Hi Folks,

been playing Revelations a bit and found myself considering whether going through Revelations floors especially partially is worth it or not. Let me elaborate. In Antibirth you had to pay for access to alternative floors, but also as benefit you got better Item rooms, assembled Knife. There was risk especially with resource cost but also there was reward as these routes weren't handled as equal. This made Antibirth route being interesting choice for other reasons besides novelty.

Note: I recall Repentance announcement about removing double item room, which seems like a bad idea though it's not out yet so who knows what the incentive to visit some if not all those floors... Novelty by itself to see something new/different is genuinely weak, can work but it takes away decision making by user as more interesting choice. Additionally it seems that due to HUB, there will be no resource requirement to acess these floors, which sounds nice in theory, but also takes away those cmon just one more bomb moments when you clear room by room blaming Isaac RNG to get it in last room (or not at all), which is a shame.



Now if you check Revelations route and ignore novelty, what exactly gives you reason to go through Revelation floor instead of vanilla (or in future Repentance route). Revelations floors are in general harder especially bosses. Randomly appearing pre boss devils room are unreliable and limiting (could be improved by not changing allegiance), extra shop item barely worth it if you have money, Shard rewards are neat, but getting them is choice by itself as fights with Mirror bosses aren't exactly short and easy + you need to use bomb which is great as choice. I prefer fighting Revelation Sins as their reward are usually better than for regular Sins, so this is great but it still looking weakly for Revelations route.

I like both Glacier and Tomb, Glacier as winter take on vanilla game with many familiar but different enemies including bosses. While Tomb seems like its own beast. And I believe Vestige will be even better. But this is mostly novelty. Why would you go to Glacier/Tomb if you don't plan on going on all the way through?


I have suggestion though which also might improve other issue: Getting to Boss Rush/Hush through Revelations floors is more difficult than vanilla ones. That is to add guaranteed drop of trinket/item for Elites which can offer more choices as benefits.

For example: By defeating Chuck, you get reward which allows you to visit Challenge rooms/Boss challenge rooms regardless of your health.
If you defeat Dungo, to get access to to Boss Rush regardless of an actual time.
And if you defeat Vestige elite, Hush will be waiting for you even if you are late.

Each of these offer a choice as benefit going visiting some or all Revelations chapters. You risk more by going there to get more, to risk more, to get more etc. Are you taking too long to get to any of those? Well there is other way not relying on luck if you dare.

Or you might have better idea how to improve it.


What do you folks think on this choice as it is or as it could be?