Is it easier to start with DLC or without?

[Eternal21]

Is there any advantage in downloading DLC before attempting plat, or should you finish base game first, and only then download DLC?

[rjri]

The DLC adds extra items and quality of life changes, as well as extra modes that generally make some of the game easier and more enjoyable. It also adds an extra fifth zone you need to clear in each run, but it's generally easier than zone 4 in the base game, so doesn't add much difficulty in normal runs. It's probably still worth disabling the DLC specifically for low% runs though, since you don't get the benefit of the extra items.

[Eternal21]

2 hours ago, rjri said:

The DLC adds extra items and quality of life changes, as well as extra modes that generally make some of the game easier and more enjoyable. It also adds an extra fifth zone you need to clear in each run, but it's generally easier than zone 4 in the base game, so doesn't add much difficulty in normal runs. It's probably still worth disabling the DLC specifically for low% runs though, since you don't get the benefit of the extra items.

 

Thanks.  Is the DLC something you can disable whenever you want. Or is it one of those things where once you enable it there is no going back?  You have to complete everything with it on?

[rjri]

If you want you can always disable the DLC by uninstalling the game then reinstalling it without the DLC.

[Joe Dubz]

I personally have been going at it without DLC so far... The benefit of the added items to me did not seem worth needing to clear an extra zone each time, even if it's not crazy hard from the looks of it! Things can go wrong in an instant tho and the enemies will just mop the floor with you ☠️

 

Another thing that should be mentioned tho, is going for the All Chars any% trophy on the base game... Unless you get rid of the dlc, you'll need to do your run with the extra DLC crew too! Which I guess is necessary for a trophy over there, but just saying; food for thought ?

 

I guess it all just comes down to personal preference, whether you think the extra stuff outweighs the need to finish an extra zone. I've been getting along just fine without IMO! But as the fine person before me mentioned, you could always delete and reinstall without it for low% runs, etc. 

 

Whichever you choose, good luck! This game is extremely hard but equally as gratifying once you get over the steep learning curve ?

[Eternal21]

17 hours ago, Joe Dubz said:

I personally have been going at it without DLC so far...

 

Thanks, I think I'll do it that way as well.  I'm working on building a dedicated hitbox controller for the game right now, so won't be starting it until I get all the parts in, but am definitely looking forward to it.

[saiyanbloodstyle]

I don't think easy and this game go in the same sentence, this is really hard or impossible for me, good luck if you try it, it's needed.

[stealthlevel100]

On 7/30/2022 at 4:59 AM, Joe Dubz said:

Unless you get rid of the dlc, you'll need to do your run with the extra DLC crew too! Which I guess is necessary for a trophy over there

 

With the DLC installed, u will have two staircases:

-"All chars run without DLC characters"

-"All chars run including DLC characters"

 

The first one gives you the gold trophy for completing an all chars run from the base game.

The second one gives you the dlc bronze trophy for completing an all chars run with dlc chars

 

These trophies are not stackable.

[Joe Dubz]

Just now, stealthlevel100 said:

 

With the DLC installed, u will have two staircases:

-"All chars run without DLC characters"

-"All chars run including DLC characters"

 

The first one gives you the gold trophy for completing an all chars run from the base game.

The second one gives you the dlc bronze trophy for completing an all chars run with dlc chars

 

These trophies are not stackable.

Thank you for clearing that up! I did not know this, but that is helpful information. 

 

Any idea if Zone 5 is still required when you choose the staircase for without DLC? I would assume so, but just curious anyway. 

[Eternal21]

9 hours ago, stealthlevel100 said:

 

With the DLC installed, u will have two staircases:

-"All chars run without DLC characters"

-"All chars run including DLC characters"

 

The first one gives you the gold trophy for completing an all chars run from the base game.

The second one gives you the dlc bronze trophy for completing an all chars run with dlc chars

 

These trophies are not stackable.

What does that mean in terms of difficulty? 

[rjri]

Having the DLC installed always adds zone 5 at the end of each individual character's run, including runs within an "All chars run".

 

As for the DLC characters, they are not required for the base game platinum at all, hence there still existing an "All chars run without DLC characters" even when you have DLC installed.

 

The "All chars run including DLC characters" is only required for the DLC bronze trophy and requires beating the 4 DLC characters as well as the 9 base characters in a row without dying.

[Eternal21]

4 hours ago, rjri said:

Having the DLC installed always adds zone 5 at the end of each individual character's run, including runs within an "All chars run".

 

As for the DLC characters, they are not required for the base game platinum at all, hence there still existing an "All chars run without DLC characters" even when you have DLC installed.

 

The "All chars run including DLC characters" is only required for the DLC bronze trophy and requires beating the 4 DLC characters as well as the 9 base characters in a row without dying.

 

So the only downside of installing the DLC are the extra items for the no-item runs then?

[rjri]

1 hour ago, Eternal21 said:

 

So the only downside of installing the DLC are the extra items for the no-item runs then?

 

The downside in low% runs is having to do an extra zone and boss on each character without having the benefit of the extra items (since you can't pick them up).

 

Though it can be personal preference whether or not to have DLC for low% runs, since there are still a few quality of life changes in the DLC that help out and may compensate for the extra zone, like the piercing thrown weapons, better ooze golems, being able to throw spear as Bolt and Eli's shove attack.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

The mini boss for zone 5 might be difficult. Other than that it makes it much easier it.

[Snaki-0]

On 2.08.2022 at 5:51 PM, rjri said:

 

The downside in low% runs is having to do an extra zone and boss on each character without having the benefit of the extra items (since you can't pick them up).

 

Though it can be personal preference whether or not to have DLC for low% runs, since there are still a few quality of life changes in the DLC that help out and may compensate for the extra zone, like the piercing thrown weapons, better ooze golems, being able to throw spear as Bolt and Eli's shove attack.

 

Hold on. Throwing a spear as bolt without DLC invalidates low%?

[RangyRV]

52 minutes ago, Snaki-0 said:

 

Hold on. Throwing a spear as bolt without DLC invalidates low%?

Yes. You can check if you re still on Low% bottom left of the screen when you pause.

[rjri]

18 hours ago, Snaki-0 said:

 

Hold on. Throwing a spear as bolt without DLC invalidates low%?

 

Techically it's not throwing that invalidates, it's picking the spear back up that does. So you can still throw it to finish off the last boss (for example to throw bomb deep blues) and be ok as long as you don't pick it up.

With the DLC you can pick it up as many times as you like without invalidating low%, which makes some things like blademasters in z4 easier with the piercing damage that the DLC also adds.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

The lunging axe is really good for Bolt. Its also very useful on Death metal.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

Zone five is the easiest zone with a lot of mostly harmless monsters, the throwing stars and grenades are decent for an easy deep blues kill, the lunging axe is amazing at clearing out large groups of monsters, the ring of piercing is an alternative if you can't find peace allowing you to pierce through shielded enemies avoiding a second phase in the progress. The quartz armor turns every big hit into a one heart hit, the ooze golem drops one ooze tile than turns into a normal golem, Fortissimole is the easiest non-story boss, the boss fight has a ton of strats if you want to play it safe, Heavy glass and spike ears being useful for half a heart characters. If you are doing low% runs you can disable the Amplified DLC since all of these bonus items mean nothing because you can't pick up any items, the only downside is that you have to deal with the five tile ooze golems, but it's a lot better than doing four extra floors.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Kimura Takahashi

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

On 7/27/2022 at 9:00 PM, Eternal21 said:

Is there any advantage in downloading DLC before attempting plat, or should you finish base game first, and only then download DLC?

Yes, the DLC greatly decreases the difficulty overall, and you get a lot of advantages with the new bonus items Amplified brings into the game. Magic food is pretty much the gluttony charm, as it increases your health for overeating, so you now have several mini gluttony charms scattered around the crypt. Quartz armor is quite strong it turns all the big damage attacks into a one damage attack, so for once you can take hits from Death Ringer and the Necrodancer without it doing critical damage, regardless of how much defense you have on you. One tile Ooze golems pretty much makes it, so they drop one ooze tile instead of the five ooze tiles it had back then. Since they are more balanced, Aria and Coda will now encounter Ooze golems, and Aria's zone bleeding works on the Ooze golems as well. Earth can be very useful it can destroy gold without destroying weapons, so for once you can obtain your dagger back, even if it has gold on it, you can instakill certain bosses by crushing them with earth. Fortissimole is laughably easy, so it's best to save him near the end of the run to take the role of harder bosses like King Konga 5. Zone five is somewhat easier than Zone four most of the monsters can only move two to three beats, so you have a lot of time to take them down one by one. As for the boss room, look for the room that has a large amount of space, that is the miniboss room. If things get hectic, there is wire around the entire zone, which you can use to chain an infinite amount of monsters that are close to each other.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 2:52 PM, saiyanbloodstyle said:

I don't think easy and this game go in the same sentence, this is really hard or impossible for me, good luck if you try it, it's needed.

You might be still new to game if so, it takes a few months till you fully understand everything in the game. This is where most people give up, as they do not think they are going to improve at all.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Kimura Takahashi

[chocvanstrawb]

If you uninstall the DLC after playing with it for a while, do you lose your save file and have to make progress all over again?  Re-unlock all the characters and so forth?

[Im_Wizolo]

13 hours ago, chocvanstrawb said:

If you uninstall the DLC after playing with it for a while, do you lose your save file and have to make progress all over again?  Re-unlock all the characters and so forth?

Nah, you'll keep all your progress I uninstalled to remove the dlc many times and never had a problem.  Only time I lost character progress was only with the dlc installed and crashing, corrupting the game. So just make sure you got a save in the cloud storage or USB.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

14 hours ago, chocvanstrawb said:

If you uninstall the DLC after playing with it for a while, do you lose your save file and have to make progress all over again?  Re-unlock all the characters and so forth?

You can uninstall and reinstall all you want, it won't remove or delete any of your data if you want to disable Amplified or turn on the Amplified DLC. They don't have a feature ingame to turn off the DLC, so you have to delete the game and uncheck the Amplified DLC. The save corruption issue does happen a lot in the Amplified DLC, so make sure you use the crossave feature in the game to get all your data back once it happens.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Kimura Takahashi

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

On 1/13/2023 at 6:05 PM, Snaki-0 said:

 

Hold on. Throwing a spear as bolt without DLC invalidates low%?

Yes since Bolt already spawns with a decent weapon they made it so that you break the low% state from picking up the spear which pretty much means you can't throw it ever, not a whole lot you can do with a one damage throw anyways so it's not the end of the world that she can't throw her weapon. They allow you to pick up her spear in the Amplified DLC because they did some small changes to the throwing adding piercing when throwing, so throwing is somewhat more useful to avoid second phases from monsters.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Kimura Takahashi