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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth >  Workshop > Erfly's Workshop > (AB+ ONLY) Fiend Folio - 250 New Monsters! ...and more? > Discussions
(AB+ ONLY) Fiend Folio - 250 New Monsters! ...and more?
Description Discussions25 Comments893 Change Notes
sportakus1 5 Dec, 2020 @ 8:40am
My personal review. Not proffesional, but from casually playing the mod. Praise and salt included.
First of all, casual doesnt mean that I havent 100% the game, I indeed did with every character. What I meant casual is going into it blind and just playing the game in terms of "I dont want achieve anything, just having plain fun."

Thats that, while I am bad at talking too much stuff on same topic, so I will rather put it in whats good, what is neutral and what is bad to summarize it a bit.

I have also played other mods that adds enemies, items, bosses, items, etc. like this mod just to compare this with among others, if it stands out or not.

So, ok, enough talking, grab popcorn and salt.

The good things:

- There are more type of rooms added into special room pool, so every treasure room, secret room and some normal/closet rooms contains more stuff that compared from vanilla they stand out.
-The look of normal rocks is alot better, really digging it.
-New bags, like blood bag containing hearts, bomb bag, dark bag (containing flies or something else), etc. Makes me feel like the ?/sack bag from vanilla isnt only one anymore.
- Mini dice versions that act one-time use, its pretty good to have a mini D10 without occupying my active slot, and I dont feel to use it most of time so having it pop-it-once feels much better.
- The evil purple coin, while can do bad, it also does something else than removing or adding a coin, it can increase or decrease one of stats. Feels good gamble.
- The fact that it does not lag at all so far when I was playing the game. No crashes so far. The only mods I have is what is necessary when downloading this mod and item description mod. Nothing else. No crashes. No lag. Good.
- The mini-shop that can spawn as reward for clearing room or spawn from some sources. Either it gives one item or more of them, including active/passive item. Buying them all will result the mini-shopkeeper to give you key in refund. Nice addition, the greed boss is annoying if it replace the shop room so having additional shops is godlike feeling to spend money on.

- Uh, thats it, might either fell from my memory during the time I was writing this or basically stuff that did not bothered me much were considered good.

The neutral:

- Colored rock with key. Sometimes, it doesnt bother me, like in treasure room I have a choice, usually its an active/passive item or collectibles (or both). Its good if the item is crap so you go for collectibles or if treasure room has 2 items to choose and have one key, which overall is same as in vanilla 2 items choice decision treasure room. The bad thing is, those rocks can also appear in normal, hostile rooms, either necessary to kill enemies or pure obstacles to limit your freedom of movement. I would not mind them but these enemies makes me not want to stumble upon colored blocks obstacles.

- Items. There are good ones, there are bad ones. As vanilla game, It needs have good and bad items to balance the power of your character as you progress trough. Nothing much to say. I have seen in other mods like this that had really good, op op, or really bad, no thanks.

- The new non-special rooms layout (hostile or not, normal rooms with goodies or not). They seems fine, but there are some rooms that makes me question if the creator only tested himself or actually tried inviting some strangers to playtest the room without flying or any immunity on/equipped. What I am talking about are rooms with or without enemies but the main priority being buttons to clear the room or go for buttons before or while enemies chasing you. Il talk more about it later.

Thats about it, might forgot some things, but again, most of things I forget are usually stuff that dont bother me or are good. I might add here later if I want to.

The Negative:
- As other mods, this mods as serious issues with enemies difficulty balance. The are enemies that really might be unavoidable if met in first two floors. I can say from my memory right now are that poop enemies who acts as that one enemy in water floors where it sprays alot of tears from you like catapult. That one is heck of a thing to deal if there is other enemies in room to deal with. Another one that I hate seeing in first two floors are bee enemies. Like, alright that bee who will stomp on ground, doing small rock wave while spawning 2 pointy yellow flies.

Just, in short, these enemies feel like combination of enemies from vanilla or upgraded version from vanilla that makes it more annoying or straight unavoidable if not dealt within some seconds. Not all of them are annoying, that would be a lie if I point at all of them being impossible, but most of them, are something that makes me wonder if I should uninstall this mod right now and rate it 2 or 1/5. That feel was like in other mods, this feel was not in antibirth. (and its why it got positive reviews).

People, who plays your mod or other mods around, are not people who played bullet shooter games where you have to perfectly manouver between shots with tight hitbox.

- The new character, fiend. A glass-canon like character? I am sorry but his p**s poor dmg and the fact you have to get damaged to have some "fiends" help you, doing not so much damage too from each other and that after fiends spawns, all black hearts are taken from you, leaving with half black heart unless you got red heart container (if its possible) early on. I thought glass-cannon is HIGH DAMAGE, ONE HIT AND UR OUT, not GLASS PISTOL, SPAWN GLASS SLINGSHOTS UPON TAKING HIT WHILE STILL DOING GLASS PISTOL DMG. Just, ugh. Make him do 10 dmg but being hard as keeper, because keeper is restriced to coins and 2 max coin hp, so I dunno, make the new character do 10 dmg in exchange of having life of the soul character. Dont have any penetration or ghostly tears, just normal mega dmg from start. Thats glass cannon that makes me feel OP in exchange of that every move counts.

-Some puzzle rooms, my god. I hate them. Sewer pipes, whoever made them, get fired. Same with pots I met in basement that leave red blood around the pot that hurts you and they can change from pot to pot. Anything like that, should go. Vanilla has enough of them, being annoying and need to avoid their shots (like throwing red tear, bomb tear or brimstone, sucking you and so on), they act additional annoyance, but in this one its like one friend punching you into back of your head to make you notice him so he can ask u question while you are already bleeding. If you dont have fly ability or/and immune to some hazards/bombs, good luck taking no damage.

And last thing, the design is awesome, I like the look of everything and also the aniamtion, but I am that guy who prefers gameplay over art, if the art if beatiful it makes me shed a tear but gameplay makes me throw my whole console out of window, then the mod failed. Period. Gets thrown into trash bin. Next mod please.

edit: I am gonna give the mod multiple playtroughs trough out the days when I feel like playing isaac and hope my perspective gets changed. I explained in the comment section about harsh review on the negative part.
Last edited by sportakus1; 5 Dec, 2020 @ 6:12pm
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
peas  [developer] 5 Dec, 2020 @ 3:39pm 
Thank you for the review! If you have anymore questions or concerns, make sure to join our Official Fiend Folio MOD Community Discord and let us know directly! :steamhappy:
#1
minichibis  [developer] 5 Dec, 2020 @ 3:46pm 
Thank you for playing our mod and giving the time of day to write a review! We'll take your feedback into consideration as we continue development!
#2
Guwahavel 5 Dec, 2020 @ 5:06pm 
Originally posted by sportakus1:
- As other mods, this mods as serious issues with enemies difficulty balance. The are enemies that really might be unavoidable if met in first two floors. I can say from my memory right now are that poop enemies who acts as that one enemy in water floors where it sprays alot of tears from you like catapult. That one is heck of a thing to deal if there is other enemies in room to deal with. Another one that I hate seeing in first two floors are bee enemies. Like, alright that bee who will stomp on ground, doing small rock wave while spawning 2 pointy yellow flies.

Just, in short, these enemies feel like combination of enemies from vanilla or upgraded version from vanilla that makes it more annoying or straight unavoidable if not dealt within some seconds. Not all of them are annoying, that would be a lie if I point at all of them being impossible, but most of them, are something that makes me wonder if I should uninstall this mod right now and rate it 2 or 1/5. That feel was like in other mods, this feel was not in antibirth. (and its why it got positive reviews).

I wanted to comment on this part specifically because I have seen a lot of people bringing up the point that the early game enemies are too difficult but I don't think that's the case beyond the first few times you fight them (if it even takes that much time to begin with). For instance, the poop enemy you described (named Dung) can be dodged by literally moving in any direction while it shoots its attack, its quite generous and it has a long charge-up time and cooldown after the attack ends. As for the bee enemies, they are difficult at first but you learn their behavior very quickly because they almost all of them have only a single attack. The one you mention specifically (named Honeydrip) I don't see as being difficult once you learn to give it a safe distance.

The first time you play with the mod there will be difficulty even on the earlier floors because of how much is changed, but you have to go in expecting that. Being able to have no difficulty with brand-new enemies is unrealistic, but most enemies have very easy-to-learn patterns in this mod. The strategies I described above to deal with these supposed "unavoidable" enemies you sort of just learn naturally within the first room or two of having to fight them. An enemy is raining projectiles from above, you move to the side. An enemy makes a shockwave and summons flies, you keep a distance and kill the summons quickly. Compared to other mods like Revelations, which has a lot more complicated enemies which take some more time to get used to, this mod's enemies are straightforward in their design (for the most part). The difficulty comes more-so from the room designs, which is something I think the mod is still less consistently balanced in (but still good overall).

As for the comparisons between this mod and Antibirth, I think it's clear you have not put much time in one or the other because the enemy design concepts are quite similar, and in overall difficulty Antibirth has much tougher enemies with more complex patterns on average. I think if you would want to critique the difficulty of this mod it should be focused on the room designs, but this post makes it seem like you haven't played this mod for very long and are upset because a brand new enemy stole your Basement 2 Devil Deal. This mod is advertised to be more difficult than the base game but I think a lot of are people having knee-jerk reactions to it because they are used to the first two floors having almost no difficulty to them. If these same arguments/logic about difficulty were applied to Antibirth it would probably "get thrown in the trash bin" as well, since the enemies and floors in that mod also had a learning curve to them which took time to be comfortable with, and even after learning them pose a considerable threat.

I don't want to sound harsh but I think you should give the mod a bit more time, because the enemies are a lot less intimidating once you learn their basic patterns (and most of them are very basic). People thinking the early-game floors are too hard I think are used to clearing them with no damage taken consistently in vanilla and have been a bit spoiled by that.
#3
sportakus1 5 Dec, 2020 @ 6:10pm 
Originally posted by Styfes:
Originally posted by sportakus1:
- As other mods, this mods as serious issues with enemies difficulty balance. The are enemies that really might be unavoidable if met in first two floors. I can say from my memory right now are that poop enemies who acts as that one enemy in water floors where it sprays alot of tears from you like catapult. That one is heck of a thing to deal if there is other enemies in room to deal with. Another one that I hate seeing in first two floors are bee enemies. Like, alright that bee who will stomp on ground, doing small rock wave while spawning 2 pointy yellow flies.

Just, in short, these enemies feel like combination of enemies from vanilla or upgraded version from vanilla that makes it more annoying or straight unavoidable if not dealt within some seconds. Not all of them are annoying, that would be a lie if I point at all of them being impossible, but most of them, are something that makes me wonder if I should uninstall this mod right now and rate it 2 or 1/5. That feel was like in other mods, this feel was not in antibirth. (and its why it got positive reviews).

I wanted to comment on this part specifically because I have seen a lot of people bringing up the point that the early game enemies are too difficult but I don't think that's the case beyond the first few times you fight them (if it even takes that much time to begin with). For instance, the poop enemy you described (named Dung) can be dodged by literally moving in any direction while it shoots its attack, its quite generous and it has a long charge-up time and cooldown after the attack ends. As for the bee enemies, they are difficult at first but you learn their behavior very quickly because they almost all of them have only a single attack. The one you mention specifically (named Honeydrip) I don't see as being difficult once you learn to give it a safe distance.

The first time you play with the mod there will be difficulty even on the earlier floors because of how much is changed, but you have to go in expecting that. Being able to have no difficulty with brand-new enemies is unrealistic, but most enemies have very easy-to-learn patterns in this mod. The strategies I described above to deal with these supposed "unavoidable" enemies you sort of just learn naturally within the first room or two of having to fight them. An enemy is raining projectiles from above, you move to the side. An enemy makes a shockwave and summons flies, you keep a distance and kill the summons quickly. Compared to other mods like Revelations, which has a lot more complicated enemies which take some more time to get used to, this mod's enemies are straightforward in their design (for the most part). The difficulty comes more-so from the room designs, which is something I think the mod is still less consistently balanced in (but still good overall).

As for the comparisons between this mod and Antibirth, I think it's clear you have not put much time in one or the other because the enemy design concepts are quite similar, and in overall difficulty Antibirth has much tougher enemies with more complex patterns on average. I think if you would want to critique the difficulty of this mod it should be focused on the room designs, but this post makes it seem like you haven't played this mod for very long and are upset because a brand new enemy stole your Basement 2 Devil Deal. This mod is advertised to be more difficult than the base game but I think a lot of are people having knee-jerk reactions to it because they are used to the first two floors having almost no difficulty to them. If these same arguments/logic about difficulty were applied to Antibirth it would probably "get thrown in the trash bin" as well, since the enemies and floors in that mod also had a learning curve to them which took time to be comfortable with, and even after learning them pose a considerable threat.

I don't want to sound harsh but I think you should give the mod a bit more time, because the enemies are a lot less intimidating once you learn their basic patterns (and most of them are very basic). People thinking the early-game floors are too hard I think are used to clearing them with no damage taken consistently in vanilla and have been a bit spoiled by that.

Ok fine, I was bit harsh sure, but why reacted like that harsly on first two floors is becase of satan chances. First floor is no problem if you take red heart damage, but on second floor I feel its a gamble with this mod if I survive without a hit, while in vanilla those enemies are weak as their amount of actions they can do is minimal at best. Thats why I pointed at bees, since they can do in one action several things which those action are taken from enemies that mostly spawn at later floors.

The enemy difficulty balance knee-jerk reaction is based on if you enter a room and you get "gangbang" on you too fast, maybe as you said I have to get used to them, which, I guess thats correct. I needed to get used in vanilla, but its probably doing that because the combination of those enemies with the new rooms made specifically for them feels more punch to gut than how vanilla does to own enemies.

Il give it multiple times a go, I tried playing the mod with new character, which was pain on normal, so I tried more familiar characters like judas and maggy, which too made me die too fast, then I settled on isaac, which made me barely survive at some times as I try get the best items before moving on, ignoring timer (aka boss rush or/and hush requirement)

I lost few times in row trying to legit get to end, but I managed to win with isaac when it snowballed with dmg so the enemies did not started to go haywire (because some do, which I noticed, that one ghost that moves next to wall/rock it touches on, it suddenly starts being aggresive when you take too much time in the room)

I guess the general hate I produced from enemies was from the fact majority of them get stronger the longer they live. Either itself or multiply more dangerous hazards/enemies.

Thats that, I might re-do review once I play of this mod good enough of times.
#4
Txdd 6 Dec, 2020 @ 6:34am 
Fiend is definitely a difficult character, but there are some unique strategies you can adapt to make the going a bit easier. I got what was possibly my best usage of Dead Cat ever with him. if you enter a boss fight with full black hearts and end up dying, when you re-enter on the next life there will now be 10 or 11 black hearts (I forget precisely how the break down goes) on the ground that you are now free to pick up at your own pace. Jera runes have a lot of potential in this situation too, as you could seemingly achieve MASSIVE damage by surpassing the soft limit of 10/11 black heart goons at once running around doing damage for you (I haven't tried this myself so I don't know if there's an on-screen limit to black heart attack imps.

Balls of Steel and The Hierophant are quite useful. So is Maw of the Void. Also, I haven't tried it yet, but I assume the actual Glass Cannon item would be an excellent choice for use AFTER taking damage in a boss fight.
#5
Xalum  [developer] 7 Dec, 2020 @ 5:40am 
Originally posted by sportakus1:
(because some do, which I noticed, that one ghost that moves next to wall/rock it touches on, it suddenly starts being aggresive when you take too much time in the room)

I just wanna touch on this briefly. There's more to this enemy than it looks like you think there is, and to say its nothing but a soft time limit isn't correct
Last edited by Xalum; 7 Dec, 2020 @ 5:40am
#6
Revalopod 18 Dec, 2020 @ 10:21pm 
Originally posted by Styfes:
Originally posted by sportakus1:
- As other mods, this mods as serious issues with enemies difficulty balance. The are enemies that really might be unavoidable if met in first two floors. I can say from my memory right now are that poop enemies who acts as that one enemy in water floors where it sprays alot of tears from you like catapult. That one is heck of a thing to deal if there is other enemies in room to deal with. Another one that I hate seeing in first two floors are bee enemies. Like, alright that bee who will stomp on ground, doing small rock wave while spawning 2 pointy yellow flies.

Just, in short, these enemies feel like combination of enemies from vanilla or upgraded version from vanilla that makes it more annoying or straight unavoidable if not dealt within some seconds. Not all of them are annoying, that would be a lie if I point at all of them being impossible, but most of them, are something that makes me wonder if I should uninstall this mod right now and rate it 2 or 1/5. That feel was like in other mods, this feel was not in antibirth. (and its why it got positive reviews).

I wanted to comment on this part specifically because I have seen a lot of people bringing up the point that the early game enemies are too difficult but I don't think that's the case beyond the first few times you fight them (if it even takes that much time to begin with). For instance, the poop enemy you described (named Dung) can be dodged by literally moving in any direction while it shoots its attack, its quite generous and it has a long charge-up time and cooldown after the attack ends. As for the bee enemies, they are difficult at first but you learn their behavior very quickly because they almost all of them have only a single attack. The one you mention specifically (named Honeydrip) I don't see as being difficult once you learn to give it a safe distance.

The first time you play with the mod there will be difficulty even on the earlier floors because of how much is changed, but you have to go in expecting that. Being able to have no difficulty with brand-new enemies is unrealistic, but most enemies have very easy-to-learn patterns in this mod. The strategies I described above to deal with these supposed "unavoidable" enemies you sort of just learn naturally within the first room or two of having to fight them. An enemy is raining projectiles from above, you move to the side. An enemy makes a shockwave and summons flies, you keep a distance and kill the summons quickly. Compared to other mods like Revelations, which has a lot more complicated enemies which take some more time to get used to, this mod's enemies are straightforward in their design (for the most part). The difficulty comes more-so from the room designs, which is something I think the mod is still less consistently balanced in (but still good overall).

As for the comparisons between this mod and Antibirth, I think it's clear you have not put much time in one or the other because the enemy design concepts are quite similar, and in overall difficulty Antibirth has much tougher enemies with more complex patterns on average. I think if you would want to critique the difficulty of this mod it should be focused on the room designs, but this post makes it seem like you haven't played this mod for very long and are upset because a brand new enemy stole your Basement 2 Devil Deal. This mod is advertised to be more difficult than the base game but I think a lot of are people having knee-jerk reactions to it because they are used to the first two floors having almost no difficulty to them. If these same arguments/logic about difficulty were applied to Antibirth it would probably "get thrown in the trash bin" as well, since the enemies and floors in that mod also had a learning curve to them which took time to be comfortable with, and even after learning them pose a considerable threat.

I don't want to sound harsh but I think you should give the mod a bit more time, because the enemies are a lot less intimidating once you learn their basic patterns (and most of them are very basic). People thinking the early-game floors are too hard I think are used to clearing them with no damage taken consistently in vanilla and have been a bit spoiled by that.
the difference is Revelations and Antibirth are separate optional floors. the game isn't much more difficult if you ignore those floors and just do vanilla floors.
while fiend folio makes every single floor into much harder difficulty. it's basically like turning the difficulty up. this is why it wouldn't ever be considered official quality, even though it's a great mod.
#7
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