Seems like a weird leap to make considering Balatro has basically nothing to do with poker beyond the game's basic flavour.
Why the fuck would you go to a casino and gamble with real money after realizing you're "hard addicted to this shit"? 4channers have brain worms.
Because they probably didn't and thought "this would make a funny green text" instead
Well yeah, greentexts are either boring or fake, that's why I'm here (where the shittiest ones are filtered out) and not on 4chan. I'm just trying to have some fun with it.
Same. Thinking if a greentext is real or not beats the experience to it. If it isn't the most absurd thing, probably happened to somebody, maybe not anon. If it is an absurd thing, it could've happened to somebody. Ffs, my brother shit himself while driving last week, and there's probably a greentext about a guy with food intoxication that tried to go home and shat himself while driving.
Because this is how addictions work, no? People want to quit alcohol and tobacco, but can't, as it offers pleasure their brains fail to reject.
I'm sure that really happened.
Balatro is like poker in the same way that checkers is like a grand strategy. It's got the feel of poker but it really isn't the same thing at all.
For one thing the rules don't change just because you are random Joker cards.
For one thing the rules don’t change just because you are random Joker cards.
might be better if they did tho lol.
(I know the gaming commission would pitch shit but hey man move fast break people laws er things
Balatro is FTL with playing cards. If you think FTL trains you to fly interstellar missions, do not play Balatro.
Sorry babe, can't make tonight, a random guy on Lemmy asked for a comprehensive guide on how to get high scores
Right, I'm going to preface this by saying that I have ~100 hours in the game, half of which is from the demo, and I've only beaten one deck on gold stakes. I'm hardly an expert here
But you want to know how to get consistent high scores? There's a simple trick, one that not many people talk about:
You can't get them consistently if you're not consistent
If you can consistently beat ante 8, then high scores will come with time. But how do you consistently beat ante 8?
By consistently getting a decent start. And how do you consistently get a decent start?
DON'T AIM FOR HIGH SCORES. I'm serious. Never enter a run with the mindset of "I want this specific synergy so I can get a super big score". That mindset is the run killer. That mindset is how you die at ante 2, wondering where it all went wrong with your vampire and DNA joker, both of which you picked up last shop, spending your entire savings after you refreshed three times.
Aim to get a decent joker that gives some chips or mult that can easily get you through the early game (ante 1-3) (even the base joker can work here), with mid game getting any joker that can scale (ante 3-6) , finishing with the late game (ante 7-8), where you should aim for jokers that synergise with the cards you already have.
Of course, that doesn't go into specifics, nor does it touch on tarots, planet, spectral cards, or other strategies you can employ.
Just some small things:
First blind can be won with a single decent full house, but if you run higher stakes then it's worth skipping just to get the tag
You can beat ante 1 without using a single joker pretty easily. If you see shit jokers, know that ante 2 is where you need to pick one of those jokers at the latest
Picking a shit joker early on, if it's cheap, can actually net you income. By beating blinds with fewer hands used, you can get the money you spent on it back fairly quickly. As an example, the base joker buys for $2 and sells for $1. If you win ante 1 boss with one hand because of it, you just earned ~$2, $3 if you sell it.
Early game, focus on income, but not at the expense of being able to win. Early game, ASAP get $25 up for that sweet juicy $5 a round interest. Of course, as stated above, if you see a joker early that can carry you through the early game, always pick it up. Interest comes second to not losing.
Spectral cards are op, tarot cards are really good (but shouldn't be relied upon early game), and planet cards are terrible, only good later when you have the money to burn or a joker that works with them. Buffoon and standard packs are weird, use discretion on how your build is going in order to pick one of them up. Avoid early game
Hope this general guide helped. Remember: Aim for winning, not for high scores. High scores come with winning
Great write up, only thing I disagree on is the buffoon packs, I take those things all the time. Around the same cost as a mid level joker but you get a choice of several to pick from, often at least one of which would normally be more expensive than the pack was. They're not always winners but the value is often good. And standard packs are one of the primary sources of really good deck cards, otherwise you're relying entirely on tarot cards to buff your deck after you have a good joker setup and that can get dicey. Use discretion, but I take packs of all sorts more often than I don't so long as I can stay above or at least near the interest cap while doing so. My buying priorities usually go Voucher(if I can afford it) > Packs > Voucher(if I can't afford it yet) > Shop > Reroll.
But I'm also not an expert by any means, I have similar stats to yours.
Nah, I agree with your take on buffoon and standard packs.
If you have money to spare, buffoon always takes priority over rerolls, which is basically what they are but better.
As soon as you have a decent lineup of jokers, I ususlly b-line it to standard packs, looking for a decent card to dupe
Also I didn't touch on vouchers because their priority heavily depends on what the voucher is. They go from "willing to dip into the bottom $25" to "this actually detriments my run" (looking at you, planet merchant)
Celestial cards
With celestial cards, do you mean spectral cards? I was thinking that celestial cards and planet cards refer to the same thing.
Man with the way I've seen people talk about this game, I had assumed it was a SoulsLike. It's poker for kids? lol
FWIW the dev claims to hate gambling. Playing Cards and poker hands are just theming, as you visit the shop more things really get off rails, but even before that you have multiple hands to get the target score and multiple mulligans to shape those hands.
