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.

[Gillium]

I like it the way it is.

[Linio]

Originally posted by symphony:

Options like this that affect difficulty never work in video games because no one will ever OPT to make the game harder/more tedious for themselves (unless they affect achievements). If it's a QOL of thing people would only ever turn it off for "immersion" like turning off your hud in some games

Your message is a bit strange.
You're saying there shouldn't be a way to have the score, but if you had the opportunity you would use it...

The more I play, the more I think this would be useful to have the information.
Not to say I played that much, but it's not like situations where you need to be on the edge are plenty, and where you could game the system. Mostly you need to win fast and clean, and when you get to big antes, the calculation is nearly impossible to do. Runs where I get 7 or more jokers and 4 to 5 cards with effects in my hand are very common. And at some point it's more to see whether you will do the 250K that you need or "just" 220K. And honestly, to take again the computation of TenaciousT it's more of the sort of :

(40+30+110+250+50+10+5+4+5+2+5+55)*(10+50+5+13+15+6+8)*1.37*3*1.5

versus :

(40+30+110+150+10+5+4+5+2+5+55)*(10+50+5+13+15+6+8+12+22)*3*1.5

At a glance, can someone tell me how much it makes? Which one is better??
And if you were to compute that, can you do it with no copy and paste on Google now?

(and I'm not even trolling, 5 cards and 6 to 7 jokers all pumped up lead to that type of math)

So yeah, it boils down to "oh well, guess I'll die then" when you're picking a bit out of the blue a hand that could be.

After that I agree with you, said system would probably be always activated by everyone, but is it that bad?

[Goblin]

Except you don't NEED to know how much it will make if you're trying to just get a high score to win a round. Only time specific numbers matter at all is when you're trying to play as many hands as possible, to trigger buffs on some jokers. Except even then, you just want to play as low as possible until you need a big score.

So if knowing the exact number doesn't help, why would you need this? The only benefit it would give is that you can shuffle cards around to have the game tell you if it's optimal or not - removing any need for you to strategize. Hard no on that.

[symphony]

Originally posted by Linio:

Your message is a bit strange.
You're saying there shouldn't be a way to have the score, but if you had the opportunity you would use it...

yes because that's how human psychology works. people naturally take the path of least resistance

Originally posted by Linio:

(40+30+110+250+50+10+5+4+5+2+5+55)*(10+50+5+13+15+6+8)*1.37*3*1.5

versus :

(40+30+110+150+10+5+4+5+2+5+55)*(10+50+5+13+15+6+8+12+22)*3*1.5

I would never bother to figure out something this precise. ballpark estimation is always good enough for me. if it's coming that close, the run isn't that important anyway. look at slay the spire, people don't even bother calculating in that and the math is much much simpler. it's easy to just brush off a missed play and start over it's not that big a deal.

Originally posted by Linio:

After that I agree with you, said system would probably be always activated by everyone, but is it that bad?

I'd be okay with either honestly. just because a calculation is possible doesn't mean it's necessary, takes away some mystery and randomness, and you're always going to be kicking yourself if you KNOW you didn't make the optimal play. this is where the phrase "optimizing the fun out of the game" is relevant.

[BluD]

may as well as just have AI play for you while you watch

[Harmonica]

This is one of those things that can be a toggle for those that want or need it and doesn't affect the rest of you apparent maths enthusiasts whatsoever.

It seems fairly strange that the game will calculate the hand result to a point but won't even factor in the additive multipliers or chips that are face-up on the board.

I personally don't mind it but at the same time it would be a nice option for when you're trying to play a game late in the day and don't want to break out a calculator to compare hand types for every joker purchase etc.

As for whether it should literally calculate the exact result with all the joker effects I don't know, maybe that would induce choice exhaustion. But again it doesn't affect me whatsoever if that was another toggleable option for those that actively struggle with the maths - and no it's not a case of 'maybe they shouldn't play the game' because well being more inclusive benefits everyone, and because ultimately more people playing == more income for the devs == the game improves for everyone (or they get to make their next game more comfortably!).

[Linio]

Originally posted by symphony:

I'd be okay with either honestly. just because a calculation is possible doesn't mean it's necessary, takes away some mystery and randomness, and you're always going to be kicking yourself if you KNOW you didn't make the optimal play. this is where the phrase "optimizing the fun out of the game" is relevant.

Fair enough.

[Rivernen]

+1 to this. It is becoming tedious to calculate the score before playing the hand. If you are not calculating the score, then you are not playing optimally. There are similar type of games which have this kind of QOL feature implemented in them, showing the end result before ending the turn. People using math at work doesn't necessarily want to use math at their free time.

I would like to know if the developer intended score to be calculated by players or was the intention for players to play hands without knowing the score they are about to get from them.

[Fishy]

First up, calculations frequently involve random elements, so this would be useless a fair portion of the time.

Second, very rarely does the calculation matter. If two hands are similar in style, then it's usually trivial to see which is better. If two hands are very different in style (using different jokers, for instance), then either they are similar scores and it doesn't really matter which you play, or they are vastly different scores and you should be able to get an intuitive handle on which one is best. On the rare occasions you can't tell (or the even rarer occasion that every point really matters), you can run the maths manually with relatively little effort.

Third, just because something can be brute-forced by players spending loads of time, doesn't mean it's healthy for the game to provide it automatically. There are many example of this in other games. You can be sure this is a feature the devs have tested and removed rather than failed to provide. As soon as this info is on tap you would be crazy not to use it all the time and many players would end up leaning very heavily on it rather than thinking. Just clicking around staring at that number until it was high. Hell, at that point, since you could easily iterate every possible hand combination and write them all down and pick the highest, why not get the game to do that too?

Some players would benefit from this approach, sure, but a lot of people's gameplay experience would be harmed by this. It's the kind of thing that nobody would call out as a bad feature, but it would make the game less fun on the whole for many people without them ever really realising why.

Unfortunately some people really hate leaving money on the table, and really hate manually calculating things, so this aspect of the design will always rub against them. But you can't fix it without breaking it for everyone else. Either make yourself a spreadsheet while you wait for an overlay, or come to peace with it one way or another.

[Shot_Trip]

Originally posted by Fishy:

First up, calculations frequently involve random elements, so this would be useless a fair portion of the time.

Second, very rarely does the calculation matter. If two hands are similar in style, then it's usually trivial to see which is better. If two hands are very different in style (using different jokers, for instance), then either they are similar scores and it doesn't really matter which you play, or they are vastly different scores and you should be able to get an intuitive handle on which one is best. On the rare occasions you can't tell (or the even rarer occasion that every point really matters), you can run the maths manually with relatively little effort.

Third, just because something can be brute-forced by players spending loads of time, doesn't mean it's healthy for the game to provide it automatically. There are many example of this in other games. You can be sure this is a feature the devs have tested and removed rather than failed to provide. As soon as this info is on tap you would be crazy not to use it all the time and many players would end up leaning very heavily on it rather than thinking. Just clicking around staring at that number until it was high. Hell, at that point, since you could easily iterate every possible hand combination and write them all down and pick the highest, why not get the game to do that too?

Some players would benefit from this approach, sure, but a lot of people's gameplay experience would be harmed by this. It's the kind of thing that nobody would call out as a bad feature, but it would make the game less fun on the whole for many people without them ever really realising why.

Unfortunately some people really hate leaving money on the table, and really hate manually calculating things, so this aspect of the design will always rub against them. But you can't fix it without breaking it for everyone else. Either make yourself a spreadsheet while you wait for an overlay, or come to peace with it one way or another.

It would be really funny to have the tutorial agent guy for this function - just make him mock you a little each time and when random chance is involved he can just be like "It's all up to chance, sorry!" or similar.
It's against the spirit of the game in a way - part of the fun is watching the game trigger your jokers, bonuses, enhancements, seals, etc, going faster and faster, with the little flames turning to big ones - but I'd be okay with it if Jimbo laughed at you each time you asked him to evaluate a hand total.

[kaibarnard]

Originally posted by malogoss:

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.

Exactly, sure it won't include the lucky cards, or the 1 in X chances, but no harm in doing what I can do with a calculator and a few moments or pen and paper and few moments more

No harm in it giving me that info

[Fishy]

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

No harm in it giving me that info

An interesting part of game design is when there is a fun way to play the game and a safe way to play the game, and players are instinctively drawn to the safe way. Designers will try all sorts of things to try and nudge players into realising that actually there's a more fun way to play.

The Doom remake was a great example of this. Don't hide behind cover taking potshots, just get stuck in! It was a totally alien way of playing for many people, but they pushed you into it and once you got it, actually it was loads of fun!

'Fun' is different for different people, of course, but the clear intention here is for you to try running on instinct more. That instinct is a fun skill to develop, and can take you pretty far (with the calculator still being there as a fallback.) Lots of parts of this game design feed into that same goal.

There will always be a few people who find that meticulous calculation is the most fun way to play it, and maybe you're one of those people, but I suspect that the majority of people would get more out of the game in the way that the designers are clearly trying to push you towards, even if it's outside your comfort zone of always taking the time to find the best possible play.

Sometimes adding a feature like this will have the very real effect of pushing people into playing the game in a way which is just less fun!

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by Fishy:

Some players would benefit from this approach, sure, but a lot of people's gameplay experience would be harmed by this. It's the kind of thing that nobody would call out as a bad feature, but it would make the game less fun on the whole for many people without them ever really realising why.

Unfortunately some people really hate leaving money on the table, and really hate manually calculating things, so this aspect of the design will always rub against them. But you can't fix it without breaking it for everyone else. Either make yourself a spreadsheet while you wait for an overlay, or come to peace with it one way or another.

I appreciate what you are saying about curbing players unhealthy instincts - as a dev this is something that is at the forefront of my mind when designing - however players that are inclined to min/max the heck out of a game are surely already mathing out almost everything anyway. I know this because I watch my friends and some streamers play and quite a few of them are obsessed with playing optimally and they are mathing out most hands and shop acquisitions - luckily they are a lot stronger at math than I am so it doesn't take them too long and they enjoy it.

I think if such a feature is implemented then some of them will use it if they don't *want* to do the math and want to speed up the game, but the ones that do will just leave it off because they like the calculation aspect. I don't think it would cause players to obsess over the numbers any more than they already do.

And then there's the players who literally cannot do the kind of math required because it melts their brain, who would only benefit from such a feature.

I do hear the argument about not having everything laid out so that the game feels more loose and nebulous, and personally I am fine with not playing entirely 'correctly' - if that's even possible - will only calculate when I am low on hands and the score is close, to avoid busting out, otherwise just assume that current hand strategy is fine and play it out.

The trend in design seems to be towards calculating most things if they are revealed (to avoid manual calculation) and giving as much information about what has happened as possible if it has been revealed (to avoid note-taking). It just remains whether devs *want* the calculation to be a thing for players or not, knowing that plenty will hand wave it and not bother (and lose a lot of times because of it), and knowing that it kind of slows down the game (and arguably takes them out of the experience) for those players that do calc.

[Jazz]

Just make it an option, then everyone can be happy

[Icedancer]

just a wild guess, OP must be a vampire survivors player
let's keep balatro a game you actually play, not some press buttons without thinking "game".