Gold Stake is such a horrific slot machine grindfest

[Dollop of Mayo]

Not saying it should or shouldn't be changed but higher difficulties kinda turn into "play perfectly and more importantly get the perfect Jokers or restart for the 5000th time, idiot"

It's even to the point where I restart if I don't get a good benefit from the first small blind and skip (why wouldn't you, it's a huge waste of time) and I'm so sick of playing against the first big blind, it feels like that's where I spend 95% of my time now

Obviously I don't HAVE to touch this part of the game but I'm trying to be part of that 3% in SOMETHING in my life :P

[Dollop of Mayo]

Originally posted by Goblin:

You said "the optimal choice is now" which is very much giving advice - bad advice.
Many people who fail at gold stake agree with you - Malagos and others who are good at high stakes play agree with me. The numbers I gave are also a lot more objective than your unsubstantiated opinion.
You claim to save 30 seconds of playtime - by wasting many times more time resetting. Times 100, because you were evidently still not winning those reset-fueled runs either.
And I didn't say you shouldn't post - I said you shouldn't post bad advice. Although telling you not to post in a forum for a game you yourself claim to not enjoy would be good advice. Intentionally subjecting yourself to things you don't like is bad for your heart. You only spite yourself at that point.

Argument from authority you lose lolololol,

seriously tho please stop being like this, you will make no friends

[malogoss]

In the last 3-4 hours, I've beaten orange and gold, with the +$10 deck for the first time. Added a few gold stickers on some awkward cards, quite happy with that.

IDK. Maybe I'm just lucky. I'll admit the orange win was good RNG. Still had to play the game though and not blunder it away. Maybe I'm not doing everything wrong. The gold win was on a very average seed I'd say, felt like solving a puzzle the whole game. Tough to say. Some do win more than me. Some less, apparently.

My main hand was pairs, at least at the end. I played many flush in the early game, a few straights, with a sprinkle of high card throughout the game, and a few random full house. When I say high card is good, and the ideal default hand, it doesn't mean you'll fail by playing something else. And it doesn't mean it's the best option in every game you'll play. Sometimes those jokers want you to play something else, and then high card becomes a sure way to lose.

But if you don't want to play the game anymore, fine. I can only tell you what I'm trying to do in my games to sometimes get a win. I don't want to force anyone into torture, if the game is now torture to you. The point of any game is to have fun.

This game can be fun. Takes time to get better, sometimes RNG is simply bad and all that. But I don't mind seeing the restart screen more often than the victory screen, for the last 2-3 stake levels. It's part of the game.

[JudgeTy]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by Dollop of Mayo:

How is skipping the small blind especially at the start a bad option? You literally get nothing from playing it unless you're playing Yellow Deck. Depending on your deck and your Jokers, sure you want to play Small Blinds later on sometimes.

Any deck starts with $4.
Oneshotting the first round gives you $3.
$7 can buy you most jokers in the game. It also gives you $1 on the second round if you decide against buying a joker, or $1 if you do buy one and thus oneshot the second round instead of two-shotting it.

The "give $5" tag is thus just +$1 (and +1 skip scale) in reality, at the cost of 1 store and thus +33% RNG. God forbid you're one of those double skippers, banking entirely on beating the boss jokerless and then needing the shop to give you something good or you reset.
The +$15 after boss tag is entirely gambling on getting a good store after the first boss, slightly better but still leads to considerably more losses due to not getting any decent joker in the one/two stores you do see.
Free shop tag is probably the best one, but is still mostly banking on the two jokers being good - and (usually preferably) not eternal. But it's hard to argue with two free packs on top, so yeah you should probably always take this one on the first round. Is it worth resetting for 15 minutes to get it on the first small blind though? Nah. Just take it if you happen to find it.

The value of the skip tag =+$5 and up.

Typically skip small blind for any of these tags:
Speed ($5), Coupon ($10-$20), Ethereal ($6), Buffoon ($8?), Meteor ($7-8?), Charm ($7-8?), Standard ($7-8?), Investment ($15), Polychrome(~$6+), Holographic(~$5+), Foil (~$5+), Negative (~$5+), Orbital (~$6+) Rare (~$5+), Uncommon (~$5+), D6 ($5), Top-up (~$5-8)

Some of these you might not be able to afford based on the deck and hands you've played. In some cases due to what I just mentioned it's better to DOUBLE SKIP.

Double Tag depends on saving it for a great tag...
Juggle can help if you are struggling for certain bosses. Worthless IMO on the first blind.

R key or play the small blind- Economy, Boss, Garbage, Juggle.

You can R key till you get Coupon which is your best value, but generally not necessary. Polychrome/Negative/Holographic then Coupon on Big Blind Skip is really good.

In addition skipping first Small Blind also empowers Throwback (one of the easiest broken jokers to win with). And gives +$5 to future tags of Speed.

Playing the small blind = $-2 funds, shop peek valued at a reroll of $5, and +1 to ~+5 mults toward ONE joker (Supernova), Small interest boost on Yellow deck.

TLDR skip the first small blind.

The wiki says :

The Negative, Standard, Meteor, Buffoon, Handy, Garbage, Ethereal, Top-up and Orbital Tag cannot be encountered in Ante 1.

That's wrong.

[Dollop of Mayo]

Originally posted by malogoss:

In the last 3-4 hours, I've beaten orange and gold, with the +$10 deck for the first time. Added a few gold stickers on some awkward cards, quite happy with that.

IDK. Maybe I'm just lucky. I'll admit the orange win was good RNG. Still had to play the game though and not blunder it away. Maybe I'm not doing everything wrong. The gold win was on a very average seed I'd say, felt like solving a puzzle the whole game. Tough to say. Some do win more than me. Some less, apparently.

My main hand was pairs, at least at the end. I played many flush in the early game, a few straights, with a sprinkle of high card throughout the game, and a few random full house. When I say high card is good, and the ideal default hand, it doesn't mean you'll fail by playing something else. And it doesn't mean it's the best option in every game you'll play. Sometimes those jokers want you to play something else, and then high card becomes a sure way to lose.

But if you don't want to play the game anymore, fine. I can only tell you what I'm trying to do in my games to sometimes get a win. I don't want to force anyone into torture, if the game is now torture to you. The point of any game is to have fun.

This game can be fun. Takes time to get better, sometimes RNG is simply bad and all that. But I don't mind seeing the restart screen more often than the victory screen, for the last 2-3 stake levels. It's part of the game.

I don't doubt you're better at the game than I am. You have 4x my hours played. I'm sure if I banged my head against the wall for another handful of hours I could break through and get the Gold Stake achievement. But it'd be hours I spent not enjoying the game, and like you said, the point of any game is to have fun.

Like I'd said long ago in this thread, it's me as much as the game. And like I said in my initial post, I don't even know if the game should be changed. I came here mostly to vent, and observe that the Gold Stake difficulty felt incredibly frustrating to overcome, especially compared to the rest of the game.

It would seem I'm not alone, and I appreciate tips on how to play the game from people like you, who don't come in condescending and aggro, unlike another in this thread. But I'm just gonna give the game a rest for a while and come back to it later, maybe when there's new content and/or Steam Workshop gets implemented.

[Your Majesty Padded Gamer]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by arrgh:

I still wanna try to beat ante 11, so far I have no idea how it's even possible aside from getting the baron joker and a full deck of steel kings. Well, maybe a bunch of good negative jokers can solve this, we'll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kngXGj5l6E
Here's Aliensrock getting to the boss of Ante 12 with only a single joker and a flush build. That's two ways of inefficient play and he still makes it all the way there. (Though for the purpose of long term mult-focused scaling, flush isn't worse than the other 3mult-scaling planets, it's just got crummy chips scaling.)
All you need to get to ante 12 is any normal build plus some steel and/or glass cards, nothing more. He's got high level instead of a +chips/+mult joker, and one powerful scaling xmult instead of two/three 3x ones. But there's nothing unusual about his level of luck, he just picked smart options.

Also if you play a madness run on black stake difficulty you can get enteral jokers that can't be destroyed, aka you can have five jokers including madness. It's pretty busted in my experience. And yes this makes getting ante 12 much harder due to the green stake making the score requirements much higher, but it has to be said the massive benefits could make getting ante 12 easier.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by JudgeTy:

The value of the skip tag =+$5 and up.

Typically skip small blind for any of these tags:
Speed ($5), Coupon ($10-$20), Ethereal ($6), Buffoon ($8?), Meteor ($7-8?), Charm ($7-8?), Standard ($7-8?), Investment ($15), Polychrome(~$6+), Holographic(~$5+), Foil (~$5+), Negative (~$5+), Orbital (~$6+) Rare (~$5+), Uncommon (~$5+), D6 ($5), Top-up (~$5-8)

Some of these you might not be able to afford based on the deck and hands you've played. In some cases due to what I just mentioned it's better to DOUBLE SKIP.

Double Tag depends on saving it for a great tag...
Juggle can help if you are struggling for certain bosses. Worthless IMO on the first blind.

Man, this is hard to parse. Almost none of those give you money, yet you list a dollar amount after them anyway. What an equivalent would cost does not mean that's what it gives you in value. There's a reason you wouldn't buy most of those in the first store.

I already explained why Speed ($5) is only $1 more than just playing, at the cost of 1 store (AKA 1 free reroll, 2 pack possibilities). I already explained how Coupon is worth it, but I'm not going to sit there resetting over and over to get it. So those others you listed:
-Ethereal: buying that pack would cost $6, but you rarely gain any benefit from a spectral on turn 1 so its actual value is next to 0. Any joker-interaction spectral is useless, adding some enhanced cards does very little, -1 hand size from Ouija is too punishing without +1 hand size from other sources, Sigil barely helps, you'd pretty much be banking on getting Wraith and then it not giving you a bad Rare.
-Buffoon: pretty much a worse Coupon. You get two of four jokers, but no free packs (which can include buffoons). Probably worth it, but much like Coupon by no means required.
-Meteor: rarely worth anything, either a hand you can't reliably make or won't synergize with the jokers you get - too RNG reliant
-Charm: worse Ethereal, not worth
-Orbital: probably even worse than Charm, worse than Meteor, not worth
-Standard: AHAHAHAHA please tell me you're kidding
-Poly/Holo/Rare/etc.: actually just costs you money by increasing the cost of jokers in the next store, which most likely won't be ones you want anyway. Comboing them with Coupon is just 100% banking on them getting you a good joker on a single roll, so in most cases a waste of the time you spent holding R.
-Top-up: strictly worse Buffoon
-D6: -1 store (two jokers and two packs) for 1 free reroll (only two jokers) is just a net negative, and wasting early dollars on the rerolls after that is just a bad idea in general
-Double Tag: saving up for a future you probably won't have, even moreso because you skipped. In the slightly less than 1/100000 chance you get it on the small blind and a Buffoon on the big one I might take it.
-Juggle: increasing your chances of losing the run in the long term for surviving a single boss is just wasting your own time, but you already realized that and I'm explicitly only talking about the first ante here - that's what people hold R for

Also FYI, those tags you mentioned at the end do have a variable min_ante = 2 defined in game.lua and that variable is used to cull the pool of possible tags on ante 1. If they appear on ante 1 that's a bug and you should report it.

[JudgeTy]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by JudgeTy:

The value of the skip tag =+$5 and up.

Typically skip small blind for any of these tags:
Speed ($5), Coupon ($10-$20), Ethereal ($6), Buffoon ($8?), Meteor ($7-8?), Charm ($7-8?), Standard ($7-8?), Investment ($15), Polychrome(~$6+), Holographic(~$5+), Foil (~$5+), Negative (~$5+), Orbital (~$6+) Rare (~$5+), Uncommon (~$5+), D6 ($5), Top-up (~$5-8)

Some of these you might not be able to afford based on the deck and hands you've played. In some cases due to what I just mentioned it's better to DOUBLE SKIP.

Double Tag depends on saving it for a great tag...
Juggle can help if you are struggling for certain bosses. Worthless IMO on the first blind.

Man, this is hard to parse. Almost none of those give you money, yet you list a dollar amount after them anyway. What an equivalent would cost does not mean that's what it gives you in value. There's a reason you wouldn't buy most of those in the first store.

I already explained why Speed ($5) is only $1 more than just playing, at the cost of 1 store (AKA 1 free reroll, 2 pack possibilities). I already explained how Coupon is worth it, but I'm not going to sit there resetting over and over to get it. So those others you listed:
-Ethereal: buying that pack would cost $6, but you rarely gain any benefit from a spectral on turn 1 so its actual value is next to 0. Any joker-interaction spectral is useless, adding some enhanced cards does very little, -1 hand size from Ouija is too punishing without +1 hand size from other sources, Sigil barely helps, you'd pretty much be banking on getting Wraith and then it not giving you a bad Rare.
-Buffoon: pretty much a worse Coupon. You get two of four jokers, but no free packs (which can include buffoons). Probably worth it, but much like Coupon by no means required.
-Meteor: rarely worth anything, either a hand you can't reliably make or won't synergize with the jokers you get - too RNG reliant
-Charm: worse Ethereal, not worth
-Orbital: probably even worse than Charm, worse than Meteor, not worth
-Standard: AHAHAHAHA please tell me you're kidding
-Poly/Holo/Rare/etc.: actually just costs you money by increasing the cost of jokers in the next store, which most likely won't be ones you want anyway. Comboing them with Coupon is just 100% banking on them getting you a good joker on a single roll, so in most cases a waste of the time you spent holding R.
-Top-up: strictly worse Buffoon
-D6: -1 store (two jokers and two packs) for 1 free reroll (only two jokers) is just a net negative, and wasting early dollars on the rerolls after that is just a bad idea in general
-Double Tag: saving up for a future you probably won't have, even moreso because you skipped. In the slightly less than 1/100000 chance you get it on the small blind and a Buffoon on the big one I might take it.
-Juggle: increasing your chances of losing the run in the long term for surviving a single boss is just wasting your own time, but you already realized that and I'm explicitly only talking about the first ante here - that's what people hold R for

Also FYI, those tags you mentioned at the end do have a variable min_ante = 2 defined in game.lua and that variable is used to cull the pool of possible tags on ante 1. If they appear on ante 1 that's a bug and you should report it.

You are missing the part where you can CYCLE everything you get. Do you not understand the value of a joker card? You can SELL them. Why would you sell cards? I shouldn't have to explain this... Snowballing interest from sold cards is one of the easiest ways to win. Arguably is mandatory on Gold.

The cards are valued at potential buy and resell. How many runs do you KEEP the same jokers you started with?

You are primarily focused on strictly $ which is wrong. How much would you spend to achieve the same in the store? How much to SELL a free joker to get interests, etc.

You can sell jokers right before the blind ends to STILL get the interest and USE btw.

So you need to go back and redo everything you said above...

[JudgeTy]

Let me get this straight. You do not purchase any of the tags equivalent in the store in any of your runs? HOW MUCH DID YOU PAY IF YOU DID?

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Dollop of Mayo:

(...) But I'm just gonna give the game a rest for a while and come back to it later, maybe when there's new content and/or Steam Workshop gets implemented.

Yeah.
Sounds like a good idea. New content is one thing, but a different mindset is the key I think. Give it time. This game can be the scariest thing or the most fun thing ever, depending on how you approach it.

If one day you come here again to boast about your first gold win, I hope I won't miss it so I can type a sincere "GG".

Until then, have fun playing other games.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by JudgeTy:

Let me get this straight. You do not purchase any of the tags equivalent in the store in any of your runs? HOW MUCH DID YOU PAY IF YOU DID?

I don't buy any of the tag equivalents in any of the ante 1 stores, no. Do you? Are you really spending $8 on two planet cards when you have like $10? Or worse, a standard pack?
You're the one that listed all these things by their supposed dollar value as if that were relevant, I'm the one who said they're not worth that in the frame of reference we're talking about (exclusively ante 1 skips).

And no, you can't "cycle" most of the tags you listed. Only jokers. Good luck cycling a tarot card from a tarot pack - only happens if you get Emperor. So yes, if you were trying to argue that Buffoon is a good thing to skip the first round for you'd have a point... except I already agreed that one's worth taking.

[JudgeTy]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by JudgeTy:

Let me get this straight. You do not purchase any of the tags equivalent in the store in any of your runs? HOW MUCH DID YOU PAY IF YOU DID?

I don't buy any of the tag equivalents in any of the ante 1 stores, no. Do you? Are you really spending $8 on two planet cards when you have like $10? Or worse, a standard pack?
You're the one that listed all these things by their supposed dollar value as if that were relevant, I'm the one who said they're not worth that in the frame of reference we're talking about (exclusively ante 1 skips).

And no, you can't "cycle" most of the tags you listed. Only jokers. Good luck cycling a tarot card from a tarot pack - only happens if you get Emperor. So yes, if you were trying to argue that Buffoon is a good thing to skip the first round for you'd have a point... except I already agreed that one's worth taking.

Yes? Ante scale cost of packs... We are not playing on white.
I would absolutely buy Arcana and Mega Arcana, Spectral, Mega Card packs...
Early money making is good at Ante 1 X cost on packs... Even better if they are free in blind.
The only thing I would prioritize is certain vouchers or jokers over the aforementioned.. Beating Ante 2 Big Blind is easy enough WITHOUT any jokers.
You are skipping gold cards and like 80% of the spectral cards?
Mega Arcana - Hermit, Temperance, The Devil, Judgement, The Fool.

Also 2 PLANETS can also be sold via Arcana... wrong again.

Just a bad take.

I'd rather leave Ante 1 with $14-30 with enhanced cards/planets and no jokers than 2 pity jokers and $2.

Easily done skipping Small Blind.

Throwback is the easiest way to win IMO ~X6 multiplier...

[Birck]

This game is RNG on top of RNG, whenever you combine Poker which has a heavy element of that on top of other RNG elements you get stuff like this it's how the game goes. Even when you have a great build the cards themselves can sometimes screw ya over if you need to find say a flush ideally with some kings or queens.

Being smart with your choices can still be a huge factor, but yeah this game is very hard and sometimes you can get screwed over.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Birck:

This game is RNG on top of RNG, whenever you combine Poker which has a heavy element of that on top of other RNG elements you get stuff like this it's how the game goes. Even when you have a great build the cards themselves can sometimes screw ya over if you need to find say a flush ideally with some kings or queens.

Being smart with your choices can still be a huge factor, but yeah this game is very hard and sometimes you can get screwed over.

Can't insist on it enough, things get complicated quickly when playing 5 card hands. Often you have to keep 4 cards in hand, which makes your discards less efficient. Even worse if you're trying to keep "support" cards too, like steel ones. Same thing when holding on to gold cards. All this is not too bad at low stakes, also not too bad if you have the absolute perfect deck (except for straights, always very dangerous no matter what, and full house to a lesser degree). But once you hit blue stake level, 5 card hands start to collapse. You can still win, you absolutely can and you will if you are patient, but it's a tough path. Been there.

This game really has that in common with poker. Any player can win a poker tournament. The same way any player can win a Balatro run.

But if you had to pick without betting odds the winner of a poker tournament, it'd be wise to pick a pro, not an amateur. Because the skill part is important.

Same in Balatro. A player will win 1 in 30 runs. Another will consistently win 1 in 8. You won't get a 100% win rate no matter your skill level. But RNG isn't everything.

So it's kind of fitting that two games, one being inspired by another, share that trait.

[Fingusa of the East]

OP, this game is literally a slot machine grindfest since your first run.

Just wish I would have realized it before spending 15 hours on it.

[dre00464]

I Just turn my brain off and keep pushing not the best plan but I've had pretty close runs before..