Great game but you need way more items

[evilution]

Beaten it twice now in 6-ish hours. The lack of items/consumables is really becoming obvious. Unless i'm missing something you guys need 3-5x the items pretty badly to keep people interested.

[TheVampire100]

I think you exaggerate. I assume you come from Isaac? Isaac players think that the amount of Isaac should be the norm.
There are currently 224 items in the game. If Arcen Games would do, what you suggest, that would make 700 items in total. 700? Thats absurd. I bet you didn't even see all 224 items (even I didn't and I played the game since the Alpha).

The point about Starward Rogue is, instead of having thousands of items that all do the same (give you some stats), they have 200 and every one is unique and have a special functionality (given, that some act similiar but not the same).
You could easily cut isaacs amount of items in half because there are so many double functions that just have different sprites and names for the sake of having more. More is not always better. SR put quality over quantity.

However, this does not mean that new items aren't coming eventually. They may but not in that quantity.
The current problem ist, that a lot of stuff is not aviable for the majority of players because the majority of players haven't even beaten the final boss. After you did this, you unlock a lot of new stuff, mostly because later stuff appears earlier on your run (harder enemies, better loot).

I think the game would benefit more, if there is a bigger variety fopr the lower floors, so players see that there IS actually more.

[evilution]

i hate Isaac, i think its a terrible game and not fun at all. That being said I keep finding copies of the same thing on floors, like 5 tactical nukes or emps or black holes. And I've barely found any different guns. There should be a shit ton of guns.

[Misery]

i hate Isaac, i think its a terrible game and not fun at all. That being said I keep finding copies of the same thing on floors, like 5 tactical nukes or emps or black holes. And I've barely found any different guns. There should be a shit ton of guns.

Tactical nukes and black holes are both consumables.  Expect to see them often; they're meant to show often, as they are one-use items. 

As for the guns.... hm.  It's very strange that you're not finding any, as there are alot of them.   I might relay this to the others, I'm thinking that the item pools need to be looked at a bit, I keep hearing things like that.   Heck, the lead developer was mentioning awhile ago that he thought there might be TOO MANY guns because he kept running into them.  But now that I think about it, I havent seen any in the last like, 2 or so runs I did either.  Sounds like something might be a bit off.

I'm assuming that you're entering weapon shops and stuff too?   And still not spotting any there?

[evilution]

A few but nothing even seems like an upgrade most of the time, and ya i explore all of every floor... maybe my playing sample size isnt high enough but opening chests is literally boring after a while because you never find anything new.

[TheVampire100]

As far as I can say all guns act different and not as upgrades (maybe except the flamethrower over the incerator).
I recently only discovered that there is a railgun for your main slot.  So I've still haven't seen them all.
There is the main machine gun, the hornet nest that has a faster attack speed (but lower fire power and bigger spread), the grenade launcher, flamethrower, railgun (sniper-like weapon), I found today for the first time a tazer that travels through walls andere there was another weapon where I forgotten the name. Main weapons aren't many tehre because they have infinite ammunition and it's hard to balance this stuff right.
There are more secondary weapons like guard blaster, combat shield, rainmaker, shotgun, boomerang needles, phase blaster, different types of mines, poison stuff, flaming stuff. Then there are the drones, the modules and th econsumables. And you can all combine it like you want, giving you even more possibilities.

[Misery]

A few but nothing even seems like an upgrade most of the time, and ya i explore all of every floor... maybe my playing sample size isnt high enough but opening chests is literally boring after a while because you never find anything new.

Yeah, I explore every floor too, and indeed, still havent found any weapons on the last couple of playthroughs. 

So that might be a bug or something involved.


Now, that being said, chests / locked chests rarely contain actual "items".  Consumables, yes, and pickups like health and missiles (particularly for normal chests) but finding actual power items in them is very rare.  You'll get most items of that sort from item rooms/bosses/shops/challenge rooms and stuff like that.  I do think the locked chests need to be a bit more exciting somehow.... just not sure how.   I find it's usually better to use keys on shop doors.

[PokerChen]

 evilution's not wrong in the possibility of some form of bug. I have found the same thing happening in tests where I keep finding, say, miniature black holes every time I open a locked chest on a floor. This has happened a number of times on the deeper floors, and suggests that the item pool may have bugs. It's normally just RNG, but checking is good. Also, I'd advise Keith/Chris that pure RNG normally makes people unhappy more than happy.

 Increasing the chance of finding an equippable item in a locked chest would make them more rewarding, and you shouldn't be hiding all of the more powerful things inside the secret rooms so that half the players lose interest before 1.006 hits.

 I'll raise it on the bug-tracker. The rarer weapons like grenade launchers, phasers, translocators, etc., don't appear often enough even in the hidden rooms probably because they're being crowded out by other items that I noticeably don't need.

[Misery]

Yeah, I'm going to send an email about it directly to Chris in a bit here; if this one really is a bug.... and it sure looks like it might be.... then I think it's kind of a priority one, since it will indeed give the impression that there's not many items in the game.


....also it's just really annoying.

[PokerChen]

 Well look, true RNG tends to displease, so even if it's not a bug I'd suggest that the game lean towards showcasing the range of items that's in the menu list. It's not like enough people are storming the Hard difficulty.

[Captain Jack]

Well look, true RNG tends to displease, so even if it's not a bug I'd suggest that the game lean towards showcasing the range of items that's in the menu list. It's not like enough people are storming the Hard difficulty.

Oh absolutely, but there's a difference between frustrating RNG and a malevolent entity straight out of Fallen London. This is more the latter.

Misery, was the problem with the sacrifice rooms having too many exclusive items ironed out? I remember you commenting on that as a WIP.

[Misery]

The sacrifice rooms actually needed to be FIXED before we could even determine how well or not they are balanced, as this sort of thing goes.

They were basically impossible to find without the perk; Keith only recently fixed the glitch that was causing the second method of opening those (AKA, the one that's worth trying) to not work at all.

Definitely a work in progress at this point, yeah. 

That they're NOT the only type of secret room is another issue.

[keith.lamothe]

Not sure what you were running into with the seeding; I was testing something else in a new run and the item room right next to the starting room had a Guardian Gun, replacement main weapon. Are you not seeing any of those?

[Misery]

I've barely seen any weapons at all recently.  Keep hearing that from people too.  Did the item pools get changed around at all maybe?  I really dont know.

[keith.lamothe]

I've barely seen any weapons at all recently.  Keep hearing that from people too.  Did the item pools get changed around at all maybe?  I really dont know.

My main question is: where did you use to see them that you don't see them now?