Pre-play score calculation

[TenaciousT]

Are there any plans to display a calculation of how many points a given hand will provide before being played? Or does this function already exist somewhere? It would be a really nice QoL feature.

[Nico]

Personally, I prefer that you have to pay attention and calculate for yourself what will work best. Otherwise, it would feel like you're in autoplay mode.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Nico:

Personally, I prefer that you have to pay attention and calculate for yourself what will work best. Otherwise, it would feel like you're in autoplay mode.

Do you also like to not use a calculator for square roots?
Not me.

100% with OP on this one.

[Nico]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Do you also like to not use a calculator for square roots?
Not me.

Me neither.

I do, however, like to pay attention to what bonuses I have and figure out if playing hand A or hand B will be better, it's part of the challenge. Otherwise I could just randomly click cards in my hand and see what sticks, which is something you could almost do while you sleep. It's almost like having a "figure out the best hand for me and play it" option.

That's one thing. The other thing is there's the randomness of certain bonuses (1 in X chances to do something) that couldn't be taken into account. Using, say, a "lucky" card could be better or worse, but you won't know until you take the chance, and a calculator couldn't tell you how much you'll make in such situations.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Originally posted by Nico:

Personally, I prefer that you have to pay attention and calculate for yourself what will work best. Otherwise, it would feel like you're in autoplay mode.

Do you also like to not use a calculator for square roots?
Not me.

100% with OP on this one.

Square roots with integer results aren't all that hard, because their squares aren't either. It's pretty easy to vaguely remember a bunch of them in the first place so you know to verify if it's a integer-rootable, but for squares themselves there's actually a really easy trick to mentally calculate them in order:
0x0=0 1x1=1 2x2=4, 3x3=9, 4x4=16, these are easy to remember for everyone I assume. Now notice one thing about them: you start with adding 1, add 3 to get the next one, add 5 to get the next one, add 7 to get the next one... it's always just adding a number that increases by 2 each time. So as long as you know two adjacent squares or roots, you can very easily calculate the other adjacent ones manually.

And yes, I like having to calculate Balatro hands myself. It's a lot easier than what I just described.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Nico:

Originally posted by malogoss:

Do you also like to not use a calculator for square roots?
Not me.

Me neither.

I do, however, like to pay attention to what bonuses I have and figure out if playing hand A or hand B will be better, it's part of the challenge. Otherwise I could just randomly click cards in my hand and see what sticks, which is something you could almost do while you sleep. It's almost like having a "figure out the best hand for me and play it" option.

That's one thing. The other thing is there's the randomness of certain bonuses (1 in X chances to do something) that couldn't be taken into account. Using, say, a "lucky" card could be better or worse, but you won't know until you take the chance, and a calculator couldn't tell you how much you'll make in such situations.

There's no decision making involved, there's no skill involved except maybe grade 4 math, the hand you decide to play is your highest scoring hand or not if you want to stall a couple rounds, the challenges are the same, all it changes is the time needed to play a game.

As it is now, it's a mandatory task if you want to optimise your play.

In other games, it would be like saying you don't want an auto-run option, because you like to hold that W key down. Well guess what? If you want to calculate hands value, you could still do it yourself. Don't select cards, count whatever you want to count, and play whatever hand you want to play. Nothing changes for you.

You are right about the RNG aspect of a hands score. Then the game could just provide a possible range with the expected average. I already talked about all that in a previous post I made that was about the same subject as the OP here.

To be clear. I don't want a tool that will select your highest scoring hand automatically. I just want a tool that gives me the score of the cards I select before playing them.

It interferes in no way with the satisfaction you get from counting scores yourself if that's the method you prefer.

And when using a tool is strictly optional, then let everyone decide for themselves and everyone will be happy. Those who'll use it and those who'd rather not use it. That simple.

[Goblin]

There IS skill involved, because the order of jokers and even the order of cards you play can influence the score by a LOT. And if it's pre-computed instead of you having to do it manually, you can indeed brute force options until it tells you the highest number without having to think about why that's the best setup.

It has nothing to do with autorun, it's more like XCOM telling you if your 90% hit attack will miss or hit. Who am I kidding, 90% hit chance attacks in XCOM always miss.

[malogoss]

Do you understand the meaning of "optional"?

[Goblin]

Do you understand "oh ♥♥♥♥ I was wrong when I said there's no decision making involved, maybe I should acknowledge that instead of pretending only one thing I said matters"?

And optional or not, if it removes the need for skill it is bad. Learn to play the game instead.

[malogoss]

If you consider grade 4 maths is a skill, then yes, there's skill involved. I can agree to that.

Else just go through the possibilities, calculate them, write down each one score, then pick whichever suits you. You seem to like that option, nothing's stopping you. If doing grade 4 maths makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, there's no reason to not do it.

All the tool would change is the time to achieve the same result.

I maintain that there's no skill involved in calculating a hand score. The game is not meant as a maths learning tool for 10 year old kids.

[Goblin]

If doing math isn't a skill, maybe you should go tell every math contest organizer that. I'm sure you'd win at all of them anyway since it requires no skill, right? Heck, even a simple game like Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training you'd just get the ideal brain age every try from the very start.

Have you considered playing something that isn't a game based on math skills, instead of asking for that skill requirement to be removed? If anything, maybe the dev should add a timer per hand...

[malogoss]

How about an English contest, instead of a maths one where every adult is expected to score 100%? I'll give you a word's definition, you try to guess the word. Ready?

adjective
available to be chosen but not obligatory

I'll grant you 3 guesses. Good luck!

[packy17]

if balatro becomes popular enough, i'm sure someone will eventually release an overlay that plays the game for you.

[TenaciousT]

An auto-calc removes the basic task of entering ~10 variables into a calculator. This is a turn-based game, so the speed at which a player can calculate has no bearing on the outcome. It's a quality of life feature and nothing more.

[Bilgot the Heartless]

I was looking for good card game since some time. Before Balatro I noticed "Aces and Adventures" after short research I didn't buy it becasue game shows you the best cards you should play during your round, so that was the reason I didn't buy it. Finally I found Balatro, the great card game and now people want to make similar thing here...

If you don't like to think, If you don't like math maybe you don't like card games at all...

[Hyperborea]

Yeaah let's not add that