Challenge Run display

[brave vault]

I have an example: for Balatro - would you expect that the challenge run list needs to include a view of what is included in your starting deck? What about any blacklist/whitelist for Jokers, Tarots, etc?

[gilded charm]

it’s either nothing (blind)

or the general change

in the case of balatro i believe a blacklist/whitelist would be useful as the player will know what is or isnt in the pool of jokers

[raven anvil]

It's all of the information if you can actually use all of it at once.

BTD6 is a great example: Since rounds are mostly standard, knowing everything at the start lets you plan your entire run.

[trail yoke]

I play a lot of games where challenge runs are a thing and it's usually a list of modifiers listed out, but the details are completely hidden even though it's commonly a seeded thing.

[gilded charm]

yeah

[raven anvil]

Balatro, being a roguelike, doesn't let you use all the info at once, since you don't know what you'll find.

Probably the only relevant things are letting you see your Deck, and White/Blacklisted Jokers/Tarots/Plants/Spectrals/Bananas/Jimbos.

[gilded charm]

agreed

[brave vault]

So that sounds like complete information before you start the run, right?

Not a game design issue btw

[gilded charm]

yeah

[brave vault]

More of a coding implementation challenge

[raven anvil]

It's as much information as you can use

[brave vault]

There's a looooooot of information

[hoary notch]

You could do the Isaac route and make the challenges random seeded with no info but with e name that eludes to what the challenge is about

[brave vault]

blacklists for each card type, whitelists for each card type, custom starting deck, custom starting jokers, custom starting modifiers (money, hands, # of jokers, reroll cost, etc.), custom starting rules (Earn no interest, all shop cards are consumable, full house doesn't exist, etc.)

[brave vault]

I was wondering this - would that be frustrating? Or is that common practice

[gilded charm]

thats a lot of info

[raven anvil]

It's frustrating, but part of the experience, since figuring out the rules is part of the satisfaction of beating the challenge

[brave vault]

Information is more important in Balatro than Isaac

[gilded charm]

yeah

[brave vault]

Because you might be hunting for a card that is blacklisted

[raven anvil]

Strange suggestion that probably won't go anywhere, but just leaving it on the table

[lunar trench]

Not necessarily all of that, only the stuff that's changed?
and also show the smaller of the two lists blacklist and whitelist
there's no need to list every single joker that ISN'T egg when egg is the only joker in there, by just showing "only egg" in whitelist then the point gets across

but if everything but the joker lists stay the same, then no need to overwhelm the player

[brave vault]

Right I would do it that way - but there could be a joker whitelist and a tarot blacklist

[fair cedar]

tbh people just look up the conditions of isaac challenges anyway if you dont provide the specific changes a challenge makes, people will just get the info elsewhere and its kinda frustrating to need to leave the game to know whats going on

[raven anvil]

Maybe you could have the information itself be part of the challenge?
For example, before the run, you get the choice of knowing any two from White/Blacklisted Jokers/Planets/Tarots/Spectrals and Rules

And the rest, you'll need to figure out on your feet

So what's most important to you?
Figure those out and gamble on the rest

[lunar trench]

information horizon moment

[brave vault]

You wouldn't be able to figure out a blacklist/whitelist 100%

[gilded charm]

i dont like this idea imo

with this you can’t figure out what is missing

[hoary notch]

I think it also depends how you want to do challenges I suppose because some challenges you would just to label it a no buying or something and have a preset deck and jokers

[fair cedar]

People would either eventually figure it out, or bad data would be out there

Like even if it takes datamining and ripping the game apart, people will figure it out and put it on a wiki

[raven anvil]

That's fair
I actually don't know what context we're talking about

I was thinking Daily Runs since those were the only "Challenge" type thing in the Demo

[fair cedar]

any information you dont provide will be provided somewhere

[raven anvil]

and those kinds of challenges are way different from Issac's normal Challenges

[brave vault]

Technically it is very very difficult, because this is the system that will be used to add challenges in the future as well and with localization I can't just type it all out every time, so I need a descriptive system that can localize any rule or combination of rules

this shit hard

But I don't really see a way around showing all the rules/conditions for each Challenge before the run starts

[lunar trench]

why is that an issue

bloons TD does that

[rapid vector]

I think know what’s blacklisted is important

[gilded charm]

thats cuz they are big company iirc

they have the people to translate

compared to solo dev

[fair cedar]

either you show all the rules/conditions or people just go elsewhere to look it up, unfortunately difficult but necessary part of challenges

[vale pumice]

Maybe you could provide a short description that you write for each challenge, and then for those who want specifics a pop-up menu that would be auto-generated from the blacklists/whitelist that you provide

[rapid vector]

That’s true too

[fair cedar]

For a whitelist/blacklist you could just do what SAP does and have a screen you can pop open that shows everything thats available in the current run

Doesnt require any words, just a big ass display screen lol

[raven anvil]

You could use the Collection window for that, but that'd be a lot of scouring

[brave vault]

If I made a challenge that was 'start with $100 and earn no interest', I could just type that out as the challenge and leave it at that. But if I need to translate that to 20 languages, I need to externalize it to a localization file (which is fine), but now in a year when I want to add another challenge I need to relocalize every new challenge I add.

Alternatively, the thing that takes more work is taking each rule individually, blacklists, whitelists, and generating a system that shows each one with a boilerplate translation, so that in the future when I add a new challenge, I just pull from all the existing rules and I don't need to relocalize

[rapid vector]

I mean if the rules are predefined this is easier no? If you’re making them from scratch they’re hard

[brave vault]

That is one part of it, the other part is that displaying information in any capacity in a game is one of the most challenging parts of game design

UI is really really hard

So displaying information for a generalized systematic approach like this is adding complexity

Which is fine, I'll have to deal with it no matter what

[rapid vector]

Maybe you could have icons for different types of changes

And clicking the icon gives more information

Or if the icon is very specific no clicking behaviour

[brave vault]

How would a whitelist/blacklist be displayed?

[hoary notch]

So are you planning on doing only preset challenge runs or are you also planning on implementing a way for players to create their own?

[rapid vector]

Maybe like the Collection

[brave vault]

A list of card names, a view like a collection

[gilded charm]

yeah?

i think that works

[rapid vector]

You already have the UI, you can reuse it

[brave vault]

Both, will use this system for dailies too

[lunar trench]

scrollable list with names, hover over for the joker art & description

but the names are fastest to process for the sweaty gamers I feel like

[vale pumice]

If the main view was like the Collection and there were tabs for different whitelist/blacklists for different things that could be interesting

[brave vault]

My engine doesn't have a scroll UI element

[rapid vector]

For me the images would be easier

[gilded charm]

i think joker art first with name hover makes more sense

[lunar trench]

[brave vault]

I like this a lot

[fair cedar]

Much smaller dataset but SAP does it like this. Just a full list of everything that can show up, split into categories (in Balatro's case the categories would be stuff like joker, arcana, planet etc)

[rapid vector]

I mean the collection isn’t scrollable and it’s fine

[brave vault]

Oh I really like the tab idea

That is so simple

[raven anvil]

Maybe you could show the details as you go into a challenge?
Like play an animation of every Blacklisted card getting "destroyed" (like Gros Michel), then leaving the info in Run Info for one to peruse later

[fair cedar]

Tabs is good the only problem is every time you start a challenge you need to flip through every tab to see what strategies may be viable

[rapid vector]

I think that would take too long

[lunar trench]

would take a while and also too much to process

[gilded charm]

that seems a bit over complicated imo

[lunar trench]

to Egg

[raven anvil]

Fair

[brave vault]

There is so much information anyway - there is no way to show absolutely everything on one screen

[rapid vector]

It could present a summary, maybe some icons to highlight what changed divided by categories

[fair cedar]

yeppers, just probably best to minimize the number of tabs if possible

[rapid vector]

Like “$ change icon”

[rapid vector]

It could be less or more income

[gilded charm]

blacklist whitelist one one page, and general starting conditions on another?

[rapid vector]

I think it makes more sense to divide by Jokers, Taorts, etc. than by black/whitelist

[raven anvil]

Special Rules could also just be permanent "Tags" that stick around if need be

makes it easier to remember them

[vale pumice]

You could show a short description of the challenge, which you could click to show the detailed layout of blacklists/whitelists

[gilded charm]

something like that yeah

[west jay]

my least favourite part of game design 😔

[rapid vector]

Just beam the information directly into the player’s head

[brave vault]

Yeah I think I would do one main tab for the rules/conditions, then one tab for Joker whitelist/blacklist if there is any, then one tab for Consumable blacklist/whitelist, another for vouchers, maybe another for your entire deck if it is modified

So 5 total

[lunar trench]

the UI in this game is absolutely lovely and all the clickable things look clickable and the buttons are amazing
You have set yourself a high bar unfortunately

[west jay]

i think tabs is the way to go for this yeah

[brave vault]

It would rarely/never be 5

[west jay]

having all the info is really important i feel

[brave vault]

Most often it would be a suite of starting jokers, some rule changes and maybe a custom starting deck

[raven anvil]

It could be for the ultimate Gros Michel challenge
Nothing but Gros Michel, go

[lunar trench]

For UI design I would recommend keeping all the tabs there at all times BUT grey out ones with no changes? just so muscle memory can go brr

[brave vault]

All glass cards in your deck

[rapid vector]

Maybe a rule could be if the challenge is seeded or not

[brave vault]

That's also a good idea, if it's not too busy visually

[brave vault]

They won't ever be seeded

[hoary notch]

I suppose I neat way is to do also do something like what crop rotation does but im not sure how well it would work in balatro

[brave vault]

Unless it's a daily

[west jay]

thats fun lol

[rapid vector]

I would make the ultimate Gros Michel Hater challenge

[west jay]

just make that a whole deck

[rapid vector]

No Gros Michel

[vale pumice]

Would their be challenge leaderboards, for time/score/etc?

[brave vault]

For dailies only

[lunar trench]

that is very overwhelming for me, one of the things I dislike about crop rotation
there's kinda an expectation you just KNOW what all the things do

[rapid vector]

The official ones not but maybe players would like to decide for custom challenges

So that could be an option

[west jay]

how are dailies and challenges going to be split up?

[brave vault]

They use the same system but they will be accessed different ways

Not sure yet

[rapid vector]

A challenge where the Wheel’s effect is active all the time 🤔

[raven anvil]

What about Black/Whitelisted Blinds?

[hoary notch]

in the crop rotation screen you can hover and see what crops do and there is a filter option but the filter option wouldn't really worn in balatro

[gilded charm]

all cards have gold seals

[raven anvil]

Would they just be on the rules tab?

[brave vault]

So lets say I have a blacklist tab for Jokers - what would you expect to see there? The actual Joker cards themselves?

[rapid vector]

You could filter by rarity

[gilded charm]

yeah

[rapid vector]

Yes

[west jay]

yeah, just ike the collection

[rapid vector]

Like in the collection

[raven anvil]

I think the cards themselves would be best

[gilded charm]

like oh i see gros michel and zany joker in there

[lunar trench]

hiring an uber solely to drive this idea into hell
I do not like this

[brave vault]

Not a list of names that can be hovered to reveal the card in a tooltip?

[raven anvil]

List of names is a lot harder to scan, mostly because of the Joker Art

it's easier to discern by color than by name

[rapid vector]

No Balatro is very visual

[vale pumice]

Especially with the tabs system, that’d probably feel more like an information overload with all the text

[rapid vector]

I don’t even think it’s a real challenge

[gilded charm]

considering how the majority of the game is hover art for name, i think itll make more sense

[rapid vector]

The Wheel is maybe the easiest

[raven anvil]

Or by icon!
There's probably very few who remember what the +Mult if hand is present Jokers are named individually

[west jay]

i would definitely prefer the art

over text for everything

[raven anvil]

but the art has the hand they check on the card itself

[gilded charm]

verdant leaf every blind, jokers 75% off

[brave vault]

I'd also like to avoid the terms 'blacklist/whitelist', what would you think the most descriptive alternative is?

• Ban list / Allowed list?

[hoary notch]

I think most people know the jokers by art and not by name

[gilded charm]

yeah

[rapid vector]

I want to suggest a Joker that synergizes with buying and selling strategies

[rapid vector]

Joker Deck?

Joker Stock?

Joker Circus?

[hoary notch]

like in isaac people know items by the art like half the time I see people play isaac they just come up with a random name for items but they know what it does

[brave vault]

Banned Jokers / Allowed Jokers (All other jokers are banned)

I can be verbose

[rapid vector]

But is it Butterbean?

[raven anvil]

I'd suggest Burnt Jokers for blacklisted ones

[west jay]

"banished" maybe?

[raven anvil]

in line with the actual Poker term, burning cards

(removing them to prevent cheating)

[rapid vector]

Clown Jail

[brave vault]

I mean to make it easy to understand, not thematic

[west jay]

"banned" by itself makes me think of "not allowed" rather than "not in the run"

[raven anvil]

Fair

[rapid vector]

Maybe that works but I think that’s a Joker already

[raven anvil]

Removed Jokers?

[rapid vector]

Or maybe that was a suggestion

[west jay]

removed would be pretty clear

[raven anvil]

Disabled is also an option, but it leans a bit too close to debuffed, which is a game mechanic

[brave vault]

I can add a description line to each so it won't be an issue, like
Banned Jokers - These Jokers will not show up in this Challenge run

[hoary notch]

this is like an item so bad it get's ingrained in memory lmao

[rapid vector]

I think there could be different sorting options for the Joker tab

[west jay]

that would pretty much fix any problems with clarity

[rapid vector]

Name, rarity

[rapid vector]

Aren’t there two items that share an icon

[brave vault]

Kk that helps, I think the tabs totally make sense

[rapid vector]

Like Butterbean and Mega Bean

[brave vault]

I wish there was a better way to display the deck than showing all 52 cards at once too

That annoys me

[raven anvil]

"I can't believe it's not butter bean!"

[hoary notch]

they're different arts but they are similar in a way

[raven anvil]

Maybe you could have the "quick peek" menu as an option for those that get the gist of the enhancements already?

[rapid vector]

Oops All Sixes for a deck of 6s and the Joker

Challenge

[brave vault]

Sometimes the specifics of the deck are the whole challenge, like if you start with 20 glass Aces

And maybe 1 is polychrome, and maybe 1 has a gold seal

[fair cedar]

It may take up a lot of screen space, but showing the whole deck at once is actually quicker to digest for the typical player. Sure you could condense all of the information into a single string of characters like a long chess move but only people with lots of understanding could properly use that quicker than a full screen display of the deck

[brave vault]

Yeah I agree

Just wish it wasn't so cluttered

[hoary notch]

are glass cards breaking based on seeds?

[brave vault]

yes

[west jay]

i played a run that had 0 breaks once

it was fun

[raven anvil]

Glass Cards never break if you don't play them

If you started with a larger than normal deck, it could be difficult to read the ranks of the cards

[hoary notch]

man I remember there used to be this joker that was based on glass cards breaking

[rapid vector]

200 cards deck

[raven anvil]

hence why I think having a "quick peek" hover over or something could save you some time once you get the gist of what the enhancements are

[rapid vector]

One of each card

[brave vault]

This is very very VERY WIP but here's a mockup I am using

[hoary notch]

battle of wits deck

[lean lynx]

silly :3

[rapid vector]

Exactly

[rapid vector]

But now I want to see the El Chavo deck

[fair cedar]

What's the difference between game modifiers and custom rules? Game modifiers are just stats and custom rules are more wibbly wobbly?

[brave vault]

The challenge system is pretty far along but actually viewing all that information in a generalized way is a pain. Your suggestions help

[brave vault]

Yeah basically

[fair cedar]

Interesting, I think usually they would just get grouped but I kinda like having them be distinct

easier to digest

[vale pumice]

I feel like tabs on the top would be better; maybe show the challenge name only when the tab is selected and instead show just an icon

[west jay]

i gotta say, im looking forward to challenges and dailies, its gonna be awesome for variety and replayibility

[brave vault]

Instead of a list on the left?

[rapid vector]

I like the way it is but I think it could be improved

[brave vault]

If there are like 50 challenges (not that there will be on release) that will be an issue, the list works better for that

[rapid vector]

Maybe have the list of challenges and a summary, then you click something to see all of it

[brave vault]

and making a page system for the buttons on the left

[hoary notch]

I like the visual design on this atleast

[vale pumice]

That is true

Tabs on the top would probably be best for when a single challenge needs them

[lean lynx]

the game modifiers area is a bit wordy, i think it'd benefit from being shortened to icons

[west jay]

is that an eternal sticker i spy on that egg?

[brave vault]

👀

Those aren't the actual omelette rules btw

[raven anvil]

Could go the BTD6 route and have each "game rule" be its own tag in the menu (an icon you hover over for details), but I think that works against the design here

[rapid vector]

Just spitballing: maybe it could show a screen like the one in the Blind, with Hands and Discards and $ but repurposing it for modifiers

[lean lynx]

neat idea, that has the benefit of being extremely clear since it's almost exactly what's in the actual run

[vale pumice]

Also if there is 8 joker slots by default in this example, could it be easier to just write 5/8 in the joker section and (possibly) not list it in game modifiers

[hoary notch]

yeah I think maybe if you can use Icons that we are used to seeing in game to show these things would be a good idea to reduce words it also probably saves some time on translating

[rapid vector]

By the way does the currency have a name or is it just $

[brave vault]

I just use the symbol in game

Easier to parse

Especially with Chips, which people sometimes call dollars

[lean lynx]

get a doritos bag in there

[rapid vector]

That’s what I thought but I wasn’t sure

[lean lynx]

gamer chips

[rapid vector]

I try to call them $ only

[rapid vector]

The benefit is that players would have muscle memory of where to look

[west jay]

yet another food-based +chips joker

[rapid vector]

But it could be hard to read if the information is too different or specific

[raven anvil]

I usually call it "gold" out of force of habit

[rapid vector]

It makes your cards more and more Orange

[lean lynx]

pain

[brave vault]

That modifier area seems busy because it has way more rules than I'd have in a real challenge

Just wireframing

[raven anvil]

If you rub enough dust on one it loses its edition

[west jay]

and gains a new edition: schnasty

[brave vault]

I think the best challenge ideas are simple and elegant - so Omelette would literally just be start with 5 eggs, earn no interest, earn no reward from blinds

[rapid vector]

A challenge you have 50 hands to beat it with. (They don’t refresh between Blinds.)

[hoary notch]

just make a new seal that gives your card a sleeve easy

[raven anvil]

Well, does the final design have to pass the Progenitus test?
i.e. does the final design need to be able to display every single modifier and as many cards/jokers/vouchers as possible in a single challenge

[distant lichen]

Just my two cents: for a game that is this transparent about its mechanics I think it's a good idea to let the player know what's going on and have the challenge be not in figuring out the circumstances but in determining how best to overcome them

[raven anvil]

assuming it never gets that far

[rapid vector]

What test is that

[west jay]

you could blacklist the other eco jokers too, make it pure egg reliance

[raven anvil]

Wait, user challenges, nevermind

[rapid vector]

And why can’t I target it

[raven anvil]

they'll do it anyway

[brave vault]

Could yeah, for sure

[rapid vector]

And Gold cards? And Gold Tarots? And Spectral?

[distant lichen]

The progenitus test is "does this card get picked if you don't have Natural Order already"

[rapid vector]

I don’t see how that’s relevant to Balatro

[brave vault]

Something like the omelette I'd probably not blacklist anything at all, force the player to consider their economy in a different way

[raven anvil]

(The Progenitus test is "can this card frame display WWUUBBRRGG as a cost? If it can't, it's unusable"
Since it's the longest mana cost in the game and some MtG frames can't actually display it, meaning their designs are wack)

[brave vault]

I understand what you are saying, and yes

That is the goal

Make it robust

[rapid vector]

I mean you could question why display each mana symbol individually

That is harder to read

[raven anvil]

Valid, but that's just WotC for you
Back on track

[rapid vector]

If you see a card with GGGGGGGGGG how many Greens is that

[brave vault]

I try and push the max number of [thing] someone might reasonably get in a game

and make sure it still works

So yeah lots of testing with the Challenge view

[raven anvil]

Having an Eternal Ceremonial Dagger would be a funny challenge

[brave vault]

GLUK mentioned that one

And have it locked to the left position

[rapid vector]

Make a Challenge named “The Challenge That Broke the Challenge View”

[raven anvil]

At least one user will do that when users can make their own challenges

[rapid vector]

Just add every rule lol

[raven anvil]

BTD6 had it happen
it is inevitable

[brave vault]

Oops! All Challenge

[fair cedar]

lmao that sounds more like normal runs got turned into challenge runs

[eternal sapphire]

Would challenges be set seed or not?

[fair cedar]

not set seed

[rapid vector]

As I said I would like to see a challenge with every card

[eternal sapphire]

ok

[rapid vector]

It depends

[brave vault]

Dailies, yes, everything else, no

[raven anvil]

What about this as a challenge?
Nothing has changed at all, but you start at Ante 2

Rougher scaling through the entire game
Good luck

[eternal sapphire]

Ok thanks

[brave vault]

Dailies being set seed is like... 100% the correct thing to do right?

[west jay]

for sure

[raven anvil]

If you're doing leaderboards, yes

[rapid vector]

It depends if you want people to compete or not

I wouldn’t care

But competitive people would want it

[eternal sapphire]

Yeah I think so - you’d need it for leaderboards and competitiveness

[brave vault]

There's no drawback right?

Aside from potential cheating

[raven anvil]

Don't think so unless you can attempt the run more than once

[hoary notch]

I think dailies should be set seed IDK any game that doesn't have set seed for dailies

[raven anvil]

in which case it becomes the ultimate optimization puzzle

which could be unfun for a daily run

[brave vault]

My thinking is that most dailies will JUST be set seed, and every now and then there will also be some challenge rules wrapped around the seeded daily

[rapid vector]

Some people might prefer seedless

[brave vault]

Because not everyone wants to do challenge runs

[eternal sapphire]

The only problem is copying and leaderboard scumming, as if someone releases the top strategy then you might suddenly get hundreds of people with a massive score which is the same

[brave vault]

If you can only play one time, isn't it effectively seedless for that player?

Unless they intentionally go out of their way to cheese

[rapid vector]

I think people would just look it up online

[fair cedar]

the problem is the intentional cheesing, but thats it

[raven anvil]

They could technically get spoiled by discussions

[west jay]

for the average player and leaderboards i think seeded is the way to go

[raven anvil]

and/or discuss the best strategy, like others have pointed out

[brave vault]

Right but in terms of pros/cons, I think that's definitely worth it

[fair cedar]

histogram leaderboards squash most of the issues with intentional cheesing anyway though

[rapid vector]

I don’t see how limiting it to one play only would be fun

[raven anvil]

but it's better than going unseeded

Well, since Daily Runs would only occasionally have challenge rules

[fair cedar]

Only one "score uploaded to leaderboard" play, I imagine

[rapid vector]

Like screw bad players for trying to play a daily lol

[raven anvil]

replaying unseeded, unchallenged Dailies would just be regular runs

[rapid vector]

I don’t see how that would make sense with respect to what I replied to

[brave vault]

The purpose of a daily is competition

[fair cedar]

I mean only getting to upload your score on the first daily attempt is how dailies work basically across the board

[brave vault]

It is multiplayer after all

Yeah It wouldn't be fair otherwise, grinding the same daily until you get a good score is more a test of paitence

[rapid vector]

But I think limiting it to only one run is just gonna have people look it up

Or have a second account to see what it’s about

[brave vault]

It might yes, but with a histogram leaderboard that is fine

[hoary notch]

just to be clear though the game would still be able to run offline but your unable to acess the dailies right?

[rapid vector]

I think that’s fine

[brave vault]

No glory to gain

[rapid vector]

People do that IRL

[raven anvil]

I am going to spend XX$ on a second copy of Balatro to gain an edge on the Daily Run

[rapid vector]

Weeks of training to become artists or athletes

[brave vault]

Yeah

[rapid vector]

Why can’t they run the daily more than once

[west jay]

i think 1 attempt on dailies is fine personally

[raven anvil]

I think for some games, that's fine

[rapid vector]

What do you mean by “histogram leaderboard”?

[raven anvil]

(repeated Daily runs)

[rapid vector]

It’s a good game

[west jay]

this type

[raven anvil]

but not for Balatro just due to the nature of it

[rapid vector]

Oh wait I get it, it’s not showing individual players

Well but if it doesn’t show individual players then why care if they try more than once

[fair cedar]

If you play a seeded run more than once you have additional information that people playing once didnt

[eternal sapphire]

This with a line to show your position within that would be good, and then a top x percent as well

[rapid vector]

So what

If they want they can play again

No one is winning real life money over it

It’s a game for fun

[west jay]

there's a new one every day though

[rapid vector]

I’m not gonna complain someone who went to art school is a better artist than me

[eternal sapphire]

If they want to play again then it should not be added to leaderboards

[raven anvil]

Well, question right back
What's stopping you from saving the seed and playing it normally

[rapid vector]

The challenge rules that can get mixed into them

[raven anvil]

(assuming it doesn't have extra rules)

In which case, assuming you can make user challenges at the same time this is added

[brave vault]

Most dailies will be normal seeded runs

• Replaying a normal seeded run is not the intended competition I want to have with Balatro, although a subset of the community enjoys that, the majority dont
• Replaying an unseeded daily (if I were to do that) is the same as just playing a random unrelated run, where luck of that seed plays a much larger role than the skill of the player for how well they do

[fair cedar]

Im fine with being able to play dailies infinitely (including past dailies!) but only your first run of the current daily would get uploaded to the leaderboard

[raven anvil]

Yeah, that seems the best compromise

[rapid vector]

And again you can just look it up

[brave vault]

That is fine, it harms nobody elses fun

[fair cedar]

There are many more ways to cheat than looking it up, which is why you use a histogram leaderboard

[rapid vector]

But if you don’t care about looking it up why care about trying again?

I don’t get that part

[brave vault]

Me personally - I would want to test my skill and see how I stack up fairly. If I looked it up that wouldn't really be me testing my skill

And therefore that makes it less interesting to me

And I'm making Balatro for me after all

[rapid vector]

But I’m asking in terms of enforcing it to the players

[raven anvil]

All I want to see is if I can "win" the daily run

[rapid vector]

Okay fair

[brave vault]

I wouldn't

[fair cedar]

The intent of the challenge is to see how you stack up against everyone else playing on a normal blind run, it just happens that it's seeded in order to have everyone play the same run. Allowing you to rerun infinitely entirely changes the intent

[raven anvil]

if I can beat it, that's all I want
By the way, what would you be scored on

[vale pumice]

You could have separate leaderboards for first attempt and all attempts, so if people want to spend time optimizing a seed they have a leaderboard for that

[brave vault]

Just disincentivizing it by having histograms

[rapid vector]

So they could try again and submit a different run?

[raven anvil]

Would it be different for each run or is it always "Highest Scoring Hand"

[brave vault]

No

[lean lynx]

several stats

[raven anvil]

Neat

[west jay]

several stats is definitely more fun

[rapid vector]

But isn’t that forcing them to only play it once (and thus try to look it up before etc.)

[west jay]

i like Opus Magnum's leaderboards a lot

[hoary notch]

well if someone wants to look it up they can do that on their own accord but if really it's just a way to test your own consistency and abilities to beat the challenges

[brave vault]

That forces them to play it once for score, and if they want to look it up ahead of time that is on them

[west jay]

they use histograms for 3 different ways to optimize

[rapid vector]

Although I’m not a competitive player, I would only try a daily for fun, which unless it’s like a challenge I would have no reason to

[brave vault]

That wouldn't make me want to

[rapid vector]

So I guess consider the opinion of competitive players above mine

I just don’t understand the mindset

[fair cedar]

Its a different style of play that not everyone engages in but many enjoy

[raven anvil]

It's putting everyone on an even playing field and seeing how people play the cards they're dealt
That's what I think is the fun of it

[fair cedar]

Same way some people enjoy seeded runs more than unseeded, whereas I basically only enjoy unseeded runs

[raven anvil]

but instead of just a few folks, it's almost everyone in the community

[lean lynx]

i think there was an idea thrown out there a while ago about de-seeding your card draws for blinds / packs? that would at least force people to play the hands they're given, even if they get the same shop/consumables on offer

that would also mean that if they watch someone else take a risky strat that works and try it themselves, it may fail

[brave vault]

There are a lot of Balatro player types that I don't understand personally but I need to respect and not judge because they may make up a large portion of the community. If it turns out people hate the competition then I can reevaluate

[rapid vector]

I mean I think the game already has a non competitive option

[brave vault]

But my gut says people will like having a 1 time limit on the daily seeded run

[west jay]

that wont do much past the first ante, playing and discarding slightly different cards will completely change the cards you get after the next shuffle

[lean lynx]

huh?

[brave vault]

While they are seeded, you'd have to play ~~almost ~~identical to someone else in order for that to stay the same for an entire run

[west jay]

it changes the index of the cards in your hand and discard pile, so just shifting over one will change everything

[lean lynx]

well yeah, why wouldn't they do that if they're already trying to cheat to get ahead

[rapid vector]

“cheat”

[brave vault]

Because they'll just tie

[lunar trench]

we already have the nacho tongs

[lean lynx]

they can choose a point to change off the path and optimize

[lunar trench]

wonder what that voucher is a reference to

[brave vault]

Since this would be the only multiplayer mode in Balatro, yeah I think that is considered cheating

[lean lynx]

people do this to maximize seeded runs already, carve a path to copy over and over and change small things until they get their desired result

[brave vault]

Not that I need to have anti-cheat or anything

[vale pumice]

as someone who’s routed seeds for speedruns, this is definitely true

[brave vault]

That is what the Histogram mainly accomplishes

[brave vault]

Honest question: if you only have one shot to do that do you think it would still be an issue?

[vale pumice]

That would mitigate it, because of the risk/reward from deviating from the path

[lean lynx]

the kind of people who are trying to cheat to get a better score would absolutely do this

even if it's just one try, they can still make one small change to get ahead

[rapid vector]

I think the kind of competition I’d like to try if I were to try one is trying to optimize a run knowing everything that will happen in it, rather than going in blind

[lunar trench]

save editors exist for the game, people can cheat if they want, sadly that's how games go

[fair cedar]

The number of people who are willing to go out of their way and cheat on the daily is slim enough that it won't move the histograms significantly, that's my thinking

[vale pumice]

also if you know the seed, you can do non-challenge runs with it to really optimize it then do a run for the leaderboard

[lean lynx]

save editors are much less accessible than a youtube video

[rapid vector]

So it’s not cheating but rather it’s the goal

[raven anvil]

The thing is, that's pretty fundamentally different from how Balatro is "meant" to be played
Like a roguelike where you think on your feet

[brave vault]

The other long term option is that I would track player inputs in engine, send that to a server and simulate the run to get the true score. If I want an actual list and not a histogram

[rapid vector]

But seeded runs exist

[raven anvil]

(Unless thunk has that as their master plan this entire time, in which case, I take it back)

[lean lynx]

this would be cool, just not as a daily

[rapid vector]

Like I don’t usually play seeded

[raven anvil]

They do
They also disable unlocks and aren't on by default

[gilded charm]

same here

[raven anvil]

but they do exist

[lunar trench]

cool idea ngl

[rapid vector]

But I think if I were to compete I’d prefer that

[brave vault]

That's 'unhackable' but still has issues with prior knowledge

[rapid vector]

It’s funny because I said the exact same thing to someone else here lol

[rapid vector]

I mean, I’m sure some players would like it more, maybe not the majority

[lunar trench]

yeah, way around that is not have them be one attempt

[rapid vector]

Because the culture with roguelikes is different

[lunar trench]

especially fun ones

I would be sad if they were one attempt and I enjoyed it

[brave vault]

If I could only pick 1 to launch with - I think I'd rather do the 1 time daily

But the seeded optimization thing sounds cool

[rapid vector]

Flash the player with the MIB flashlight

[raven anvil]

I'd get tired on Daily runs after optimizing a different run every day of the week

[lean lynx]

providing this as an option, maybe a "monthly" run where players optimize a seed over several runs, would perhaps help disincetivize looking up prior knowledge in daily mode

and still be cool in its own right

[raven anvil]

That sounds better

[rapid vector]

I think there’s an issue with Balatro for that because you can’t save during the game which makes restarting slower

[west jay]

thats a cool idea honestly

monthly or twice monthly maybe

[rapid vector]

For example, compare Kaizo Mario with new difficult platformers

[raven anvil]

You not only have the means, but the time to optimize

[rapid vector]

New difficult platformers have an instantaneous restart

[raven anvil]

it wouldn't completely drain you after a week

[vale pumice]

you can hold R to restart on the same seed (when seeded is selected)

[rapid vector]

Kaizo Mario uses the existing Mario death animation

[rapid vector]

Yeah but you don’t always want to restart from the beginning

That makes collecting information to optimize more tedious

[west jay]

savestates would definitely make optimizing a seed nicer lol

[vale pumice]

I know when I was routing I would copy and paste save files, but that’s also not user-friendly

[hoary notch]

I think you can definitely get a crazy optimized seed if you made it a discord event with some sort of incentive lol

[brave vault]

What you are describing honestly sounds like a trackmania 'season'. Parsed to Balatro terms

• 3 months
• 25 set seeds
• global leaderboard for all of them
• You are ranked by how well you do over the entire season with all 25 seeds

[rapid vector]

Newer Kaizo Mario romhacks tend to implement instantaneous restart, or as fast as the hacked engine allows

Although to be fair they don’t usually allow saving during a level, some might save state to practice a particular section. Maybe not many, I think many players restart

[vale pumice]

if you plan on doing that then anticheat would be a must

[brave vault]

The server side validation is also what Trackmania does lol

It's a good method

Plus you only need to do it for people that submit a score in like the top 100

[rapid vector]

What’s the server side validation exactly?

[west jay]

really cool idea honestly, personally i think id like it more if it was shorter and had fewer seeds, but the concept slaps

[brave vault]

#1169334682597474304 message

[west jay]

i would have a lot of fun with a longform seeded competition for sure

[brave vault]

10 seeds, 1 month perhaps would be better

Otherwise yeah it would get old quickly

[vale pumice]

trackmania is deterministic so if you did all the same inputs a run should be valid when replayed

That does have some issues with, say, submitting a TAS

[brave vault]

Exactly yeah, but TAS in trackmania removes the human reaction limit, not an issue in Balatro

Almost fits better for Balatro

[vale pumice]

agreed

[rapid vector]

How is that different from doing it locally for the player?

Like what is it preventing

Or enabling

[brave vault]

Because you can just send whatever score you want to the server

[vale pumice]

Client-side cheats

[brave vault]

type in 9999999999999999999999999999999

[gilded charm]

yeah

[brave vault]

and get #1 on the leaderboard

[hoary notch]

yeah it's honestly pretty cool I think DOOM does this too IIRC? I haven't been in the speed running community in years though

[rapid vector]

Ahhh I see

[brave vault]

Trusting clients is a big no no in internet security 🙂

A big fat no no

[raven anvil]

Trusting clients in any sort of occupation or context is usually a bad idea

[rapid vector]

Yeah but I didn’t think it would only send the final result

I thought it would send stuff in the middle

Hence my confusion

[brave vault]

Like what?

[rapid vector]

User input

[brave vault]

Yeah that is what I am talking about

It would send both

And if your score is in the top 100

It would simulate with user inputs

[rapid vector]

But that’s how I thought it would’ve worked without the server side replication

I didn’t think hard about it

[fair cedar]

well how do you check that the user input and score match up without server side replication

[brave vault]

What is the purpose of tracking user inputs?

[rapid vector]

[west jay]

"hey yeah that one MILLION dollars is real and legitimate, you can trust me because im really niceys, no jail, thank you!"

[gilded charm]

so that whenever a replay is made the exact result is created

[brave vault]

Theoretically if you just submit the score, you don't even need the game to submit a world #1 score

[lean lynx]

that's exactly what was proposed

[brave vault]

Just a way to call an endpoint

[fair cedar]

yeah ik

[rapid vector]

Although can you guarantee the client and server have the same run

[brave vault]

For a daily - yes

[lean lynx]

then why ask about how to do it without?

[rapid vector]

I know there are obscure determinism issues

[gilded charm]

as long as every input is tracked and is the same

[vale pumice]

Theoretically every seed should be determinstic

[brave vault]

If it's a set seed, there wouldn't be any non-deterministic part of the simulation

[rapid vector]

I’m thinking like the OS doing something different

[brave vault]

No even between OS

[rapid vector]

In other contexts it could be rounding or parallelization

[brave vault]

Anything that runs the standardized version of Lua that goes with Love2D will work the same

And there aren't race conditions for the engine

[vale pumice]

If you are saving inputs for top replays it would be cool if you could retrieve them for your best run, and then after leaderboards close for all of the top runs

[brave vault]

For sure - not on the list right now though. But I agree

[hoary notch]

Hmm I don't really know any games that has different seeds based on OS

[rapid vector]

For example, while in uni there was a coding exercise with floating point numbers where some people got the right result in their personal computers but wrong one in the professor’s computer

Because Windows and Linux round numbers differently

[gilded charm]

just thought of this challenge run idea:

Demo

allowed jokers: (list all 45 jokers in demo)

etc for other categories… (tarots, planets, spectral…)

[raven anvil]

Trying to carry the Demo set through a full run could be fun

[gilded charm]

set blinds (demo blinds)

yeah

[raven anvil]

Reading Into It

Challenge

Jokers: Jokers are banned. (None appear in shops.)
Tarot: Judgement is banned.
Spectral: Wraith is banned.
Start with 8 Ball, Superposition and Cartomancer.

[gilded charm]

instead of jokers are banned it would be better if it was rephrased as jokers do no appear in shops or something

[raven anvil]

But then you could use Judgement

I guess you could also ban Judgement

[gilded charm]

yeah as judgement would be useless in this case

[raven anvil]

Cooler
Challenge

No game rules changes.
"Burning hands" cause you to lose the game.
(A "burning hand" is a hand that would singlehandedly overscore the Blind's requirement.)

[gilded charm]

that sounds really evil

but it sounds fun

[rapid vector]

Colorblind
No Flushes.

Highlander
Hands can’t contain Pairs.

[sinful sedge]

couldnt you just play high card then play overpowered hand

[raven anvil]

It would still be a burning hand

Don't believe me? Try it yourself

play a High Card against the Small Blind

then a good enough Flush/Straight/Full House in Ante 1

it'll have the burning effect regardless

[sinful sedge]

tbh i havent looked into that machanic

[lean lynx]

yeah any hand that has enough to one shot the blind will have fire effect

[raven anvil]

technically it's specifically overshoot the blind

if you have just enough, it won't have the burning effect

[lean lynx]

with one exception - if the hand gets the exact amount, there are no flames (or perhaps, just not visible ones? iirc it uses a log function on the ratio of your hand to the blind requirement, so if the ratio is 1 the log is 0, so 0-height flames)

[sinful sedge]

ooo thats an idea

I have been having trouble getting flush house only to work