What does random mean?

[Alvagor]

Hello! First of all I want to say I'm not blaming the game in any way, I'm just trying to understand the mechanics.
I have played Balatro just a few hours and I noticed I can play with a seeded run or a random run. The thing I'm not understanding, however, is what random means, because in my game it behaves like a seeded run. In short words I got a random run where I discarded two cards and I got a K and a 6, but before doing this I made a backup of my saved game and after getting this result, I restored that saved game for curiosity so that I could do the same move again... and I still get a K and a 6 every time. This happens even by discarding different cards. Even the shop gives me the same cards when I can view it. So I'm not sure what "random" run means. Maybe does it mean a "random chosen seed" and not "procedurally generated" run?
Thank you for your time.

[Sky Marshall Sanders]

A random run is a random seed. A seeded run is a specific seed. The seed controls your deck order, the items and their order in the shop pool, the chance based effects in the game, ect.

[Alvagor]

Alright, thanks for the clarification!
I guess a truly random mode would be fun, but probably it would be hard to code and balance somehow. Still, congratulations to the developers for making this gem!
Have a good day everyone.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by Alvagor:

Alright, thanks for the clarification!
I guess a truly random mode would be fun, but probably it would be hard to code and balance somehow. Still, congratulations to the developers for making this gem!
Have a good day everyone.

It wouldn't be hard to code, but it wouldn't change anything unless you were savescumming.

[snakeskip]

Unseeded run is practically as "truly random" you're ever going to get from a computer game. Games use pseudo random number generators. These PRNGs need a seed to initialize their state.

"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin."

– John von Neumann

[Goblin]

Originally posted by snakeskip:

Unseeded run is practically as "truly random" you're ever going to get from a computer game. Games use pseudo random number generators. These PRNGs need a seed to initialize their state.

"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin."

– John von Neumann

OP's understanding of random isn't actually random, but different if you reload and do the same thing. Which would be trivial to include in the game, just by adding the current time to the seed or something similar. But as I said, it'd change nothing for a normal run, other than making seed sharing completely useless.

[Alvagor]

Originally posted by Goblin:

But as I said, it'd change nothing for a normal run, other than making seed sharing completely useless.

Well, I think that sharing a seed would still be a valid option since you could choose to try a scenario that someone else has played, but I agree on the fact that if you don't savescum then playing a random seed it's like playing a random match.

Also I noticed that the cards show themselves in a specific order, which doesn't mean they appear in the same moment of the game. For example if the next two cards are two Kings you can get them as new cards by discarding two cards as an action, but if you're playing the last hand and you don't discard anything, you can get them in the next round as the first two new cards, instead of getting them exclusively if you discard. So in the end what a player does effectively change the outcome of the match, which is the true important thing actually.

[Sturisoma]

no trully random in game.