Is the game too luck based?

[eepy83]

I swear this game is so RNG based and I feel like I have no control over my runs

[WZ]

What's that, we got evidence water is in fact wet?
Well, that just proves I was right all along and water is dry.

[DrunkBunny94]

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

Unfortunately that experiment is more likely not proving that it's skill due to the enormous range of outcomes. You're seeing people making right and wrong decisions early on, but whether they're necessarily the correct decision is based on what they encounter later in the run that they cannot account for - unless they've already seen part of that run of course. That the range of outcomes is so wide indicates that luck is probably very much a factor.

They. Are. Using. The. Same. Seed.

Their draws at the start are the SAME.

What they WOULD have seen in the shop is the SAME.

People got different stuff later on because of how they managed their money, people that had more money were able to dig more and find pieces they needed to scale better.

This isnt hard to understand...

[ambershee]

Origineel geplaatst door snakeskip:

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

That the range of outcomes is so wide indicates that luck is probably very much a factor.

The best player won every round. The second best got 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd. The third best got 2nd, 3rd, 3rd. The fourth best got 5th, 4th, 4th.

These are very consistent results. If luck was a factor we would most likely have seen a lot of variance between rounds. This is not the case. The outcomes in this competition reflect nothing but the difference of skill.

In a closer competition luck could be a factor. Like in all close competitions where players can't control everything.

That's not what I'm seeing here at all, these are wildly inconsistent results - and because it's a knock-out style system with a very small sample where only four players played more than two rounds, you really can't call it conclusive. Only the top two players have demonstrably consistent high scores.

A player who scored 4.65E+11 on their first round only managed 44 million in their second - but lucky for them the player who scored 1.08E+12 in their first round (the third best score) scored only 4 million in their second and was knocked out of the competition.

[ambershee]

Origineel geplaatst door DrunkBunny94:

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

Unfortunately that experiment is more likely not proving that it's skill due to the enormous range of outcomes. You're seeing people making right and wrong decisions early on, but whether they're necessarily the correct decision is based on what they encounter later in the run that they cannot account for - unless they've already seen part of that run of course. That the range of outcomes is so wide indicates that luck is probably very much a factor.

They. Are. Using. The. Same. Seed.

Their draws at the start are the SAME.

What they WOULD have seen in the shop is the SAME.

People got different stuff later on because of how they managed their money, people that had more money were able to dig more and find pieces they needed to scale better.

This isnt hard to understand...

...and none of them can predict the future. A person that chose Scary Face instead of Odd Tod in the first ante could have received Pareidolia in the second ante and come out with a massively superior score as a result of highly accelerated economy. Just because the seed is the same doesn't mean there isn't a strong element of luck involved.

[Mountain Man]

Origineel geplaatst door big poo:

Is the game too luck based?

Well, it's a variation of poker, so yeah.

[malogoss]

I've now beaten all 15 decks gold stake level.

It only got easier and easier as I kept playing. If you think this game involves too much luck, keep practicing, get better and achieve things you probably first thought were impossible.

Or don't practice, don't try to improve, keep trying to get perfect jokers and don't get them, keep blaming bad luck and complain here. It will be my pleasure to not read you.

[DrunkBunny94]

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

Origineel geplaatst door DrunkBunny94:

...and none of them can predict the future. A person that chose Scary Face instead of Odd Tod in the first ante could have received Pareidolia in the second ante and come out with a massively superior score as a result of highly accelerated economy. Just because the seed is the same doesn't mean there isn't a strong element of luck involved.

Exactly which is why you make decisions that help you survive and once that's in order you focus on your economy so that in the future you can find what you need.

Buying odd todd/scary face are early game purchases in order to survive and in both cases players have survived because of this purchase - neither is right or wrong if you get to the next ante with them they did their job.

But now there's a Pareidolia that some one can use, this doesn't increase their score it lets their scary face work on all cards and possibly sets up some future combo's so BOTH players still need to buy a source of multi to survive the next ante.
This has allowed the odd todd player to pull ahead some $10+ after taking into account interest so at the end of the ante hes able to roll the shop 3 more times to find what hes looking for which increases his chances of hitting what hes looking for making him more successful in the long run.
For all we know scary face player could die because there was no multi they could afford after they blew it all on a scaling card so early...

TLDR: you make your own luck.

[ambershee]

I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or just missing the point entirely - the point isn't this single decision. It's that many decisions over the course of the game are made with no knowledge of what will be presented to them later, and these compound. On the white stakes it doesn't really matter and it's easily recoverable (heck, you can finish without buying any jokers at all), but on the gold stakes you can often win or lose a run easily based on whether the options you're presented with on the third ante gel with the ones you picked in the second - if you get presented with any viable options at all; it's entirely possible you won't see a single multiplier joker.

[Joeynator3000]

Origineel geplaatst door Mountain Man:

Origineel geplaatst door big poo:

Is the game too luck based?

Well, it's a variation of poker, so yeah.

Everyone here says there's no luck involved in this game...which is total bs. lol

[DrunkBunny94]

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or just missing the point entirely - the point isn't this single decision. It's that many decisions over the course of the game are made with no knowledge of what will be presented to them later, and these compound. On the white stakes it doesn't really matter and it's easily recoverable (heck, you can finish without buying any jokers at all), but on the gold stakes you can often win or lose a run easily based on whether the options you're presented with on the third ante gel with the ones you picked in the second - if you get presented with any viable options at all; it's entirely possible you won't see a single multiplier joker.

But we're talking about white stakes....

[SCamp]

Origineel geplaatst door Terratrox:

Origineel geplaatst door games23:

yeah, but how were you able to cut your deck down to 12 cards, with mostly tens?

.... you got lucky with the RNG

Actually that sounds like a cheated run. Because that means that person managed to get their hands on 20 hanged man cards, or that joker that destroys cards for money. Either way removing 40 cards from your deck isn't something that happens in such a short run.

Faceless deck. Joker that destroys cards. I also tunneled tarot packs and purple seals for hanged man (main), death (main), strength (main), emperor, fool, hermit/temperance (joker/reroll economy) and ignored almost everything else.

Started as straights, bought the tarot ticket to fish for money from tarot cards, attempted/failed to pivot to flush (because of a red/black joker) and then I just decided to commit to four-of-a-kind 10s when I got the joker that gave +mult per card less than 52 (as I was already steadily deleting low cards to get higher flushes/straights) eventually progressing to five-of-a-kind 10s when I could effectively guarantee it in my hand. I also got tarot mult and rerolls. I stopped at 12 cards because I needed cards to discard to for the 0 discard = 3x mult. The deck contents were 2xA, 9x10, 1x9 = 12 cards at time of ante 8 (3 of the 10s were mult, otherwise nothing special). Didn't change much after. I was using my economy for rerolling and spending tarots to scale multipliers.

I was doing that run purely for progression. I based the strategy off of a King's run I saw on either Skootie or Northernlion's channel. (I also don't have some of the joker content unlocked, so that may have helped.)

I died at ante 11 before being able to get on the grind to convert everything into steel cards.

===

If you understand statistics and have awareness of the hands you can make you can start influencing randomness to your favor to fish for other hand types, and are able to progress further into the early game to see more shops in ante 1/2.

For example, I read advice to pull for an high ace straight for ante 1, round 1 for the initial coin bonus when a full house would also work (and can be fished for if you have a 2 pair in hand). This immediately improves the number of viable A1R1 perfect starts you can play. (And if you wanted to see more viable runs, then you'd also be playing imperfect starts that failed the first hand win.)

The skill part is in phases:
0) Knowing there are multiple optimal strategies to play the game.
1) survival game of picking hands to see some shops
2) getting a decent joker to build a scoring strategy
3) obtaining jokers and sculpting the deck to min-max the scoring strategy

[ambershee]

Origineel geplaatst door DrunkBunny94:

Origineel geplaatst door ambershee:

I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or just missing the point entirely - the point isn't this single decision. It's that many decisions over the course of the game are made with no knowledge of what will be presented to them later, and these compound. On the white stakes it doesn't really matter and it's easily recoverable (heck, you can finish without buying any jokers at all), but on the gold stakes you can often win or lose a run easily based on whether the options you're presented with on the third ante gel with the ones you picked in the second - if you get presented with any viable options at all; it's entirely possible you won't see a single multiplier joker.

But we're talking about white stakes....

It doesn't matter. At high stakes this manifests in high rates of failure, at white stakes it manifests in massive differences in scores. The 'proving grounds' stats are probably showing that directly though it's far too small a sample size to say with any certainty. It's why a player who gets 465 trillion in the first round only manages 44 million in the next. The player who finishes fourth gets 1 billion, then 12 million, then 29 quintillion. It's wild.

The game isn't entirely driven by luck, but it *is* true to a decent degree that luck is a factor.

[srn347]

If you control for the seed and let the players vary, the better players will win more often and generally score higher too. If you control for the player and let the seeds vary, a good player will win often (and pretty much always, if we're talking white stake) while a bad player can manage to lose nearly every time. If neither of these observations are sufficient to convince you the game is skill-based, by all means tell me what experiment or data observation you think would be better.

[Godhand]

Origineel geplaatst door Nobby Nobbs:

Yes it bloody is. It took me 42 hours to find one legendary despite going for Tarot and Spectral packs as much as I could. It's the only one I've found so far. That's more than just bad luck.

Definitely luck based. I played Balatro on Nintendo Switch for weeks and I have 2 legendary jokers unlocked. Only like 10 Jokers are missing on that save, everything else is unlocked.
I bought Balatro for Steam like 2 days ago and I already have 3 legendaries and 110 jokers unlocked. It's ridiculously insane how much faster I am completing my save on Steam. I doubt all of that is just my skill, I don't read up guides about certain strats or anything, I just play it casually. Point being, I agree, I think the game is hella luck based. If the shop serves you trash, you won't make it far, no matter how good you are in the game.

[Zouls]

Origineel geplaatst door Joeynator3000:

Origineel geplaatst door Mountain Man:

Well, it's a variation of poker, so yeah.

Everyone here says there's no luck involved in this game...which is total bs. lol

No people are saying you can bruteforce white stakes in your favour always if you have a little bit of skill.

and that higher stakes it becomes more and more necessary to get some decent draws of items.

Where as the opposite site is saying if you dont get perfect draws then you cant win and that is why its too luck based, and why they have only won 2 runs over 10 hours of play, "because of luck"

when in reality the people who say this explains it as "I tried to go this one specific build and nothing else and i ignored that literally nothing benefitted me so instead of adapting i just kept wasting money, got nothing and lost, so see its luck"