#Hopes for the 1.1 Update / Criticisms of the Current Game

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daring storm
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"Early antes are too unforgiving. "

A. People play poorly. They intentionally deprive themselves of opportunities to keep a run alive. They skip jokers that 'do anything', they have 15$ but don't reroll despite the next fight being a barely-win, etc.
Also, Income is deceptive, especially to new players. Income in this game is an important thing, but if you are not beating the next fight in 1-2 hands, then the money you lose from plays often makes up for any income you would recieve. If you are down in power, you should never go into the next fight saving gold, unless you have a scaling joker and are intentionally farming the scaling.

B. You can, especially on higher stakes, see jokers that ARE good, but you can't afford. This is for many reasons, but a big one is the stake that removes small bling money, which is the very first ante effect, and a very low starting money total.

C. Gold stake makes making consistent hands extremely hard. For instance, the 600 chip boss fight of ante 1, is considerably more rng with -1 handsize and -1 discard. Even very skilled players can only win about half of the time, without a scoring joker, which after only 2 shops, and very little economy/high reroll costs, is a very likely situation.

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  1. The stakes do not add to the gameplay and are too reset oriented.

Gold stake says, you will get the hand you want to play less consistently. This does not make the game any different, except increase the odds you die on a run. There is very little counterplay, and the options that do exist, get exponentially harder to find because of the scaling pack costs.
Orange stake takes away the money printer that is tarot packs.
Red stake takes away a discard.
None of these effects make the game any more difficult, they simply increase the odds you get unlucky.

Increased scaling stakes, do add more difficulty to the game, although they do not enhance the game. These stakes are good, because they tell you that you must get better to be able to score higher quicker, but do not take away tools from your kitbox, however there is one big flaw with these. Static multi jokers can't keep up, and certain hand types fall out of favor completely. If you are very good at the game, and complete gold stake, it's most likely going to be with high card. Why is the easiest type of hand to play, and make, the strongest for the hardest difficulty? Well it's because the increased score scaling means that a flush build, which can only go as high as it can go, will simply succeed or lose based on whatever that pre-determined number is.

Black stake is an example of a perfect stake effect, sadly the only one that exists, which adds a restriction which can be a benefit, but is usually a cost that changes the way you engage with the game, rather than taking away from what the game is.

Is this mediumly powerful joker worth it, if i know i'm stuck with it forever? That's a great dynamic change and a question you will have to ask yourself regularly, and when it ocassionally the works in your favor, with jokers like Madness, or effects like Ankh, you feel a satisfaction, and adds a meaningful differentiation between black stake, and white stake.

graceful edge
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I agree that too many stakes just take away options. Hopefully whatever is in the next update makes it more interesting

daring storm
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  1. Straights suck. That's it. That's the complaint, straights suck.

I personally find straights miserable to play around, but they are one of the two or 3 most intuitive hands to play when first starting. It is a shame that they aren't more powerful.

Solution 1.
Make rerolls cost less.

Rerolls are abhorently expensive. They should start at 4 $, and the reroll voucher should then make the first reroll cost 0$ after both have been purchased. There is only one reroll effect in the game, and this change would not make it busted.

Solution 2.
Give the player more starting money, or reduce the initial price of rare cards.
Rare cards are currently too expensive. On gold stake you can beat the first fight of ante 1, and be unable to afford, even with a perfect round, most of the rare jokers.
Reducing their intial price would have knock on effects for the balance of temperance, and other cards, so just starting people with 7 dollars so that a perfect fight (+3 dollars) on every deck will let them afford any joker (that don't happen to also have editions) (You would end with 11$ become of the 1$ income).

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Solution 3.
Change almost all of the stake effects .

Remove the stake effect that lowers your discard count. Remove the stake effect that decreases your handsize. Remove the stake effect that makes card costs scale. Remove the stake effect that decreases your money from small blinds.

Replace them with new effects, here are a few.

Increases the cost of all packs by 2$. That's right, remove orange and then add one that just doesn't scale! Tarot packs are actually over powered. They return more money than they cost, with any reasonable amount of setup. They should just be more expensive. So add it as a stake effect. But the infinite increases tarot packs, makes it so that from ante 4 on, you simply stop being able to afford engaging with them. That's not good design, and while you are fixing the problem of over powered packs, you're detracting from the game by essentially removing a system entirely. Lame!

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Add another type of card effect, that adds more mechanic-based limitations.

For instance, there is a joker effect similair to eternal, but requires you to play a 5 card hand for any of its effects to work. Or perhaps requires you to play your most popular hand type.

Another idea is time limits. Sure, you can buy that joker, but it will require you to finish the round within 1 minute. No dilly dallying!
Perhaps, the joker becomes disabled if you don't play a hand within 30 seconds. Many ways to make it work.

Another idea I have is a dormant effect. Similair to invisible joker, you must complete 3 rounds to un-dormant it. Or perhaps you would need to play a specific hand type, to undormant it. Something interesting like that.

Another idea is that all jokers can have a new tag that makes them expire, simialir to stelzer. You only get to play 10 hands, and once you do it disapears.

Some of these ideas sound kinda annoying. Perhaps some of thse effects, like dormant or the seltzer effect should make the initial purchase cheaper/the card cheaper in general instead of more expensive, which is the fact with polychrome! But the stakes should be adding difficulty, it just should be diffulcuty that adds to gameplay-decisions. Things you can play around. occasionally a benefit, but you can only add so much of a benefit before the stakes are just easier the higher you go.

  1. Either adjust the effects of the scaling jokers so that all hand types can reasonably engage with their effects, or add 2 common jokers who scale off of straights, and flushes, the two hand types who suffer the most from having no scaling support once you get to purple chip scaling. +2 per time you play a straight/flush, should do the trick.
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  1. Whilst adding a common scaler for straights would do a whole ton to help it, unlike flushes, it is barely playable even on the easiest ante. Straights just need more support in general. The problem, with adding more support to straights, is that every other type of hand type will suffer when seeing these jokers in the shop. That Is why I propose instead of adding new cards, take some of the worst cards in the game, and transform them into straight support cards.
    Here is a few ideas for straight support cards:

7 ate 9: If played hand has a scoring 9, 8, and 7 in it, +.1x multi (starts at 1.0)

Dealing Under The Table: If you play a straight with a 9 in it, then that 9 will be kept in hand after scoring. Basically return to hand after scoring. Could not require a straight, but then needs to be capped to 1 9?

Royal Airlines: If you play a straight with a K Q and J in it, +30 multi.

Eenie Meenie Minnie Moe: Straights can round the bend (A K 2 3 4, is a legal straight)

graceful edge
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If the high stake gameplay was having to juggle all these mechanics like dormant, eternal, whatever the clock one from the leak is, that would be pretty fun and really test your ability to keep track of everything

native ermine
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I'm not sure the stake effects need to be quite that complicated. The eternal jokers are good because there a risk-reward analysis you gotta do when you take one, but the basic concept isn't hard to wrap your head around

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I would keep stake changes simpler; for example boss blinds have 2 abilities

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packs costing more was a good suggestion as well i think

daring storm
graceful edge
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I think buffing the "enemy" is generally more fun than nerfing the player

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A lot of roguelikes have this problem with difficulty settings

native ermine
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what about adding in a 'medium' blind?

graceful edge
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Spire, Hades, and this

native ermine
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an extra blind would have a similar affect to eternal cards... on one hand its bad cause you need to beat more rounds, but on the other it offers the potential for you to scale you build

graceful edge
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Dead cells does difficulty modes fantastically because you get more options, not less

native ermine
graceful edge
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Actually you're right

native ermine
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two end bosses, more elites, etc.

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I know local thunk tried to avoid taking influence from some of these other games while developing balatro, but now that its out I think he could maybe look to some of these for inspiration

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and i think slay the spire is a great place to start

graceful edge
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Guess we'll wait and see what he actually does with the stakes in the update

native ermine
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the 'two end bosses' in STS is what made me think of giving the boss blinds two abilities

graceful edge
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Brotato does difficulty well too. I understand these are different genres but still

daring storm
native ermine
daring storm
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plausable rebalance, then yes. Poker doesnt have medium i think so it probably is off the table but I don't mind the idea personally

native ermine
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cause if they'd didn't then you could even skip every medium blind and now you are just playing normal balatro but with one extra skip reward every ante

native ermine
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and it could be a blind between big and boss

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something like that

graceful edge
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Gold stake going to ante 9 would be cruel

native ermine
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although, I haven't seen a effect or joker based around going 'all in'

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ill bet thats a cool thing to be done there

graceful edge
native ermine
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like an option to forfeit all hands but one for some sort of bonus

graceful edge
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Ante 9 violet vessel

native ermine
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which would be cool too because a lot of builds rely on playing only one hand anywyas, so it could help break you scores in endless

daring storm
graceful edge
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At that point it might be too luck based to get enough scaling

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In other words, the same as it is now (if you roll violet vessel)

native ermine
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I agree, going an extra ante feels like a cool stake

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But idk about two

graceful edge
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Idk how I feel about red stake effect. It does nerf the player but it's mostly to keep you from going out of control with $2 interest off the bat

daring storm
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Yah, perhaps. For gold stake 9 sounds slightly underwhelming, but i'm also 10 sounds extreme. In terms of balance at purple scaling it is actually probably pretty large, though.

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Perhaps it should just be +1 ante but introduced earlier

graceful edge
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Would the final boss one be moved to ante 9

daring storm
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That would make the most sense i think yes

graceful edge
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Or my idea of 2 final bosses

daring storm
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but that idea is good too

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(which would be an omage to slayer the spire, if i rememeber right?)

graceful edge
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Kind of

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It's hard to make it a similar difficulty to the current one

native ermine
graceful edge
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Even if it goes to ante 9 wirh 2 final bosses, a good player might still be able to beat it easily

native ermine
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Like minus hands and discards can run your entire run based solely on bad rng

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Which feels shitty

graceful edge
daring storm
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The problems are all interelated. If rare jokers weren't so expensive, I wouldnt have a problem with the small blinds not giving money

native ermine
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But just getting slightly less gold at the start of each ante ain't that big a deal

daring storm
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I like that small blinds incentivize tags

native ermine
graceful edge
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And then it just becomes luck based again because you need scaling for ante 9 purple

native ermine
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I suppose nerfs are mostly ok so long as there's a good counter to them

daring storm
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but the issue is it harms the start of the game too hard I think, because you can't afford rare jokers and forces a skip / rng roll on the first shop

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Something about it needs to be fixed, but boiling down what the right solution is hard

graceful edge
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Thunk implied that that will be changed somehow

native ermine
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The reset thing doesn't bother me quite as much

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A lot of roguelikes are like that

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And it's such a quick reset too

graceful edge
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Winning small blind in 1 hand is annoying sometimes

daring storm
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I think its a big problem with higher stakes. Resetting immidiately isn't the worst thing ever but many runs die at the first boss of ante 1, all the problems are interrelated though

native ermine
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Like you hit start run and immediately know whether you wanna reset or continue

native ermine
graceful edge
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I'll let thunk cook first ig

daring storm
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I think he'll do a good job, but yes i'm just offering my 2cents about what the issues are and trying to give specifics to think about, and possible solutions.

native ermine
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Ohhh what about a stake that unlock new skip rewards?

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But with a twist

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Like risk reward style ones

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Like boss relics in STS

daring storm
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You mean the tag has both its normal benefit, but also a negative attached to it?

graceful edge
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I don't like that because skipping a shop is already the risk for all of them

native ermine
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And maybe not every tag either, but there's a chance a tag can spawn like that

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Same as eternal jokers

viral gull
# daring storm Solution 3. Change almost all of the stake effects . Remove the stake effect t...

Tarot packs are actually over powered. They return more money than they cost, with any reasonable amount of setup. They should just be more expensive.

tbh i think this is throwing away the baby with the bathwater when so many tarot packs are typically duds (which feels bad from a gameplay perspective). the more elegant solution would be to tune the effects of the tarot cards. surely there are more elegant ways to word an effect than "get a bunch of money 99% of the time, but oh we have to cap it at a certain amount"

native ermine
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Controversial idea here; should money making tarots even appear in the shop?

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Makes perfect sense for them to show up in packs, but I always thought paying $3 for $20 was a bit weird

daring storm
# viral gull > Tarot packs are actually over powered. They return more money than they cost, ...

Yes, you could do that as well, but that would signifigantly impact white chip, and my goal with all of these changes is to minimally impact white chip. Only make white chip slightly more consistent with cheaper rare jokers/ straight support/ higher starting capital.

I think white chip is in a pretty good spot, and player skill is 99% of why people lose runs on white chip. A slight bump up is fine but it should preferably not be signifigantly negatively impacted.

Unless the idea is a stake effect that removes temperance, immolition, etc.

viral gull
unborn shuttle
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I don't think the tarot packs need to be changed personally. I think most casual/less hardcore players aren't going nuts on rolling till they get infinite money. To me, it seems like saying "D6 in BoI should be nerfed because streamers are willing to reroll for hours to break the game". Like, it's possible, but most people don't care to spend their time like that.

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Either way, I am excited/interested to see what changes Localthunk comes up with in the new patch, even though I've beaten a few higher level stakes anyway. My first impression of the higher stakes was "win by playing less of the game". I think it will be good for the growth of the game too.