High Card - Low Risk

[GOTEKK]

First off, as a a self-proclaimed card-game expert and addict with a current 36h clocked into the game (and another 15-20h+ on the demo before release last year), big ups to the developers! It deserves it's hype.
Now onto the one design-flaw i've noticed: High Card. Getting an OP Joker and then, if given the chance, just investing fully into High Card makes the game seem very trivial. I've also watched streamers beating Gold Stake quite consistently with this strategy. IMO: The smallest possible hand should've been Pair, so that you can't just cheese it playing a single card, hell, a High Card strategy makes most of the Boss Blinds completely trivial as well, it's too easy once you're there. Maybe i'm wrong, maybe i need to clock in 100h+ to make sure, i don't know, but it is the only real flaw i can find with Balatro from playing/watching. Am i the only one who noticed this? Do others feel the same way? Does the game need an additional difficulty where Pair is the smallest hand?

[Ratch]

Feel free to, and please do, correct my math if I bungled it. This was mostly off-top joker references and mental math.

I agree that High Card can be a "problem." For example with DNA, Holograph, Baron, Mime if your first card is a Red seal Steel King it gets scored and added back to the hand. That new card will then trigger 1.5x Mult 4 times total per hand. Base steel, baron, red seal, mime. With enough Deaths, Fools, Cryptids you will have at least 8 Red Steel Kings. Especially with Blueprint/Brainstorm on DNA. 28 1.5x Mult added per single card played without redeeming hand size increase vouchers. Rank up High Card hand and GG.

Steel enhancement makes a card held in hand give 1.5x Mult. Red Seal cards retrigger, played or held.

Jokers
DNA: First played single card is scored and a copy is added to the hand.
Holograph: Increases by .25x Mult per card added to deck, starts at 1x Mult
Steel Joker: Gains .25x Mult per steel card in deck, starts at 1.5x Mult
Shoot the Moon: Each Queen held in hand gives +13 Mult
Baron: Each King held in hand give 1.5x Mult
Mime: Retrigger held in hand card abilities
Hanging Chad: Retrigger the first card played (2 times on Beta)
Blueprint: Copies abilities of Joker to the right
Brainstorm: Copies abilities of left-most Joker
Invisible Joker: After 2/3 rounds sell this Joker to duplicate a random Joker
Card Sharp: 3x Mult if played hand has been played before
Supernova: Add number of times hand has been played to Mult

I only see it as a problem in that you're only ideally using one or two cards per hand to hit millions in score compared to Straights/Flushes which require 5 cards per hand. Yes they inherently score more but they still struggle to keep pace with High Card for Endless mode. It's fine as is for regular play though. You can still get shut down by certain boss blinds. Building the ideal High Card ... build isn't easy either.

I don't think it needs a change, though a new challenge or stake above Gold where High Card is either disbled or has its score/scaling halved might be interesting.

[phantom]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GOTEKK:

IMO: The smallest possible hand should've been Pair, so that you can't just cheese it playing a single card,

Commence people cheesing it with a pair. I have actually never gone for the high card or pair strategy as it feels so awkward to me.

with that in mind I can see the frustration in how Balatro is a card game where..
essentially the goal is to make your build negate it being a card game. even playing 5 cards your goal is basically to alter your deck so getting the 5 cards is barely rng if at all.

[lotus]

Congratulations you boiled down the game into to kiddie table mode... now lace up your boots and try a 5 card hand strategy..

[malogoss]

To OP,

grats, you figured that out faster than I did.

That being said, the upcoming patch aims at changing that, amongst other things. And though I have issues with some ideas of that patch, I can tell you, you'll be able to win with any hand. High card is still an option and a good one at that, but even 5 card hands will do just fine, even at gold stake.

You can switch your game to the experimental branch if you want to try it yourself.
Have fun.

[GOTEKK]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ratch:

Feel free to, and please do, correct my math if I bungled it. This was mostly off-top joker references and mental math.

I agree that High Card can be a "problem." For example with DNA, Holograph, Baron, Mime if your first card is a Red seal Steel King it gets scored and added back to the hand. That new card will then trigger 1.5x Mult 4 times total per hand. Base steel, baron, red seal, mime. With enough Deaths, Fools, Cryptids you will have at least 8 Red Steel Kings. Especially with Blueprint/Brainstorm on DNA. 28 1.5x Mult added per single card played without redeeming hand size increase vouchers. Rank up High Card hand and GG.

Steel enhancement makes a card held in hand give 1.5x Mult. Red Seal cards retrigger, played or held.

Jokers
DNA: First played single card is scored and a copy is added to the hand.
Holograph: Increases by .25x Mult per card added to deck, starts at 1x Mult
Steel Joker: Gains .25x Mult per steel card in deck, starts at 1.5x Mult
Shoot the Moon: Each Queen held in hand gives +13 Mult
Baron: Each King held in hand give 1.5x Mult
Mime: Retrigger held in hand card abilities
Hanging Chad: Retrigger the first card played (2 times on Beta)
Blueprint: Copies abilities of Joker to the right
Brainstorm: Copies abilities of left-most Joker
Invisible Joker: After 2/3 rounds sell this Joker to duplicate a random Joker
Card Sharp: 3x Mult if played hand has been played before
Supernova: Add number of times hand has been played to Mult

I only see it as a problem in that you're only ideally using one or two cards per hand to hit millions in score compared to Straights/Flushes which require 5 cards per hand. Yes they inherently score more but they still struggle to keep pace with High Card for Endless mode. It's fine as is for regular play though. You can still get shut down by certain boss blinds. Building the ideal High Card ... build isn't easy either.

I don't think it needs a change, though a new challenge or stake above Gold where High Card is either disbled or has its score/scaling halved might be interesting.

Absolutely nailed it.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von phantom:

Commence people cheesing it with a pair. I have actually never gone for the high card or pair strategy as it feels so awkward to me.

with that in mind I can see the frustration in how Balatro is a card game where..
essentially the goal is to make your build negate it being a card game. even playing 5 cards your goal is basically to alter your deck so getting the 5 cards is barely rng if at all.

Well yes and no. While you can cheese the game with as little as a Pair, it's still a bit different from playing a random facedown card during a Boss Blind and scoring 100k+ with a basic Two of Hearts. It's like assembling Exodia with a random single card that's actually just a Skull Servant.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von malogoss:

To OP,

grats, you figured that out faster than I did.

That being said, the upcoming patch aims at changing that, amongst other things. And though I have issues with some ideas of that patch, I can tell you, you'll be able to win with any hand. High card is still an option and a good one at that, but even 5 card hands will do just fine, even at gold stake.

You can switch your game to the experimental branch if you want to try it yourself.
Have fun.

Damn, didn't know this was addressed in any way or a known "issue" already!
Gotta check this out tonight.