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Balatro is out! Go buy it now! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/ Introduction The first game of solo indie developer LocalThunk, Balatro, named after an old Latin word for a jester, is by its own words... Steam Description posted:Balatro is a deck-building roguelite where you must play poker hands and earn chips to defeat enemy blinds. Enhance your deck of playing cards, buy Jokers to modify each hand you play, and discover new and wild synergies to win! Basic Mechanics Unlike most of the other poker-based roguelikes, where the mechanics of poker are used in service of what is functionally a monster slaying game, Balatro is about as purely about poker as you can get while still being a roguelike. Pick a deck, choose a blind to beat, and play several hands of poker until you get enough points to win or fail the run. You get the ability to discard up to 5 cards at a time per Discard to try and make perfect hands. How do you get points? Each poker hand gives a set number of Chips, or base value, to which the value of each individual card used to complete the hand is added: For instance, if you have a Two Pair made of two nines and two fours, you get the base Chip value of a Two Pair, followed by adding 9+9+4+4 = 26 Chips. Face Cards are worth 10 Chips by default. Aces are worth 11 chips, but are not Face cards and can be high or low as necessary but only as the starting/ending card of a Straight-based hand. To be noted: you can play as many cards as you want between one and five, but only cards that actually contribute to the hand are counted for chip value. All of the Chips are then multiplied by that poker hand's Mult value to get your final point total for the hand. A run consists of 8 levels of increasing difficulty or Ante, which jack up the number of points you need to win. Each Ante consists of a Small Blind, which gives a moderate amount of cash if you win, a Big Blind, with a higher point requirement and a slight increase in cash, and the Ante's Boss Blind, which gives a further increase in cash and is necessary to progress to the next Ante, but comes with a special condition that limits your ability to play the game. As of more recent versions of the game, including release, you can skip either the Small Blind or the Big Blind in exchange for a Tag - a power that either activates immediately or once you reach the next shop. These can be pretty busted in certain combinations, but keep in mind that skipping a blind also means you miss out on the money from that blind as well as its shop. And of course, you can't skip the Boss Blind! Shop/Jokers/Vouchers So far, so simple, right? Once you complete a Blind, you get Cash. Apart from the Blind's Cash value, there are a few other factors that add into this, the primary basic ones being how many hands you have left over and Interest from having multiples of $5 left over from previous Blinds. Cash is used to buy several things. First and foremost among them are Jokers, which are your primary source of bonuses. Each one has its own unique abilities which alters the field of play, like giving you a random number of Mults to multiplying all previous Mults that you've collected if you play Four of a Kind. Joker abilities can combo with each other, but are order of operations-specific. The more rightward you go in your Joker Hand, the later the Joker acts, so typically you want to have additive ones early on near the left and multiplicative ones later on near the right. I think abilities that affect Chips also usually trigger before ones that affect Mults, following the regular order of play. By default you may only have 5 Jokers in your Joker Hand at Maximum. As seen on the more expensive Joker in the shop here, Jokers can also randomly generate with alternate Editions which add an extra bonus to the card, though these notably do not synchronize with other abilities and just do whatever they say first based on the Card's position in the lineup. These are as follows: Foil: Add 50 Chips Holographic: Add 10 Mult Polychrome: x1.5 Mult Negative: +1 Joker Hand Size Vouchers are permanent abilities that affect the rest of the run (and in a few cases provide a temporary bonus for the next run). They tend to not be quite as direct as Joker abilities, although their effects are pretty plainly seen. All of them are pretty good, though some are more powerful than others. Finally, there are Booster Packs, though for ease of discussion those will be given their own section. Booster Packs Booster Packs can be subdivided into providing cards from one of four categories: Tarot Cards, Planet Cards, Spectral Cards, and Additional Playing Cards. Usually the cards are sold in packs that you can choose individual cards from, but circumstances may mean that you just end up seeing a singular card available for purchase in the shop. These will be in the Joker section rather than the Booster Pack section. Keep in mind that you can stockpile a few Tarot Cards and Planet cards depending on how you acquire them, but Spectrals are always used immediately and additional playing cards are just added to your main deck. Tarot Cards Tarot Cards are the most basic way to alter your deck that doesn't involve shoving more cards in, or alternatively can give you a bunch of money for free. The effects can be as tame as giving you a single card which gives a multiplier bonus if you keep in your hand at the end of a round, but with multiple applications of Tarot cards you can do some wacky stuff like: "all of these cards are now the Jack of Spades, which are worth several times a normal Jack of Spades." Tarot Cards are as follows: The Fool: Recreates the last Tarot or Planet card played this run, and adds it to your Consumable stockpile. The Magician: Enhances a card into a Lucky Card, which has a 1/5 chance to give +20 Mult, and a 1/15 chance to give $20. The High Priestess: Creates up to 2 random Planet Cards if you have room in your Consumable stockpile. The Empress: Enhances up to 2 cards into Mult Cards, which give +4 Mult when you play them. The Emperor: Creates up to 2 random Tarot Cards if you have room in your Consumable stockpile. The Hierophant: Enhances up to 2 cards into Bonus Cards, which give +30 Chips when you play them. The Lovers: Enhances a card into a Wild Card, which counts as all suits. The Chariot: Enhances a card into a Steel Card, which grants a x1.5 Mult as long as it stays in your hand. Justice: Enhances a card into a Glass Card, which grants x2 Mult once it is played but has a 1/4 chance to be destroyed after playing. The Hermit: Doubles your Cash or gives you $20, whichever is less. The Wheel of Fortune: 1/4 chance to give a random Joker any of the Editions except Negative. Strength: Increases up to 2 cards by 1 rank. The Hanged Man: Destroys 2 selected cards. Death: Pick two cards, the one of higher value (or if equal value, the leftmost) becomes a copy of the card of lower value/rightmost. Temperance: Get the sale value of your current jokers up in Cash, or $50, whichever is less. The Devil: Enhances a card into a Gold Card, which gives $3 if it's in your hand at the end of the round. The Tower: Enhances a card into a Stone Card, which has no suit or value, but provides 50 Chips. The Star: Converts 3 cards into Diamonds. The Moon: Converts 3 cards into Clubs. The Sun: Converts 3 cards into Hearts. Judgment: Creates a random Joker, if you have room for it in your Joker Hand. The World: Converts 3 cards into Spades. Planet Cards Planet Cards let you upgrade your poker hands so that their default values for Chips and Mults are higher. If you find yourself playing a ton of Two Pairs for instance (or have deliberately built your deck around doing so), you'll want a lot of the planet that does so. There are 12 Planets, and they are as follows: Mercury: For every level, add an additional +1 Mult and +15 Chips to the results for getting a Pair. Venus: For every level, add an additional +2 Mult and +20 Chips to the results for getting Three of a Kind. Earth: For every level, add an additional +2 Mult and +25 Chips to the results for getting a Full House. Mars: For every level, add an additional +3 Mult and +30 Chips to the results for getting Four of a Kind. Jupiter: For every level, add an additional +2 Mult and +15 Chips to the results for getting a Flush. Saturn: For every level, add an additional +2 Mult and +30 Chips to the results for getting a Straight. Uranus: For every level, add an additional +1 Mult and +20 Chips to the results for getting a Two Pair. Neptune: For every level, add an additional +3 Mult and +40 Chips to the results for getting a Straight Flush. Pluto: For every level, add an additional +1 Mult and +10 Chips to the results for getting a High Card. Planet X: For every level, add an additional +3 Mult and +35 Chips to the results for getting Five of a Kind. Ceres: For every level, add an additional +3 Mult and +40 Chips to the results for getting a Flush House (a Full House, but all in the same suit) Eris: For every level, add an additional +1 Mult and +40 Chips to the results for getting a Flush Five (Five of a Kind, but all in the same suit) There's been some changes since earlier editions: As far as I can tell, Royal Flushes are still just counted as a variant of Straight Flush and boosted by Neptune. However the unique hands allowed for by card manipulation now have actual planets associated with them. You can't unlock their associated planet cards unless you've managed to trigger the play in a particular run though. Spectral Cards The biggest addition since earlier versions of the game, Spectral Cards are kind of like more powerful/rarer Tarot cards that have a greater one-off ability to mess with your deck. They're a bit harder to control though. Familiar: Destroy 1 random card in your hand, add 3 random Enhanced face cards to your hand. Grim: Destroy 1 random card in your hand, add 2 random Enhanced Aces to your hand. Incantation: Destroy 1 random card in your hand, add 4 random Enhanced number cards to your hand. Talisman: Add a Gold Seal, which gives $3 every time a card is played, to a selected card in your hand. Aura: Gives any of the Editions except Negative to a random card in your hand (not a Joker). Wraith: Gives you a random Rare Joker, resets your Cash to 0. Sigil: Converts all cards in your hand into a single suit. Ouija: Converts all cards in your hand into a numerical value. -1 Hand Size. Ectoplasm: Adds Negative to a random Joker. -1 Hand Size. Immolate: Destroys 5 random cards in your hand. Gives you $20. Ankh: Create a copy of a random Joker. Destroy all other Jokers besides these two. Deja Vu: Add a Red Seal, which repeats play once when a card is played, to a selected card in your hand. Hex: Add Polychrome to a random Joker, destroy all other Jokers. Trance: Add a Blue Seal, which creates a Planet Card if the card is in hand at the end of the round, to a selected card in your hand. Medium: Add a Purple Seal, which creates a Tarot Card if the card is discarded, to a selected card in your hand. Cryptid: Create 2 copies of a selected card in your hand. The Soul: Creates a random Legendary Joker. Black Hole: Upgrades every poker hand by one level. Additional Playing Cards There's not that much to add here. You can buy extra playing cards, which helps if your deck is centered around certain plays. The one interesting thing to note is that some of the playing cards from Booster Packs can start with Enhancements/Editions/Seals, so it can be a quick way to frontload some extra pizzazz. This is also a good place to note that while even regular cards can have all of the various modifiers listed, each card can only have one Enhancement/Edition/Seal each. Metaprogression/NG+ It's not a Roguelike in 2024 if it doesn't have metaprogression, right? A whole bunch of shop purchasable stuff/alternative decks are locked to start with. You do get a lot of things that you can buy and just don't know about until you purchase them for the first time, but a bunch of stuff will not unlock until you complete certain achievements. You don't need to play a lot before you make sizeable progress/win though. Decks are half locked by achievements/half locked by winning with the already unlocked decks. The game does allow you to just turn off the collectible part of the metaprogression system on a given profile though, as long as you're okay with not having achievements recorded. Winning the game (aside from, y'know being the goal) allows you to keep on playing in Endless Mode until you lose. You also unlock the ability to play with an additional penalty modifier for that specific deck, with there being a total of 7 additional levels of modifier beyond the default experience. Apart from that there are 20 default Challenge scenarios and I heard something about daily runs, but haven't confirmed them for myself. Mod Repository Apparently the modding community mostly operates via code injection into the game folders/files by a nonintegrated third-party modloader? If you're okay with braving the wonders of files downloaded on GitHub, here you go: https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro Conclusion I've tried to be as comprehensive as possible for in-run mechanics without spoiling literally every surprise that the game has in store, although with the ability to unlock everything immediately from the start, that is sort of a losing proposition. Balatro's really more about your own journey through the tools you've been given anyway, figuring out how they fit together and create devastatingly overpowered combos. May you all be merry and have much luck in your blinds! Guides Kuros posted:Short form: Early on you need very little in the way of mults/chips to hit thresholds so typically you want one or two economy jokers to build up your funds. From there you slowly change from economy jokers to score/utility jokers to make the blinds. The only reason to keep an economy joker in your pool late game is if it's polychrome, negative or it's actively helping your mult due to effects of other jokers. Kuros posted:One thing to put into the guides part, hands and jokers are tallied up from left to right in order in MOST cases. Conditional triggers from jokers will trigger first before triggering other effects in the joker pool from left to right. Arcanuse posted:Let's start with a basic Glass card. the holy poopacy posted:Broadly, in order to score well you need: roomtwofifteen posted:Extraordinary stuff. Infinitum posted:I did find out that holding R will restart your run which is a much quicker way of restarting a run rather than going through a menu Alkanos posted:I watched this the other day so I might be remembering it wrong, but the changes aren't to the scoring. His move only takes effect between scoring and calculating the additional money collected. So when it start scoring it "locks" the joker order for that purpose, but reads the new order when calculating funds. Unless I read that completely wrong while I was watching. Jossar fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Apr 13, 2024 |
# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 13:21 |
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# ¿ May 10, 2024 10:18 |
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Keepers of the Third VowAmitābha, Buddha of the Pure Land posted:Provided I become a Buddha, if in that country of mine the beings who are born there should not all be of the colour of genuine gold, then may I not attain the enlightenment. Power of Pecota posted:85 completed gold stake runs and I've got Completionist++! Chicot was the last one to cross off. High Roller Runs Wooper posted:Had a ridiculous build playing flush five of a kind Kings. Arcanuse posted:
Onmi posted:
studio mujahideen posted:
TastyLemonDrops posted:Not sure if I'm ever gonna get this lucky again: Sparticle posted:I was starting to get annoyed that I hadn't seen a legendary jokers yet until I was blessed with 2 legendaries from the same shop. Dr. Mantis Toboggan posted:I think I hit a new record for the thread. MagicBoots posted:Well that's going to be hard to beat, could have kept it going to but I played 4 queens on the loosing hand instead of 5 Canine Blues Arooo posted:Interesting The Postman posted:
Chadzok posted:
Alkanos posted:Yeah, but when it works well it works REALLY REALLY well Lemon posted:Finally got my first E score! Irony Be My Shield posted:The wild thing is that a Vampire + Blueprint setup is still only quadratic scaling (or quartic scaling on the Plasma Deck, I guess) and will rapidly fall behind the greater-than-exponential-growth of the blinds. One of the "in-hand" multiplication builds seems like the only real way to stack multiplications repeatedly and get a long way into Endless - I had one just now which got me to Ante 14 and probably could've got me further if I managed my deck better/I didn't get really unlucky on one of the blinds and fail to get a hand full of Kings for the first time in ages. uPen posted:Beat Ante 14 for the first time ever with Blueprint/Brainstorm/Hologram/Burned/DNA. Got high card leveled up to the 90s with a deck that contained 80+ Red tag/holo/Steel aces. quiggy posted:Tried to get the 100,000,000 point hand to unlock that joker, ended up going quite a bit beyond pumpinglemma posted:New best run on white stake/yellow deck: a deck consisting entirely of queens of hearts, half steel and half glass. Two triboulets doubling multiplier for every queen I play for x32 each, campfire with a stupid economy for x6-10, a polychrome family for x6, and a steel joker for x4.5. And it still died to the first blind of ante 14, getting 9.3e11 with an optimal hand out of 2.9e13 needed and ending at a mere 2e12. I think to take it further I would have needed mime and/or seltzer bottle and/or red seals... Still, at least I got the ROI and flushed achievements at the same time. RBA Starblade posted:Purple stake's not loving around huh PoundSand posted:Got my first E hand, haven't really been shooting for them but I was just climbing on blue deck for my next gold and stumbled across a midgame polychrome 2 and hack so I shot for it. Couple jokers could have taken it to the next level (ended up with 6 slots due to voucher). And I legit never saw a glass tarot for the rest of the game but can't complain. Relyssa posted:Finally hit scientific notation! Two poly triboulet + poly supernova + hanging chad + sock and buskin. Got to ante 12, died to the plant because I was never offered any sort of boss reroll by the time I realized this would go the distance. It got very silly very quickly. Sockser posted:In a situation like this, where most of your points are coming from cards left in your hand, yeah, you should just be playing high card. That would be two more queens in your hand, each of them multiplying your mult by 1.5 twice, vs whatever base mult you're getting from 3 of a Kind. Eschatos posted:Ayy I did it. Spent too much time adding cards to my deck before I got the Baron, but not bad for my first time past ante 12 small blind. Went through like 20 hands digging for Mimic in the shop with no luck. Probably should have dropped the Burnt Joker earlier but I couldn't resist temptation to keep double leveling high card every hand. godogg posted:Finally unlocked Stuntman and got my first e-value hand, thanks to Shoot the Moon, Mime, Hologram, Obelisk, and Blueprint. Also Burnt Joker for the first 7 antes and Square Joker for the first 3. I made it to ante 13! Gangringo posted:Made it to scientific notation for the first time. 5e24, crashed out on the boss blind of ante 16. If I had managed to slip a red tag into my king duping engine it would have been something amazing. GoutPatrol posted:
Power of Pecota posted:
Necronomicon posted:I finally got into scientific notation scoring on a pretty wild run. I played Anaglyph with the intent of getting a ton of negative jokers via double tags, and got a Perkeo in like the first shop, and over time managed to get an entire deck full of polychrome steel kings, with Mime to double the steel and Blueprint + Brainstorm + Baron to stack a bajillion 1.5x bonuses off of everything in hand. Unfortunately I never found any red seals and I imagine they would have helped me get up into Ante 17 and beyond, but my best hand was 3.311e19 and by god I’m probably gonna take a little break from this game now that I’ve done that. I ended up with 24 jokers total but ironically not a single one of the negatives ended up being all that important to the strategy. LifeLynx posted:The hunt is over, I got into high Es. Blueprint and Brainstorm on Baron, which had to be on the left for Brainstorm to work, which aside from a handful of non-red-seal kings was the only thing keeping me from going to whatever the end of Balatro is. Panic! At The Tesco posted:finally got my first e numbers. fun as hell watching all those red seal steel kings trigger multiple times as it speeds up. WhiteHowler posted:Just had my best run, somehow lucking into a red seal steel king deck without really hunting for it initially. I got a ridiculous economy via Gold Mask and the "all cards are face cards" joker, and from there was able to reroll my way into some higher antes. Tonetta posted:I finally broke blind 14 but ngl I can't even see a chance on me climbing any higher. the joker setup was the dice, then 3 cats + 2 copy jokers @ ~38x multi. I think I'll wait for next patch to try cause goddamn this run was almost perfect and it still isn't even close to breaking ante 16 DaveWoo posted:
No Wave posted:I beat the final difficulty! And all it took was prismatic blueprint and every OP joker! the holy poopacy posted:
Onmi posted:
Detheros posted:Finally beat a gold ante with the checkered deck using 2 polychrome stencil jokers (thank you joker you sell to copy a random one) and the joker that copies the leftmost one, just 3 4x multis and 2 1.5x multis nbd. TastyLemonDrops posted:For people having trouble beating gold stake, the answer is just a high card build: Doltos posted:25 hours of attempts Relyssa posted:Get hosed, gold stake. Highlights include accidentally resetting the bus halfway through the run and The Eye very nearly ending my run because I could not for the life of me dig out a hand type I hadn't used already. I used a Fool to dupe Hanged Man specifically to deal with the bell, since I had cleared out most, but not all, of my face cards. Didn't need it but glad I had it as a failsafe. Jossar posted:Finally get to add my name to the Gold Stakes clear list! Barry Shitpeas posted:Got my first gold win with double Polychrome Stuntman. Hand size 3 MJeff posted:
instantrunoffvote posted:
Elman posted:Gold stake abandoned deck beaten. This one was surprisingly annoying, the lack of face cards makes it harder to win the early rounds (which are always the worst part of higher stakes). It also means a lot of face-based jokers become useless, like Sock and Buskin, Shoot the Moon or Baron. Overall it's not as powerful as I though it'd be. cerious posted:Beat gold stakes without ever seeing a decent x-mult joker, or using any tarot cards, or using any planet cards, or even adding any special cards. Just got an early blueprint, ante 2 burnt joker, ante 5 brainstorm, and went all in on high card. Got it to level 60 and found a supernova in ante 8 to keep up the flat mult. Aggro posted:Finally joined 1.4% of Steam players and beat gold stake after uhhhhh 45 hours of playing. I had multiple runs end in Ante 8, which is a special sort of agonizing. The strategy was Checkered Deck and refresh until the 1st ante has tags for “everything in the next shop is free” and “boss blind adds an extra $15” and then beat the boss blind in two hands. LifeLynx posted:The joker that gets 0.5x mult and eats a joker makes higher stakes much easier. I nearly expect them to nerf it so it only gets a bonus if it actually destroys a joker. I just cleared Checkered gold with it in my first shop, just throwing out high cards for 750k chips. babypolis posted:finally managed to get a win on gold stake with the abandoned deck, which btw is a top tier deck. got lucky with a bunch of polychrome jokers at the start, giving me enough time to build up my engine with ride the bus and the running joker, topped up with cavendish and vampire at the end. what a miserable experience tho. not the actual playing of the game, that was good fun, but the ridiculous amount of non runs and restarts needed to get a decent run going. deffo not going near the higher difficulties for a while, hope local thunk gives them a proper look at some point roomtwofifteen posted:
The Postman posted:Hell yeah. Finally finished a gold stake run and made it to ante 10 to boot. Now I need to actually do the rest of my unlocks super nailgun posted:Finally beat gold ante. Red deck. Not sure how many others if any I'll run up that far. It gets really unfun and RNG bound a few levels from the top difficulty. Glad I saw the challenge through at least once though. PostNouveau posted:Finally knocked off gold stake. I was definitely being pigheaded and bashing my head against the wall over and over with the hearts/spades deck, but dammit, it's just so easy to not make decisions and play flushes all the time! Popete posted:Got my first gold stakes win with spectral deck! Ended up getting a bunch of eternals that synchronized well enough to get a high card deck powerful enough to just squeak out a win. PhysicsFrenzy posted:Got my first gold stakes win! Played on checkered deck. DaveWoo posted:Just beat Black Deck Gold Stake with this insane set of jokers: overeager overeater posted:I'm free! Arzaac posted:After grinding at it for way too long, I finally beat Gold Stake with Anaglyph. It was uh, a goofy run. Supernova, Stuntman, (negative) Campfire, Joker Stencil, and Perkeo. Honestly it felt like it wasn't gonna be a winning run for a while, but man Stuntman can keep you afloat for a really long time. Perkeo I mostly only used it with a Mercury because I was levelling pair, but it did probably get me another 8 levels. Right at the end I picked up a Familiar, which I duplicated twice and it did make my deck more consistent. If I were playing optimally I would've sold Perkeo right at the end, but I wanted that gold stake sticker. Panic! At The Tesco posted:new changes definitely make gold stake easier and more fun. after banging my head against gold for days i beat it second try with the new buffs. WarEternal posted:Did gold stake pretty easily on the beta version. I don't feel like the rental jokers are that punishing, basically because when you're doing well on a run you have enough money to make up 3 gold per turn anyway so either you're doing well and it doesn't matter or you're doing bad and it doesn't matter anyway. It feels like it mostly just narrows joker selection early on like eternal does. Level Seven posted:
apophenium posted:Lmao I burned myself out trying gold stake over and over, took some time off, came back to it today and got it on my first try. Didn't get a photo but I was playing checkered deck and got green joker on the first shop. Rode that for a bit, scaling it and saving up money. Got blue joker to help me through a bit more. Then I got an eternal vagabond and the tarot mult scaling joker. Made enough money to reroll a bit and bam, holographic stunt man! That was feeling pretty good but I desperately needed a mult multiplier. And then... God bless you campfire, right on ante 8 small blind. With vagabond I was able to scale it up to x5 before the boss, which went down to a single high card. Aipsh posted:Gold stake done on my third try lets fuckin gooooo - it was also one of the easiest runs in general because of some ferociously lucky jokers very early on: Leon Sumbitches posted:So I finally beat the gold stakes with the checkered deck. I'm sick of flushes, but it seems like such low hanging fruit. Nemo2342 posted:
Scholtz posted:
Desdinova posted:I switched to beta branch after at least 2 weeks restarting gold stakes on checkered deck, 2nd attempt on the beta got my first win. Forgot a screenshot and still got a bit to unlock but the patch is allround better than the last version imho. Whistling rear end in a top hat posted:
Devils Affricate posted:I was determined to beat the gold stake before the new patch, and while I'm glad to say I finally did it, my god was that an ordeal. The other stakes weren't so bad, but that last little "gently caress you" of -1 hand size on top of everything else for some reason pushed things over the edge. I think about 70% of my Balatro playtime now has been spent trying to beat the gold stake. TaurusTorus posted:Got my first gold clear. Liking the new patch, much easier for scrubs like me Jezza of OZPOS posted:I managed to get a gold clear finally without the new patch but I'm looking forward to it dropping on switch RBA Starblade posted:Beat Gold Stakes Checkered Deck! Oops All Sixes and Bloodstone isn't particularly good, but it's good enough lol Infinitum posted:This game is going to consume me TwoStepBoog posted:The wheel of fortune is not happy with me--that's okay, I'll still keep buying that garbage. Veryslightlymad posted:
Pwnstar posted:
WarEternal posted:
Darke GBF posted:Like it or not, this is what peak performance looks like, ladies. Jossar posted:
Veryslightlymad posted:
Onmi posted:
Quantum of Phallus posted:Check this poo poo out: Waffle! posted:This plays all the time in my head, might as well get funky with it: Elman posted:I finally came up with a really strong deck for endless! lunar detritus posted:I made a balatro simulator, for those times when I have no idea how to order my cards and it's my only hand left. Scholtz posted:
Jezza of OZPOS posted:Got punched in the face so I bought this to feel better and uh Sockser posted:Blueprint? Brainstorm? Jezza of OZPOS posted:its so funny to me that ff7 rebirth came out, I threw 130 hours into it, wouldn't shut up about it, cried a couple of times, felt incredible catharsis and joy from playing it, and I'm still probably going to give my GOTY to the poker game that looks like it was designed to run on a VGA monitor with absolutely no story whatsoever Kuros posted:
El Jeffe posted:Was watching the X-Files and Jossar fucked around with this message at 22:04 on May 7, 2024 |
# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 13:21 |
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Aces can be low, I did a A2345 entirely out of curiosity. They still give ten chips, too. Duly noted! Edited into the OP, along with several other things I found from playing for a little bit longer. Everybody loves stupid runs! Here's my latest. The Jokers are out of order due to the Boss Blind that negates your rightmost joker (the optimal order is Blueprint, Onyx Agate - with the Die on either side of those two, then all the multipliers, ending with the Polychrome Acrobat) but this got really crazy in the postgame once I replaced the Tarot Joker with the one that multiplies 3 of a Kind. I probably could have made it extraordinarily far into postgame Antes if I hadn't tried to push my luck against a Boss Blind for which the deck was poorly suited and rerolled it. Should have just gone with that, even if the Boss Blind was postgame only, there's more chances to find it for collectible 100%ing than a run to Ante 20. Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Jun 19, 2023 |
# ¿ Jun 19, 2023 04:16 |
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Artelier posted:who's your favourite joker and why is it yorick (i still haven't unlocked every one but this guy is a beast) My favorite is the Blueprint because of its versatility. It never makes a winning build on its own, but it makes a lot of builds that would otherwise only almost work into insane powerhouses. Among the Legendaries, my favorite is Chicot. He helped me win a run, but mostly it's just vibes.
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# ¿ Jun 19, 2023 04:46 |
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Countblanc posted:could someone explain Stone cards to me, as if I was a particularly slow child? i've read the description like a dozen times and still don't fully get what they do and don't do. Stone Cards do not count as anything except for being a card in the most generic possible sense, except for when the text of another card specifically refers to Stone Cards. They're just always playable and count towards the hand (unless you would otherwise be prevented from playing any card at all, like the 5th card in the Arm ruining the hand), 50 Chips straight. They don't count towards poker hand status because they have no suit or number, so if you were trying to set up a flush and only had 4 clubs and a Stone Card, then you're screwed. I'm a bit less certain on how the weird edge cases that are supposed to apply to literally all cards work on them. My guess is that Stone rules override literally everything else except being a generic card, so if you have the Joker that says all cards are now Face cards... well, a Stone Card still isn't. Because it CAN'T have any kind of classification other than being a Stone Card. But if it just refers to a card existing at all (I don't think this is a real example, but: if you play a valid hand, get extra chips for every card played in the hand), then a Stone Card would still be considered a card. But again: this is a guess and not complete certainty. I feel like unless you have a really good Stone Card Joker setup, it's useful to have a few Stone Cards early on, but in the long term they become a trap precisely because they don't synchronize well with anything else. Jossar fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jun 26, 2023 |
# ¿ Jun 26, 2023 05:02 |
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/ Demo's back up for those interested in taking another poke at it. Not limited to 50 rounds this time, although supposedly capped in other ways.
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# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 22:53 |
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https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2379780/view/3868093712830336689 Well, it's some kind of new content, right? Presented for your amusement is Balatro: Jimbo's Invitational, starting January 19th at 10:00 AM PST, in which 6 Twitch streamers are locked in a room for 24 hours (okay, probably not literally) to play for the best hand score possible. Mostly noting it because the winner gets 200 Steam keys of the game (and the runner-up, 100 keys) to hand out as they see fit.
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# ¿ Jan 11, 2024 23:41 |
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MJeff posted:Top score is currently 145 mil. I think this one might be over. Beautiful.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 16:10 |
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But more importantly, the Demo's back on, starting January 25th! ...that is a pretty sweet combo, though.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 19:16 |
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I think I got spoiled too much by the playtest, so after one round of playing the demo just to have some fun, I will go back to eagerly awaiting the release of the full game, especially when it's so close! EDIT: Of course this is a lie, and I'm already getting sucked back in. Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 26, 2024 |
# ¿ Jan 26, 2024 00:53 |
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Cha-ching! I really have to learn how to use the blind-skips. I feel like that's part of why I keep making it to the end and then faceplanting right at the less second against the Bonus Blind.
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2024 13:39 |
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Victory! But yeah, I've just been sticking with the Blue Deck for the moment. Wanted to get a win with that before moving on to the others.
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# ¿ Jan 27, 2024 00:32 |
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Tried out the other two decks, and they both seem pretty feast or famine to me. To be fair, at least part of that was RNG and could have been beautiful if I'd been able to rig my deck a little more, which is always the case for Balatro. Especially for Anaglyph: getting a level 16 Straight from Double Tag spam doesn't matter if the deck refuses to cooperate in one really bad round/you don't have Four Fingers that run. EDIT: Finally managed to win with both decks, so all three available to the demo and I stand by this. Jossar fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jan 27, 2024 |
# ¿ Jan 27, 2024 14:37 |
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DalaranJ posted:Well, I won the demo thanks to popcorn showing up before boss 5. Yeah, you can be a bit flexible early on, but long term you definitely want to build so you can hammer out a specific hand as much as possible. Especially if you go really heavy into Planet cards, it's ridiculous how big the difference can be. In that failed Level 16 Straight run (which even with bad luck was still just on the verge of sustainability if I'd had the Four Finger Joker), when it worked, I could get tens of thousands of chips just from the hand alone even before counting the cards, let alone Jokers. You do run into the potential problem of getting screwed over by a boss blind specifically geared to break your deck. But unfortunately, by the time that becomes relevant you'd be damned anyway from otherwise-impossible chip requirements. Although Spare Trousers should still upgrade even on a Full House. It contains a Two Pair, after all, and even independent of that the already accumulated Mult always triggers. Unless you mean having gone all-in on Uranus cards to pair with it. Jossar fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jan 27, 2024 |
# ¿ Jan 27, 2024 19:21 |
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The "counterplay" is that if the selected card is really awful you just discard it along with as many bad cards as possible, to try and refresh the select. It's not great, but it is an option. Which is to be expected from a final-boss blind. You made it this far, surely you must have something in your arsenal to deal with a last second curveball, right?
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# ¿ Jan 27, 2024 20:37 |
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I was able to win with a Flush, Straight and Full House/Two Pair build once each, but Four Finger was pretty much necessary for those first two. It's just so crucial to the Straight/Flush build. I really hope there's a deck that just lets you start with it in the full game, or people might end up doing a lot of early rerolling.
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 19:35 |
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It's definitely a case where it's a must buy unless you already have something better, yeah. At least in the demo.
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# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 22:56 |
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Thanks to frytechnician for pointing out in the February Chat Thread that we now have a definitive price for the release: $14.99 Pretty happy to see, that's about as cheap as could be expected without banking on sale-by-volume.
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 15:57 |
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Tried, but apparently those tags are locked to a specific forum/subforum, so couldn't post the thread with them. If the mods are willing to switch the tag to the Poker one though, would not be amiss. Also, I do plan on updating the OP, just waiting for the game to come out in full.
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# ¿ Feb 17, 2024 23:35 |
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Well we'll see, keeping a tab open to hunt this down when it ends up in the middle of the LP subforum again.
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# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 00:21 |
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It's possible to get +15 levels all at once if you keep accumulating double tags and then cash them all in on a "+3 to hand level" tag. Presumably this involves using Tarot cards to manipulate the deck first to the point where it's possible to get a Flush Five and then cashing in.
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# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 23:01 |
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MJeff posted:I have to go into the office tomorrow so the game better not come out until 5 PM. Alas and alack, the official release time for tomorrow is 10 AM EST/7 AM PST/3 PM GMT on PC, and an hour later on consoles, unless you're playing on a Switch in the Asia region, in which case *shrug*.
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# ¿ Feb 19, 2024 14:12 |
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I don't think there are literal hundreds, but I recall from earlier versions there being something like 100-200 ingame achievements as part of the metaprogression if you choose to play with that on. The Steam page does describe 8 different difficulties or variants alongside challenge/daily/seeded runs though. EDIT: Looked at a video with a release copy of the game and I may have been lowballing it. Looks more like 340 proper Collections, with a whole bunch of other stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqtsUX38HmE Jossar fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Feb 20, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 20, 2024 03:47 |
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DarkMatt posted:This game's best selling point is how great all the joker card arts are. Making ridiculous decks that can get you millions of points is great sure but I just love seeing how far you can stretch the definition of "a card with a clown on it".
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# ¿ Feb 20, 2024 12:59 |
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It is us, we are the balatros, making fools of ourselves in our anticipation for the game.
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# ¿ Feb 20, 2024 13:17 |
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Finally got to play the full game, and man am I getting owned! Still love it though, just have to figure out how to make an organized deck around the mid-game transition point.
Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 21, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 00:54 |
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Hooray, first proper win! Hearts and Clubs mixture deck, just spam flushes over and over again. Not the neatest or most elegant trick, but it works. Anyways, still got a lot more to do, even in endless mode for this run, but gonna start thinking about that OP revise now... except that means I'm not playing the game! Argh! EDIT: Aaaand got owned in Ante 10. Doesn't scale that well, apparently! Jossar fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 21, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 01:48 |
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A little bit better this time! This was a crazy run where I had no idea what I was doing, so I just let myself accept where Madness took me (it was a combination of Fibonacci, Throwback, and Madness for big mult). You gotta have a real cracked deck to make it to Ante 12 or better though, sheesh. Grats to Terper who's already done it!
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# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 03:20 |
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As promised went and redid the intro post for the release version. Not 100% satisfied with it, especially with regards to how much info I should be leaving in vs. allowing people to discover, but there it is. The reserve post is probably gonna be saved for guides/people's super-incredible runs, unless people decide to start making fanart.
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# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 05:48 |
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This is a win with the Black Deck, although I'm not really sure if I should count that for or against it, as I got super lucky in finding a whole bunch of Polychrome Jokers. Otherwise, this thing was built around spamming Three of A Kinds, preferably Aces when I could grab them. This is the run that made me think that I've been underestimating Steel Cards. A couple more of those and I might have won this Ante after all (or at least died on the Boss Blind instead). EDIT: From my Blind log collection I'm glad to see that (unless I'm truly mistaken), LocalThunk got rid of all those Boss Blinds that in at least one version of the pre-game playtests ONLY showed up if you were 12 Antes deep or something. Jossar fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Feb 21, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 14:20 |
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Wooper posted:Had a ridiculous build playing flush five of a kind Kings. Gonna see if I can finish out White Stakes tonight! Or at the very least a couple more decks, since there's so many other games asking to be played as well.
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# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 23:05 |
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Y'know, I'm always pleasantly surprised when High Card works out this well. I never expect it to, but this is probably the best run I've had yet.
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# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 01:24 |
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Doltos posted:What did you do did you stack a ton of stone cards? I did not! I mean, I had a couple of stone cards, but they weren't really critical to the whole thing. Part of it was an early game Burnt Joker which let me discard single cards so I ended up with a Level 16 High Card, even after eating the Arm at one point. But the other part was just spamming a ton of high times-mult jokers. I want to say Card Shark, Constellation, Blueprint and Hologram? Kind of hard to read the postgame here, but the last one definitely explains the 70+ card deck. Supernova was moderately helpful, but the Negative Swashbuckler was entirely useless. Indeed, overall I'm finding that I'm usually ending up with a lot of otherwise useless Negative jokers that stay in the Joker Hand because there's no reason not to take them and they'll otherwise clog up the shop pool. Optimal strategy was to throw a second-best enhanced card down hand 1, and set up for a second-hand Glass card for millions of points to take advantage of Card Shark. Having all those extra cards from booster packs and no particular inclination to use any more than one at a time meant that I was spoiled for choice. Getting through the rest of the White Stakes only decks might have been a little bit too ambitious, but I am making steady progress, having polished off the Green and Magic tonight. Might get one more done before I go to bed, but ehhh. Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Feb 22, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 04:31 |
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TwoStepBoog posted:The wheel of fortune is not happy with me--that's okay, I'll still keep buying that garbage. A couple more runs before bed, after all it's only 1:30 AM, right? That marks the completion of Nebula and Spectral. Only two more to go, and then that's all the decks you can get at basic level difficulty done at basic level difficulty! This run is not particularly noticeable except insofar as it was my 5 Jacks discarded run, right at the very last discard. It was also meant to be my $400 run, but in wanting to win, I took my eyes off the prize. Definitely getting to the point where unlocking the final 20% of the collectibles (well, more like 10-15% after I grab the remaining low-hanging fruit) is going to take specialized runs where getting the unlock at all costs takes priority over, y'know, winning. Jossar fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Feb 22, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 07:31 |
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Game ate my win screen, but this was one of those runs that felt bonkers in every respect but score. Three negative Jokers and a Legendary (8 in total), constant Flush Fives in 3s of Hearts, and I still couldn't crack a couple of mil per hand. I think I'm coming around on Yorick, though he does require way too much prep time to be useful for anything but the final normal ante unless you get him really early on. EDIT: Added Arcanuse's big money run to the front. Let people want me to add one of the Aces ones, just a little hesitant on the all-Aces ones since it was technically cheated in, although due to the Smeared Joker in play was functionally the same as unaltered. Probably going to ask for the thread rename though, if the mods will allow it, although it does look like someone might have asked for it by reporting the OP? Could just be left over from the Poker tag change. Jossar fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Feb 22, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 14:41 |
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So there's a couple things here... - That makes all of the pre-Red Stakes completion decks beaten at White Stakes. - I lost the photo, but I got double the "Beat the Boss Blind for Cash" tags, to get $38 from one hand. - The reason why this is a picture of beating the game and not how far I got in Endless mode is because this is a successful speed run! 12 rounds, baby!
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# ¿ Feb 23, 2024 01:11 |
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Popete posted:Where are my fellow discard freaks? Just got it last run, as a matter of fact! First win on Red Stakes, too. CJacobs posted:
Unironically love seeing the regular Joker show up if it's first Ante. Sometimes all you really want in those first few hands is a couple of extra Mult.
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# ¿ Feb 23, 2024 02:42 |
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faantastic posted:Egg joker makes me ugly laugh every time it comes up and I have no idea why. The egg is an inherently amusing object:
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# ¿ Feb 23, 2024 05:07 |
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Veryslightlymad posted:
Pfft. Putting that one in the screenshot reel. External Organs posted:Is anyone else playing the meta game where you get to freak out your family members by saying you're "addicted to a poker video game" I tried telling a coworker about it, but generally speaking as long as it isn't visibly ruining my life nobody really seems to care one way or the other. Unfortunately I have a similar but distinct problem, where I can't even get people I know who like poker or gambling to be interested in the game because they're mostly interested in the social or money-making aspects, not the risk-taking or make number go up ones. Harlock posted:Disappointed if wheel isn't your #1 I don't have any catastrophic Wheel failure stories, but it does seem to disappoint me more often than not. As I should expect! Otherwise not much progress. Just spent most of the morning doing/failing at card unlocks. With just under 90% of the collection want to try and getting as close as I can to 100% before making serious progress on pushing new deck completion/stakes again. Jossar fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 23, 2024 |
# ¿ Feb 23, 2024 14:35 |
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# ¿ May 10, 2024 10:18 |
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Bleh, I think I won 1-2 new stakes tonight, but if so it was White Stakes for new decks, and not much progress elsewhere. Oh well, always tomorrow!
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# ¿ Feb 24, 2024 04:44 |