Joker Types

[verbal pumice]

🧵

[remote socket]

I think the current ratios of different types of jokers is pretty decent, I just feel that the chip jokers are mostly weak

Which makes them feel less prevalent as a choice, this making it feel as though there aren't enough chip jokers

[dawn falcon]

How many Chip Jokers are there?

[knotty chasm]

idk

[dawn falcon]

Ice Cream, Scholar, Odd Todd

[hasty notch]

banner, runner, hiker, scary face...

[dawn falcon]

I don’t know what Banner does

[knotty chasm]

well most chip jokers are pretty weak in the demo

[knotty chasm]

+20 chips for each remaining discard

[lusty skiff]

Honestly runner and hiker in my opinion are the only really scalable ones. Hiker feels kind of weak but I like runner.

[dawn falcon]

Ah

I don’t think I’ve bought Banner, Hiker, and Runner

Maybe Hiker but I probably dropped it very quickly because it’s not good

[lusty skiff]

I kind of like runner and think it can be decent in a game with more antes

[dawn falcon]

I was thinking how few Chip Jokers there are, but maybe you’re right

[dawn falcon]

I think Straights are weak/hard

[knotty chasm]

they recently got buffed thru planet cards and a base score change

[lusty skiff]

I mean it is true. I just like the concept of runner overall and think it is pretty good if you are already going for straights.

[dawn falcon]

Still haven’t played a Straight build

Well I did play a single Straight Flush build

But otherwise I’ve only won with Flush; one time 5OAK, and one time 5OAK (it was Flush in disguise)

[knotty chasm]

one time i had an insane early runner crazy superposition supernova blackboard straight build

i believe some more unique jokers can be added too

[dawn falcon]

Maybe but it’s a bit vague

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[dawn falcon]

I think the issue with Chip Jokers is that also

It’s more often easier to increase Multiplier

And it’s hard to make Chips relevant both early and late

[knotty chasm]

the thing is

only mult can be “multiplied”

[dawn falcon]

Yes

[knotty chasm]

which is why stuff like glass cards and polychrome are really favoured

[dawn falcon]

Maybe you could do weird stuff

[remote socket]

Chip jokers shine when you have a ton of mult, and the best way to get high mult is through Xmult jokers.
But if you have Xmult jokers, you're better off using your other joker slots for mult rather than chips

[hasty notch]

multiplying mult and multiplying chips would end up the same number

[dawn falcon]

Raise Chips to second Power 🤔

[hasty notch]

Chips x Mult x Xmult = Chips x Xmult x Mult

[knotty chasm]

🤔

[remote socket]

Chips x Xmult(mult + mult + mult)

[hard badger]

The Jokers with special effects are very fun

[remote socket]

I think

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[dawn falcon]

Easy just multiply Chips by j and multiplier by k 🤔

[hasty notch]

what

[dawn falcon]

Quaternion joke

i, j, and k are square roots of -1

[rugged grail]

Chips has some of the most MEH jokers in the game: Runner, Hiker, Banner, Scary Face, etc

[hasty notch]

runner is not meh :(

[dawn falcon]

But quaternions aren’t commutative for multiplication

[rugged grail]

If you look at yesterday's polls the only chips joker in A or S is Ice Cream, the rest are sitting in B or below

[hard badger]

Hiker is interesting but I think his full potential is kinda blocked by runs being half as long on the demo

[remote socket]

Runner is completely useless 9/10 runs, and just -alright- in most cases it's useful

[dawn falcon]

As @remote socket said, I think it’s because they’re weak, and I think they’re weak because it’s hard to make them relevant over the whole game

[hasty notch]

community vote doesn't dictate my opinions of the card

[rugged grail]

It's not hard at all to have more multi than chips in a lot of cases

[dawn falcon]

They weren’t talking about your opinion

[rugged grail]

There are many genuine cases where you want to increase you chips over your multi

[dawn falcon]

But usually you have higher Chips until you overlap Mult Mult

[rugged grail]

Once you leave the early game and reach the mid and late game you're often wanting Chips I feel

[prime kite]

Scary face is fine if the plant isn’t in every game. It’s basically odd todd. The other ones all have some weakness like ice cream melting, banner removing your discards, hiker being very weak, etc.

[dawn falcon]

You can still Discard you just don’t want to

[remote socket]

Playing 10 antes will most likely make chip jokers much more valuable

Except banner

And scary dace

[hard badger]

Banner + Delayed Gratification is pretty nice

[dawn falcon]

Maybe if you can get more Discards

5 Discards and it’s Ice Cream

[lusty skiff]

I think it will make the few scaling ones like hiker or runner better but the others will be pretty similar in use.

[dawn falcon]

People who vote ❌ just want strong Jokers lol

[knotty chasm]

well i believe most runs in balatro in general get their chips from planet cards

[lusty skiff]

Ice cream might actually be a bit worse since it works for a smaller percentage of the run. Will be a good late game joker though.

[hard badger]

Bonus cards are also great value

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[dawn falcon]

It’s good at what it does

[knotty chasm]

foil cards too to an extent

[dawn falcon]

And what it does isn’t winning the late game

But getting you there

[hasty notch]

Xmult is fun, unchangeable +mult is pretty boring

[hard badger]

Ice cream is great because you can sell it and rebuy it back at 100 😎

[dawn falcon]

I think they’re just as fun

[remote socket]

Xmult is nothing without +mult

[lusty skiff]

I guess that is a fair point. I personally don’t pick it much so I was just honking people used it late game to get extra chips but it is great early game to make sure you don’t mess up.

[hard badger]

Ice cream is kinda like “I win the next 3 rounds” early game

[knotty chasm]

is there any joker besides runner that scales up in chip value?

[hard badger]

It lets you go econ to build up late game

[hard badger]

Hiker

But the value is on the cards

[knotty chasm]

besides that

[rugged grail]

In chips no, but there is ride the bus for mult

[knotty chasm]

which is why chips feel underwhelming

there aren’t many accessible or easily usable chip scalers

[dawn falcon]

If you can scale Discards…

[knotty chasm]

well technically drunkard

but there are way more mult linear scalers compared to chip linear scalers

[hard badger]

+20 Chips
Every hand played where your Mult is higher than your Chips, permanently gain +20 Chips
😎

[elfin scarab]

there isnt an option for it on the poll, but what i really want is more jokers that scale

[hasty notch]

the one thing odd todd/scary face/scholar have for scaling is synergy, with dusk

so scaling numbers directly and synergies are both options

[hard badger]

If Hiker was +2 Chips, Hiker + Dusk actually sounds quite fun

[elfin scarab]

#🕹・game-discussion message

[dawn falcon]

If Gold Seal was good

[queen relic]

I think there should be more Jokers that encourage playing a variety of different hands and not just spamming one hand over and over. Right now the only real one like that is Todo List, and it's kinda underpowered (see the Joker tier list).

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[dawn falcon]

Yeah

[elfin scarab]

a nice scaling joker with that would be fun

[hard badger]

👀
Ty lol

[knotty chasm]

maybe a spectral card that takes all planet levels and redistribute them in a completely random fashion, along with adding a bit (3?) levels into the pool?

[hard badger]

Yo Gold Seal + Hiker 👀

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[knotty chasm]

like if you started with 12 planet cards upgrades, you would end up with 15 but all are randomly distributed

[elfin scarab]

a joker that gives scaling xMult based on the number of unique hand types youve played in the last however-many hands would be fun

[knotty chasm]

or just “x2” mult if “whatever hand” is played it something like that

[elfin scarab]

thats just todolist but xMult instead of cash

[knotty chasm]

yeah

[dawn falcon]

I don’t think anyone would use it

Because they likely have synergy for a specific hand already

So it would only be used early

[knotty chasm]

well it’s a concept so

[dawn falcon]

When every hand is at 0 or so

[elfin scarab]

theres that black hole spectral that local teased, it has all the planets across the top of it

might be about hand levels

[knotty chasm]

yea

i saw that card and like hmm… 🤔

[hard badger]

Jokers that encourage hand diversity would be awesome

+15 Mult if you have not repeated a hand type this round

[elfin scarab]

#🎙・server-chat message here it is

[hard badger]

Increase all hand levels by 1?

[hard badger]

👀

[elfin scarab]

black holes typically consume the things around them so i would guess it has something to do with removing the upgrades for some benefit

[dawn falcon]

I think it just increased all Hand levels

The effect was somewhere

I thought it was in the wiki

[elfin scarab]

Ah

[verbal pumice]

Does it?

[hard badger]

👀

[knotty chasm]

👀

[dawn falcon]

I don’t know

[elfin scarab]

well i guess that answers that lol

[dawn falcon]

I just said what I thought

[verbal pumice]

it ⚫

[elfin scarab]

all hands +1 level doesnt fit in as well with the cost/reward of most other spectrals

[knotty chasm]

black circle 🤔

[hard badger]

All cards become Black Holes 😎

[dawn falcon]

I think since the Sun is already a Tarot, making it a better celestial body makes sense

I did have the idea for a Spectral that destroys your hand

And gives you -1 Hand size, maybe, to balance the effect

[hard badger]

Immolate destroys 5 cards and gives $20

[dawn falcon]

That’s 5 cards

I said the hand

[hard badger]

So 3 more cards = -20$ and -1 hand size?

[dawn falcon]

It’s a good effect

[mellow plover]

I mean the destruction of 5 cards is the downside: you don't want it to hit, for example, your Aces in a scholar-based build

[dawn falcon]

Maybe it doesn’t need the -1 hand size

[hard badger]

I would never pick that over immolate

[knotty chasm]

it’s too similar to immolate

[hard badger]

^

[dawn falcon]

Nah it’s two upsides

[dawn falcon]

What if you can’t pick Immolate?

You can’t control what shows up

[elfin scarab]

destroying an entire hand type for some benefit, however

[hard badger]

Immolate is 2 upsides

[mellow plover]

It's more like a double-edged sword and an upside, I suppose

[dawn falcon]

Spike players

[knotty chasm]

the purpose of immolate is to boost econ and remove trash cards

if you have trash cards

[dawn falcon]

I saw that idea be suggested but I didn’t see a good payoff

[elfin scarab]

its gotta be something pretty decent for sure

maybe getting rid of your highest level hand type and then setting every other hand to that same level, for the ultimate pivot or something

dunno

[dawn falcon]

That’s too much IMO

[knotty chasm]

that is broken

levels up high card to 14

[dawn falcon]

That’s not broken

[knotty chasm]

uses said spectral card

[dawn falcon]

Level 14 High Card scales less than other levels

[knotty chasm]

BOOM lvl 14 flush house instant

was referring to campfire’s suggestion

[dawn falcon]

“If you’re winning, win harder.” — GoldenDiscoPig

[dawn falcon]

Me too

[elfin scarab]

less a suggestion and more just spitballing tbh

[dawn falcon]

If you look at #1155557846805643434 someone already made it

[verbal pumice]

I think it's a fun idea - could work if balanced

[knotty chasm]

👀

[dawn falcon]

Actually here https://discord.com/channels/1116389027176787968/1166755604434538538

[elfin scarab]

thanks :)

[elfin scarab]

ah cool

i hadnt seen that one

[verbal pumice]

the 2 methods I see are banishing the hand entirely for that run OR resetting the hand to level 0 (0 chips and 0 mult), then giving some bonus

But that bonus could be anything

Doesn't have to relate to other poker hands

[dawn falcon]

I think it should be simple and thematic

[elfin scarab]

i like the first one more for flavor lol, it would also be pretty silly if someone managed to find a seed that had a bunch of them and got down to just a single valid hand type

[dawn falcon]

Also as I mentioned in the suggestion thread it begs the question of what would happen if there were no valid hands

[elfin scarab]

you lose 🙃

[dawn falcon]

why

[verbal pumice]

I think it's possible that might turn frustratingly restrictive, when setting it all to 0 goes effectively 90% of the way there

[dawn falcon]

You can still play cards

[dawn falcon]

Early game you don’t care about that cost

[elfin scarab]

oh yeah no you wouldnt lose actually

you just wouldnt have any base chips/mult i suppose

[dawn falcon]

That’s what I thought

But would Hand Jokers work?

[elfin scarab]

thats a fair point for sure

[hard badger]

What would the benefit be?

[verbal pumice]

Could be anything

a firm handshake

[hard badger]

With a black hole?

[elfin scarab]

very firm handshake

[dawn falcon]

To establish dominance

[verbal pumice]

This is not black hole btw

[hard badger]

Just had the thought that it could increase the number of cards you get from packs 🤔
Is there a Joker that does that?

[verbal pumice]

But I dont know, maybe sets your most played hand to level 0 and gives you:

• Money
• Polychrome on 1 joker
• Double the level of 3 random hands

[bleak nova]

is there any consideration for X Chips?

[dawn falcon]

Unrelated question: are there going to be more pack types

[dawn falcon]

That’s called Mult

[bleak nova]

lol

[elfin scarab]

chips are supposed to represent actual physical chips, and local said he doesnt want to multiply them like that

[bleak nova]

understandable 🙂

[elfin scarab]

wrong ping sorry lol

[dawn falcon]

Why are you replying to me

lol

[elfin scarab]

the screen moved down when i clicked to reply and i didnt notice

[hasty notch]

Xmult is the same as Xchips

[elfin scarab]

_ _

[dawn falcon]

empty reply is spooky

[verbal pumice]

yo what is that

oh no

[hard badger]

It is •

[verbal pumice]

⚫

[hard badger]

👀

[hasty notch]

_ _ ** **

[hard badger]

Guys run the thread is falling in a black hole

[dawn falcon]

🕳️

[elfin scarab]

​

[elfin scarab]

ah hell the black hole ate my message

[hasty notch]

i blame the banana

[dawn falcon]

Idk how to send empty messages

[hasty notch]

here: ||** **||

[dawn falcon]

🕳️🍌

[verbal pumice]

DON'T DO IT

[hasty notch]

👀 👀

[elfin scarab]

you can send an italicized space or a zero-width character

[hard badger]

You bamboozled me

[knotty chasm]

😱

[hard badger]

NOOOOO

[elfin scarab]

NO

[dawn falcon]

Ah I see

[verbal pumice]

😭

Balatro cancelled

[hard badger]

Look what you’ve done

[elfin scarab]

With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

[hard badger]

Lmao

[hasty notch]

is this the work of emoji mashup

[dawn falcon]

Google “emoji kitchen”

Unfortunately there aren’t many options for the Joker emoji

[remote socket]

What joker do you lot find the most fun to use?

[elfin scarab]

Blueprint :)

[remote socket]

Superposition enjoyer here

[verbal pumice]

Blueprint/8 ball

[remote socket]

If we can figure out what types of jokers are mostly fun we can figure out what we should add

One would think adding fun things is a good idea, no?

[elfin scarab]

oftentimes, brand new concepts are fun too

[verbal pumice]

Some of them are fun because they are unique though - more isn't always better. But I do think in general you are probably right

But yeah there are new things that nobody has tried yet in the full version, some of those might be the most fun

[dawn falcon]

I usually like things that make me make decisions

[elfin scarab]

i really like most of the scaling jokers

watching them give bigger payouts every time is fun

[dawn falcon]

Like Super Auto Pets had buy and sell strategies

That doesn’t exist in Balatro

Although Rerolls were a fixed $1, so you could refresh and buy more (to sell immediately)

[remote socket]

Whenevee I get a joker that gives bonuses for carrying out certain actions (Todo list, 8 ball, Superposition, etc) I always have a blast

Usually I die trying to activate them, which gets a kick out of me

[dawn falcon]

They would be fun, but most of those are bad

So I don’t buy them

I only had 8-Ball in a position that made sense once, and I lost v_v

[sturdy geyser]

I'd love jokers that are similar to to-do list. Maybe something like "The Hit List: random hand selected (like to-do list) when you play that hand, gain X (maybe 2x mult or level the hand or gain a discard, idk)

[wintry ermine]

About money joker, to me its not that it would need a lot more of it, but that they should appear more consistently, having runs without money joker happens too much imo

[charred goblet]

About variety of played hands, what if there was a joker that gave some bonus if the played hand is different from the last, so that you want to alternate between at least two hands

[primal hemlock]

Im bored so uh, special effects would be the best option but obviously then you have to create a whole new thing to balance

and money cards there are only 4 (not including burglar or tarot adders) and they can be the make/break portion of a run

but then you also posted that one screenshot with thousands of dollars so.... looks like thats not that much of a problem

[elfin scarab]

That screenshot was from a specific interaction between Delayed Gratification and Merry Andy, a playtest joker that lets your unused discards carry over into the next round

[primal hemlock]

ohhhhhhhhh

(I saw money and disregarded the other info)

[warped estuary]

CHOOST?

Choost

@verbal pumice when it says "tarot/planet" im assuming it means jokers that spawn tarots/planets right

Mult: 16 (35.6%)
XMult: 4 (8.9%)
Chips: 6 (13.3%)
Money: 5 (11.1%)
Tarot/Planet: 3 (6.7%)
Special: 11 (24.4%)
*Scholar considered special instead of Mult & Chips

for jokers in the demo

[hasty notch]

there should be a 4th Xmult

stencil, blackboard, constellation, and loyalty card

[warped estuary]

oh yeah mb

fixed

[hasty notch]

im guessing astronomer wasn't counted for tarot/planet?

[warped estuary]

i overlooked it, it counted as special

[hasty notch]

i would understand either way

[warped estuary]

also scholar is considered special because having the joker amount add up to 46 would be dreadful

[hasty notch]

lol

that can be a bit misleading though 🤔

people thinking there's only 6 sources of chips

[warped estuary]

ok disclaimer added

[rugged grail]

There's almost as many money jokers as chips jokers bwuh...

[reef jolt]

straight builds are BUSTED

[humble timber]

tbh

a joker or two for Lucky cards possibly would be nice

[tropic coral]

not an option but more OA6 synergy would be cool

ie luck stuff

[thorn crater]

straight builds are great since saturn scales faster than flush, full house, and 4oak

[dawn falcon]

I would have Scholar as both Mult and Chips

Also I reckon it would be more useful to have weighted groups (weighted by rarity)

[dawn falcon]

Maybe but they feel harder to play and to design synergy around

[reef jolt]

u dont even need synergy, jokerless is extremely easy with straight builds cuz they are so busted

so if they can do that good without jokers anything synergizes really by just making it better

[dawn falcon]

I meant that most synergistic effects that don’t mention Straight specifically would likely be better for other builds

In that sense I think they’re hard to design for

“Make big number bigger” is fine to have, but I wouldn’t necessarily want it to be the only way to play a Hand

[sturdy geyser]

you could do this exact same thing with flushes or 4 of a kind, which are also even easier to manipulate because you can modify your deck to have lots of 1 suit/rank, which is easier to do compared to making a deck that is easier to get straights

[reef jolt]

i didn't modify the deck at all for the run, just used planet packs

the only time i used tarots were for fools

straights are very easy to get when ur not scared to use discards

[sturdy geyser]

exactly, you could use planets for 4 of a kind or flushes and if you got it to level 20 then you would be in the exact same situation, except if you wanted you could use tarot cards to make it even easier

[reef jolt]

straights scale faster than both on planets (which is why its really good)

correct me if im wrong on the 4 of a kind cuz i dont remeber that scalling off the top of my head

but also setting up a 4 of kind deck with tarots seems way more effort than just using planet cards with straights

thats all im saying is that straights are good enough where u dont need anything but planets and u could have a good run

[sturdy geyser]

there are so many easy ways to make 4 or even 5 of a kind work

[reef jolt]

well duh

[sturdy geyser]

like getting any planet (for hands better than 3 of a kind) to level 20 is going to make it good

just for context, getting flush to level 20 would mean you have to play 3 hands of flushes to beat the final boss, compared to playing 2 hands of straights to beat the final boss, there isn't that much of a difference

[lime pike]

Ideas for 'Some Other Special Effect'

• A Joker that allows additional Hands once you reach Zero, but each time a random Rank is selected to be debuffed until the current Ante or next (Not Current if during one) Boss is defeated, revealed during that hands' scoring, so it could immediately effect the hand.

• A Joker that adds half of your Discards to your Hands, or 2xHalf your Hands (So, -2 Hands, +4 Discards; -2 Discards, +1 Hand) chosen randomly each Blind.

[knotty tinsel]

How about "Proxy":

• Copies the Joker to the right, but halfes all numbers.

[warped estuary]

yeah i thought about making the %s weighted by rarity but i dont know the weighting for common/uncommon/rare + im lazy and it doesn't really matter

[light yew]

X chips would be cool

[warped estuary]

legendary joker: 1.1x chips

[elfin scarab]

xChips doesnt do anything different than xMult unfortunately

since chips and mult get multiplied anyway its exactly the same

[rugged grail]

That's not really how that works I feel

Like,
100 chips times 2 times 100 mult is much different than 100 chips times 102 mult

Actually

Hmmm

[elfin scarab]

xMult, not +Mult

100x2x100 is the same as 100x100x2

[rugged grail]

Fair enough, yeah.

[primal hemlock]

campfire do be right

its the (insert name here) property

[elfin scarab]

commutative?

is that the one

[primal hemlock]

I think its commutative

yeah

[hasty notch]

that or associative

[primal hemlock]

no

[elfin scarab]

its either that or associat- yeah

[primal hemlock]

associative is perenthasese

[elfin scarab]

ok then commutative for sure then

[primal hemlock]

yep

[bleak nova]

however the only time it would matter is if you had all four

chips, xchips, mult, xmult

[hasty notch]

Xchips is still identical to Xmult in that scenario

[bleak nova]

not exactly, because if you add to xmult, its different than adding a separate multiplier

[hasty notch]

you don't add to Xmult though, you still multiply

blueprint + stencil + blackboard is a x8, not x6

[bleak nova]

you're right, i take it back its all visual

damn !!! im an idiot twice in a row

[hasty notch]

it happens

[rugged forge]

6th option

X chips