spire leans more into character consistent? Card pools are based on your character so you have a few build routes they set up for you, mixed in with relics and all class cards to add some kick.

[@Ptslammer]

I have played a good bit of slay the spire, im no expert but i would tend to agree. Like you said, there ae a few distinct build routes per character that are definitely different from one another but feels like theres still only limited amounts that can be done per character.

[@IlSharmouta]

"after I unlocked all the characters in risk of rain 2..." boy do I have some mods for you my friend

[@Chorcles]

For risk of rain Im not sure if anyone said this already about the teleporter is that theres a firefly effect in the general vicinity with the teleporter. If its still too hard, thanks to the recent update, check settings in the first tab at the bottom (I believe it was called group setting or something) there should be an option that makes the glow MUCH stronger and pinging it keeps the notification permanently AFAIK. Hopefully that helps and you can find the teleporter more often (I had this difficulty aswell).

[@anidiot4801]

I wish there was a game that had different characters like Risk of Rain with a set of abilities, but also items that drastically change their abilities like in Isaac.

[@Jane-qh2yd]

In my opinion Dead Cells is BY FAR the best example of how to do a variable roguelike. The game, especially with all upgrades, makes it relatively easy to find the build that you are looking for, and even with a bad build, losing in Dead Cells is always your fault

[@Notdaedalus-nc1qv]

hell yeah, I love dead cells!

[@myguttervforvendetta]

You don’t understand roguelike. Deadcell is a roguelite and its boring because of the upgrades

[@ThylineTheGay]

@@myguttervforvendetta i'm sure all ~130k people who rated it positively agree with you 💀 "10/10 - so boring i died" | "9.5/10 what an excellent alternative to watching grass grow"

[@ThylineTheGay]

i haven't played dead cells, but nova drift has a pretty good system for it

[@Ptslammer]

I have heard of dead cells but never actually played it, I'll give it a go!

[@Brepnir]

This video made me think about Returnal (excellent game so underrated imo) it's kinda like ROR2 since the level layout is also pretty consistant but obv adding some randomness to keep the runs interesting. But is more skill based than RNG or ability based outside of guns specialization or vital upgrades which makes it more distinctive.

[@juanrodriguez9971]

I couldn't play that game for long enough but damn is it really good

[@taiyo_10]

2:28 it’s not pronounced “the ludovoco technique”

[@supersonicfan6404]

Spelunky has entered the chat: Great video, watched all the way through, I’m just curious what you would think of Spelunky, a game with amazing variability, but that variability comes almost exclusively from that level generation instead of items, though items do have a pretty big impact on how you approach levels. The point I’m trying to make is that pretty much every other rougelike falls short in the variability of their levels, though some are more varied than others (cough risk of rain cough), they all ultimately end up growing stale at least in that regard. Spelunky, on the other hand, avoids that fate by generating a grid of presets in a given level that interact freely, as opposed to other rougelikes that use one isolated preset per room, so even though a floor in Isaac has many rooms, they don’t actually interact in any meaningful way. Additionally the traps also hurt and interact with enemies, which is honestly shockingly rare in the genre. If you haven’t tried Spelunky yet, you should definitely pick it up, doesn’t matter if it’s 1 or 2, but just be warned the difficulty is absolutely brutal. But if you can forge through the adversity and gradually learn the game, you will never get bored.

[@Ptslammer]

I have played spelunky many years ago and yeah, the difficulty was fairly brutal and kinda got me turned off from it but that was a LONG time ago I think it would be worthwhile to return to especially with such a passionate endorsement :)

[@buttermanaws4693]

Another thing about Issac is that as you play more and get more items and learn how things work is that you can rig a run more in your favor more and more From the more simple thing like spawning items in secret/deal room and rerolling them as the rerolls take the current room, to learning about diploid and wild card and using them to get free items from shops and devil deals to bigger thing like spawning reroll machines in rooms with a lot of items, reroll pausing, and using utility items like reverse tower and poop to get across gaps that have important items Now with that said i will also say that Issac is a better game the more unlocks you have, and i don't mean powerful items like c-section, moms knife, spindown dice etc, i more mean things like crane game, gulp pills, golden items, souls, runes, alt paths, these things add a lot more to the game that you probably just dont think of after a while but will realize on q fresh save, even with all the dlc that just add items a lot of the quality of life items are behind some pretty long run chains that can be kinda just a slog to get though if you are going for something specific

[@GetInVan]

They actually just added a setting in RoR2 that lets you make the teleporter particles more visible and another one that sets a marker after you find it.

[@m0noxyd871]

i got to 9:30 in the video an thought "well he made his point, the video is probably gonna be over soon" only to see that 30 minutes of video were still unwatched

[@gus4821]

Between 11:36 and 11:38 He went from over 1200 health plus shield to negative 460 That’s 2 seconds, ROR2 is very painful sometimes

[@bigbeanbruh9765]

Thank you KZbin algorithm for giving a banger video!!! Definitely sharing this

[@Purplish.]

Is this a video where guy rambles on about how he doesn’t like Isaac while having barely played or understood Isaac? Help idk if I should watch this video as an Isaac fan

[@Majin_Koolaid]

Great video man, I hope you blow up🎉

[@ДимитърИванов-е5ъ]

Different Issac character don't change your playstyle fundamentally (except if you're playing tainted characters) but they have huge effect on your run for example Issac and Judas. Issa strarts with d6 and 3 heart containers, this means that you can manipulate your item pools for a better chance of getting a good item e.g. taking a judgment card into the devil deal to have +1 item to reroll. On the other hand judas has only 1 heart container and most of the time you're going to skip the devil deal and go angels

[@Maikol_Secso]

How is this your first ever vid it's so good

[@chasetanner4822]

So what I have learned from this video is that consistent roguelikes value skill but end up having less replay value while variable roguelikes values luck but has more replay value. It makes sense in a way. Due to luck, you will fail CONSTANTLY in variable roguelikes. but because you want to succeed, you keep retrying and thus replaying until you succeed. Variable roguelikes is like blindly running into a wall, one of those times you end up blindly running into a doorway and not a wall. People who hate losing is the perfect type of person to play variable roguelikes. people who like to strategize is the perfect type of person to play consistent roguelikes.

[@luiegiii]

Spiritfall does such a great job of this. As you get further along a run the more fluid and powerful you feel. The game is incredible. Also a severely underrated roguelike is Wayward Souls. First played it on mobile and this game is truly a challenge. It does something very different with different character types and abilities. The levels are smartly generated and the game truly rewards you for getting good.

[@joshuakleinau7686]

Nice vid! My experience with Ror2 and tboi are almost completely the opposite, with risk of rain having very high highs and very low lows while isaac basically always has me lose due to my own failure, with mostly every run being winable, with all items having some use case that can be exploited and allow winning the game with it

[@WatDaFakMan]

Great video!

[@chilledkhaos]

Excellent video

[@Ptslammer]

@@chilledkhaos thank you for the kind words my friend! I put a lot of work into it and I’m glad to see it’s resonating with people :)

[@MrMega1423]

Enter the Gungeon is way more consistent/skill based than mentioned here. You could definitely beat the final main boss with your starting weapon in a lot of cases if you're good enough (would sure take a long time though), as enemies don't scale in HP much and they always do the same amount of damage, and the true final bosses of each run (you know, where you kill the past) give you a set weapon/item loadout and thus make the fight 100% skill dependent. The dodge roll and Blanks also add a TON of skillful ways to dodge otherwise undodgeable attacks. Oh, you died because you didn't have any blanks left to fight the boss? Should've used em better, wiseguy. The item/gun reward you get from a boss will always be A/S tier, too, so that helps mitigate bad luck. There's also aspects that try to prevent you from breaking the game too much: 1: A hidden stat called Magnificence that makes finding higher-tier chests less common the more high-tier items you have 2: Bosses have a DPS limiter so you usually can't instantly one shot them regardless of how broken your build is (some weapons ignore the dps limiter, though, and I believe reaching a certain dps level turns it off because if you're that strong then it probably won't change much, but you usually can't get that broken without a specific S-tier item that lets you loop the game) 3: Guns have ammo. If you spam your best guns you'll likely run out of ammo very quickly and be forced to rely on your crappy ones when you need them the most. Because of all this, I usually don't find myself needing to restart ETG runs on floor 1 unless I get really unlucky, but I'll also restart a run of Risk of Rain 2 if i get terrible luck on the first stage, too.

[@lafarennp435]

"Inefficient time management is a better reason for a run to be doomed than taking unnecessary dmg" is such an unusual statement to me. When I think about it, in ror2 sometimes you take dmg which makes you leave whatever you are doing, just to get to a safer place on a map. Which leads to a timer increase without you yourself getting stronger, leading to a harder run. In that sence isaac and ror2 does not feel different. And when u consider that curent state of isaac rewards you for faster completion (hush stage and boss rush), they seem even more similar to me.

[@pieguy2290]

As a gungeon player, i truly do hope this video can entice at least one new person to play Enter the Gungeon. I love the gameplay, and the humor is right up my alley. I do believe it can get sort of repetative, but not in a bad way. Its more of a skill based rougelike. The allure is to get better, make it farther, unlock more items to use, and ESPECIALLY clearing all the secrets. Play whatever is fun for you. If Gungeon isnt your kind of game, you dont need to play it. But i sincerely do hope more people give it an honest try.

[@zorouhrblx]

I'm a huge roguelike fan and i'm heavy on Isaac, i tried Enter The Gungeon also. i think if you like that you'd really like The Binding Of Isaac Repentance.

[@pieguy2290]

@@zorouhrblx I've tried Isaac before, and maybe it's a skill issue, or maybe I just need to get used to it. But I just can't get into it. The movment feels so slippery, and the tears are inconsistent for me. Since Gungeons movement is more strict and there's a dodgeroll I feel it's more skill based. However, once again, I don't really have enough experience in Isaac to be 100% sure about all of that. But either way, it's all opinionated and subjective. And I appreciate the reccomendation.

[@Ok_Eul-Tae]

I can't believe that Returnal didn't at least get a mention.

[@mika_iran]

0:53 IT'S CALLED A FUCKING ROGUELITE. THE BERLIN INTERPRETATION IS NOT A LOOSE SET OF GUIDELINES, IT IS WHAT DEFINES A ROGUELIKE. BINDING OF ISAAC AND RISK OF RAIN 2 ARE BOTH ROGUELITES. ROGUE. LITE. IT'S CALLED "LITE" BECAUSE, AS YOU SAID, LITERALLY THE ONLY FUCKING CHARACTERISTICS SIMILAR TO THE GAME ROGUE ARE A VERY SMALL HANDFUL OF QUALITIES. ROGUELIKES ARE GAMES WHICH ARE EXTREMELY SIMILAR TO THE GAME ROGUE. THESE GAMES HAVE NEXT TO NOTHING IN COMMON WITH THE GAME ROGUE, AND IF YOU HELD THEM SIDE BY SIDE, YOU WOULD SEE ABSOLUTELY ZERO SIMILARITIES. PLEASE STOP SAYING ROGUELIKE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ROGUELITES.

[@Stenrik]

A game that does variability and consistency really interesting is Gunfire Reborn, where in as you unlock more difficulties the more variable the game does in a very interesting way. Its a fantastic game that is very rewarding on skill but also variable enough one can have such different runs. Characterd have their own abilities, but guns are randomized (except the starter gun, wich is similar to gungeons but much much worse)

[@alexadams2734]

now you need to talk about Niota

[@Ptslammer]

Dude just got Noita last night, its awesome :)

[@alexadams2734]

@@Ptslammer i happy for you man, you got allot of learning to do my friend as that game is both the on and off the difficulty spectrum where is hard af to complete the base game, but there is 10 times more then just completing it. I'm sure you have watched albinos review on Niota, but it perfectly encapsulates it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5nIpXtthdyJnpo

[@Champion919Games]

I feel that Isaac, while not only being a Roguelite, is also a puzzle game in sorts. It's based around planning ahead, conserving pickups, keeping track of items, proper map exploration, and of course, a lot of luck. As someone who has 400+ hours in Isaac, I can confidently say that at a certain point it is less about the bullet hell, and more about making the game hell. I'm talking filling the screen with your projectiles, insta-killing bosses, filling a room with hundreds of pickups, getting literally every single passive item to the point that future pedestal items are just breakfast, or, my personal favorite, crashing the game. Risk of Rain 2 allows for strong builds, and some light item synergies, but is still predicated on it being a challenging third person shooter. Isaac? Isaac is based around becoming as ungodly powerful as physically possible and deleting entire floors in the press of a button. Also, this may come off as a little strange, but the swearing seems out of place. It feels like you are trying to convey strong emotions not through your voice but simply through swearing, and it seems a bit disingenious. Otherwise? Great first video.

[@hagrid2378]

Got it on my fyp and i like the video. question how long have you planned to make this video it's very high quality for being what i think is your first. Sorry for the length of the comment.

[@Ptslammer]

No worries friend I type in paragraphs so it’s all good. I have been thinking about making videos for about a year now but didn’t get serious work started on this one until late may or so, I originally started writing out the idea probably back in December I had the stirring of a thesis and some time so sat down to write it out and then came back months later to finish writing it. After that I spent a couple months editing. I wasn’t working every day on it I work full time so sometimes I get too tired and would stop for like two weeks then come back for a few days. I had some experience from back in high school I made a few speedrunning related videos and would stream on twitch but never put effort into it like I did for this one. I really appreciate your kind words though everyone has really motivated me to work even harder on my next project!

[@simplythecat4068]

You've been mostly talking about items and characters in the vid, but what about enemies and locations? I think that is also pretty important for a roguelike. For example, Hades has almost 0 variability in that regard, bosses do have some alternative versions, but you always go through them in the exact same order: Furies, Hydra, Champions, feed the cerberus, dad; which does add to repeated runs feeling stale. RoR and isaac both have a couple alternative maps and quite a bunch of enemies and bosses to add variety to the runs. Where this really matters, though, is in less action-oriented roguelikes, such as deckbuilders/dicebuilders (slay the spire for example), or even just turn-based (like darkest dungeon 2), strategic focused (such as towerdefs, recent Emberward is a good example) or some kind of gimmicky/minigame focused games (think of peglin), the kind of games where running into a specific map or boss unprepared can quickly wipe your run. While in action games like hades you can clear the run with pretty much anything, no matter how scuffed your build is, just as long as you perfectly dodge all boss attacks and don't take damage, more strategic roguelikes usually put your build and planning to the test. Maybe you were building too hard around poison, but this boss is immune to poison, maybe the boss stacks up buffs every turn and you should've prepared a build to melt it down quicky or dispel the buffs, maybe you take some cheap damage on this boss every turn, so maybe you should've brought some self-sustain or shields or whatever. In cases like these variety vs consistency really matters, so its important to properly balance between them.

[@DanielMorales-hg3qk]

I watched it fully, pretty good job btw also have you heard of skul? Really fun rogue

[@biblifem]

very cool video idea, I think you really explained it well and overall that's a really good idea :D

[@Ptslammer]

I really appreciate that! I was worried the concept would be too niche or my explanation too long winded and complicated so I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed the idea.

[@biblifem]

@Ptslammer i have never seen anyone talk about that comparison ive definitely noticed it so its cool you made a vid about it ^^

[@ruaristrawbridge7859]

Amazing video! I do have one question though… how does the boon synergy play a part in your point?