Something needs to change

[☢ARMac☢]

for this game to stay alive.

As it is now, it simply isn't fun fighting the RNG into oblivion. I had my fair share of wins, 2 to be precise, thanks to a stupidly good jokers early in the game.

The problem is that you can't really get better in Balatro. You can improve some cards outside the current run, learn the cards synergy etc. but 96% of the game will still come down to dumb RNG luck, no matter how much you play or start over.

Unlocking new decks and upgrading the vouchers brings that number to about 94%, which is still ridiculously low.

I have literally 0 feeling of progression and hope for brighter future. Make the game easier the more you play.

As it is now, it burns bright at the beginning, but after some time I start feeling the flame is going out. I have less and less interest to fire up the game and waste couple of hours, knowing I will not work towards anything that will help me in future runs.

TLDR; MAKE IT MORE ROGUELIKE

[BeautifulFlowerField]

white stake and red stake are very easy, i'd expect to win half the time or more. i've been only playing magic deck to unlock all the stakes and haven't had time to play lately and purple is giving me problems.

[BeautifulFlowerField]

Originally posted by ☢ARMac☢:

Originally posted by sab0t:

"so" you're complaining because "you can't get better", but the reality is that you are clearly playing the game pretty poorly if you are struggling on the lowest difficulty. which, to be clear, there is nothing wrong with playing poorly, not understanding things, or whatever it may be. but you're here talking with so much authority that this is the game's fault when there is clearly a huge amount of room for improvement in how you're playing. i'm not some crazy elitist, i started winning games reliably after like 2 hours of playtime.

I never said I am good at this or any other game.

Be that as it may, this game will burn out pretty quickly. Which is the topic of this discussion. You claim RNG is not a huge factor, I say it is.

There is no real progression for a roguelike deckbuilder game, as the tag on the store page suggests.

Whether I am playing the game poorly, or the game is shallow time will tell. Hopefully before it is forgotten.

many people have played digital 5 card poker for hundreds of hours without any gimmicks or additional mechanics - you either find the core game itself to be fun or you don't. i really don't understand gamers who play things just to get achievements and go through the progression like it's a task list. i think the strength of balatro is that it's built on top of an already existing and well beloved game, everything else is just a fun extra.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by tim.:

Originally posted by Melodia:

I mean, 77.2% have won a run at least once.

3/4ths of the playerbase being able to win with the base deck on base difficulty isn't exactly a testament to the game's balance. That number PLUMMETS to 21% for red stake, which is only the next difficulty up.

Unlocked achievements aren't exactly a great metric to use to determine data, but if you're going to use them to make a point you need to look at the other numbers too.

There's nothing wrong with those numbers. Plenty of games have only 30% of people beat them, and tons of players either win once and say "okay that was fun, time for some other game" or leave the game to rot in their steam library. There's a lot of arbitrary achievements that boil down to "start the game up" out there that have 70% of players get them.

Plus some people may just decide to play a next deck on white, be content exclusively playing on white, using the unlock all button that disables achievements, etc.
Not to mention how much this game is designed for just booting it up once in a while to play a run, not everyone has 100+ hours of playtime already.

[tim.]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by tim.:

3/4ths of the playerbase being able to win with the base deck on base difficulty isn't exactly a testament to the game's balance. That number PLUMMETS to 21% for red stake, which is only the next difficulty up.

Unlocked achievements aren't exactly a great metric to use to determine data, but if you're going to use them to make a point you need to look at the other numbers too.

There's nothing wrong with those numbers. Plenty of games have only 30% of people beat them, and tons of players either win once and say "okay that was fun, time for some other game" or leave the game to rot in their steam library. There's a lot of arbitrary achievements that boil down to "start the game up" out there that have 70% of players get them.

Plus some people may just decide to play a next deck on white, be content exclusively playing on white, using the unlock all button that disables achievements, etc.
Not to mention how much this game is designed for just booting it up once in a while to play a run, not everyone has 100+ hours of playtime already.

Which is why i said using achievements as a metric for real world data isn't very helpful.

Making assumptions with them is even less helpful.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by tim.:

Which is why i said using achievements as a metric for real world data isn't very helpful.

Making assumptions with them is even less helpful.

It's very helpful. 80% of people can win on the difficulty everyone who wants to should be able to. Argument ends there. Game's already in a state where it's worth the money.
All those other achievements are for people who want to challenge themselves.
Armac's argument was that the game only appeals to "2%ers". Higher difficulties are free to appeal only to a niche of players. As long as they're doable and fun to some people, and as long as base difficulty is accessible to everyone, nothing "needs to change".

[tim.]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by tim.:

Which is why i said using achievements as a metric for real world data isn't very helpful.

Making assumptions with them is even less helpful.

It's very helpful. 80% of people can win on the difficulty everyone who wants to should be able to. Argument ends there. Game's already in a state where it's worth the money.
All those other achievements are for people who want to challenge themselves.
Armac's argument was that the game only appeals to "2%ers". Higher difficulties are free to appeal only to a niche of players. As long as they're doable and fun to some people, and as long as base difficulty is accessible to everyone, nothing "needs to change".

You have no idea why 60% of the playerbase hasn't gotten the red stake achivement. Argument actually ends there.

You can make assumptions or assertions, so can i. It doesn't contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way though. So making them isn't helpful.

And to say that unlocking stake difficulties is only for people who want to challenge themselves is laughable. Yeah, just literally don't interact with 90% of the rest of the game, that's DEFINITELY the intended game design, right? And the game should only exclusively be balanced around people who want the bare minimum from the game? Come on dude.

[Enigma Lemonade]

The Arm, The Fish and Violet Vessel Boss Blinds I would prefer as challenges and not in the main game at all?

[Goblin]

Originally posted by tim.:

You have no idea why 60% of the playerbase hasn't gotten the red stake achivement. Argument actually ends there.

Argument can't end there since it never went there. This thread is about an idiot who can't beat white stake reliably because he refuses to learn how to play. Not about Red Stake.

Originally posted by tim.:

And to say that unlocking stake difficulties is only for people who want to challenge themselves is laughable. Yeah, just literally don't interact with 90% of the rest of the game, that's DEFINITELY the intended game design, right? And the game should only exclusively be balanced around people who want the bare minimum from the game? Come on dude.

You can get dozens of hours out of just playing base difficulty, and only playing white stake gets you challenges too. Most of those are pretty much no more difficult than white stake.
Do you complain that Metal Gear Rising only has 4 hours of content, and most people never want to replay it or touch the higher difficulties? They're only interacting with 20% of the content, woooow literally unplayable.

[CMON1975]

This is the same kind of gamer who gave up on the first boss of Dark Souls and now hates all Souls games

[ROORnNUGZ]

Originally posted by Surfaced:

Originally posted by ☢ARMac☢:

for this game to stay alive.

As it is now, it simply isn't fun fighting the RNG into oblivion. I had my fair share of wins, 2 to be precise, thanks to a stupidly good jokers early in the game.

The problem is that you can't really get better in Balatro. You can improve some cards outside the current run, learn the cards synergy etc. but 96% of the game will still come down to dumb RNG luck, no matter how much you play or start over.

Unlocking new decks and upgrading the vouchers brings that number to about 94%, which is still ridiculously low.

I have literally 0 feeling of progression and hope for brighter future. Make the game easier the more you play.

As it is now, it burns bright at the beginning, but after some time I start feeling the flame is going out. I have less and less interest to fire up the game and waste couple of hours, knowing I will not work towards anything that will help me in future runs.

TLDR; MAKE IT MORE ROGUELIKE

Try copying your seed after you lose one and replay it with different options/builds. You can learn a lot about making better choices. Not to say there's no RNG, but at least this way you can see some mistakes that you've made.

If you run into "The Fish" boss then there is nothing you can do. You can't see your cards and have to play blind. Literal RNG

[Zeks]

If you run into "The Fish" boss then there is nothing you can do. You can't see your cards and have to play blind. Literal RNG

... except for the fact you can massage your hand both before playing it AND discard the ones that come after you play it. I haven't ever had the problem with the fish. It's one of the easier blinds to deal with

[ROORnNUGZ]

Originally posted by Zeks:

If you run into "The Fish" boss then there is nothing you can do. You can't see your cards and have to play blind. Literal RNG

... except for the fact you can massage your hand both before playing it AND discard the ones that come after you play it. I haven't ever had the problem with the fish. It's one of the easier blinds to deal with

I don't get what you mean. If you don't get dealt something on your first cards then you are screwed. Every card after that will be dealt face down

[Zeks]

Originally posted by ROORnNUGZ:

Originally posted by Zeks:

... except for the fact you can massage your hand both before playing it AND discard the ones that come after you play it. I haven't ever had the problem with the fish. It's one of the easier blinds to deal with

I don't get what you mean. If you don't get dealt something on your first cards then you are screwed. Every card after that will be dealt face down

It only hides cards once you play a hand, discards are not affected, as are discards of the hiddencards

[Goblin]

Originally posted by ROORnNUGZ:

Originally posted by Zeks:

... except for the fact you can massage your hand both before playing it AND discard the ones that come after you play it. I haven't ever had the problem with the fish. It's one of the easier blinds to deal with

I don't get what you mean. If you don't get dealt something on your first cards then you are screwed. Every card after that will be dealt face down

As stated, discards give normal face side up cards, but more importantly you can to a decent degree figure out which card a face down card is using the sort functions.
Discarding face down cards is the beginner strat, Keeping a suit changing tarot card around to get to see what card it is during the changing animation is the medium skill strat, and knowing which card it is through sorting is the advanced strat.

[ROORnNUGZ]

Originally posted by Zeks:

Originally posted by ROORnNUGZ:

I don't get what you mean. If you don't get dealt something on your first cards then you are screwed. Every card after that will be dealt face down

It only hides cards once you play a hand, discards are not affected, as are discards of the hiddencards

well maybe its different in the later rounds. I just ran into on a late run where I had been doing a pair run. I needed like 1.2 million to beat the boss. But any new card I got whether I played or discarded was dealt face down.