I told zam alot of my thoughts re maggie soul jar change in stream, but wanted to gather them here. I think the idea needs work because:

(1) health is one of the major resources of the game, and soul/black hearts are a major part of this. Having alot of health in the form of armor hearts let's one play a little recklessly and take hits in exchange for going fast. I think this is a big part of isaac speedruns. It's funny in the subreddit when someone watches a clip of problems and says "wow he took a hit to haunt he's bad" when we all know "LOL HE'S SPEEDRUNNING DUMMY". In addition to reckless play, armor hearts add strategy to Devil Deal manipulation and Polaroid antics. I think these are another major part of the game that the proposed change would completely remove. In sum, you are exchanging a major resource for "perfect play" requirement, which ends up snowballing runs if done correctly.

(2) it renders items useless/affects balance too much. I think we came to guppy's paw, polaroid, whore, abaddon (although argument can be made to still take abaddon, although it renders you to one empty heart container, which is pretty dangerous in exchange for 1.5 damage) as useless items in this mod. With enough useless junk items already, this affects the balance of the game negatively. Additionally, it makes goathead insanely OP. It basically turns the run into an "all or nothing run". Zam commented on the snowball effect in stream, and I think this is really lame for speedruns. Especially if maggie is left in 14 char only, that would mean when you finish 9 characters, you start maggie. From there you either get completely screwed or get an insane snowball run. I don't think this is a workable system. Speedruns are designed to show consistent good times over many characters. In addition, I think it'll cause runners to reset only for "carry" item like cac/epic/knife or for black judas, so they get screwed over. You can see the problems and conflicts these issues can cause.

HOWEVER- all that being said I think it's a cool idea that needs a slight rework to stay balanced and fun. I suggested making DD penalty not so harsh, allowing .5 soul heart as armor, but these kinda seem like cop outs to the theme of the character. I don't really have any other ideas, either, so sorry if it sounds like I'm shitting on the concept without having any ideas myself to offer.

I have a slightly different suggestion for Maggie: Remove soul hearts altogether (maybe change them into flies like on Keeper or make all heart drops red hearts) and give her Eucharist as a starting item. This would make her a kind of character we don't really have: high health but relatively low damage. This would allow and often require one to play very aggressive and really use red health as a resource. Having Eucharist ensures that red health stays up but also adds more survival items that allow for even more aggressive health management.

We could also add Adrenaline on top of it, to give health management a bit of a strategic twist.

My knee-jerk reaction to ANY build involving Goat Head or Eucharist is that it is a really bad idea. The primary skill-based component of speed runs is devil/angel deals - i.e. you use your skill to not take damage and are rewarded with power level increases from Devil/Angel rooms. Eucharist makes it so that you always get all angel deals, even if you get hit, so it ruins this mechanic.

[quote=Lobsterosity]I suggested making DD penalty not so harsh[/quote]

If the character is too weak, I would agree that changing DD percentage upon getting hit to vanilla (instead of 9%) is the simplest change.

1. All characters in R+ should start with the D6.
2. All characters in R+ should be unique in at least one significant way.
3. In order to make a character unique, we don't necessarily have to buff it, because having all strong characters is uninteresting. It can also be a nerf, as long as the new character plays differently and is interesting.

This is the justification for my proposed change for Maggy, listed as follows:

[quote]Maggy starts with the Soul Jar, a new passive item. The Soul Jar has the following effects: #1) You no longer gain health from soul/black hearts. #2) You gain an empty red heart container for every 4 soul/black hearts picked up. #3) You always have a 100% devil deal chance if no damage is taken. #4) You always have a 9% devil deal chance if damage is taken. [/quote]

If this Maggy is too hard / unfun, then we can remove bullet point #4. The reason why I included it in the first place is because Yevon said he wanted to keep at least 1 "hard" character in the 14 character category.

I talked to a bunch of people, and it sounds like most don't like the 9% Devil Deal thing, so I nuked it. Here's a copy of the patch notes:

[quote]Patch notes for v0.2.64:

• Isaac now starts with The Battery. (This is to make the R+14 speedrun category more interesting, but is experimental, and can be changed back to vanilla if people don't like it.)
• Maggy now starts with the Soul Jar, a new passive item. (This is to make the R+14 speedrun category more interesting, but is experimental, and can be changed back to vanilla if people don't like it.)
• The Soul Jar has the following effects:
  • You no longer gain health from soul/black hearts.
  • You gain an empty red heart container for every 4 soul/black hearts picked up.
  • You always have a 100% Devil Room chance if no damage is taken.
  • (The 9% Devil Room chance thing in the old Soul Jar is removed.)
  • (Thanks to Gromfalloon for the custom Soul Jar graphics.)
• Eden now starts with the School Bag. She will start with her random active item inside the bag. (This is to make the R+14 speedrun category more interesting, but is experimental, and can be changed back to vanilla if people don't like it.)
• Lilith now starts with the School Bag. She will start with Box of Friends inside the bag. (This is to make the R+14 speedrun category more interesting, but is experimental, and can be changed back to vanilla if people don't like it.)
• Apollyon now starts with the School Bag. He will start with Void inside the bag. (This is to make the R+14 speedrun category more interesting, but is experimental, and can be changed back to vanilla if people don't like it.)
• [snip][/quote]