Huge balance issues destroy the fun of the game and deck building

[Pontus]

This game has a big balance issues. Too much rng. The strat is basically flush/full house, and the other combinations are not viable AT ALL.

If you have not pulled a decent joker at the start, the game is lost, so the game becomes basically a replay button all over again and again.

The more time i play this the less i like the game

Edit 03.10.24: Flush is better than most of the combinations, but not the only one viable. The game is extremely unbalanced still, if you have not got a good joker by round 5-6, it is over. This game depends too much on RNG, and much less on the good game design.

[X-hog]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by X-hog:

there are too many jokers that just don't work for builds other than pairs and flush

I know a lot of people fall for the flush trap (they're kinda bad), but how do you expect pairs to be special? Any joker that does things with pairs has the keyword contains, so it activates on pair, two pair, X of a kind, and full house. The only benefit single pair has is that it's almost impossible to not get one unless you majorly messed up your number of discards and hand size.

Below blue stake difficulty you can virtually guarantee yourself a full house every round. First thing I do in any run is make a full house with high enough cards to oneshot the first round. That's not a "I reset if I don't get it", but just something that happens in 95% of runs and if it happens to fail I just suck it up and have one less dollar.

Every hand is viable from the start, except the hidden ones and straight flush. First ante is winnable without buying anything, second ante is doable with a single +mult joker (or most of them at least).

Gonna have to disagree with this one on account of what deck you use. Black deck has you losing ante 1 nine times out of ten because the -1 in hand count really puts you at a disadvantage at the beginning.

[Knowmad]

Originally posted by X-hog:

Originally posted by Goblin:

I know a lot of people fall for the flush trap (they're kinda bad), but how do you expect pairs to be special? Any joker that does things with pairs has the keyword contains, so it activates on pair, two pair, X of a kind, and full house. The only benefit single pair has is that it's almost impossible to not get one unless you majorly messed up your number of discards and hand size.

Below blue stake difficulty you can virtually guarantee yourself a full house every round. First thing I do in any run is make a full house with high enough cards to oneshot the first round. That's not a "I reset if I don't get it", but just something that happens in 95% of runs and if it happens to fail I just suck it up and have one less dollar.

Every hand is viable from the start, except the hidden ones and straight flush. First ante is winnable without buying anything, second ante is doable with a single +mult joker (or most of them at least).

Gonna have to disagree with this one on account of what deck you use. Black deck has you losing ante 1 nine times out of ten because the -1 in hand count really puts you at a disadvantage at the beginning.

They have no idea how many times I discard and get the same exact cards again just in a different suite.

Drop your 2, 3, and 4, and you get them right back in swapped suites. I feel like most of this game is trying to find a loophole to win which gets old fast.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by X-hog:

Gonna have to disagree with this one on account of what deck you use. Black deck has you losing ante 1 nine times out of ten because the -1 in hand count really puts you at a disadvantage at the beginning.

Yes and no. You just gotta learn to 1-shot Ante 1's first blind, and if that fails, a quick restart let you try again very quickly.

[Knowmad]

Originally posted by Ronald Brain:

Originally posted by X-hog:

Gonna have to disagree with this one on account of what deck you use. Black deck has you losing ante 1 nine times out of ten because the -1 in hand count really puts you at a disadvantage at the beginning.

Yes and no. You just gotta learn to 1-shot Ante 1's first blind, and if that fails, a quick restart let you try again very quickly.

See. Most of the game is seed spamming and rerolling. Not fun. But you can make it fun with a few tweaks.

[Pontus]

Everyone saying skill issue is automatically discarded from the discussion lol. I have cleared games with three of a kind, pairs, double pairs, full houses, and still, i think that the best option in the game is FLUSH. Just because it contains many cards that can be buffed, a lot of jokers just synergize with flushes better.

[Knowmad]

Originally posted by хто я:

Everyone saying skill issue is automatically discarded from the discussion lol. I have cleared games with three of a kind, pairs, double pairs, full houses, and still, i think that the best option in the game is FLUSH. Just because it contains many cards that can be buffed, a lot of jokers just synergize with flushes better.

True pretty much everyone is ignoring the glory hungry trolls. This is not a skill based game yet. There is to many randomized factors going on for you to actually plan something out. You have to adapt on your toes which means utter failure 99% of the time. In ante 3-4 you're entire strategy can go to crap and you will fail.

I.E. Lets say i get good jokers for 3 of a kinds and flushes, yet I cant pull those cards on a draw. So i restart the seed over and over and over until i finally get what i want but on ante 7 i fail to draw the cards i need or i need to make an astronomical amount on 1 hand due to boss randomizations.

Again, as an avid board game/ card player i can tell you even the best poker players in the world get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by the draw and these are professional players. The law is "play your hand". If you get a crap hand, then your SOL. Look up "deck builders" and you'll see the controversy of them. People either love them or absolutely hate them.

You basically need to find 1 basic seed and play it over and over and over until the stars align and you get what you need to finish it.

[Melodia]

Originally posted by † Knowmad †:

. This is not a skill based game yet

Just like normal poker, it's both luck AND skill. There's a reason some people can play poker professionally and be millionaires, but most people can;t.

[Albie There]

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by † Knowmad †:

. This is not a skill based game yet

Just like normal poker, it's both luck AND skill. There's a reason some people can play poker professionally and be millionaires, but most people can;t.

Poker requires some skill but it's mostly luck. This game here is pure luck.

Very easy to win at poker when your hand connects with the table. I would say poker is 70% luck and 30% skill, if not 80/20

[mono]

there's some truth to people complaining about the heavy rng reliance and slippery balance of the game. Even in terms of roguelites it sometimes feels jarring in comparison.

"skill issue" clowns need not apply, find something better to do

[X-hog]

I would have respected them more if they said "luck issue". Because some of the runs really are left to chance and there's only so much you can tilt that in your favor.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by X-hog:

I would have respected them more if they said "luck issue". Because some of the runs really are left to chance and there's only so much you can tilt that in your favor.

Correction: Some of the UNSEEDED runs. Because this game has a function that lets you replay runs you barely miss or wish to high score for any reason.

The main complaints I see people have about "unbalanced", is because they want unlocks, achievements and discoveries that are supposed to be grindy. Otherwise, you could win most seed once you know what's coming. Balatro also has Unlock function to let you play the whole game on a separate profile if you choose to.

[Albie There]

@Mono @X-hog

As someone said above, this is a seed spamming game.

In a nutshell - Start a new run, first shops and skips give you crap, reset the run, rinse repeat.

It will be dozens and dozens of spamming until you get something good, even when you try to "go with the flow", seems like you are getting or got a good initial build, then you get screwed by some boss blind that complete negates your build like halving the mults or "win in 1 hand" or whatever, then that good build is gone. Now you are again spamming runs to get a decent build, reaches a point that you get fed up, specially when the novelty wears off.

[Cacao]

While I don't completely disagree with the flush route to be a "safe and reliable route", most of my first rounds hands are full house because they are also easy to play and let you beat the blind in one hand more easily.

I think OP is rather right, but for some reason that escapes me, the topic shifted to a flush issue and that is not the case.

I think it's a mistake to compare Balatro to poker even though it uses its combinations to score. Ultimately, starting with flushes or full houses is completely logical since the goal is to score as opposed to classic poker where the aim is to have a better hand than your opponents.

So, since it's completely normal to start with the combinations that are both the simplest and that yield the most points, it's natural that at the beginning of the game, players will favor tarot cards that optimize these outcomes, and therefore, it's just as natural to focus on jokers that facilitate these choices.

However, if starting the game this way leads you to restart as soon as you don't have the perfect jokers to satisfy your flush or full house strategy, then I think you will never find any enjoyment in playing Balatro. The pleasure of this kind of game lies mainly in adapting to the jokers you discover. And this adaptation can lead you to an infinite number of different strategies.

My issue here is that if everything must be perfectly balanced, then we will most likely have to change the rules of poker. Certainly, RNG is very important in this game, but one must understand the difficulty of being able to offer a game where you can't get past the ante 8, while in another, you completely break the game with billions of points in each hand. And believe me, it's not necessarily the flush or full house strategy that will give you these victories.

[Cosmic]

"Pairs are not viable at all because of the low score"

I just cleared Orange stake with an arguably bad joker (Half Joker), sticker here https://imgur.com/g6rOIQe . I had terrible luck from Ante 5 and above, I didn't really have anything broken, the best thing I had was a Negative gold joker for money cause DANG those booster pack prices...

So yeah. I'm fairly sure you can beat Ante 8 with anything, you do need a bit of luck to get the run started on higher stakes ; the point requirement gets very bad, and the money stays very low.

[Gote]

Originally posted by Landfar:

Justed wanted to add to the discussion my five cents: my best run so far was based on two pairs.

Same. I got to level 51 Two Pairs. This literally always happens when a new roguelite comes out: People complain one strategy is the only viable one days after release, and then more and more strategies get discovered.