Love the game, but is it too luck based?

[Registered Nerd]

So my first run I lost on the fourth blind. My second run I lost on the second to last blind. It was just the jokers I got, and I probably would have won but I gambled on trading the Ramen joker for an undiscovered card. Just seems a long way to go with only one run's worth of practice.

[Sciencemile]

I don't know if I just got lucky but I tried to go for Tarot Cards that changed my card's suits so I could keep getting easy flushes. I also used the Magic Deck so I could turn one of those into three as soon as I got it. For the boss that is like "you can only play one kind of hand this round" flushes are probably the best.

[Protogen_Rhythm]

Originally posted by Sciencemile:

I don't know if I just got lucky but I tried to go for Tarot Cards that changed my card's suits so I could keep getting easy flushes. I also used the Magic Deck so I could turn one of those into three as soon as I got it. For the boss that is like "you can only play one kind of hand this round" flushes are probably the best.

Flushes seem like the most consistent in the demo for me too, yeah, but if you aren't invested into 2 different suits, the "X suit is nerfed" boss can be an automatic loss for your run.

[muted]

three of a kind and full houses have some good synergies with jokers since 3 of a kind is in a full house. There's some really strong jokers if you are going for a straight strategy as well.

[bshock]

There is a bit of RNG involved, for sure, but that’s inherent of the genre.

[skiptis]

Originally posted by bshock:

There is a bit of RNG involved, for sure, but that’s inherent of the genre.

Slay the Spire is also an RNG based card game, and yet it took the entire community something like three years after release to find a seed that was genuinely unwinnable.

Not saying I expect that level of balance out of Balatro, but I feel like the aim could definitely be higher.

Remember, this demo only has the LOWEST difficulty enabled.

I've had fun with the demo, but I feel like the consistency of non flush combos need to be upped. I'm also not really sure what the place of lower card combos like High Card/Pair/Two Pair/Three of a Kind are even supposed to be in this game, their scores are simply too low to ever bother with, which in turn makes their related jokers kinda junk.

The only non flush combo I've had a win with in the current version of the demo (I have something like a dozen wins atm) is straights, and that is completely dependent on just one single joker (Shortcut) out of the current 40 to have any sort of consistency. The full game is meant to have 150 jokers based on the collection.

The biggest change I can think of that would help would be to simply remove to specialised planet cards like Ceres/Neptune and make planet cards work the same as card combo chip jokers, aka make them affect a hand if the CONTAIN a combo, not if that's the name of the combo. Aka pair/three of a kind planet cards would both affect full house.

It feels pretty bad when your hand contains a straight flush and you end up discarding a card in it because it's just way worse than a regular flush because you haven't been picking Neptune cards.

TL;DR: There's too much RNG *if* you aren't going for flushes. Flushes are in a good spot, the rest of the game needs to be brought up to a similar level.

[Siozen]

It didn't feel too RNG to me. Good game so far.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by skiptis:

I've had fun with the demo, but I feel like the consistency of non flush combos need to be upped. I'm also not really sure what the place of lower card combos like High Card/Pair/Two Pair/Three of a Kind are even supposed to be in this game, their scores are simply too low to ever bother with, which in turn makes their related jokers kinda junk.

Flushes are just easy to make because 13 cards out of 52 have the same suit. Straight/Full house are harder, but not impossible. The lower tier hands can be useful if you buff them enough, i.e with x3 mult 3 of a kind, +2 mult every 2 pair played, etc...

Originally posted by skiptis:

The biggest change I can think of that would help would be to simply remove to specialised planet cards like Ceres/Neptune and make planet cards work the same as card combo chip jokers, aka make them affect a hand if the CONTAIN a combo, not if that's the name of the combo. Aka pair/three of a kind planet cards would both affect full house.

Jokers themselves are already broken enough, I don't think Planets need to be changed.

Originally posted by skiptis:

It feels pretty bad when your hand contains a straight flush and you end up discarding a card in it because it's just way worse than a regular flush because you haven't been picking Neptune cards.

Nah, I say this is by design. Once you buff up a certain kind of hands, you avoid other. That is discarding stuff and collecting cards to not run into that particular hand. I had 4 buffed Aces which normally 4-of-a-kind is the go to, but my Flush is already level 15 so of course I ditched one Ace and add 2 random cards instead (even avoiding Flush House in the process)

Originally posted by skiptis:

TL;DR: There's too much RNG *if* you aren't going for flushes. Flushes are in a good spot, the rest of the game needs to be brought up to a similar level.

Flushes in good spot is only in this demo due to small Joker pool so +4 mult for each suit is frequently encountered. I say a good compromise is to make them uncommon, +20 mult for Flushes is indeed very strong in the early game.

[TowerWizard]

Originally posted by skiptis:

The biggest change I can think of that would help would be to simply remove to specialised planet cards like Ceres/Neptune and make planet cards work the same as card combo chip jokers, aka make them affect a hand if the CONTAIN a combo, not if that's the name of the combo. Aka pair/three of a kind planet cards would both affect full house.

I fully agree, both with the planets and with flushes. Flushes are balanced, even without joker support, but with Four Fingers and/or Shortcut, they become broken, and then you can reliably go for straight flush every blind.

I really hope the balance will be better in the full game, so that you can reliably go for four of a kind, for example.

[Lieutenant Dan]

It's a poker card game......

[Goblin]

Originally posted by TowerWizard:

Originally posted by skiptis:

The biggest change I can think of that would help would be to simply remove to specialised planet cards like Ceres/Neptune and make planet cards work the same as card combo chip jokers, aka make them affect a hand if the CONTAIN a combo, not if that's the name of the combo. Aka pair/three of a kind planet cards would both affect full house.

I fully agree, both with the planets and with flushes. Flushes are balanced, even without joker support, but with Four Fingers and/or Shortcut, they become broken, and then you can reliably go for straight flush every blind.

I really hope the balance will be better in the full game, so that you can reliably go for four of a kind, for example.

Buying any Spectral packs you see and focusing on tarots a little (Vagabond joker says hello) can very easily make four of a kind, five of a kind, and even flush of a kind runs. You can't "reliably" go for them, but you can't reliably go for any kind of run - you just go with the flow of what you get joker wise.

I find it funny that last demo everyone said flushes were OP, then when this one came out people said flushes suck now, and now we're back to people calling them OP.

[TowerWizard]

i implied that having both Four Fingers and Shortcut is OP, not that flush is broken, although it is by far the most reliable hand to use to win the demo.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by TowerWizard:

i implied that having both Four Fingers and Shortcut is OP, not that flush is broken, although it is by far the most reliable hand to use to win the demo.

The caveat is that they take up two Joker slots, so unless they're holo/poly, your bonus chips / mults are significantly limited. Remember that the full game is twice as long with final boss blind being up to hundred thousand points to score, relying on just those two isn't enough.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by Ronald Brain:

Originally posted by TowerWizard:

i implied that having both Four Fingers and Shortcut is OP, not that flush is broken, although it is by far the most reliable hand to use to win the demo.

The caveat is that they take up two Joker slots, so unless they're holo/poly, your bonus chips / mults are significantly limited. Remember that the full game is twice as long with final boss blind being up to hundred thousand points to score, relying on just those two isn't enough.

Actually, if you look at the blinds in the collection, it lists up to ante 16 which I assume will be required for at least one difficulty - and that's 1.2e21 * boss difficulty. So at the very minimum, getting The Needle (x1) as final boss, you will need 1.2 sextillion (in one hand no less). And a maximum of 7.2 sextillion if you get Violet Vessel (x6 difficulty).

So just "hundred thousands of points" isn't gonna cut it either :P

[Odin]

The "you can only play one kind of hand" can really get you and it destroys the whole idea of the game i think. Should be removed entirely. Focussing on just one kind of hand often works but doesn't make a lot of fun.

[TheFourthEye]

All hands drawn face down after playing a hand is 100% RNG. I guess you can alternate and discard, but you don't have an equal number of discards. I won the round by sorting by suit and playing the left 5 cards. 2 times in a row I got lucky enough to get flushes. This is a pure RNG modifier that kinda ruins the experience for me. Staring hand drawn face down is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ enough as it is, but you can sort of sacrifice a hand or discard to mitigate this. There is no viable way to mitigate every card coming in face down after you play a hand if you don't get extremely lucky on your discard draws, or just play blind and get even more lucky.

I also reached the "boss" which was 60k chips. My highest hand the entire run was 9k, so yeah not happening in 6 hands. I'm sure with the right set of jokers or upgrades it could be done, but I really get the feeling that RNG has to go your way on this, strategy only takes you so far.