Link to my megadoc of original Balatro ideas

[white knot]

(I really really hope at least a few people see this)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/128pnFUlSOpvjxgfTJnrtEx60KGKnZBm59HkSaCSdgK8/edit?usp=drivesdk

This has been multiple months in the making, nowhere close to done probably. All original ideas by me. Consists of
Jokers, Enhancements, Seals, etc. pretty much any category you’d see in the image (it’s just the “collection” tab). I try my best to make their balance revolve around vanilla gameplay and not some broken cryptid mod shit

I’m always adding more so check back in once in a while if you feel like it. I’d try to put these all into a mod but I’m not smart or dedicated enough for that stuff :P (you’re welcome to reach out to me in DMs if you wanna steal my ideas or help me start work on a mod!)

Sincerely, The Cavendish™️

If someone says I used AI for this I’ll Kms

For food type jokers with spice elements like chili pepper I made sure that they had some sort of downside bc yknow how spicy stuff is irl, it’s usually enjoyable but it technically doesn’t feel good so it’s a tradeoff

I think I’m gonna log when I add a new idea to the doc

Not the entire description but the name and what type of thing it is

Added rework idea: rename “Joker” to “Jimbo” for sake of clarity

[violet sapphire]

that does not clarify anything, as there is no other joker in the game called "joker"

[violet sapphire]

the pain is why people consume it

:3

[white knot]

Yeah but there’s a joker called “joker” and it’s the same sprite as Jimbo so why not

[violet sapphire]

because its not jimbo

in the tutorial jimbo and joker are present on the screen at the same time

[white knot]

Eh whatever ig it’s just a suggestion

[violet sapphire]

and im just criticizing it

smhg

[white knot]

:(

[violet sapphire]

criticism isnt a bad thing

[white knot]

Yeah ik lol I’m kidding idrgaf

[violet sapphire]

:p

[white knot]

And I just came up with that on the spot like I do most of my ideas

Favorite ideas so far: Crucible, bloodstained deck, The Ice, Death Star, Hitman, Block Tower

Added: Deck peek (voucher), Card flip (voucher)

Edited: Eternity (spectral)

Btw I made some rough sprites for a few of these a while back but they’re on my computer and I’m on my phone rn so I’ll send them later

[cyan horizon]

That’s smth a masochist would say 😭

[violet sapphire]

👀

could never be me..

[pearl sparrow]

Here's my take if we're talking vanilla balance...

Can of beans sounds busted
Cardboard box too depending on wording
Golden banana, Bloodstained , elastic band, lighter (maybe Burning deck) is very RNG
The trees aren't worth it
What are the exacts of fridge (say like on turtle bean, or your can of beans)
I like the idea of boxes but they seem to offer too much at the start.
How does boost/supervoost work on antes 6/7 lol
Blindfolded seems niche unless more synergy is given
Paranoia by far my favorite one
Hitman is slightly better hit the road since jacks are less useful, but idk
Fire extinguisher makes no sense??
Ice is very limiting depending on your pool of items
Yellow voucher when? But honestly those im iffy on, they flood the pool of vouchers and the deck seems pretty difficult to play
Platinum stake might not be fun bc of that sentence
Roulette could be rare, most uncommons aren't that strong?
Yellow joker doesn't sound fun
Vampire's name is used so.. but still seems pretty detrimental
Dam's instant defeat is bad, maybe a different punishment
Most jokers would get countered by grey stake
And some jokers are directly against the unspoken vanilla rules but for creativity's sake I won't criticise that

Also just wanted to point out that the fact you listed unlock conditions for most is pretty cool

I deserve quality sleep

[white knot]

Oh you were actually typing that entire time I thought your thing was bugged 😭

[cyan horizon]

Respectfully, the blue stake rework is one of the worst ideas for a rework I’ve heard yet; gutting all vouchers just removes so much from the gameplay and fun aspects

[white knot]

Yeah I came up with that a while back that makes sense

[violet sapphire]

ugh i just came up with a better response to the masochist comment

oh wlel

[white knot]

I find that the more recent the idea is in the list the more vanilla it feels at least to me

[violet sapphire]

true what the flick

[cyan horizon]

Hit me

with it

[violet sapphire]

thats why i said it

[white knot]

I will take all of this into account, thank you so much for actually reading all that and giving feedback it means a lot

[violet sapphire]

truly the greatest feedback

[cyan horizon]

Okay so reading through, some of these are really cool; I’ll write up my full thoughts later but just one nitpick for now is that dawn as a concept kinda just doesn’t feel right; dusk works because you sacrifice money from hands to get a souped up hand. Dawn is just,,, yeah get stronger for free; idk maybe im like crazy

[white knot]

I was thinking more on bloodstained deck and it feels weird to have it as a deck that you need to beat (on gold stake…) presumably for full completion so idk how I’d work around that

[white knot]

Oh yeah that’s a good point about the money part but also ig technically if you run out of discards and can’t draw a good hand then it kinda wastes its proc so that’s a downside

[split lichen]

i didnt read all of it, but stickers should stay stackable, good ideas tho

[white knot]

Thx. Do you think eternal and perishable being on the same joker is too mean

[violet sapphire]

i didnt read any of it, bad ideas 0/10

/silly

[white knot]

Like it’d have to be a clutch ass joker in order for it to be worth it right

[split lichen]

eternal and perishable are already incompatible, and yes, i do think thats kinda harsh

[white knot]

Yeah alr makes sense

I realized that the unnamed deck that would let you stack seals and editions would be potentiall busted

Like possibly better than plasma highscore wise

That is if there’s no limit to the editions and seals

Maybe it should have one

[split lichen]

damn imagine a negative negative negative... negative joker for +10 joker slots

[white knot]

That’s a good point I wonder how negative would work if affected at all

I was more thinking red seals and polychrome

[split lichen]

i just imagine the pairslop baron mime infinite steel kings in hand

[white knot]

Yeah exactly

[split lichen]

naneinf with only one card in hand is insane

[violet sapphire]

the nefarious 87 stencils

[split lichen]

and then would the one red seal affect all the steels in the king

[white knot]

I also hope localthunk ends up improving the capability of the score calculator if anything too broken is ever accidentally added so what naneinf “was” (like e308 or smth I don’t remember) is still possible to achieve but you need to get an even higher score to break the calculator

Or like if it’s updated but there’s a legacy option for naneinf runs

[violet sapphire]

there isnt really much of a point to make this a feature as it would needlessly make the game performance worse to the benefit of 0.01% of runs

theres a mod for it anyway

its called talisman

[white knot]

Yeah I’ve seen people use it

[violet sapphire]

also you dont need to add more broken stuff to "break" the calculator

[white knot]

You think it would make the performance that much worse?

[violet sapphire]

im pretty sure people have scored like e15000 in the base game

could be wrong

[white knot]

Oh well that makes sense then yeah…

[violet sapphire]

it wouldnt be a big difference but like, very very few runs actually score that much, the average player probably doesnt even know what naneinf means

[split lichen]

well seeing as not everyone has the steam version of the game...
-# also amulet is a better version

[violet sapphire]

well its aside the point

[white knot]

Mhm

[violet sapphire]

the game does not need to be able to go above e308

[white knot]

If you couldn’t tell by now I like saying ideas I have before I think them through

[violet sapphire]

and honestly i feel like a lot of people wouldnt play deep endless if it werent for the hard cap being ante 39

there just becomes less of a point

you never accomplish anything

[split lichen]

naneinf should totally be increased to e309 cuz why not

[white knot]

But that’s the point of endless no?

[split lichen]

well its like to see how far you go endless, afterall

[violet sapphire]

at least currently ante 39 feels like a "true end" to balatro endless

[white knot]

It’s not easy to get to ante 39 anyway so what would the difference really be

Just a higher skill ceiling for talented players

[violet sapphire]

you'd think so, but ive played with mods that not only open up higher scoring options but also allow higher score to exist, and when there's no real end goal in sight, it all just feels like a futile effort to achieve nothing in particular

(cryptid talisman is the mods i mean)

[violet sapphire]

endless is not a matter of skill

[split lichen]

true, but most of that is just endless rerolling imo

[violet sapphire]

its a matter of luck and patience

[white knot]

Luck yeah

[violet sapphire]

and game knowledge of course

[white knot]

That’s more what I meant by skill

Not much skill required in the traditional sense in Balatro

[violet sapphire]

even ignoring that, with cryptid its so easy to outscale the game's natural scaling and it just feels so pointless

[violet sapphire]

game knowledge isnt really skill

i can know every little inner working of a game and still suck at it

[white knot]

But if we’re talking about increasing the vanilla ante limit then idk if we should be taking mods into account so heavily

[gleaming fractal]

ahh lemme read through this

[violet sapphire]

the only reason im taking mods into account like this is because they demonstrate what the game would be like if scoring had no real limit

not necessarily that everyone plays with mods in mind

[split lichen]

fr, like the challenge deck with the 4 daggers was very easy cuz i got a spectral that turned all my jokers negative

[white knot]

Yeah and it isn’t really like that with Balatro bc there’s no reaction time or physical prowess you need to be good, just knowledgeable and logical (and lucky)

[violet sapphire]

adversary op

[split lichen]

fr

[violet sapphire]

no, balatro has a lot of critical thinking and decision making skills that go into it

[split lichen]

in the run b4 that i had gotten 4 canios cuz eternal+unkh is op

[white knot]

Yeah that’s fair but the limit is already high, we’re just talking about a potential higher score

[violet sapphire]

it isnt just luck and game knowledge

[split lichen]

but one of them was eternal perishable

[white knot]

Like as in you can go farther with the high scoring capability you have

[violet sapphire]

the current score limit is high but very reachable, talisman's score limit is completely unreachable to my knowledge

[split lichen]

ive got an idea: when you get to ante 39, there should be new game+

[white knot]

That’s the “skill” I’m talking about. Which would be better put as brainpower or something maybe

[white knot]

If that were to be the case then it shouldn’t be specifically ante 39

[violet sapphire]

yes, and endless does not involve nearly as much of that skill as the main game

[split lichen]

well ante 39 is the end of endless mode

[violet sapphire]

in endless you're pretty much just playing by a script

[white knot]

That’s true; mostly just looking for pieces of a greater puzzle

[violet sapphire]

get baron mime, get dna, pass ante 24, score naneinf

wanna get to ante 39, get crimson bean or an early perkeo

[white knot]

What’s crimson bean

[violet sapphire]

its a bug

on crimson heart if you have turtle bean

[white knot]

Crimson heart and bean I’m assuming

[violet sapphire]

and it debuffs turtle bean

[white knot]

Yeah

[split lichen]

permanent handsize

[violet sapphire]

leaving and reentering the game causes you to get more handsize permanently

[white knot]

OH YEAH THAT ONE

[split lichen]

wonder if this glitch works with troubadour

[violet sapphire]

its like the most consistent ante 39 strat tmk

[violet sapphire]

i think it works with any handsize joker yeah

positive or negative

with andy and stuntman you just exit and reenter when theyre undebuffed rather than when theyre debuffed

[split lichen]

ooo nice, so drunkard for infinite discards, bean for handsize, and burgaler for hands

[violet sapphire]

its part of a larger bug with the game's handsize calculation

[white knot]

Crazy yorick potential

[violet sapphire]

this same large bug causes the chicot manacle bug

[split lichen]

oh its only handsize

[white knot]

Aw man

[violet sapphire]

(which is why it will be patched in the coming update)

[split lichen]

SO MAKE SURE TO ABUSE IT BEFORE THE UPDATE

[white knot]

Oh yeah new banana next update

As the cavendish I am very excited

[split lichen]

destroy cavendish to unlock new banana

[violet sapphire]

update is exciting yeah

[violet sapphire]

definitely not

[white knot]

Cavendish has died on me like twice before btw

Without oops

[violet sapphire]

ithink thunk said it wont be that

[split lichen]

ah man is cavendish gonna become more likely to break

[split lichen]

oh

[violet sapphire]

now that wouldj ust be silly

[split lichen]

good cavendish gets to keep its iconic 1 in 1000

[white knot]

:chud_michel:

Wait I just realized

Chud and Chad are more or less opposites of each other and are only 1 letter off

[violet sapphire]

i dunno about that one chief

[white knot]

There’s probably a term for that

[violet sapphire]

they are quite different in meaning

[white knot]

Eh, ones positive connotation adjective for describing a human, other is a negative connotation adjective for describing a human

Not opposites per se but enough that I think it’s worth pointing out

[violet sapphire]

okay so are idiot and sexy opposites

[white knot]

No but part of that is the nature of the words themselves, idiot having to do with intelligence and sexy typically having to do with looks

[split lichen]

depends on if sexy is considered positive in this specific situation

[white knot]

Chud and Chad are used in a ton of different contexts, used to describe someone overall

[white knot]

Like an idiot could be sexy

[white knot]

And they’re different parts of speech anyway so they couldn’t be

If you said like “dumb” and “sexy” that would’ve been a better example bc idiot is a noun

But that’s just me being a wiseass

[violet sapphire]

whatever thats hwat i meant

[white knot]

Added: White seal

[white knot]

Edited: Archibald

[copper merlin]

you should also rename the plant to "We're Cooked" for clarity