The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

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Yet another balance mod
   
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20 Jan, 2017 @ 6:07pm
12 May, 2018 @ 7:55pm
25 Change Notes ( view )
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Yet another balance mod

Description
What does this mod do?

It's yet another balance mod that makes changes to item pools in an attempt to make the game more dynamic and interesting.

If you try this mod please give me your feedback on how the changes make the game feel. I am open to any and all suggestions.

Why?

Afterbirth and Afterbirth+ have subjected Rebirth to a great deal of power creep. A fast start character has no problem being in a game-winning position by the end of Basement 2, whereas a weaker character might never get off the ground while slogging through alternate floors and the more unreasonable Afterbirth+ rooms. The "roulette" aspect of the game has only gotten stronger - item picks are obviously good or obviously bad, rooms are always easy or always hard, and the middle ground is rarely relevant.

Looking purely at the item side of things, I feel there are a few exacerbating factors in this:
  • There are far too many items in the treasure room pool, leading to too much variance and decent items being pushed out by overpowered alternatives.
  • Despite this, there's still a lot of overlap of certain items between pools making such items very common.
  • Many items are redundant, boring or virtually useless, while many other items are always obvious picks (Dead Cat, Ceremonial Robes, Abaddon) or will win the game on their own (Tech X, Mom's Knife).
  • Many items can generate large amounts of soul/black hearts (Serpent's Kiss, Maw Of The Void, the multitude of Book of Revelations-style items), giving a competent player an overinflated HP pool, allowing them to buy any and all devil items/use curse rooms without risk.

tl;dr The item pools are too swingy and don't encourage smart, interactive play.

What the mod does specifically

This mod does not affect Greed mode.

  • A shallower treasure room pool and more distinct other pools
  • Less bloating of redundant, boring or inconsequential items
  • Less availability of hard carry items that trivialise the game
  • Less soul heart/black heart generating items with no downside to make health management more meaningful
  • Less overabundant Guppy items due to the safe nature of the items and extreme power of the transformation
  • A diluted Devil Room pool so it's not always the immediate obvious choice

There aren't many changes in item weighting, but a few very powerful items have been made much rarer with 1/5 weighting.
Currently some items (good and bad) aren't in any item pool. You can still get them from an Eden start or Eden's Blessing.

For full changes, see the included spoilers file or view it online here[hastebin.com].

Summary of changes
Treasure Room: 100 items removed, 10 items added
Shop: 4 items removed, 20 items added, 1 item rarefied
Boss Room: 8 items removed, 13 items added
Devil Room: 12 items removed, 11 items added, 1 item rarefied
Angel Room: 7 items removed, 7 items added
Secret Room: 9 items removed, 33 items added (4 are rare)
Library: 1 item added
Golden Chest: 1 item removed, 14 items added, 1 item rarefied
Red Chest: 2 items removed, 18 items added
Beggar: 5 items removed, 17 items added
Demon Beggar: 1 item removed, 7 items added
Curse Room: 10 items removed, 20 items added
Key Master: 22 items added
Bomb Bum: 5 items added (2 are rare)

Derivative use
Please do whatever you want with this mod.
11 Comments
Incognito  [author] 12 May, 2018 @ 8:43pm 
This has been updated for Booster Pack #5 in case anyone subscribed is still interested.
[BA] mpolder 29 May, 2017 @ 8:29am 
This game is pretty much supposed to have overpowered items, that's what makes it fun. Getting overpowered items is what makes the game unique and makes your runs very different
Incognito  [author] 23 Jan, 2017 @ 2:40am 
I would appreciate it. I doubt I'd use a mod like that myself, but I'd appreciate being mentioned.
meme caster 23 Jan, 2017 @ 1:31am 
Fair enough, I didn't think about this mod in particular when I made the request. Your mod is only .xml I believe, which isn't always licensed the same as code, and you don't own the original xml file yourself.

I personally just make a habit of putting all my code under a free license and didn't think about mods that aren't code.

Anyway, if I were to adapt your item pools and write a mod around it, would you mind me linking people to here for the item pool related stuff? I'm thinking of a mod idea that stops both overpowered "trainwreck" runs from occurring by giving you better items when you have bad items and visi-versa.
Incognito  [author] 23 Jan, 2017 @ 1:19am 
Fine, I re-added a different statement. This one should be permissive enough.
Incognito  [author] 23 Jan, 2017 @ 1:03am 
Because I feel ridiculous giving a license agreement to what's technically nothing more than a configuration file. There's no case for my ownership of anything because there isn't any original content. And even if I did care about somebody reusing it without my permission, there wouldn't be any way I could prove that the files they used were from here. It's just too much meaningless overcomplication of the issue. Believe me, if I were in any position of caring about what potentially could happen to this mod, I wouldn't be putting it on Workshop.
Incognito  [author] 22 Jan, 2017 @ 3:08pm 
Mod now has a license file and notice in case it's necessary for anything.
Incognito  [author] 22 Jan, 2017 @ 10:49am 
It's just a replacement for the item pools list file. It's a public markup file, anyone can do anything they want with it.
If I start editing other things and the mod gets more complex, then formal version control will become a lot more important, but right now there probably isn't much point.
bricks 21 Jan, 2017 @ 11:39am 
I've only had one run with this mod installed, so I can't make any strong judgments, but it was not at all a bad run (Judas leading to Mom's Knife from a Devil's Deal after picking up a good familiar in the Angel Room). I saw the Black Candle in a Devil's Deal - didn't take it, but heavily considered it. Definitely going to keep playing with it.
Incognito  [author] 21 Jan, 2017 @ 10:18am 
Yeah, I probably should've done that first. There's now a spoilers file in the mod folder that lists all changes.