Suggestion: DNA Joker should be more flexible!

[VinTJ]

So yeah that joker is quite funny. It's not as good as it currently stands despite being a rare card. "If first hand has only 1 card, add a copy of it back to your hand" is a good concept, except for the fact even if your deck is starting to, say, lean into aces (you have 6 aces from a Spectral pack, for example), the normal odds of drawing an Ace to further solidify it into a Five-Ace-of-a-Kind build upon drawing 8 cards on first hand is 0.15101497286468040518%. (This is from a probability Calculator, but you're free to do the math assuming 6 Aces, most of the deck being starting deck except one non-ace-card goes missing out of it)

The issue is that as much as you try to thin down your deck for more consistency, you start with 52 cards. Which, to be fair, you should, I love starting with normal decks, but that has some issues when it tries to be a roguelike deckbuilder.

I feel like if DNA could simply be changed to work more flexibly to make it feel more useful:

"The first time a hand in a round has ONLY one card, add a copy of it back to your hand"

.
This way, you're not forced to have an "all or nothing" usage out of it in a round only hinging on the first draw.
The fact that you're going to play one of your hands as only a High Card is punishment enough imo, bringing "first draw" as a rule into it is just terrible. It's also worth noting that it's hard to get scores with "high card" being one of your hands, so yeah. At least let players more easily laser focus into getting a consistent card copy if the score goal still allow such leniency.


I would say this "all or nothing" mentality is similar to the issue with the Joker "Delayed Gratification", but I already elaborated about that one in the online survey just today. TL;DR is that it feels better if the money from delayed gratification is gradual depending on the amount of discards, because those discards are supposed to be there for game balance reasons. But yeah.

[malogoss]

46/52 * 45/51 * [...] * 39/45
= 0.347
Those are the odds of drawing 8 cards, where none are 1 of your 6 aces.
So you'd get at least 1 ace, roughly 2 times out of 3.

Another example,
if you are willing to spend a discard to draw 5 new cards before playing your first hand, even if you only have 4 aces in your deck, then

48/52 * 47/51 * [...] * 36/40
= 0.304
Meaning you'll get at least 1 ace, 7 times out of 10

So I think the card is a lot better than what you believe.

[malogoss]

The odds get even better if your deck is thinner than 52 cards, of course. But I kept it at 52.

[Prepostersauce]

Are you not using your discards?

[Prepostersauce]

I've used DNA in 3 runs and in each run I used it on the cards I wanted to almost every blind (except the ones where I forgot I had it lol). I did 1 with 8's and 2 with Aces; worked out fine each time as long as I used discards first.

[Masuka]

you can discard and still use it brother

[racemaniac]

As said above, you can discard and still use DNA, it's the first hand you play, not the first hand you get.

And i just used the DNA joker to make a run containing 15 golden 10's (i also had the joker that duplicates another joker, so i had it duplicate DNA to spawn 2 more golden 10's).

I've now used it on a couple of runs too, and it can be fun. I usually start with the abandoned deck, it's a bit harder in the start, but if you get past the first few rounds and find a decent joker to carry you into the midgame, you can go for crazy unbalanced builds, certainly if you're lucky & get some good spectral packs.

In the run i just had with 15 golden 10's i was able to destroy a lot of cards too, so out of my 38 cards, exactly half were 10's, and my other cards were also focused on a few other numbers, so i could play full houses which i had leveled to lvl 16 XD.

I must say though, it would be nice if the early game was a bit more predictable. Certainly with the abandoned deck it's usually a few tries until i get a run, and most runs are pretty meh, but maybe that's what makes it so fun to get a crazy unbalanced deck where half your cards are the same rank XD

[VinTJ]

ok you know what, fair. the odds are better than I first expected.

I still would like more flexibility for this card and I want it to be heard. Because the issue with DNA joker is that you can theoretically get it at Ante 3, and at that kind of score goal, "wasting 1 hand to duplicate something at the start" is such a HUGE RISK that might cost you the game. you don't know how the draw will go and how much that one hand could be a game changer between winning or losing. I've lost 5 games to doing this.

if DNA got changed to allow us to copy cards ON our 2nd-to-last hand, or any hand as long as it's a single card, it would allow players to more safely rack up scores until they're down to 2 hands, close to the goal, have a winning hand, and then still copy a card.

but eh. whatever.

it can be powerful, but at its current state, it's only ever useful if you get it anywhere between Ante 1-2, because the score goals above those blinds require good jokers to supplement your score, and that's unlikely considering the price of this damn card is like $8 or $10 even as a Yellow-Deck player myself.

[VinTJ]

for comparison, I still think "Ride the Bus" is so good despite being a "Common" card (and iirc having been nerfed since previous demo), while "DNA" is "Rare" and is priced as such.

Both should be uncommon imo, but even then, one feels worse to use, that's all I'm saying. (It's DNA, DNA is less consistently useful if you get it at later antes)

If the dev wants to change it to be more flexible but keep it as "rare" and have rare prices, so be it. I'll take it. That would still be better than current state DNA.

[Heroes Of Tomorrow]

I think the issue with DNA Joker is that the effect is REALLY crap on its own: it helps you set up your deck to produce 5 of a kind easily, but has no mult, no chip increase and no other beneficial effect BESIDE cloning a card, which also makes your deck fatter and so less consistent, and that's without getting how it forces you to play high card as your first hand, which puts you on the backfoot for the rest of the blind and gives a lesser payout because you took more hands to beat it

I can see the potential and the concept, but I think it is just a really bad Joker effect: it has some synergy with the Red Deck... And that is about it

[Heroes Of Tomorrow]

Like compare DNA to Juggler and Golden: all of them are utility Jokers that offer no increase in your direct scoring, but Juggler increases your handsize by 2, which that alone makes scoring Straight Flushes, 4 of a kind and full houses significantly more likely, and Golden just drowns you in cash, which means you can buy more Jokers, vouchers, tarots, planet cards...

Both of these cards are Common and they are INFINITELY better than DNA

I would guess rare jokers are supposed to have very cool effect but would be extremely inefficent to actually use in most builds beside few specific ones, but then you look at Stencil and Blueprint and how insanely good their effects are and that theory falls apart.

Like it really does feel that DNA is the Joker of Jokers that is just there for the game to say "Gotcha!" when you roll the dice with the Wraith spectral card

[VinTJ]

Originally posted by Heroes Of Tomorrow:

I think the issue with DNA Joker is that the effect is REALLY crap on its own: it helps you set up your deck to produce 5 of a kind easily, but has no mult, no chip increase and no other beneficial effect BESIDE cloning a card [...]

I can see the potential and the concept, but I think it is just a really bad Joker effect

agree with seeing the potential and concept of it. but if anything, I actually want to say I LOVE the concept of the card itself, "allowing copies for a single card hand".

It's just that again, as I put in post, forcing it to only work on "first hand" is my main issue here. because you as a player probably don't know if it's worth it to force a bad score for a card-copy yet or not at your very first hand, not before exhausting your discards and playing some hands until you're down to 2. I was misguided when I focused on the odds, because the reason it feels bad is that NO ONE actually plays strategy games like these and pull out an excel spreadsheet or a calculator to properly work out when they could use DNA and math out card draws. Even if they do, those odds could be wrong, unless you're only calculating for a particular hand's payout + card chips + joker effects instead of "what will be drawn next" added into the mix.
Hence why I would prefer being able to play DNA as my second to last hand; it's feasible to count the maximum score of the cards already there in your 8-card default draw, outside of what you want to copy.

I wouldn't personally want it to have any more abilities regarding mult or anything, I guess five of a kind has a high payout on default for this reason specifically. it works well with Three of a kind and Four of a kind jokers (forgot their names), but yeah. getting your economy going definitely matters in this game as it should, because that's where celestial packs come in play to further support DNA's playstyle of identical cards.

Originally posted by Heroes Of Tomorrow:

Juggler increases your handsize by 2, which that alone makes scoring Straight Flushes, 4 of a kind and full houses significantly more likely, and Golden just drowns you in cash, which means you can buy more Jokers, vouchers, tarots, planet cards...

Both of these cards are Common and they are INFINITELY better than DNA

that's also fair, but I actually at least can see why some games put good things in "common rarity". it's not unique to Balatro, actually.

as a Slay the Spire player who had a Jorbs-watching phase at some point, I remember a moment of realization and him once mentioning that some relics are "common" not because they're bad, but because they're simple but reliable things to have in most decks, hence why players should see it be given quite often. Speaking in that game's context, stuff like Anchor, Orichalchum, Happy Flower, or Akabeko are ALL extremely valuable and strong in their own ways.

I don't know if Balatro even has different joker frequencies depending on rarities, I assume it does, but I guess putting those things in common is probably fine. I almost always get Juggler and Golden Joker on principle too regardless (which might be seen as problematic to some people as indicated by the Feedback Form, when you keep coming back to wanting the same things in a roguelite), but I somehow believe those cards are perfect where they are. Juggler being nerfed to 1 would make it close to useless, and I don't think any reworks are possible since it fills a much needed niche. Golden Joker could arguably give less once you're at max interest I guess, but eh.

Seeing how terrible some of the other "economy" jokers are (To-do list, Delayed Gratification), I feel like Golden Joker should stay how it is right now, unless those two options get buffed. Maybe Business Card and Egg is okay though.

[VinTJ]

Originally posted by Heroes Of Tomorrow:

[...]

I would guess rare jokers are supposed to have very cool effect but would be extremely inefficent to actually use in most builds beside few specific ones, but then you look at Stencil and Blueprint and how insanely good their effects are and that theory falls apart.

[...]

"rare tiers are cool stuff but they only work in some specific context" is true in some Slay the Spire relics, too. I guess the takeaway here is you sometimes should skip Rare items even in shops if they don't benefit you, which is always a good thing to learn out of roguelites.

I think Stencil got nerfed though. It no longer gives you anything past 2x mult from last I played just a few hours ago, unless my game bugged out or something, having more empty spots now stop making it go crazy. Which is a bit of a shame, but eh. Now I am starting to think Constellation is a much better card overall, and Stencil is now worse than Blackboard. Still situational, for sure.

[Goblin]

I don't think you understand the power of DNA entirely. Stacking your deck so you can guarantee specific hands (especially flush houses) is incredibly powerful, I won 3 rounds in a row just by focusing on flush houses earlier. And generally the only way to do so is to get lucky with tarot or spectral packs, which are going to cost money each round. Meanwhile DNA is a one time cost, and can then be activated each round or skipped a round if need be. The more you have stacked your deck the more likely it becomes you get the cards you want, too. And once you have a properly stacked deck, you can sell it or keep it around for the final blind's joker sell requirement. Meanwhile nothing's stopping your from further changing your deck with the packs as you progress, you just go way faster.

You say golden is stronger for instance, but golden will only buy you one pack each round (if it's not jumbo or mega) and those aren't guaranteed to have cards that help you stack your deck. DNA may not be as good as an early Bus card, but holy moly is it strong regardless.