Why do we have to unlock each stake for each deck individually?

[Aldrenean]

I haven't beaten Gold Stake yet, so maybe doing so unlocks all the stakes for all decks, but I assume it works the same way as the other stakes. This design seems to be mostly inspired by Slay The Spire's Ascensions, which are unlocked per-character as well. However, I was never a fan of that design there, and it makes even less sense in Balatro, IMO, as the differences between decks are much less significant than the differences between STS characters. In both games it ends up feeling like nothing but a way to pad the playtime before a player has exhausted all the content.

Now that I've been playing one deck at high stakes for many runs, going back to white or red stake feels trivial and thus boring. As such, I feel locked in to only playing the single deck that I have high stakes unlocked on, which is diminishing my enjoyment of the game. I can't see any argument against making stakes unlock for all decks simultaneously -- each deck could still track the highest stake that you've beaten with it, but knowing that I have to get 6 additional wins with a given deck before I get back up to the difficulty I'm now used to kills my motivation to play.

[Marina (She/Her)]

won on my first play. i have 3 hours in the game. 3 hours * 15 decks * 7 stakes = 315 hours to unlock all stakes. and thats if you never lose.
i can only assume that the developers are trying to get high playtimes not through making the game enjoyable to play and challenging, but through bloating the amount of "content" to unlock
i definitely dont like this and i'm not sure if i want to continue to sink time into the game if this is how it is
i dont want to waste hours on something that will quickly become mind numbingly boring and tedious due to lack of challenge

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Marina (She/Her):

won on my first play. i have 3 hours in the game. 3 hours * 15 decks * 7 stakes = 315 hours to unlock all stakes. and thats if you never lose.

I lost many more runs than I won, I still did beat all 15 gold stake in about 275 hours. But this includes many endless runs, they took an extra 40+ hours. It took me a while to understand some game concepts. Someone who's quicker to "see the matrix" and does not bother trying endless would do it in a lot less than 275 hours.

Successful runs are NOT 3 hours long. Even at gold stake. In fact, the toughest part of stake grinding is probably Black deck high stake. Purple took me 2 hours, counting lost runs. Orange too. Then yes, I was unlucky for gold, lost some runs at ante 8, etc. Took me 6 hours. And those 3 stakes, with the black deck, are the toughest.

You could challenge yourself to do it all in less than 200 hours. Or not and just move to another game, nothing wrong with that. Whichever you choose, have fun gaming.

But before talking about "lack of challenge", pick a deck, start climbing stake levels, and once you've tried purple, orange and gold stakes, come here and say again that there's a lack of challenge.

[Jeanne D'arroz]

Theres an option to unlock everything if after awhile you feel like you can be consistent in any deck

[TimTim3000]

Originally posted by malogoss:

But before talking about "lack of challenge", pick a deck, start climbing stake levels, and once you've tried purple, orange and gold stakes, come here and say again that there's a lack of challenge.

Yes, the fun of the game for me is to climb up through all the stakes on all the decks. The journey is the reward so to speak. Not sure why someone would want to immediately jump to the highest stake on every deck after beating gold on one, as this would take the fun and challenge out of beating each one individually. But to each his own I guess.

[Marina (She/Her)]

Originally posted by JpNachos:

Theres an option to unlock everything if after awhile you feel like you can be consistent in any deck

oh for real? thanks john :)

[Aldrenean]

Originally posted by JpNachos:

Theres an option to unlock everything if after awhile you feel like you can be consistent in any deck

Is this an in-game option or like a config file hack? I couldn't find an option to unlock everything in the game menus.

If that option does exist that's good to know, though it's not really a solution unless you've already unlocked all the other jokers and vouchers, or you don't care about that side of the progression (which I do).

[Goblin]

Originally posted by Aldrenean:

Originally posted by JpNachos:

Theres an option to unlock everything if after awhile you feel like you can be consistent in any deck

Is this an in-game option or like a config file hack? I couldn't find an option to unlock everything in the game menus.

If that option does exist that's good to know, though it's not really a solution unless you've already unlocked all the other jokers and vouchers, or you don't care about that side of the progression (which I do).

Main menu, bottom left is a button labeled profiles. Best to switch to a second profile first in case you don't want to lose progress for achievements, and then there's a button on there to unlock all.