💭・suggestions-old

[visual harness]

To "Quit," you currently need to go to Main Menu first. Would be a small quality of life improvement to have a "quit to desktop" button in the regular in-game menu.
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This game is incredible, in many ways unrelated to the gameplay. (Although, the gameplay is great, too.) Things that stand out to me:

1. The sound design is perfect. The background music is ethereal and nebulous, a great fit for the "vibe" of the game. The sound of the chips being stacked. The sound of the money being collected. The chime from each "multi" bonus. The "scribbly" sound of the Joker helper talking. All of the sounds in this game are evocative and none of them overbearing, overly repetitive, or annoying.

2. The graphics are perfect. All of the card modifiers are visually distinct, and those visuals are beautiful (and easy to read at a glance). The flaming score boxes when you hit those really high scores. The title card alone is stunning and itself evocative.

Suggestion: Keep it up!
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DNA could be slightly more clear that it adds a Permanent Copy of a card (as opposed to a Temporary Copy which I had assumed was the case, based on my experience with other deck-building games).
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[visual harness]

"Joker Stencil Included" text feels unnecessary and possibly actively harmful/confusing.

If I have only the Stencil, I see "1/5" jokers, meaning 4 empty slots for a X4 bonus.
With the added text, I think "oh, 4 empty slots plus the stencil itself should be X5 bonus" which is not the case.

Suggested wording: "Additional X1 Mult for each empty Joker slot."

Added word "Additional" to suggest that you (start at 100% by default and then) get +100% per empty slot.

[thorn tulip]

if you have 2 stencil jokers they count each other as empty

[exotic jay]

Yeah, stencil joker text is confusing. At first I thought, why would I want x1 bonuses?

[visual harness]

Is that so? That is cool (although incredibly rare synergy). Begs the question why Stencil doesn't count itself as empty given the wording on the card.

Alternative suggestions:

1. If wanting to keep the functionality unchanged, change the wording to "includes other Joker Stencils."
   OR
2. Change the functionality to allow Stencil to count itself as an empty slot.
   OR
3. Change the functionality so that Stencil does not count other Stencils.

For balance reasons, I do not like option 2. Option 3 removes a cool (but highly fringe) synergy but "cleans up" the textbox by removing the need to have "reminder text."

Also, Stencils already synergize plenty with each other in the same way that any multiplicative bonus synergizes with any other. Except one empty gives X2 X2 for a total of X4.

@exotic jay Same! Hence, my suggestion change to "Additional X1 Mult for each..."

[dire pier]

If it's not a pain to port, I think this game would work really well on mobile. Peglin had been my default 'bored on the phone' game, but this might take its place

[lyric lance]

Dev hopes to do a.mobile release, but only after a full windows/Mac 1.0 release

[west raven]

When opening a spectral pack and looking at the hand it gives me, allow the user to reorganize by rank or suit, rather than what was last selected during a blind.

[visual harness]

Subject: Variance

When you flub on Wheel of Fortune (80% of the time), it "feels bad." It feels bad because you lost a big chunk of cash (or equivalent opportunity cost of not choosing a different Tarot). If feels bad in the same way that "hitting" on 12 in Blackjack and then busting with 22 "feels bad."

And I actually think this is good for the game. The randomness is entirely "opt-in." If your build can't handle the risk (in the first few rounds), then don't take the risk. Later in the run, when you have the spare cash (and already have full joker slots), sure, why not? It's cool that the player valuation of different Tarot cards changes over the course of a run (and isn't solely dependent on what synergy you're going for).

However, Polychrome is so much stronger than the other two (Foil and Holographic) that even when you "win," sometimes it still feels like you "lost." And that feels really bad. The argument could be made that Foil and Holo are better in the early game when you have less jokers and less bonuses, but you shouldn't be gambling on Wheel of Fortune until later in your run and by that point really just want Polychrome.

Suggestion:

1. Nerf Poly. X1.4 or X1.25 are some possibilities, but they aren't as satisfying as the "nice and round" X1.5.
   OR
2. Buff Foil and/or Holo. Just increase the numbers. Easy knobs to adjust.
   OR
3. Change Wheel of Fortune to something like: "Equal chance of Foil, Holographic, Polychrome, or no change." Not exactly this, but something like this. However, this wording is particularly satisfying.
   .

[exotic jay]

You can already drag cards around to your pleasing.

Suggestion: Have the fact that you can drag cards around be mentioned somewhere. Probably in the tutorial.

[west raven]

Sure, but also just add in the option to sort by rank/suit? Unless theres a real reason for not having it, such as cluttering up the UI, why not have QoL?

[visual harness]

Yes, manually. I believe the suggestion is to have the automated "Suit" and "Rank" buttons

[west raven]

You could say the same thing for even being able to sort them by rank/suit in general... lol.

why even have the option if you can drag them around already.

[exotic jay]

Ok, fair enough, I just feel it's unneccessary to have that in most cases of spectral/tarot

[exotic jay]

No, because then you are looking for groups of suits and numbers, which makes it more necessary. I see your point though, but it would probably clutter UI too much to have it in tarot/spectral screens.

[west raven]

It's mainly for Sun/Moon/Star/World tarot cards, and then Immolate/Sigil/Oujia spectral cards. I could also see myself using it for Familiar/Grim/Incantation/Talisman as well

I've mostly noticed it when I had it sorted by suit and wanted to sort by rank instead

[exotic jay]

yeah, alright.

[visual harness]

I agree that adding the automated sorting buttons would be rarely used by me and that they would add some clutter to the UI.

However, I never do manual sort because I find it tedious. For those who like sorting, it seems they should have the tools to do that (even though I would personally not use it). It begs the question: How much clutter would adding two buttons really add?

How much do the sorting buttons normally get used? What percentage of the time would what percentage of the users need to use the sorting buttons to justify the clutter?

[exotic jay]

I use manual sort purely for the Death tarot.

[waxen venture]

I had seen someone else suggest this and I agree that it would be nice for psychic if it would just not let you play less than five cards like it seems to suggest instead of greatly punishing you for not understanding or forgetting what the boss does.

[visual harness]

Would be nice to change the effect to "Only five card hands can score." That way you can still play other hands for other benefits such as Ride the Bus, DNA, Superposition, etc.

[waxen venture]

That is also true

[visual harness]

What I like about that change is it allows the player to "feel clever" by figuring out something to do with those non-scoring hands.

[visual harness]

Re: Variance

Other users have commented that "Lucky" feels like it don't do enough.

20$ every 1 in 20 plays is an expected value of +1$ per play. That's incredible value! Compare to Gold cards which give more money but have the very real drawback of taking up a slot in your hand. One way to buff Lucky would be to increase the payout or increase the odds. "25$ every 1 in 20" or "20$ every 1 in 15." I don't think either of these really address the issue. And then similar discussion about the +Multi possibility. This isn't about expected value; this is about how the player feels.

Proposal: "Equal chance of +# Chips, +# Multi, +# Money, or effect." And then adjust the numbers so that the expected values are where you want them to be.

The player should be able to figure out an answer to "when do I want Lucky cards? (over the alternatives)."

If you really want money, you go for Gold cards. If your build is good on Multi and desperately needs Chips, go for Bonus cards. If your build needs Multi instead, go for those. BUT, if your build can handle the randomness, then go for Lucky cards.

Sometimes you "get lucky" by picking up an extra dollar or two. Sometimes you "get lucky" by scoring a big hand which takes you over the threshold for the blind, earning you extra money from "unused hands." That one other time, you're on your last hand and need to get lucky to barely make enough points. The question isn't "will I ever get lucky?" but instead "how will I get lucky this time?"

I think the "Jackpot" is exciting and worth keeping. In my proposed version maybe it would be "rarely get all three (Chips, Multi, AND Money)."

Other things which could be interesting: Chance to gain +1 Hand or +1 Discard when played.

[visual harness]

In my "equal chance of ___" version (Wheel of Fortune), probably each option occurs too frequently and should be "diluted" with other "well, at least it's not nothing" options. For example, +Money could be one of the options.

[west raven]

Is there a reason why Constellation only accounts for planet cards used after it's bought? I assume it has to do with balance for antes 5-10

[exotic agate]

I was confused as to why it wasn't increasing when I used a planet card (while it was in the shop), but it makes sense in hindsight - joker effects do not occur if you haven't bought them yet

[visual harness]

It's in line with Runner and Ride the Bus.

In this vein, I think it's really cool that player valuation of different jokers changes throughout the run. And I think it's cool that Constellation incentives you to heavily invest in something you might not have been doing otherwise, as opposed to rewarding you for something you'd already casually been doing.

When you see it in a later shop, yeah you're a little sad, but the same is true about many other jokers. And that's a feature, not a bug.

[lyric lance]

When you flub on Wheel of Fortune (80% of the time), it "feels bad."
I don't think it feels bad because it's expected to fail, then when it does work it's a boon. If I get +30 chip or +10 mult great, if I get polychrome, I'm over the moon.
The expectation that all benefits are equally good by buffing foil/holographic seems to miss the idea that some outcomes are better than others and not everything has to have an equal return on investment.

[eternal lodge]

A big part of the variance not feeling quite right at the moment is that the oppurtunity cost of missing on these random chances makes some of them hard to justify.

Magician and Wheel of Fortune you click sometimes just because the other cards in the pack aren't in line with your current strategy and do virtually nothing. In worst case you get the exact same baseline of nothing of value while getting opportunities at a jackpot.

I really cannot say the same for the guaranteed Uncommon/Rare joker tags where you are sacrificing a stage of scaling from cards like Bus and income (9-15$ baseline or even more if you have money jokers) + a shop (5$ or more if you are rolling aggressively) to get offered a joker that has no regard for your build and will be worthless to you. This is even worse for the rare joker tag where your reward for winning the 1 in 3 is a chance at playing the even worse odds described above.

The enhanced card tags have the same problem of being stupidly expensive in effect, but they mitigate the problem of the joker not necessarily matching your strategy by the enhancements being useful to every deck at a baseline. If on the off chance you actually want to pivot to the enhanced card it will also help you do that with immediate power rather than the uncommon/rare joker where you often do not have the same luxury- if you do pull this off you now have a much higher score ceiling than an unenhanced set of jokers would for long-term benefits. Hitting these is also one of the few ways to potentially get any stronger late game when your build gets cemented- even if its unlikely to happen it's one of your only options.

I have two proposals, one is a lot easier to implement than the other but I think the harder one has a lot potential to be useful in other areas/jokers:

1. Reduce the opportunity cost of the Uncommon/Rare joker tags by making the joker they generate free. This would make them more relatively cheaper than the enhanced joker tags and in line with overall power but it would still leave open the problem that it would almost never be in line with your strategy.

2. Replace the Uncommon/Rare tags with other tags that are themed around the games archetypes, so if players are looking for only specific kinds of jokers you can get a tailored shop at the cost of a stage of income (maybe only a chance or some other condition if some of these pools end up too strong).

For example: Shop will have a "Straight" Joker.

You could be as broad or narrow as you want with these tags, you could do things like Income, Multiplier, Multi, Chips, Duplication, etc.

The decision making becomes much clearer, but still interesting. The player when presented with a matching/interested tag will ask themselves: Is a random joker in this category better than my current setup by enough to where i'd save money overall taking this instead of trying to roll for something naturally?

[stable swift]

very good ideas!

[azure quarry]

someone mentioned the idea of making those joker chances permanent instead of just the next shop. might be cool, so long as the numbers are tweaked

and also maybe gets more likely the further in the game you are

[stable swift]

spitballing, but maybe you could like build up some "randomness" juice if you fail these random chances and you could use up this randomness juice to boost your chances on future random things, prng but visible basically, probably a bit too complex and inelegant of a solution though

[visual harness]

Feels bad to me. And it's just a "feeling" anyway.

Not everyone will be equally satisfied with every game nor every game feature therein. And I think your perspective on this particular topic is totally valid.

Personally, I feel the same way as Monochrom9 on this: "A big part of the variance not feeling quite right at the moment is that the opportunity cost of missing on these random chances makes some of them hard to justify." Expected value aside, I feel the game has a lot of "feast or famine" type randomness which causes me to not want to interact with those many elements. "Frequent bad outcome" is interpreted as "overall bad choice" by me.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly valid if someone else feels "Even though the probability is low, it'll be totally awesome the one time I pull it off." Playing the lottery is not for everyone, but it is for someone.

My question is, why does it feel like everything is a lottery? My proposal is lower the variance on some things, leave the high variance on some other things. Different flavors to satisfy a broad player base.

I'd be interested to see how often each of the Tarot cards are chosen by players. Further, how do the pick rates vary between rounds. Then, are the pick rates in some sense "close enough" to each other? If not, why are players making these decisions? Based on what data? Based on what feelings?

I think it's fine that some Tarot be "typically better" than other Tarot. However, I find it more interesting/compelling when the question of "which Tarot is best?" is a highly contextual "well, it depends."

[visual harness]

This has basically become the industry standard in mobile games and/or any other "gacha" games with some kind of "loot box" (or booster pack, etc). Overall, players like how this feels, so game devs keep doing this.

For this game, I would hate that.

I think it would add too much bloat to the game. That type of system is not always super complicated, but it does come with a minimum amount of complexity. On the developer side, it'd be easy enough to implement. But then you'd need some pop-up in the game which explains those rules.

Currently, I like the cleanness of the many "1 in 5 chance of X." But that limits the ability to adjust the odds for balance. For example, I would hate "2 in 9 chance" of anything.

For my version, I've opted for "Equal chance of..." with 3-5 alternatives listed. This feels "clean enough" in a different way.

[stable swift]

prng is standard for most rng in most games, since it makes it more balanced

[obsidian apex]

Balatro uses pseudorandom number generation for pretty much everything - that is the system I used to tie anything probability based to the seed of the run (shop contents, wheel of fortune payouts, bosses, etc)

But it is still random in that it rolls between 0-1 and a payout might only be if the number is 0.8 or higher for example, it isn't modified with 'bad luck' or 'good luck'

[stable swift]

ah -- yeah that is even "standarter", having the option to use seeds is just super useful 😄 -- I meant the prng which actually tweaks the odds, basically gamblers fallacy but made real

it's used super often for critical hits and things like that

I am not saying balatro should do that, I was mainly just saying that it isn't just a thing for "mobile games and/or any other "gacha" games with some kind of "loot box""

[obsidian apex]

I love statistics so tweaking the odds like that feels wrong lol

Stats is really one of those things that's really really hard to intuit though, which is why you see so many people think something is broken with a game if their payout doesn't happen within a couple tries

So I definitely understand the appeal of tweaking that system. It's also 'output randomness', there's an amazing talk about input vs output randomness in video games, I'll find it
https://youtu.be/dwI5b-wRLic?si=MHaQTFctGRkBG2Wo

[visual harness]

You're right that "forgiveness" systems are used for more than just loot boxes. I was just pointing out one example in which the thing you described is already commonplace.

However, I agree with localthunk in that having the odds be exactly as advertised is nice. I don't want there to be any "funny business" behind the scenes, even if it's supposed to be in my favor.

[stable swift]

well in the end it isn't about strictly adhering to stats, but about how it feels -- for example when watching gothiclords videos I saw wheel of fortune not payout like a million times, it isn't too much of an issue, it just doesn't feel great when you pick wheel of fortune and it never does anything 😄 (even though in the strict sense it of course does do something 20% of the time)

[obsidian apex]

But when it hits 👀

[stable swift]

I think the game is balanced in a good way, such as you don't need to rely on things like this randomly paying out, so it isn't really an issue

[obsidian apex]

Tried to avoid that type of random in Balatro but there are some places I like it. For example if your boss was always random and you never saw it coming that would be awful (output randomness) but if your lucky ace gives you $20 when you weren't expecting it that's a good thing imo

[stable swift]

it basically comes down to whether it's ok that players will not rely on lucky cards and such at all, since the payout chance is so low you can basically never count on it to do anything, so it just ends up being a nice small bonus that doesn't hurt

[visual harness]

The question is what percentage of players are interacting with which game elements what percentage of the time? And what implications does that have for the long-term replayability of the game?

This is an open question. We do not have the data. Even if we did have the data, different people may disagree with what the targets are for those percentages.

[obsidian apex]

When I play I usually take the lucky card and try and get as many opportunities as possible to get it to pay out - that way the payout regresses to the mean which, as mentioned, is better than some other card enhancements

[potent igloo]

I agree for the most part. (Sorry to just jump in.)

I do think the bosses being more random would be good though. As of right now, the only way to see different blinds is rerolling. At the same time, having it be completely random would make strategy less of a factor.

[obsidian apex]

That is only for the demo - the full game uses the complete boss pool

[visual harness]

This is just a consequence of this being a limited demo.

[stable swift]

I think it's pretty hard to play a single card so many times that you can expect the 1/20 to pay out

[potent igloo]

Oh, nice! I'm pretty new, so my feedback is limited. 😄

[visual harness]

Currently on the table:

1. More than one player has expressed they are dissatisfied with "lottery" style (low probability, big payout) variance.
2. More than one player has expressed they actively enjoy "lottery" style variance.
3. The game appears to have more than a few different elements with the same variance structure. (Lucky card, Wheel of Fortune, "Skip" tags, etc.)

I don't think it's productive to discuss which is "better" when it comes to different "lottery" style versus a more "uniform" distributions.

I do think it's productive to brainstorm ideas for different variance structures for different game elements. And then it's up to the game dev to pick and choose if they like any of these ideas at all.

Separately, I'm am putting forth the opinion that going all in on "everything is a high variance lottery" feels dangerous to me.

[pallid lance]

it would be cool if stone cards counted twards a full house

[lyric lance]

I think this would be too strong. If you can have stone cards contribute to a full house, then logically you'd need to be able to do 4/5 of a kind stone cards etc which would be absurdly strong.

[idle wave]

i would love to see a consumable that lets me draw a card of specyfic number/suit so boss battles feel less random - coz if u go all out on one combination which i feel like game encourages, and u can;t infuance ur draw in any way, beeing unlucky in the most important moment left me frustrated, coz in battles before i could easly double or tripple the required number. I feel that u can make a player choose if he wants to play the remining hands on a battle he should be able to and insted of getting 2$ for what he didn;t play he might want to upgrade his joker to give one more multiplayer and beeing able to double the encounters required points might be also a place to award extra $ - for example if the boss makes u beat 1200$ and i can get 2400$ i get extra 2$ and if i manage to get 3600$ even 4$ seems fair. I also wrote this in the survay, but i';m interested what others think about my ideas

[visual harness]

Seconded what GothicLordUK said. If full house, then why not 4 of a kind or 5 of a kind? The fact that Stone cards give huge base score but no synergy is a feature not a bug.

[lyric lance]

Could be a joker like "The Stone Mason" that allows stone cards to count as a rank and flush for hand scoring. Might need to be rare though, and even then may be broken.

[visual harness]

Feels maybe too niche to me.

I don't mind having "only cares about face cards" or "only cares about Aces" as part of the joker pool because many different decks can benefit from those. Stone cards are much harder to come by. And then very challenging to pick up in multiples.

There's currently a joker which allows "non-scoring cards" to be scored. Maybe some other boon to non-scoring cards? Designed so any cards could qualify but Stone cards would especially benefit.

Could be interesting to have a Spectral "Gorgon" to turn a bunch of cards into Stone. Maybe "All cards of a random rank" or "All cards of a random suit" to differentiate from Ouija.

[lyric lance]

I mean if you wanna talk about niche;

[visual harness]

Fair.

But I think that card doubles as an in-joke.

Also also, every deck starts with a Queen of Spades, sometimes more than one, unless you choose not to.

How about: Discarded cards add their Chips to ...? Something.

[lyric lance]

'The Forager' Chip values of discarded ranked cards are added to this card. Add them to your chip count on your last played hand.

[visual harness]

That sounds great to me. For balance, could tweak to "half of the chip count." Not sure if that tweak is necessary, but it's nice to know you have a knob you can tune.

I especially like that it pools on your last hand.

Some decks will not want to "waste" the extra income from burning your early hands.
Ride the Bus and many others want earlier hands to be lower score to grind out value.

[lavish cairn]

I really want a more in-depth end game screen. (Victory or loss) I imagine a way to view which jokers you ended the game with along with your deck.

I love sharing such screens from Slay the Spire with my brother to discuss the run.
I’d love to be able to show him just how modified my deck got in Balatro along with what jokers made it tick.

[cold comet]

i think this channel would be better if it was a forum channel so i could clearly see some sugestions instead of looking through a bunch of threads / chat

nice forum channel added lmao

[grand drum]

Yeah, probably should be renamed into suggestions-discussion and suggestions-ideas

[obsidian apex]

I think I'll just be archiving this one

[obsidian apex]

great idea

Can anyone post there?

[wet aspen]

@obsidian apex why not make a forum (if you can)

[cold comet]

eys

we can

[wet aspen]

Never mind, 2 steps ahead

[obsidian apex]

Thank you!

Archiving this discussion 🙂 Continue any suggestions in #1155557846805643434

[cold comet]

🫡

[west raven]

these seem much better with the spectral cards

still niche, but much better