Yorick Rework!

[marsh hare]

Yorick's design is not engaging, once you used yorick you've used him in every way you can, because Yorick has to take the mantle of a 'Legendary' Joker it holds a game winning effect, the issue is the effect itself. +1×/23 cards discarded fits into every play style except in runs except those where you just can't discard, which is insanely rare as there is only 2 ways to have 0 discards and one of them is only in effect for 1 blind. These are the goals in mind:
A.) Reserves Yorick's strength by leaving it's effect game winning.
B.) Forces the player to change how they play to get the reward similarly to all other ×mult jokers
C.) Is some-how related to Yorick irl

My solution, Rework Yorick so he gains ×1 for each full house played in a row, this would still require discards but in a way that is engaging, adding risk/reward to yorick and opening up to a lot of yorick-enabled plays while also giving attention to usually insanely unoptimal plays. For example, if you have a big reworked yorick, it gives a lot of merit to skipping blinds as playing less blinds would reduce the chances you dont land a full house, giving yorick a different play style then not just the other legendary jokers, but to every other ×mult joker. Full houses fit yorick's theme as it's a pair (2) and 3oak (3) smashed together, (23) retraining the lore thats given to him in game.

[queen iron]

That unfortunately nerfs it into oblivion

its so much weaker the obelisk

that being said obelisk is very good, but it feels like yorick should be stronger

now if it was straight perhaps...

[velvet scaffold]

im fine with current yorick being simple honestly

[fallen ermine]

Maybe make him scale permanently with each fullhouse, but like double the scaling for each full house in a row

[velvet scaffold]

also aside from perkeo and maybe canio the legendaries are very simple. chicot just disables boss blinds and trib is always gonna either be 10 dollars or fishing for retriggers

canios on the edge because the way you play it unless you have exactly pareidolia doesnt change too much either

you hunt to get rid of faces

im ehh on this idea i guess

[dusky oracle]

this idea is interesting because it finally gives full house a purpose

[hollow trout]

i like the idea though only one hand being useful sounds a bit weird for this sort of effect seems a bit weird

[marsh hare]

Straights get over loved, + full houses are a much easier hand to fix for

Even tho theres currently NEVER a use for full hands

[queen iron]

full house is so bad its actually crazy

[marsh hare]

That's why they need a buff

This would buff full houses by a lot lmao

[queen iron]

well not really

[marsh hare]

Potentially +4×/blind

No other joker scales that in a whole ante

[queen iron]

because legendary jokers are so rare they don't really effect strat gecisions

[marsh hare]

Playing full houses over and over again is simple, ._.

[queen iron]

i think i prefer 1x per full house with no reset

that way it isn't kinda bad if you haven't deckfixed

[marsh hare]

4×/blind with no reset, ._.

[ruby cliff]

that wouldn't solve it being an instant win

[queen iron]

its a legendary thats the point

[marsh hare]

That would make yorick way stronger lmao

[queen iron]

yorick currently is an instawin

[ruby cliff]

is any other legendary an instawin

[marsh hare]

That's bad design, no other legendary joker is a free win

[queen iron]

i don't agree that its bad design

[marsh hare]

That isnt the point at all

[ruby cliff]

it's uninteresting

[queen iron]

I mean you could balance the no-reset version at +0.5x

[marsh hare]

Yoricks main issue is that its too strong and it's "game play change" doesn't change game play

[marsh hare]

That's still 2×/blind potentially

[queen iron]

worse the obelisk and you have to play full houses

[marsh hare]

Yorick wins by being a free 1.2×/ante

Like +1.2/ante guarantees you pass VV gold stake

[marsh hare]

Obelisk is 0.2

[queen iron]

yeah for any hand

[marsh hare]

Not 0.5

[queen iron]

so it scales .8 per round

[marsh hare]

Explain the math rn

[pliant walrus]

i think legendaries should be generally applicable, seeing as you have no choice in what you get

[queen iron]

4 hands * 0.2 = 0.8

[marsh hare]

You have no choice in what you get in any rarity of joker.

[pliant walrus]

Yes you do. You will see many different Jokers and can pick the one you want

[queen iron]

legendaries should be generally applicable because getting a legendary joker, realizing its useless to you, then selling it is not an especially good gameplay experience

super busted legendaries are fun

[pliant walrus]

For legendaries since you almost certainly just get one, if at all

[marsh hare]

Obelisk is one of the strongest win cons in the game, giving a joker more than 200% scaling of 0.8 with jo downsides would is way stronger than that

[queen iron]

you cant play 4 full houses thats my point

you can play 1

[pliant walrus]

I would also argue this doesn't buff Full House very much, as you don't take legendaries into consideration when strategizing due to how rare they are

[marsh hare]

All you need is 3 strength tarots to reliably hit a full house twice per blind

[queen iron]

I wonder what it would take to make full house good

[marsh hare]

That's so easy to do

[queen iron]

not really, its easy to do on already winning runs

[marsh hare]

If you can't build towards full houses thats a skill issue

[pliant walrus]

Anyway I just think it's bad game design to find a legendary joker and it's something you literally can't use without throwing away your run

[marsh hare]

Lmao what?

Its the players fault if they lose

Not a joker drop

[queen iron]

the point of a game is to be fun

[marsh hare]

How is the player being at fault for losing not fun?

That's the definition of losing fairly

Don't make decisions that make you lose, thats your responsibility, you can't blame a joker for it thats entirely dumb

[queen iron]

it isn't, but getting a legendary joker that you can't make use of is unfun. so getting a legendary joker that only works if you can reliably play full house when you have done no deck fixing isn't fun

[pliant walrus]

"new legendary gives x0.25 mult for each 7 in your full deck. it's good game design because 7s aren't strong. if you can't pivot to 7s it's your fault and you deserve the loss"

[queen iron]

85% of balatro players never beat gold stake

[marsh hare]

"Risk and reward is too hard"

[queen iron]

most people play a silly card game with big numbers, and they are happy when they get a yorick and it makes their numbers bigger

[pliant walrus]

The point of Legendaries are that they're rare and allow you to have fun breaking the game a little

[marsh hare]

Okay, now make that process actually fun and strategic to do, you got yourself the basis of a fun joker design

[pliant walrus]

A Legendary that does nothing is just disappointing, no matter how "strategically balanced" it is

[marsh hare]

1×/hand is game winning idfk what the point of this comment is

[pliant walrus]

It's only gamewinning if you're already playing full house or are full house capable

By the time the legendary shows up you're likely committed

so it doesn't do anything, since you can't play to it

[marsh hare]

If only pivoting mid run was heavily encouraged in balatro already

You know

boss blinds

[pliant walrus]

boss blinds don't encourage pivots???

they encourage planning in advance

so you don't lock yourself into something that'll get countered by a boss

[queen iron]

the problem is, lets say I have lets say 15 hours in balatro and I get my first soul card. I don't even know what it does. I get this legendary joker and read it and I try to only play full houses, then I fail to draw one and die. That is not very fun for that player. Its different as a legendary vs a rare because if it was a rare, the player could see it in the shop, realize they don't like it, and just reroll, its not a fealsbad. But this thing that happens super rarely thats supposed to brake the game a bit, thats a bit of an issue

[marsh hare]

Yeah thats called pivoting, your changing something about your build to not be countered by a boss

[pliant walrus]

That's not a pivot

[marsh hare]

Brother

[pliant walrus]

A pivot is a radical change to your strategy beyond just "Oh I'll keep some clubs for blackboard in case of the goad, I am planning this in advance because it is how the game works"

[marsh hare]

Pivoting is quite literally an essential part of balatro's core gameplay loop as a rouge like, you have to be able to quickly respond to things thats a part of the genre. You can plan all you want but chances are you dont run into the thing you're planning for, planning for builds is what we call "forcing" which ensures you lose a majority of your runs.

[queen iron]

( i mean if we are being real forcing pairs is kind of the meta right now)

(though hopefully that changes)

[pliant walrus]

You understand the fundamental difference between switching 4oak to 5oak and switching straights to full houses right?

Only the second one I would call a pivot

And it is absolutely not encouraged by the game

[marsh hare]

Whats your highest winstreak may I ask?

Pivoting is an essential skill

[marsh hare]

True, streak grinding ruined me

[queen iron]

do you play much other then pair and high card going for streaks? I assume not

[pliant walrus]

Well, we've made it to Ad Hominem.
I have no reason to continue this argument as it is clear it is not in good faith. Goodbye.

[marsh hare]

I find with choosing your build based on the jokers you find early game is more effective but if you dont find anything pairs are a safe go to

[queen iron]

what joker could possibly make you play another build

except ancient joker ig

[marsh hare]

Tricky question as a lot of it is very game state based, but sense i opened up to "play with what you get" I tend to gravitate towards 3oak/4oak as the planet scaling is much better, but that also assumes I dont get an early supply of blue seals

[queen iron]

why do you care about planet scaling if you don't get blue seals?

[marsh hare]

Straights do happen bc that sweet sweet 30+chips

[marsh hare]

Blue seals are the reason pairs are broken,

If blue seals didnt work the way they do pairs would be way less viable

[queen iron]

pairs were also the best hand when blue seals were bad

pairs are the best hand because you can play 4 with no deck fixing

[marsh hare]

But that was when most hands were under-scaling

Straight scaling used to be atrocious compared to what it is today

[queen iron]

hmm idk i think pairs are the best hand even w/o blue seals

being able to play 4 hands is so strong

[marsh hare]

A lot of jokers that are really good early game just happen to align with pairs too, like green and super nova. If there was a different set of jokers and seals I dont think pairs would be so dominant like they were rn.

[queen iron]

yeah but i mean these are the jokers we got

[marsh hare]

Lmao I won with just square and green once.

Its a meme lemme find it its funny

[queen iron]

speaking of square do I take it? its got to be the stencil right

[lyric kiln]

i didnt read the suggestion but just know i dont like it

okay i read it a little

[marsh hare]

You know its furs like you that give us a bad rep

[lyric kiln]

i just got here 😔

wait was that slash j

[marsh hare]

Depends if you read my Ted talk

🥹

[marsh hare]

Stencil tyme

[lyric kiln]

if u mean the suggestion then ya

i was curious

the theming is a
stretch

but i see the bision