The inverse difficulty curve is bad.

[Bobthe6th]

Overall enjoying this game a fair bit, but have a fairly major complaint.

The first 2-3 blinds are really annoying and random. Especially on higher stakes, but it starts from the beginning.
You start having made 0 choices about your deck comp besides the deck type. So when the game goes "Get a High flush/straight flush/4 of a kind, or lose large parts of your starting capital" I take issue. Especially if the small blind tag isn't relevant.
Then you get to the first shop. A reroll is prohibitively expensive, so you get what you get. Are all the jokers lacking mult/chips with no Buffon pack? Probably best to just start a new run. You might be able to limp into ante 2, but your odds of going further are abysmal.

Which is largely how my runs go. If I get something in the first 2-3 shops, the run is pretty locked in to get to ante 6. Then it can be a question of if I pulled together a stat.

The easy fix from the developer side, is just give the player an early crutch joker. Like Popcorn starting at 4 mult, but only goes down 1 mult per round. Could even have less the sell value in starting money. You could also add a shop pre-small blind of ante 1, with a guaranteed mult joker the player can afford.
It isn't perfect design, sure. That would be adding a pre-run draft phase where you build the starting deck + jokers, and start at ante ~4. Which is too much of a redesign for a published game. It just isn't a "skill issue" to need to restart many runs for not having viable tools to beat the ante 1 boss blind in a single hand. The player can just... keep resetting till they do get a good opening. That just feels ♥♥♥♥♥♥, but is what the current design encourages.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by Bobthe6th:

Are all the jokers lacking mult/chips with no Buffon pack? Probably best to just start a new run.

Which is why the first store now has a buffoon pack guaranteed in the (publicly available) experimental builds.
But also, you don't need any jokers in the first ante. You don't need to oneshot the boss (even literally, it can't be The Needle). Sure it helps your economy if you can beat it quickly, but it's by no means required.

And sure, you can reset to get "perfect" starts. If you don't mind permanently having a run streak of 1. You'll get bored of the wait time between runs, and lose out on plenty of fun challenging runs you could have had, but you can.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Bobthe6th:

Then you get to the first shop. A reroll is prohibitively expensive, so you get what you get. Are all the jokers lacking mult/chips with no Buffon pack? Probably best to just start a new run. You might be able to limp into ante 2, but your odds of going further are abysmal.

If you restart in ante 1, you'll never find out what the seed offers you in the ante 2 and forward. It might still be the best seed you'll ever get. I wouldn't throw it away because of the tricky start. And even if it's bad, it takes only few minutes to find out. And if it's ultra bad, then it's time to post the seed to the unwinnable seeds thread.

I've never restarted so far.

[Your Majesty Padded Gamer]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by Bobthe6th:

Are all the jokers lacking mult/chips with no Buffon pack? Probably best to just start a new run.

Which is why the first store now has a buffoon pack guaranteed in the (publicly available) experimental builds.
But also, you don't need any jokers in the first ante. You don't need to oneshot the boss (even literally, it can't be The Needle). Sure it helps your economy if you can beat it quickly, but it's by no means required.

And sure, you can reset to get "perfect" starts. If you don't mind permanently having a run streak of 1. You'll get bored of the wait time between runs, and lose out on plenty of fun challenging runs you could have had, but you can.

You don't need to oneshot the boss, but you do need to twoshot the boss with two full houses or three straights/flushes. Or any combination of those. See the problem is, its completely up to RNG whether or not you can beat ante 1. Because good luck getting two freaking full houses or three flushes or two flushes for about 400 and a full house for three hundred. If the devs would just nerf the first boss to be about 550, then it wouldn't be unfair.

And furthermore in ante 2 on higher difficulties like for example purple where I need to score literally 1200 points, that ♥♥♥♥ is completely unfair and impossible without a joker. Personally if I don't get one by the start of ante 2, I reset cause while its possible and I've done it before, the effort isn't worth it.

[Ratch]

Padded reread the first sentence you quoted. OP, read the Beta patch notes. You wasted a lot of time to essay something that's already been addressed.

[phantom]

This and another comment are the first I am even hearing of experimental branches and stuff. did Steam add some feature I have not heard about?

[Bobthe6th]

Originally posted by Goblin:

But also, you don't need any jokers in the first ante. You don't need to oneshot the boss (even literally, it can't be The Needle). Sure it helps your economy if you can beat it quickly, but it's by no means required.

And sure, you can reset to get "perfect" starts. If you don't mind permanently having a run streak of 1. You'll get bored of the wait time between runs, and lose out on plenty of fun challenging runs you could have had, but you can.

I've never noticed there is a run streak, and given you can just randomly get dumpstered at any point... seriously doubt I'll ever pay attention to it.
It isn't about getting "the perfect" start.
The game is really, really, really makes early money matter. You will die a slow death if you can't get that 25$ interest nest egg quickly. Being down 1-3 dollars doesn't sound like much, till it is the break point from getting another dollar of interest, which then spirals into more down the line. Or getting you the cash needed for a relevant buffed joker in the next shop.

I agree just restarting till you get a straight flush/4 of a kind as hand one of the first blind is stupid and boring. Hence asking for any alternative. It isn't an impressive flex of skill to just... draw the correct cards. Then it isn't a further show of talent to have the joker you want in the next shop. It is just annoying RNG that could be fixed.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by phantom:

This and another comment are the first I am even hearing of experimental branches and stuff. did Steam add some feature I have not heard about?

It's this brand new feature they added only... at least half a decade ago. Probably earlier, but the waybackmachine page for the documentation only goes back to 2017.

[lordatog]

I pretty much entirely agree with the original post. Another possible solution would be to have the reroll cost start very low (1$ maybe) and scale up every ante. Cheaper at the beginning when you have little to work with, more expensive later on when you can afford it. This would make it easier to get a foothold, but harder to dig for specific tools in the late game.

[Ratch]

Originally posted by phantom:

This and another comment are the first I am even hearing of experimental branches and stuff. did Steam add some feature I have not heard about?

Some games have them, others don't. Games with active development usually have beta builds available. Finding that access is sort of obtuse.

Library>Right click on Game>Properties>Updates&Betas. You can also disable auto updates for games in this menu which is handy since updates tend to break mods, etc.

All progress transfers over in Balatro's case. Most devs will post news/updates about experimental/beta branch which should show up on the community/game/library News ... shelf. It's easy to miss if you only boot from recent games or a shortcut to each game.

edit: Updates are also easy to miss if a developer chooses to only post on Discord which I believe is the case with Balatro. I also only found out about the beta build through word of mouth because I refuse to use Discord.

[phantom]

Originally posted by Ratch:

edit: Updates are also easy to miss if a developer chooses to only post on Discord which I believe is the case with Balatro. I also only found out about the beta build through word of mouth because I refuse to use Discord.

And biggest issue I have with this found. Posting stuff on Discord may sound fine and dandy to people in the Discord group. But do you know how many Discord groups I am already in for arbitrary stuff? My menu is already loaded and I do not want more just to see game updates.

Also there is people who refuse to use Discord like you. I only use it that much because so many people are already on it.

[phantom]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Originally posted by phantom:

This and another comment are the first I am even hearing of experimental branches and stuff. did Steam add some feature I have not heard about?

It's this brand new feature they added only... at least half a decade ago. Probably earlier, but the waybackmachine page for the documentation only goes back to 2017.

Would you believe me if I said I did not follow Steam updates?

[lotus]

sounds like someone who likes to 'solve' games or at least copy the metadeck and then feel good about oneself. Where did the RNG monster touch you so badly? Perfection is paralysis... Many times a good beginning can go to hell and I have seen bad beginnings open up and get on a roll. Yes even on Gold stakes.. When I finally completed gold, it was hardly one of my better runs. I had conflicting jokers, etc. I just didn't get screwed by my draw when it really mattered.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Your Majesty Padded Gamer:

You don't need to oneshot the boss, but you do need to twoshot the boss with two full houses or three straights/flushes. Or any combination of those. See the problem is, its completely up to RNG whether or not you can beat ante 1. Because good luck getting two freaking full houses or three flushes or two flushes for about 400 and a full house for three hundred. If the devs would just nerf the first boss to be about 550, then it wouldn't be unfair.

How many times have you actually lost against the first boss? I mean I didn't even think the first boss is a thing. Not getting any +Chip or +Mult Jokers in the first two shops will make it tricky for sure but even then you'll likely beat it.

Play one 300+ point hand like in the first blind and then play whatever you can come up with the rest of your hands and discards. If you exhaust all discards and still can't get that 300+ point hand, then you might be screwed. But it takes less than a minute to find out.

If you fail in ante 1 then the best thing to do is to try to play the seed again to find out if there was a way you could've survived or perhaps even won the run. If you can't find any (or it's very obscure), then it's time to post the seed to the unwinnable seeds thread just to see a better player making mockery out of its difficulty.

Most enjoyable runs are those in which surviving is a struggle all the way from ante 1 to ante 8 but which you still somehow manage to win.

[phantom]

Originally posted by snakeskip:

If you fail in ante 1 then the best thing to do is to try to play the seed again to find out if there was a way you could've survived or perhaps even won the run. If you can't find any (or it's very obscure), then it's time to post the seed to the unwinnable seeds thread just to see a better player making mockery out of its difficulty.

when people talk about unwinnable seeds they are talking about white stake. not gold stake.

[Godhand]

Yeah that's my biggest issue with the game and the people who get more jokers in the first shops don't get it. they live in a different reality in which the shop don't screws them over like 9/10 times having them to restart after ante 1 or 2 because the shop only served them utility trash (and for some reason that's 80% of the jokers, at least that's how it feels).

Many utility jokers, bad chip jokers, mult jokers for hands you are unlikely to play in the beginning (4 of a kind, straight flush), planet cards for hands you don't play, tarot cards which don't do much or anything in the beginning.

^ All of that basically makes it lottery-level of getting a mult joker, which is fine for later rounds when your deck already came together a little, but in the beginning it's straight up a pain in the ass on higher stakes.