Unlocking a lot of jokers destroys balance

[_infinitygain]

I've got most of the Jokers unlocked at this point, and so RNG means trash builds are my only option like two thirds of the time. I can go two antes with no skipped blinds before I even see a mult joker in the shop. Crashing and burning on a green stakes run six times in a row because the game offered NO way to make a deck that scales each time isn't fun at all. Getting useful synergies feels almost like total chance now, and it's all but made me lose interest in the game.

[morfaine]

Same. Since I unlocked the majority of content the game is so bloated with jokers and vouchers that the RNG has taken over and its a crap shoot.

[Lucky_Star_Fan]

The game definitely gets a lot harder. With 130 unlocked I usually get offered memes and money gainers during first 2 antes which means I lose on higher stakes because you need multiplier.

[Goblin]

I'd like to offer a little insight based on the code:
The game does not actually roll for jokers straight away. First, it rolls which rarity you get, then which joker you get within that category.
This means that while unlocking multiple bad uncommon jokers would lower your chances of getting a good build from uncommon tags, but won't change your odds of getting a rare that makes your build pop off, or even your chance of getting an uncommon.

So while you could technically create an "ideal RNG scenario" by only unlocking certain jokers on a new profile, the amount it actually affects you is minimized; you'll still mostly see the common jokers already unlocked at the start.

[taggedjc]

I do feel like it's a bit unintuitive that unlocking more Jokers would actually make your game harder. After all, if you unlock a Joker that's, on average, not as good as the average Jokers you already have of that rarity, you've just diluted your Joker pool with something worse.

This is why I feel like you should be able to also unlock Black Seals which you can apply in your Collection on Jokers to prevent them from showing up, similar to how Vampire Survivors has Seal.

Alternately, having the ability to "Banish" a Joker that appears in the shop (perhaps a limited number of times per game) at no cost except to remove it from the shop and from appearing again in your run could be a good alternative. It would be strong to do it to all the bad Jokers that come up, but it still means you first need to see the Joker and could have seen a better one if you just hadn't unlocked the bad Joker to begin with.

It's just unfortunate because it makes me kind of want to go through the Joker collection and pick out the top-tier Jokers to unlock and create a new save file that aims to unlock ONLY those Jokers and none of the others, and then use that to get easy (easier) wins on Gold chip.

[Scrub]

Originally posted by Joba:

I think it becomes much easier once you have everything unlocked. I have now unlocked everything and completed the game 100%. Since everything has been unlocked, I've only been able to win at the highest blind because there are so many good combos. The game has a lot to do with mathematical thinking

How did you beat your first challenge at 8am and then finish all challenges at 9:30am of the same day?

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198155661490/stats/2379780/?tab=achievements

[BeautifulFlowerField]

not finding this to be the case at all - you might need to expand your thinking on how you can build a set of jokers.

[Amplify]

Originally posted by doc:

Originally posted by Joba:

I think it becomes much easier once you have everything unlocked. I have now unlocked everything and completed the game 100%. Since everything has been unlocked, I've only been able to win at the highest blind because there are so many good combos. The game has a lot to do with mathematical thinking

How did you beat your first challenge at 8am and then finish all challenges at 9:30am of the same day?

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198155661490/stats/2379780/?tab=achievements

I love it when a fraud gets exposed.

[JuRiOh]

Originally posted by doc:

Originally posted by Joba:

I think it becomes much easier once you have everything unlocked. I have now unlocked everything and completed the game 100%. Since everything has been unlocked, I've only been able to win at the highest blind because there are so many good combos. The game has a lot to do with mathematical thinking

How did you beat your first challenge at 8am and then finish all challenges at 9:30am of the same day?

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198155661490/stats/2379780/?tab=achievements

He is either using cheats or Steam Achievement Unlocker, plenty of evidence in other games as well where it's simply not possible to complete entire runs with different characters in 10 minutes.

[:)]

Originally posted by Joba:

I think it becomes much easier once you have everything unlocked. I have now unlocked everything and completed the game 100%. Since everything has been unlocked, I've only been able to win at the highest blind because there are so many good combos. The game has a lot to do with mathematical thinking

You cheated your way to 100% your opinion literally doesnt matter

[malogoss]

You know you're a proud cheater when your only public screenshot is about it.

[TowerWizard]

It is sad that there will be no way to know, in five years' time, who played the game for a 1000 hours to do all achievements, and who played for 10 minutes and used a cheat to unlock all achievements.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by TowerWizard:

It is sad thst there will be no way to know, in five years' time, who played the game for a 1000 hours to do all achievements, and who played for 10 minutes and used a cheat to unlock all achievements.

Eh, it still says the exact time and date for old achievements, and unlocking the all challenges one two hours after the first challenge one would still be impossible. So you can still tell, it'll just be a lot harder to know to check.
Not like achievements give anything meaningful anyway. You must be pretty messed up in the head to cheat in achievements just to gloat about it.

[MajinSoul]

The game definitely does feel harder to me now that I have unlocked a good chunk of the jokers.

[Ronald Brain]

Lemme just be straight: Even without unlocking, the majority of common Jokers are already what most people ignored, so it doesn't matter what you do, you still have the same odd of getting RNG-wrecked either way. A LOT of Rare and Uncommon Jokers are very situational, so even if they're super good, they do nothing in the early game other than wasting your money and then you lose and blame the game's bad RNG.

TL;DR: Joker pool is irrelevant, you must learn how to play with the card you're dealt to get good.

[agentmith]

I don't see the downside of adding some form of unlock management being added to the game. It would help both people struggling with the game in figuring out strategies (beyond dumb luck, which is what I usually shoot for), and those who have finished the game already. You could enforce deck constraints on yourself and keep the game interesting after completely finishing everything, or set the game up for some interesting competitive or tournament play. I'm surprised to see this wasn't in the game, nor any form of metaprogression beyond unlocks.