Thanks for the feedback!, I dont think the last question was aimed at me but, yes, I do find him fun. Other way I would never upload it , heh. Still, my other mods have proven that my concept of fun is not "normal", but I'm okay with that. Still, I'll try to adress some valid points you made and explain them a little further.

- Wall turrets being superior to normal ones:
This is intended, WallTurrrets are the "togo" option while rock turrets are more risky and/or saved for niche cases where you just cant get them with the wall ones (ex: rocks blocking the way)

- Mana-regen over time:
I playtested this, the game turning into either "waiting for mana simulator" or "generic OP character". If you made me want to choose between making a frustrating character or a OP brainless one, I'd go with frustrating any day.

- Static vs Homming turrets:
I also considered using single targeted 1-way homing turrets instead of static 4-way, but many mods have done this already and, this is more of my personal taste here, I think it's too "cheap".

- Walk-through turrets:
They had collision at first, decided upon it because it prevents you from just going into a corner, trapping yourself in turrets and waiting till your hearths consent. Also creates the "mobbing" mentality, where you get a lot of mobs to chase you and lead them to the turrets (you dont seem to liek that tho, I do :( ).

- Why Half-mana? Add more mana per room?:
About the half-mana, I iterated over many possibilities and ended up in the one I tho was the most challenging but still "able to win with".
On the mana-per room, one change I'm considering is adding bigger reward for bigger rooms, since you are kinda forced to use 2 there most of the time.

Again, thanks for taking your time writing this review, it saddens me that you dont enjoy my mod but most of the changes you suggest are thing I specifically decided to not do so I guess we just have a different definition of "fun".

Conceptually I understand the intent to make characters that aren't free rides, but I think the fact that you would take frustrating over OP every time speaks a lot to what you find fun and why that doesn't translate well for the average player.

How long are your average runs with this character? Have you tried taking them to the end-game without items? Can you record an example run of high-level Gurzil play to potentially sell me on some fun gameplay I'm missing out on?

The fact that mana-regen turned into waiting for mana simulator should say something about how the character plays right now where they don't regen at all. It should make sense that the character who regens mana can kill more quickly than the current character who can't, so where's the logic in having small enough Mana regen that you have to wait a bit to use the next turret worse than what's already in place?

Turrets that aim at enemies has definitely already been done, but the wall turrets which are the only mechanic afaik that allow you to aim similarly to the player character have more added limitations on them than the freedom they otherwise allow. Isaac's tears follow velocity so you can angle them and get them to go further. This concept could be extended to the wall turrets if you made them only travel to the location at a maximum speed. Then when firing their velocity could be applied to their shots.

Wall turrets also have the limit of being on one axis of travel which for most 1x1 rooms isn't an issue since turrets on the x axis can hit just about anything as long as their aren't rocks in the way, but an L shaped room will very often require at least 2 turrets to either clear at all, or in a reasonable time frame.

Their benefits of course are currently the mouse aiming which is relatively nice and their currently uncapped speed allow for some relatively decent shooting though this is usually stunted by tears hitting other grid entities anyway.

You mention in the Half-mana response that you are kinda forced to use 2 there most of the time which I'm taking to mean that you expect normal rooms to be handled in 1 turret. There are plenty of rooms in the game that simply can't be done with a single wall turret, especially without spectral tears. As for half mana being the optimal fun point, it's possible that's true and I'll trust the playtesting over the theory on that one.

Mobbing in Isaac is something that happens naturally anyway since a high amount of enemies only exist to make their way towards and bump into you at varying speeds, so the only thing mobbing around a turret adds is a less convenient way to target the enemies you want. If there were more interesting turrets like a bomb turret or a flame turret or something with an aura of slowing or some interplay between support and offensive or defensive turrets this would be a lot more interesting, but in its current implementation it's just more moving in circles to lead around a group of enemies but it takes longer to kill them than before because you miss them more often.

The walling yourself off from enemies would happen less often if the turrets you can spawn with the space bar item are the ones that don't block collision, right? Otherwise if you have an item like the poop you can wall yourself off in the base game already. There are also plenty of opportunities to get flight and then you could just hover over rocks regardless.

I feel a lot of this character comes down to how long you're willing to sit down to play a run. I struggle to think of rooms or enemies in this game that are made more interesting or fun to fight with the mechanics as they are now.

I think you could get away with keeping a lot of the mechanics as they are now if the turrets were just more balanced between them in terms of usefulness, or even more specialized for rooms with different enemies. For example anti air turrets that only target flying enemies but aim at them, trap turrets that confuse or slow or paralyze enemies for a period of time, etc.

As for the joystick support, just check if the mouse has been moved recently and if not default to moving the target around with the joystick/keyboard instead.

Hey, thanks for the tip on the joystick support thingy, I may do just that....It'll probably still be a problem for people wil faulty mauses that "just wont stop" but better than nothing. I'll see if I can get that in this weekend.

Also, about the extra feedback that (again) I highly appreciate, let me bring some more depth to the table:

-Conceptually I understand the intent to make characters that aren't free rides, but I think the fact that you would take frustrating over OP every time speaks a lot to what you find fun and why that doesn't translate well for the average player.

I'm glad to hear that, as you may guess, neither Agnis nor Gurzil target "the average player" and if I ever do another character I wont focus the average player either. I did do some mods for the average player, like the Completion Marks for custom chars, but I dont really enjoy doing those, being honest.

- How long are your average runs with this character? Have you tried taking them to the end-game without items?

Yes, in fact, this is something I always do with my characters (I have only 2 but they follow the same "line"). I'm not a GREAT player, I didnt even complete the game 100%, so I assume that if i can reach, at least, the Cathedral/Sheol, somewhat consistently and beat the bosses without any items....the character is winnable.
About how long the runs can get...with Gurzil, we are talking about him here, and no items they would be really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long, unless you get really lucky with the rooms.

-Can you record an example run of high-level Gurzil play to potentially sell me on some fun gameplay I'm missing out on?

I will probably do at some point, if theres enough interest and/If i get enough time and when the character is more polished (there are things that still need to be done), but that wont change anything on your stance on the character, because, as far as I can see, we just have fundamental differences on "how a character should play?" and "what makes a character fun?", which, again, is tottally ok.

- Where's the logic in having small enough Mana regen that you have to wait a bit to use the next turret worse than what's already in place?

It's entirely subjective. As I said, I tested both things and, in my opinion, it felt "wrong" to have time-based mana regen on this character...mostly because, someone whos not resourcefull enough with the turrets would just workaround it waiting on an empty run till the next one.

- There are plenty of rooms in the game that simply can't be done with a single wall turret, especially without spectral tears. As for half mana being the optimal fun point, it's possible that's true and I'll trust the playtesting over the theory on that one.

Thats part of the thing, there are some rooms that require 2 turrets, but there are way more rooms that dont, and there are turrets that cost half...you have to balance that out, it's part of the character. Since you took the time to write all this just for me, I'll be honest with you, I really hate the concept of "anti-fun". The "fun point", for me, is the middle point where the player has to struggle to use the least amount of turrets on each room, to you the "fun point" would probably be a little above that.

- think you could get away with keeping a lot of the mechanics as they are now if the turrets were just more balanced between them in terms of usefulness, or even more specialized for rooms with different enemies. For example anti air turrets that only target flying enemies but aim at them, trap turrets that confuse or slow or paralyze enemies for a period of time, etc.

I do plan to add more turrets fir the remaining grid entities, and some of them are very similar to the ones you suggest. Still they wont cover the range of your complain, since turrets are tied to gridentities....so the situation in which you can use X turret is dictated by the appearence of X entity. Maybe changing the active so you can spawn a turret at will?. Among the things you mentioned this one is the most likely to be implemented.


- I feel a lot of this character comes down to how long you're willing to sit down to play a run. I struggle to think of rooms or enemies in this game that are made more interesting or fun to fight with the mechanics as they are now.

Totally, my characters are on the lines of "prepare to sit on this run for a long time" and a lot of people just expect to rush over to the chest like they always do. About the fun/interesting factor, I value your opinion (other way i wouldnt be writing walls of text like im doing) but I dont think those are absolute variables. Again, feel free to check on this mod in a few weeks, I'll make some minor changes and additions but....chances are this one is just not for you and, honestly, thats completely fine :)

It's nice to see that you've given these thoughts some consideration and that you know where the character stands. I suppose if you're working on the basis of releasing this more for yourself than for the enjoyment of the average player then there's no further discussion to be had. The character is slow and tedious and that's the design decision that was consciously made.

I feel like having a character that utilizes this type of turret gameplay on the workshop will push others away from working with a similar. Would you be averse to someone creating a character that plays in a familiar way to Gurzil? I think there's a lot of potential to be taken advantage of here that the cruelty of the numbers currently doesn't allow.

Either way, I hope the best for Gurzil and your characters to come. There's definitely something to this character that could be taken to the next level.

Thanks, I'll probably release a "general public oriented" character before I completely retire from Isaac (just to see how it does) but, you can expect 9/10 characters from me to be on the line of what you call "Anti-fun", just because I do this for fun and this is the kind of characters that I enjoy.
Still, Gurzil was a rush release, theres still tweaks to be done, if you still feel interested on a week or two I suggest you to check the final final ver to see what changed (I always detail changes on the desc), I dont think you'll like it by that point either but, hey, I dont even know you.

Going on about someone using a similar concept, I didnt copyright "turret based character" so unless it's not a reskin of Gurzil with different numbers I cant do anything about it, whether I like it or not.
And ya, I feel you, when/if someone else makes a character like this it wont be the same, it wont have the same impact as the first one....it's an awesome idea that happened to fall in the head of a guy who completely ruined it, I can sleep with that tho, no prob, inf act faced the same criticism with Agnis and will probably face it again on my next character, I'm used to it.

Sorry if I sounded a bit rude or rushed at some points, I learned something from this discussion...to not release my "challenging" mods on weekdays, you took your time to write all this, you deserve honesty, getting home from work to read a 1000 word essay on why the mod I just uploaded the night before, and didnt even get the chance to recieve proper feedback, is "Anti-fun" and even asking me if I, myself, considered it fun, was a huge stress ball for me.

Anyway, if you ares till reading, thanks for your time, thanks for the detailed feedback and, overall, thanks for just downloading my mod...know that the Mei mod was the trigger for me to start doing characters for Isaac so it means a lot that the person that made her took the time to not only download but to write a review on my mod (even if it was devastating, it still counts! ).

I think I probably have come off pretty blunt with the words I used, but there's still the belief in me that there's something I just haven't figured out about Gurzil. Credit where credit is due, the mechanics are executed well and the concept is a good foundation for a character. I've got problems with every custom character on the workshop right now, Mei included. I have to say that Endor from alphabirth pack 2 is probably my favourite though she is very, very strong.

I don't think Gurzil is the worst and mechanically I think he's more interesting and better put together than most. Your mods are high quality enough that it's to be expected and this was even a rush job, but it's true that any runs I do of Gurzil will be to try to figure out what I'm missing rather than to expect an enjoyable run. To be fair, I've not got to the point where I've had a powerful run with him, so maybe my opinion will change slightly when that happens.

Sorry for the stress!

The way this mod is balanced reminds me a lot of how Isaac was originally supposed to be balanced (and how launch AB+ and flash was): Incredibly difficult to play, generally unfun, but sorta rewarding.

That being said, like AB+ on launch and flash issac on launch, I don't find this character fun. It's simply far too difficult to actually get anything accomplished. I do like him more than your other character (instant deaths aren't fun yo), but even with that said I don't think I'll be sticking with this.

The character plays incredibly slowly, and there's a lot of rooms that are basically big "♥♥♥♥ yous" that you take a ton of damage in and there's not much you can do. I really cant see any way to do this character better other than making isaac into an actual TD game, but as it stands this character is very, as yat said, Anti-fun.

"The way this mod is balanced reminds me a lot of how Isaac was originally supposed to be balanced".

Thats the biggest prais I ever got, thanks!
Now being serious, and this goes for everyone else that jumps into this bandwagon, all of my characters will follow this very same line of what you guys call "Anti-fun" which translates into "fun" for me and for some people, who are not the majority. So, it saddens me to say this but, I strongly suggest you to not waste your time with my future characters if you think the 2 i have released so far are "Anti-fun".....if you still insist into checking my stuff out, try the challenges or the other mods, but my characters will be a waste of time to you and you will end up being dissapointed againg and again.

About Gurzil in particular, I actually am working on some changes and already did some since yatboim's post (some of them based on his feedback), but the fundamental "Anti-fun" aspect just wont go away, because I dont want it to go away, so dont expect it to do so.

That being said, thanks for the feedback, and thanks for trying my mod, even if it ended up being a bad experience for you.

@yatboim: I ffriggin love Endor too, but mostly because I love mages in general :P

I'd like to retract my earlier comment. The tweaks you've made over the last few days have significantly improved him (in my opinion) and he feels very fun to play now. Just had a great Mega Satan run (rubber cement is god tier)

I'd like to suggest potentially making different versions of poops, fires, etc. do different things (if even possible). I.E black poops give death locusts etc.

Also, aids poops regenerate underneath the tower. that got me a few times.

Also, rooms in the womb where buttons are locked behind aids poops can be ...interesting... to say the least.

Omen, I'm really glad that you appreciate the changes!, it means a lot to me since it was really hard to swallow my ego, throwing away pert of my original vision, and implement most of them but, I think they were for the best too.

About the poops, yes, my original intention was to make each poop have it's own turret so, maybe? (probably more than I can chew tho, I'm not too high on time so NO PROMISES). I'm heading towards "a turret for each entity" first, I'm almost there (I think only buttons and spiderwebs are missing, which should be done on the next update).

About the button rooms...the "button turret" I'm planning to implement will actually press the button on deploy, so that wont be a problem anymore. You'll still need to use .5 mana for it tho.

Originally posted by JSG:

Omen, I'm really glad that you appreciate the changes!, it means a lot to me since it was really hard to swallow my ego, throwing away pert of my original vision, and implement most of them but, I think they were for the best too.

About the poops, yes, my original intention was to make each poop have it's own turret so, maybe? (probably more than I can chew tho, I'm not too high on time so NO PROMISES). I'm heading towards "a turret for each entity" first, I'm almost there (I think only buttons and spiderwebs are missing, which should be done on the next update).

About the button rooms...the "button turret" I'm planning to implement will actually press the button on deploy, so that wont be a problem anymore. You'll still need to use .5 mana for it tho.

Are shopkeeps tile entities? (yes that would be the most useless thing ever but I'm curious)

Also, metal blocks.

Metal blocks are an exception, in my book, they are untouchable indestructible thingies.
About shopkeeps, no they are not grid ents. I'm currently covering some things that are not grid ents tho (like fire and movable tnts). I'm sticking with the "if it's not alive, it should be possible to turn it into a turret".

Btw, if I ever reach the point of "different types of entities having different turrets", I'll aim for the fires first, I think those are the most noticeable (currently blue/normal fire have the same turret).

Originally posted by JSG:

Metal blocks are an exception, in my book, they are untouchable indestructible thingies.
About shopkeeps, no they are not grid ents. I'm currently covering some things that are not grid ents tho (like fire and movable tnts). I'm sticking with the "if it's not alive, it should be possible to turn it into a turret".

Btw, if I ever reach the point of "different types of entities having different turrets", I'll aim for the fires first, I think those are the most noticeable (currently blue/normal fire have the same turret).

What about the moving spike blocks?
Also pits (lol jk)

Also, are the spike turrents meant to be a last resort? They seem the weakest by far.

Ya, problem is, with the recent buffs I had to also buff a lot of the other turrets to make them "feel worth" (this is more noticeable in the fire ones, look at the gif from the workshop and then summon one in game, lol), I didnt touch the spike one yet so that's probably why they seem a lil underwhelming now. I think I'll ramp up it's damage.

@Moving spikes: thats a tricky one...never really tho about it.

@Pits: in all seriousness, I intended to do pits, it would like a submarine-esque-periscope that comes out of the darkness below. But then decided it just didnt feel right, lol.

Update: just buffed spikes.