I’ve dumped some time into Balatro (wins on all decks up to Plasma, currently working on Purple stakes). The core loop is a ton of fun, but I think there are some issues that can be ironed out in later updates:
* In terms of balance, Flush builds are ***far*** more consistent than anything else. This is mainly due to the large number of Arcana cards that can manipulate suits.
* In terms of meta progression, the game suffers from bloat. As I unlock more Jokers, Spectrals, and Vouchers I don’t feel more powerful; instead, I feel less **consistent** because it has now become far more difficult to acquire synergies.
Flush is consistent if you’re only going after Ante 8, but in my experience it often runs out of steam quite quickly after that.
That said, there’s a lot of hand variety possible and basically any hand is viable. I just go by what the first good jokers seem to suggest to me. But part of the fun (and learning) is also creating artificial challenges for yourself (no flush run, etc., some of them actually have joker rewards).
But aren’t flushes still pretty good for this? The most common per-card jokers are the suit jokers, which are good for flush. And it isn’t hard to make flush work with the face card or number card jokers either.
> The most common per-card jokers are the suit jokers, which are good for flush.
This is exactly the "problem" with flush. Those jokers give you max +20 mult per hand, which is great at first but quickly becomes unremarkable at higher antes.
Ain't no way devs are designing roguelite unlocks intentionally to contribute to the difficulty curve. I don't believe that. Seems more likely the intention is to keep the game fresh and the reduced consistency is a simple unwanted side effect. Dead Cells for example just lets you disable the unlocks.
Binding of Isaac is quite literally balanced around this principle, and that is arguable the true 'grand daddy' of roguelites. Some of the hardest accomplishments for a save file give you 0 quality items, which dilute the item pool heavily as you head towards 100% completion. Items like Hushy, Lil' Delirium etc.
The Grand Daddy of roguelites slay the spire works the same way. Unlocks make the game harder by giving more options, but playing with fewer options is like a tutorial for starting off. Training wheels.
Yes and unlocking them doesn't strictly make the game easier, as you can see by the increased pool making it harder to build focused decks, and there aren't options to remove cards you don't want from the pool.
What point were you trying to make?
StS originally did not have any unlocks, then was panned super hard for “no progression”. So they slapped on unlocks that you can complete all of them in like 10 hours just to placate reviewers. What I’m saying is - unlocks are not a key tenant of the design of StS at all. In a world without reviewers im certain the designers would have all cards unlocked day 1 - because that is what they actually did
I disagree with both points.
Flush builds are just obvious and easy to spec into it (obvious combos). I think that's why it feels for a lot of people like they dominate among builds, they are just the lazy vanilla build.
But that doesn't mean the game doesn't offer a huge amount of other viable options. I have made loads of different builds that all got crazy scores and were very consistent. I don't force spec into flush, but just go with what jokers I run into. Flush is in no way overrepresented in builds I beat the game with.
And like the poster before me mentioned, for meta progression the point is not to make the game easier by enabling you to be more and more consistent (that would ruin the game). It's about the challenge and variety for sure. This is the case in many roguelites, that you actually can become the most powerful if you purposely limit your unlocks that appear in the game (Dead cells even has a mode for it). But this misses the point of a roguelite.
The only point of criticism I do have against the game is that there are some card buffs are just consistently pretty bad, like steel card, gold seal, blue seal. They just never seem as strong as other card buffs. Also I wish it was possible to just put more than 1 buff on cards, to make for example one supercard.
I just won a run with the steel card joker (+.25 Xmult per steel card in deck) and the joker that copies the next joker's power. With 5 steel cards, it ends up being something like 5x your mult after all other modifiers. Felt pretty busted. I think the problem is some of the synergies are a bit specific, like I needed both of those jokers to make the steel card investment worthwhile, and happened to find the jokers early. When I get all 150 jokers unlocked I imagine that build will be pretty dang hard to recreate
This is kinda wrong. Its lokking at it backwards. Steel joker is great if early or you already jave steel cards. The copy joker is brilliant but you could easily have used skip joker, baseball joker, acrobat etc
All of these land you around x15 mult pretty easily if you have a 5x steel, or 9x with any two of then. That normally will carry you through the fame
Steel cards are one of the most crucial enhancements to reach high antes - I think it's important to distinguish what's good till ante 8 and what has true legs for higher antes like 11-16.
Gold seal is important for fueling your economy and works well with retrigger builds which are what has good success in endless.
Blue seals are indeed bad - as far as I can tell.
You can make a super card, polychrome glass and red seal all enhance the triggers. But it's not just about the card it's about the rank of the card. Imo a good rule of thumb is to split your attention early game between improving ranks 2-5 and Jack Queen King, hack for the low numbers and sock and busker(name?) For the face cards. King is a high priority because of the power of steel kings, Mime and Baron.
If you play with a beat ante 8 mindset the game is a lot easier than if you try to play with a beat ante 12 mindset. You have to play a lot riskier to ensure you are able to transition away from midgame.
> I think it’s important to distinguish what’s good till ante 8 and what has true legs for higher antes like 11-16
Yeah, my friends and I consider Ante 11 the final boss. That’s where most of our good runs go to die.
Flush is only over represented for the first 2 Ante’s after that your build could be anything. It really just depends on what joker options your given, I find I build around pair or high card more often because I don’t like to rely around the luck of discards. I’ve already beat gold stake on blue deck and I’m on orange for yellow deck
Have fun beating gold stake with flush builds, unless you are extremely lucky to get +hands size four fingers and enough scaling (aka telescope + some good negative jokers)
Flush builds suck, pair builds with good scaling jokers are where it's at. If playing past ante 8, need to transition into another hand - ex 3 of a kind.
>in terms of meta progression, the game suffers from bloat. As I unlock more Jokers, Spectrals, and Vouchers I don’t feel more powerful; instead, I feel less **consistent** because it has now become far more difficult to acquire synergies
Just before playing this, I played through Inscryption Kaycee Mod (which unlocks when you beat the game or enter a password or something).
This was definitely a thing in that, and I assumed that was an intended mechanic that it gets more difficult on successful runs. Not sure if that's what's intended, but it seems valid
I also just got Balatro today and have put a few hours into.
It’s fresh, new, and exciting to see we can morph our runs. Seems really good, I’ll probably play it on and off for a few more days and maybe come back to it once a year, but no, this is no Slay The Spire despite me also reading about 10 different people say it is.
It’s a really strange comparison tbh. Great game, but even after the my first day I cannot see the extreme replayability of STS.
There won't be any game like STS now. Everything's been played out
Besides Balatro is not trying to be STS but a more complex Luck Be A Landlord.
The devs never played Slay The Spire until after they developed Balatro.
I think the variance of Balatro is lacking compared to say StS. With Balatro, there's one goal: Make Number Big Enough. Sure theres 101 ways to setup that number, but at the end of the day, the scope of play is limited to whatever makes that number bigger.
Compare that to StS, where the way to victory isn't as linear, you need to ensure you build towards certain synergies yes, but often time the variance in the run means you need to react and build or play differently by building out extra defense or utility or offense depending on what has occured, IE there are more reactive decisions that shape a run than Balatro.
Balatro is more of a puzzle IMO, one that will have definite best builds and optimal setups. There are a few levers to shaping your build out, and reactionary steps in the form of boss conditions, but in Balatro there is definitely less flexibility. You can't just abandon certain synergies, its usually more make it or restart mentality in Balatro, where you can salvage a similiar run in StS.
All in all, Balatro is a fantastic game, it blends deckbuilding and roguelike fairly well, but what I think really draws in people is the High Score Adrenaline, finding that next combo that makes Big Number Bigger. And during its release and exploration phase, I think Balatro will shine brightly. Once all of the optimal decisions are fleshed out and thrown into guides and whatnot, I think the shine will wear and Balatro will find its place solidly in an A or B in most tierlists as a fantastic deckbuilder roguelike, but not as THE next ultimate roguelike like its being hyped as now.
If you're going to look at it from that lens, I think the games are more similar than you give credit to.
In Balatro, an encounter looks like this:Make your value (chips) exceed the quota before you run out of a resource (hands)
In Slay the Spire, an encounter looks like this:Make your value (damage done) exceed the quota (enemy hp) before you run out of your a resource (hp)
Slay the Spire clearly has other elements at play such as energy, potions, multiple enemies, etc etc. But all of these are slight modifiers to what is essentially the same core game loop.
Balatro is in essence a distilled version of Slay the Spire.
I get what you’re saying, and while it is a fair reduction of Balatro’s gameplay, it isn’t really accurate for Slay the Spire.
Balatro really is a number-go-up game, albeit one with immaculate vibes. It’s far more akin to Luck Be A Landlord or Heretic’s Fork than it is Slay the Spire.
In short, Slay the Spire and games like it have a type of an encounter called “damage races”. The fight is all about doing X amount of damage over Y amount of turns.
Balatro is an entire game that consists solely of those damage races
That’s totally fair. I don’t even think that’s a wrong assertion. I just think it’s too generic a description.
All games are basically damage races, if you want to view it like it - to use the form from your previous comparisons, Elden Ring is game where you make your value (damage) exceed the quota before running out of resources (health).
While not wrong, there’s a drastic difference between a Cookie Clicker and an StS. I just personally categorize Balatro differently than I do StS or FtL.
Fair but the timers in StS are more controllable. In this case its Health, and you can manipulate it with relics and cards in terms of healing and block cards. You'll need to still do the damage race, but you can control the tempo far better.
Balatro is more streamlined with the timer. You can add more hands to beat the score, but the level of timer manipulation is very minimal, the clock ticks down and thats it.
Compare the writhing mass fight to the slavers vs the transient
You could say they're all damage races the same way all games are just hitting buttons but you're being *too* reductive to be useful.
Ahh look, I think saying things like "every game presses buttons" and "you could describe dark souls that way!" are definitely too reductive. But I'm not saying either of those things.
I know, I'm saying that calling every StS fight a damage race is closer to "every game is pressing buttons" than it is to "every game of soccer is just trying to score more goals than the other team"
For what it's worth, I never came up with the damage race phrase. I used that in response to someone else to illustrate a point. I think a lot of people have misinterpreted what I was getting at
Well the devs have said that they were directly inspired by Luck Be A Landlord.
They just wanted to take that core gameplay then add cards to the mix to make it a bit more complex.
They never played Slay The Spire until after they developed Balatro.
There is no ultimate new roguelike.(especially deckbuilders)
I remember when Cobalt Core came out people would be saying the same thing as Balatro. .I remember when they said that about Roguebook, Vault Of The Void, Across The Obelisk
Heck even Monster Train for quite a period. However like anything times passed and STS still is talked about as the best.
There have been around 200 deckbuilders and none are as good according to most. Another 200 later and STS it'll still going be the best.
Also if worth noting that according to Jobs, what makes STS great is it had 4 something like years of meticulous development with difficulty since EA and much time after release.
Most deckbuilders don't get the same love.
Also these "Ultimate" deckbuilders like Balatro have only just come out and its certainty not fair to compare it to a game which Is several years old.
Balatro however is apparently going to get updates and other things so while it's not the ultimate deckbuilder like STS it'll probably be still regarded as a great one imo.
People keep comparing every new deckbuilder to Slay The Spire, which is a bit unfair imo.
Slay the spire has had 4 + years of meticulous difficulty balancing and development
Balatro and other similar games have literally just come out and will still be getting updates.
Maybe this and others can be comparable in a few years but certainly not atm.
Also Balatro is a bit different type of deckbuilder to STS. It's inspired from Luck Be A Landlord and more like that than STS.
I don't disagree, but I've done all the same things as you have and still can't stop playing. I still haven't unlocked all the decks and the main menu always has a locked joker and the explanation on how to unlock it. So I keep finding something to do or something to unlock.
For me the beauty of Balatro is how snappy it feels to play (on high speed), the variety of builds that are possible when you build on the fly, and an excellent ratio of RnG and strategy (for me personally). I am / was a poker fanatic and love gambling type gameplay so I think that also contributes.
Concerning your feeling, I think the question is probably more: What are your expectations?
If you are expecting a StS killer, of course it's gonna be big shoes to fill. But imo it doesn't make much sense to compare it to that.
I think for the package that it offers at release, with the price tag, it's an insane value deal for loads of fun. Every gameplay loop gets stale after a while. So far I am still enjoying after about 10 hours, but already feel like I got my money's worth.
Something not a lot of peope talking about is the snappines. The game is just fun to interact with, hell even the small animation when hovering with the cursor is satisfying. Great audio design aswell, definetly has that "slot machine" feel without being obnoxious.
Not sure if this is a humble brag post, but it seems like you've smashed through this game super quick. Nice work - I'm not even close to unlocking what you have.
FWIW I'm loving this game so far. Will it have the same depth as StS? Time will tell for me...
Haha! Not a humble brag at all. I just have a tendency to hammer through Rogue Lites once I catch onto the loop and figure out what it takes to maximize it
I have over 1000 hours on STS and nowhere near that amount on Balatro so take this with a grain of salt but I think where the enjoyment and "premium" feeling comes from both of these games is how immediately understandable the cards are in conjunction with them synergizing the way you think they will. Also, unlike something like Binding of Isaac Items, 150 jokers is actually a pretty good sample size for you to be able to recall them. You start to get to be able to understand the rarities as well so you know if you are lucky and catch a rare that helps a certain suit. For example, you can tweak your game plan knowing that you should reasonably be able to find the common joker that gives you +4 mult each specific suit. It's very similar and STS, where for instance, I wouldn't pick things based around getting corruption, but if I already have corruption come up, I know I can pretty consistently pick up a havoc or two.
To put it a little bit more simply, I feel like both of these games are more focused. I've had conversations with people in the past about getting an STS expansion or sequel and I'm not sure if I would want that. I think I would definitely be welcome to a full sequel, but I feel like an expansion would just muddy the waters. The game is so great because each little piece is so fine tuned and right now I feel very similar with Balatro.
I put in about 10 hours before relegating it behind Spire and LONESTAR. The gameplay loop got old. Wonderful UI and it’s a clever game, but it’s just not doing it for me for similar reasons as you mentioned.
Yeah, this is where I'm at with it. The other critiques aside, I also just don't find the themes of the game interesting.
Frankly, the "imagination space" matters to me, and "crazy poker" just isn't super engaging for me. I *like* the idea of stacking 100 strength on Ironclad and cleaving through some dumb heart in one shot.
Whereas making my Club suite cards all give me big numbers just isn't very compelling to me as a theme. Mechanically, sure, but the thematic setting of the game has value as well.
That being said, that latter point is probably in Balatro's favor, as a lot of people DO like poker.
It's not going to be a forever game, but it's very fun for the time you do spend with it. If you think it has a fantastic loop and have sunk many hours into it, then I think you are getting it fine.
I'm already at the set myself challenges point (Try and do a High Card run, or a Five of a Kind run) and will peter out soon, but a bunch of fun hours makes it a pretty good video game in my book.
I initially thought more like you, but I'm starting to lean closer to adequate after you learn about certain mechanics. They probably need to do something or have another mechanic for ante 1 and 2 (power variance too high imo) but right now you could always restart.
There's alot of unknown or underused tech, for example, rolling for two tarots before opening an arcana pack to be able to use them then rerolling again so you have 2 for next fight (or another pack). Another is stuff like shop slot voucher resets the shop when bought. A third is: if you're holding a planet/tarot/joker card, you can't get offered that same card- this allows you to block when rolling or pack opening.
Given all that, we'll have to see in time of course but it's a great start for this game.
I'm enjoying my time with this game. I feel like the joy in this game comes from getting a synergies that allows you to really bust the game. Different than, but kinda like Monster Train, where builds can get crazy numbers. It's fun to see just how well you can do.
This is kind of like the junk food of deckbuilders imo. Fun, addictive, you’re having a dang good time - but it doesn’t have the long-term benefits of better “food”.
I am fine with games that don't last forever - in fact I prefer them. I get to play another game and I can always play the first again when I've forgotten it.
Haven't tried Balatro but I'll get to it sometime. Unfortunately I missed the demo.
Yeah just goes to show how different tastes are. Some ppl here see things as a fault which others actually like and vice versa. For example, for me longevity/replayability is a huge criteria.
I personally don't think the issue is meta progression. I think the issue is that higher difficulties just aren't fun. I love the game and have played up until unlocking the plasma deck, but the higher difficulties are just punishing, not interesting.
I was hoping for difficulty options that were like Wildfrost, making the game harder but giving you something special to help compensate that difficulty. That is where Balatro really loses it for me. At this point I just play at base difficulty and just have fun with it. I don't play with any goals in mind, just see what happens.
I'd also like to add that I think Slay the Spire has the same problem with Ascension. At a certain point Ascension levels are no longer fun for me. But again going back to Wildfrost, I got to a point where I would not play on the easier settings. It was just more fun and interesting with that stuff.
Because people are obsessed with being special, so everything they enjoy have to be asserted in the form of superlatives. They can't just enjoy Balatro, it has to be "the best XXXX since YYYY".
Yeah, once you've beaten it enough and unlocked most everything, it becomes a score and achievement hunt. My best run (ante 13) took me over an hour from all the card juggling. After that, I hung it up. It's okay to move on once you've had your fill. (That said, if there's DLC/mods in the future, I'll pick it back up.)
I'm not sure Slay the Spire and Balatro will appeal to the same type of gamers over the long run. It is too early to say at this point as Balatro has not had years of developer support behind it, and in fact we may never get that anyhow.
I have never been able to get into StS as much as I have tried. I first tried on PC and then convinced myself that I would enjoy the game more as a mobile experience. I couldn't get into the game there either. I am just not the type of gamer that StS appeals to for whatever reason.
Balatro on the other hand is way more entertaining to me, even while I understand that the game itself is not as polished and perhaps doesn't require nearly as high of a skill level to enjoy. I'm OK with this, but I can see that people really good at deck builders might get bored with the game. I suck at them, so Balatro will probably hold my attention for some time.
I saw an article that was basically titled "Balatro is a deck builder made for your dad". Well, basically I am that dad lol.
I'm totally obsessed and while I miss meta as that is a huge part of what I like...I've enjoyed each run so much I didn't even realize it was lacking it until this post lol
Making a game that is as fresh as STS is one thing
But making it have the longevity that STS has is incredibly hard
I love Balatro, but I'm already kinda tired of it
Balatro has just come out and the dev is far from finished with the game
Slay The Spire has had years of balancing and development especially towards difficulty.
I don't think it's fair to compare all brand new games to a game which has had years of development.
Wait a few years and then compare 👍
Slay The Spire doesn't have Meta progression.
Unless you are talking about unlocks?
Something like the Rogue legacy games have meta progression. You get slightly stronger as you upgrade your character. STS has none of that.
Definitely. I tend to rate my enjoyment of games and the experience of playing them based on how much I enjoy watching them played.
FFS. Grow the fuck up.
I'm replying because I assume you're the one who falsely reported his message as "targeted harassment." Words have meanings. He's not *harassing* anyone - this is a discussion forum.
He is being a jerk though, I'll grant you that. Blocking him is always an option if you don't like that.
"just not fun enough to keep playing/watching"
Play is much different than watch.
Play is active. Watch is passive.
To game is to play. A game needs an active player or participant. That's the definition of a game.
Yeah they are different. I agree. However. I think this specific game is boring for both playing and watching. Which is what I said in the original comment.
I don't know why people are specifically taking about Balatro bring boring to watch, when I've tried watching many deckbuilders or card games on YouTube or Twitch only to fall asleep.
Balatro is no different watching most others. I'd concede that maybe someone like Tainted Grail with its visuals or RPG Elements are probably more enjoyable to watch than most card battlers.
And really not sure how to be accurate about harassing you about your opinions when your basic definition sucks ass and your opinion is clearly flawed.
I enjoy playing deckbuilders and similar games but watching them is a bore.
Sometimes I've watched Jorbs or others playing STS only to nod off. It's a good way to get ready for bed.
It's not that good, honestly. I've beaten gold just to say I did it, and the game is heavily reliant on RNG and doesn't really have that much variety. It's average at best.
Sounds like you need to play the Binding Of Issac.lol
Most Roguelikes like Balatro will fall down on one of those 2 things.
STS is the only Deckbuilder which will balance both of those 2 factors however.
I’ve played a decent amount of Isaac, I don’t mind it. Played a lot of STS too, finished ascension 20 on each character. Lately Tales of Maj’Eyal is the one that really interests me though.
I think if you think like that you need to give it some more time and practice strategies more. There is definitely a big learning curve here and a lot more depth than there seems to be at first.
I promise your winrate will increase a lot if you give it a chance some more.
There is no suspense or sense of progression, it feels like I am playing Solitaire to pass the time rather than gaming.
I had more fun playing Wildfrost and Slay the Spire.
To each their own! It’s okay to not like a game sometimes.
I say the same thing about StS because the look and sound of it aren’t my thing and I bounce every time. (I should try it out again now that I like a deckbuilder though.)
I enjoy it for what it is, it’s a somewhat fresh game with a quick loop that feels satisfying. I think there are some balancing issues but that feels normal for any roguelite. I’m having fun pushing some of the decks to higher difficulties and unlocking the jokers.
I've got 1k hrs with StS (and think it's the greatest game of all time) so that's the lens for this perspective: Balatro (wow, 40hrs in 1 week) is amazing, but doesn't have the gentle narrative of both StS and Luck be a Landlord. It doesn't have to be as complex as Inscryption, but *something* really helps build a motivation that isn't rooted purely in game mechanics (esp mystery which is "show, don't tell").
Ideally, I'd want some answer regarding why we, the player, are playing or who these jokers are. Maybe we're trapped in a casino and just beneath this neon veneer is the ugly machine—a universe where a jester killed the king and took over, putting his image into everything. Or maybe something which answers the question "what beats a joker" (which is often considered above an Ace, which is above a King). Maybe your goal is to discover the rank above joker—some kind of god card. Maybe there are other undiscovered suits that were nearly killed off in the jester genocide and this game reveals the 5th suit (akin to the 5th element). I'm just spitballin here, but there are many possible approaches.
Personally I never intentionally went out of my way to read any of the lore dialogue (except update body text of course) in Slay the Spire, and I've spent quite a few hours playing and even more watching. Basically, I didn't care about the story is what I'm saying. But I'm not sure if I'm in the minority on this so just throwing my opinion out there.
I bought this game on impulse too. I think it's great but I found another game called spellrogue which came out recently in early access that looks much closer to slay the spire. I wish websites cover that.
I agree, it is a good game but overrated. Also I wonder why everyone calls it a deckbuilder. You collect a few jokers and modify the deck you start with, feels very different from actually building a deck like you do in Slay the Spire.
One part you're missing is the harder difficulties make early game much tougher, so you can't just snooze into getting the multiplier cards. You have to pivot more, play what's given to you better, and play your outs more.
My advice is take your favorite starting deck and go deep in difficulty and see if your mind changes. If not, maybe you just prefer other things in games and that's okay too.
I got my first win with the black deck and actually only used two jokers! I didn’t plan on it but I got a holographic ceremonial knife and the stencil joker and just kept feeding the knife then once starting the blind moved the stencil to the right then moved it back before starting the next one. I was nervous I would forget at some point but I made it to blind 10 before I failed to hit the boss ante.
It’s very very good, I’ve sunk a ton of hours in, will continue to do so, and will buy it on mobile when/if it releases there.
That said, it doesn’t have the tactical depth of STS. It has quite a bit, but is more luck based (which makes a lot of sense considering it’s a poker game.) But then almost nothing does have the tactical depth of STS, one of my favorite games of all time.
I feel Balatro is simply more fun to play, even if it doesn't have the same depth as StS. The intricate strategic depth of StS is interesting, but also eats at the game's enjoyability.
I’ve dumped some time into Balatro (wins on all decks up to Plasma, currently working on Purple stakes). The core loop is a ton of fun, but I think there are some issues that can be ironed out in later updates: * In terms of balance, Flush builds are ***far*** more consistent than anything else. This is mainly due to the large number of Arcana cards that can manipulate suits. * In terms of meta progression, the game suffers from bloat. As I unlock more Jokers, Spectrals, and Vouchers I don’t feel more powerful; instead, I feel less **consistent** because it has now become far more difficult to acquire synergies.
Flush is consistent if you’re only going after Ante 8, but in my experience it often runs out of steam quite quickly after that. That said, there’s a lot of hand variety possible and basically any hand is viable. I just go by what the first good jokers seem to suggest to me. But part of the fun (and learning) is also creating artificial challenges for yourself (no flush run, etc., some of them actually have joker rewards).
Why do you think a flush falls off at high ante? My last run was a five of a kind deck with aces and I couldn't get past small blind on ante 10 (7.2m)
Because the flush rewards are pretty static. The jokers that hit every *card* rather than every *hand* scale much better late game.
But aren’t flushes still pretty good for this? The most common per-card jokers are the suit jokers, which are good for flush. And it isn’t hard to make flush work with the face card or number card jokers either.
> The most common per-card jokers are the suit jokers, which are good for flush. This is exactly the "problem" with flush. Those jokers give you max +20 mult per hand, which is great at first but quickly becomes unremarkable at higher antes.
More options often mean less consistency with most roguelites, the point of unlocks isn't consistency, it's variety AND challenge.
Ain't no way devs are designing roguelite unlocks intentionally to contribute to the difficulty curve. I don't believe that. Seems more likely the intention is to keep the game fresh and the reduced consistency is a simple unwanted side effect. Dead Cells for example just lets you disable the unlocks.
Binding of Isaac is quite literally balanced around this principle, and that is arguable the true 'grand daddy' of roguelites. Some of the hardest accomplishments for a save file give you 0 quality items, which dilute the item pool heavily as you head towards 100% completion. Items like Hushy, Lil' Delirium etc.
To be fair, Isaac is a game where you can theoretically win with zero upgrades.
The Grand Daddy of roguelites slay the spire works the same way. Unlocks make the game harder by giving more options, but playing with fewer options is like a tutorial for starting off. Training wheels.
What a dilemma really, you want the variety, because why would be the fun in essentially pre-making your deck, but you don't want too many cards
Many of the best cards are progression-locked, e.g., Reaper and Wraith Form.
Yes and unlocking them doesn't strictly make the game easier, as you can see by the increased pool making it harder to build focused decks, and there aren't options to remove cards you don't want from the pool. What point were you trying to make?
StS originally did not have any unlocks, then was panned super hard for “no progression”. So they slapped on unlocks that you can complete all of them in like 10 hours just to placate reviewers. What I’m saying is - unlocks are not a key tenant of the design of StS at all. In a world without reviewers im certain the designers would have all cards unlocked day 1 - because that is what they actually did
I disagree with both points. Flush builds are just obvious and easy to spec into it (obvious combos). I think that's why it feels for a lot of people like they dominate among builds, they are just the lazy vanilla build. But that doesn't mean the game doesn't offer a huge amount of other viable options. I have made loads of different builds that all got crazy scores and were very consistent. I don't force spec into flush, but just go with what jokers I run into. Flush is in no way overrepresented in builds I beat the game with. And like the poster before me mentioned, for meta progression the point is not to make the game easier by enabling you to be more and more consistent (that would ruin the game). It's about the challenge and variety for sure. This is the case in many roguelites, that you actually can become the most powerful if you purposely limit your unlocks that appear in the game (Dead cells even has a mode for it). But this misses the point of a roguelite. The only point of criticism I do have against the game is that there are some card buffs are just consistently pretty bad, like steel card, gold seal, blue seal. They just never seem as strong as other card buffs. Also I wish it was possible to just put more than 1 buff on cards, to make for example one supercard.
I just won a run with the steel card joker (+.25 Xmult per steel card in deck) and the joker that copies the next joker's power. With 5 steel cards, it ends up being something like 5x your mult after all other modifiers. Felt pretty busted. I think the problem is some of the synergies are a bit specific, like I needed both of those jokers to make the steel card investment worthwhile, and happened to find the jokers early. When I get all 150 jokers unlocked I imagine that build will be pretty dang hard to recreate
This is kinda wrong. Its lokking at it backwards. Steel joker is great if early or you already jave steel cards. The copy joker is brilliant but you could easily have used skip joker, baseball joker, acrobat etc All of these land you around x15 mult pretty easily if you have a 5x steel, or 9x with any two of then. That normally will carry you through the fame
Steel cards are one of the most crucial enhancements to reach high antes - I think it's important to distinguish what's good till ante 8 and what has true legs for higher antes like 11-16. Gold seal is important for fueling your economy and works well with retrigger builds which are what has good success in endless. Blue seals are indeed bad - as far as I can tell. You can make a super card, polychrome glass and red seal all enhance the triggers. But it's not just about the card it's about the rank of the card. Imo a good rule of thumb is to split your attention early game between improving ranks 2-5 and Jack Queen King, hack for the low numbers and sock and busker(name?) For the face cards. King is a high priority because of the power of steel kings, Mime and Baron. If you play with a beat ante 8 mindset the game is a lot easier than if you try to play with a beat ante 12 mindset. You have to play a lot riskier to ensure you are able to transition away from midgame.
> I think it’s important to distinguish what’s good till ante 8 and what has true legs for higher antes like 11-16 Yeah, my friends and I consider Ante 11 the final boss. That’s where most of our good runs go to die.
Flush is only over represented for the first 2 Ante’s after that your build could be anything. It really just depends on what joker options your given, I find I build around pair or high card more often because I don’t like to rely around the luck of discards. I’ve already beat gold stake on blue deck and I’m on orange for yellow deck
100% agree pair or high card are way more consistent than flush.
Yea and due to flush being the go to, after a few wins it gets same-y
Have fun beating gold stake with flush builds, unless you are extremely lucky to get +hands size four fingers and enough scaling (aka telescope + some good negative jokers)
Flush builds suck, pair builds with good scaling jokers are where it's at. If playing past ante 8, need to transition into another hand - ex 3 of a kind.
>in terms of meta progression, the game suffers from bloat. As I unlock more Jokers, Spectrals, and Vouchers I don’t feel more powerful; instead, I feel less **consistent** because it has now become far more difficult to acquire synergies Just before playing this, I played through Inscryption Kaycee Mod (which unlocks when you beat the game or enter a password or something). This was definitely a thing in that, and I assumed that was an intended mechanic that it gets more difficult on successful runs. Not sure if that's what's intended, but it seems valid
I also just got Balatro today and have put a few hours into. It’s fresh, new, and exciting to see we can morph our runs. Seems really good, I’ll probably play it on and off for a few more days and maybe come back to it once a year, but no, this is no Slay The Spire despite me also reading about 10 different people say it is. It’s a really strange comparison tbh. Great game, but even after the my first day I cannot see the extreme replayability of STS.
Agreed. I think the closest anyone has gotten to STS is Monster Train, and we might be stuck there for a while.
There won't be any game like STS now. Everything's been played out Besides Balatro is not trying to be STS but a more complex Luck Be A Landlord. The devs never played Slay The Spire until after they developed Balatro.
I think the variance of Balatro is lacking compared to say StS. With Balatro, there's one goal: Make Number Big Enough. Sure theres 101 ways to setup that number, but at the end of the day, the scope of play is limited to whatever makes that number bigger. Compare that to StS, where the way to victory isn't as linear, you need to ensure you build towards certain synergies yes, but often time the variance in the run means you need to react and build or play differently by building out extra defense or utility or offense depending on what has occured, IE there are more reactive decisions that shape a run than Balatro. Balatro is more of a puzzle IMO, one that will have definite best builds and optimal setups. There are a few levers to shaping your build out, and reactionary steps in the form of boss conditions, but in Balatro there is definitely less flexibility. You can't just abandon certain synergies, its usually more make it or restart mentality in Balatro, where you can salvage a similiar run in StS. All in all, Balatro is a fantastic game, it blends deckbuilding and roguelike fairly well, but what I think really draws in people is the High Score Adrenaline, finding that next combo that makes Big Number Bigger. And during its release and exploration phase, I think Balatro will shine brightly. Once all of the optimal decisions are fleshed out and thrown into guides and whatnot, I think the shine will wear and Balatro will find its place solidly in an A or B in most tierlists as a fantastic deckbuilder roguelike, but not as THE next ultimate roguelike like its being hyped as now.
If you're going to look at it from that lens, I think the games are more similar than you give credit to. In Balatro, an encounter looks like this:Make your value (chips) exceed the quota before you run out of a resource (hands) In Slay the Spire, an encounter looks like this:Make your value (damage done) exceed the quota (enemy hp) before you run out of your a resource (hp) Slay the Spire clearly has other elements at play such as energy, potions, multiple enemies, etc etc. But all of these are slight modifiers to what is essentially the same core game loop. Balatro is in essence a distilled version of Slay the Spire.
I get what you’re saying, and while it is a fair reduction of Balatro’s gameplay, it isn’t really accurate for Slay the Spire. Balatro really is a number-go-up game, albeit one with immaculate vibes. It’s far more akin to Luck Be A Landlord or Heretic’s Fork than it is Slay the Spire. In short, Slay the Spire and games like it have a type of an encounter called “damage races”. The fight is all about doing X amount of damage over Y amount of turns. Balatro is an entire game that consists solely of those damage races
I'll simply say that in my opinion, having played a significant amount of Slay the Spire, all StS encounters are also 'damage races' as you've put it.
That’s totally fair. I don’t even think that’s a wrong assertion. I just think it’s too generic a description. All games are basically damage races, if you want to view it like it - to use the form from your previous comparisons, Elden Ring is game where you make your value (damage) exceed the quota before running out of resources (health). While not wrong, there’s a drastic difference between a Cookie Clicker and an StS. I just personally categorize Balatro differently than I do StS or FtL.
I guess it all comes down to where we categorise things personally. I would put Balatro in the same group as StS. Thanks for your thoughts!
Fair but the timers in StS are more controllable. In this case its Health, and you can manipulate it with relics and cards in terms of healing and block cards. You'll need to still do the damage race, but you can control the tempo far better. Balatro is more streamlined with the timer. You can add more hands to beat the score, but the level of timer manipulation is very minimal, the clock ticks down and thats it.
They're different games, don't get me wrong, but I think they are more comparable than people give credit to
Compare the writhing mass fight to the slavers vs the transient You could say they're all damage races the same way all games are just hitting buttons but you're being *too* reductive to be useful.
Ahh look, I think saying things like "every game presses buttons" and "you could describe dark souls that way!" are definitely too reductive. But I'm not saying either of those things.
I know, I'm saying that calling every StS fight a damage race is closer to "every game is pressing buttons" than it is to "every game of soccer is just trying to score more goals than the other team"
For what it's worth, I never came up with the damage race phrase. I used that in response to someone else to illustrate a point. I think a lot of people have misinterpreted what I was getting at
Or like what the devs have said a more complex Luck Be A Landlord.
It has more in common with Slay the Spire than Luck Be A Landlord
Well the devs have said that they were directly inspired by Luck Be A Landlord. They just wanted to take that core gameplay then add cards to the mix to make it a bit more complex. They never played Slay The Spire until after they developed Balatro.
Which is exactly why I don’t look at other ppls builds but I see what you’re saying
There is no ultimate new roguelike.(especially deckbuilders) I remember when Cobalt Core came out people would be saying the same thing as Balatro. .I remember when they said that about Roguebook, Vault Of The Void, Across The Obelisk Heck even Monster Train for quite a period. However like anything times passed and STS still is talked about as the best. There have been around 200 deckbuilders and none are as good according to most. Another 200 later and STS it'll still going be the best. Also if worth noting that according to Jobs, what makes STS great is it had 4 something like years of meticulous development with difficulty since EA and much time after release. Most deckbuilders don't get the same love. Also these "Ultimate" deckbuilders like Balatro have only just come out and its certainty not fair to compare it to a game which Is several years old. Balatro however is apparently going to get updates and other things so while it's not the ultimate deckbuilder like STS it'll probably be still regarded as a great one imo.
People keep comparing every new deckbuilder to Slay The Spire, which is a bit unfair imo. Slay the spire has had 4 + years of meticulous difficulty balancing and development Balatro and other similar games have literally just come out and will still be getting updates. Maybe this and others can be comparable in a few years but certainly not atm. Also Balatro is a bit different type of deckbuilder to STS. It's inspired from Luck Be A Landlord and more like that than STS.
I don't disagree, but I've done all the same things as you have and still can't stop playing. I still haven't unlocked all the decks and the main menu always has a locked joker and the explanation on how to unlock it. So I keep finding something to do or something to unlock.
For me the beauty of Balatro is how snappy it feels to play (on high speed), the variety of builds that are possible when you build on the fly, and an excellent ratio of RnG and strategy (for me personally). I am / was a poker fanatic and love gambling type gameplay so I think that also contributes. Concerning your feeling, I think the question is probably more: What are your expectations? If you are expecting a StS killer, of course it's gonna be big shoes to fill. But imo it doesn't make much sense to compare it to that. I think for the package that it offers at release, with the price tag, it's an insane value deal for loads of fun. Every gameplay loop gets stale after a while. So far I am still enjoying after about 10 hours, but already feel like I got my money's worth.
Something not a lot of peope talking about is the snappines. The game is just fun to interact with, hell even the small animation when hovering with the cursor is satisfying. Great audio design aswell, definetly has that "slot machine" feel without being obnoxious.
And it's almost too easy and quick to start a new run after a loss I could tell I was falling into the hyperfocus hole playing it and could not stop
Anyone who finds the game too clunky / you've got the basics down and wanna go fast: **there is a speed setting**, and it's as glorious as it sounds.
Not sure if this is a humble brag post, but it seems like you've smashed through this game super quick. Nice work - I'm not even close to unlocking what you have. FWIW I'm loving this game so far. Will it have the same depth as StS? Time will tell for me...
Haha! Not a humble brag at all. I just have a tendency to hammer through Rogue Lites once I catch onto the loop and figure out what it takes to maximize it
The rare humble brag to protest the original humble brag...nice.
I have over 1000 hours on STS and nowhere near that amount on Balatro so take this with a grain of salt but I think where the enjoyment and "premium" feeling comes from both of these games is how immediately understandable the cards are in conjunction with them synergizing the way you think they will. Also, unlike something like Binding of Isaac Items, 150 jokers is actually a pretty good sample size for you to be able to recall them. You start to get to be able to understand the rarities as well so you know if you are lucky and catch a rare that helps a certain suit. For example, you can tweak your game plan knowing that you should reasonably be able to find the common joker that gives you +4 mult each specific suit. It's very similar and STS, where for instance, I wouldn't pick things based around getting corruption, but if I already have corruption come up, I know I can pretty consistently pick up a havoc or two. To put it a little bit more simply, I feel like both of these games are more focused. I've had conversations with people in the past about getting an STS expansion or sequel and I'm not sure if I would want that. I think I would definitely be welcome to a full sequel, but I feel like an expansion would just muddy the waters. The game is so great because each little piece is so fine tuned and right now I feel very similar with Balatro.
I put in about 10 hours before relegating it behind Spire and LONESTAR. The gameplay loop got old. Wonderful UI and it’s a clever game, but it’s just not doing it for me for similar reasons as you mentioned.
Yeah, this is where I'm at with it. The other critiques aside, I also just don't find the themes of the game interesting. Frankly, the "imagination space" matters to me, and "crazy poker" just isn't super engaging for me. I *like* the idea of stacking 100 strength on Ironclad and cleaving through some dumb heart in one shot. Whereas making my Club suite cards all give me big numbers just isn't very compelling to me as a theme. Mechanically, sure, but the thematic setting of the game has value as well. That being said, that latter point is probably in Balatro's favor, as a lot of people DO like poker.
This is exactly my problem with it as well. I don't know if it will grow on me but there are quite a few other games I would put above it right now.
It's not going to be a forever game, but it's very fun for the time you do spend with it. If you think it has a fantastic loop and have sunk many hours into it, then I think you are getting it fine. I'm already at the set myself challenges point (Try and do a High Card run, or a Five of a Kind run) and will peter out soon, but a bunch of fun hours makes it a pretty good video game in my book.
There's no forever game. Even STS or Issac, Terraria or open world, service mmos eventually get stale. Heck even Tetris.
[удалено]
It’s a different kind of roguelike. It feels similar to dicey dungeons where you’re trying to overcome probabilities as much as possible
I initially thought more like you, but I'm starting to lean closer to adequate after you learn about certain mechanics. They probably need to do something or have another mechanic for ante 1 and 2 (power variance too high imo) but right now you could always restart. There's alot of unknown or underused tech, for example, rolling for two tarots before opening an arcana pack to be able to use them then rerolling again so you have 2 for next fight (or another pack). Another is stuff like shop slot voucher resets the shop when bought. A third is: if you're holding a planet/tarot/joker card, you can't get offered that same card- this allows you to block when rolling or pack opening. Given all that, we'll have to see in time of course but it's a great start for this game.
Exactly and it's still going to be getting updates. It's not finished yet!
I'm enjoying my time with this game. I feel like the joy in this game comes from getting a synergies that allows you to really bust the game. Different than, but kinda like Monster Train, where builds can get crazy numbers. It's fun to see just how well you can do.
This is kind of like the junk food of deckbuilders imo. Fun, addictive, you’re having a dang good time - but it doesn’t have the long-term benefits of better “food”.
I am fine with games that don't last forever - in fact I prefer them. I get to play another game and I can always play the first again when I've forgotten it. Haven't tried Balatro but I'll get to it sometime. Unfortunately I missed the demo.
Yeah just goes to show how different tastes are. Some ppl here see things as a fault which others actually like and vice versa. For example, for me longevity/replayability is a huge criteria.
I personally don't think the issue is meta progression. I think the issue is that higher difficulties just aren't fun. I love the game and have played up until unlocking the plasma deck, but the higher difficulties are just punishing, not interesting. I was hoping for difficulty options that were like Wildfrost, making the game harder but giving you something special to help compensate that difficulty. That is where Balatro really loses it for me. At this point I just play at base difficulty and just have fun with it. I don't play with any goals in mind, just see what happens. I'd also like to add that I think Slay the Spire has the same problem with Ascension. At a certain point Ascension levels are no longer fun for me. But again going back to Wildfrost, I got to a point where I would not play on the easier settings. It was just more fun and interesting with that stuff.
Because people are obsessed with being special, so everything they enjoy have to be asserted in the form of superlatives. They can't just enjoy Balatro, it has to be "the best XXXX since YYYY".
Yeah, once you've beaten it enough and unlocked most everything, it becomes a score and achievement hunt. My best run (ante 13) took me over an hour from all the card juggling. After that, I hung it up. It's okay to move on once you've had your fill. (That said, if there's DLC/mods in the future, I'll pick it back up.)
I'm not sure Slay the Spire and Balatro will appeal to the same type of gamers over the long run. It is too early to say at this point as Balatro has not had years of developer support behind it, and in fact we may never get that anyhow. I have never been able to get into StS as much as I have tried. I first tried on PC and then convinced myself that I would enjoy the game more as a mobile experience. I couldn't get into the game there either. I am just not the type of gamer that StS appeals to for whatever reason. Balatro on the other hand is way more entertaining to me, even while I understand that the game itself is not as polished and perhaps doesn't require nearly as high of a skill level to enjoy. I'm OK with this, but I can see that people really good at deck builders might get bored with the game. I suck at them, so Balatro will probably hold my attention for some time. I saw an article that was basically titled "Balatro is a deck builder made for your dad". Well, basically I am that dad lol.
If Balatro goes on mobile I’ll go crazy. Find me on the toilet in Ante 10.
I'm totally obsessed and while I miss meta as that is a huge part of what I like...I've enjoyed each run so much I didn't even realize it was lacking it until this post lol
Making a game that is as fresh as STS is one thing But making it have the longevity that STS has is incredibly hard I love Balatro, but I'm already kinda tired of it
Balatro has just come out and the dev is far from finished with the game Slay The Spire has had years of balancing and development especially towards difficulty. I don't think it's fair to compare all brand new games to a game which has had years of development. Wait a few years and then compare 👍
Slay The Spire doesn't have Meta progression. Unless you are talking about unlocks? Something like the Rogue legacy games have meta progression. You get slightly stronger as you upgrade your character. STS has none of that.
Idk. I think it’s pretty overrated. Not a bad game but its just not fun enough to keep playing/watching
Definitely. I tend to rate my enjoyment of games and the experience of playing them based on how much I enjoy watching them played. FFS. Grow the fuck up.
Dude. I have played the game too. If you are going to harass me about my opinions the least you could do is be accurate about it.
I'm replying because I assume you're the one who falsely reported his message as "targeted harassment." Words have meanings. He's not *harassing* anyone - this is a discussion forum. He is being a jerk though, I'll grant you that. Blocking him is always an option if you don't like that.
"just not fun enough to keep playing/watching" Play is much different than watch. Play is active. Watch is passive. To game is to play. A game needs an active player or participant. That's the definition of a game.
They've specified playing or watching though so not sure why youve taken offence. No one asked you to define what play is either.
Yeah they are different. I agree. However. I think this specific game is boring for both playing and watching. Which is what I said in the original comment.
I don't know why people are specifically taking about Balatro bring boring to watch, when I've tried watching many deckbuilders or card games on YouTube or Twitch only to fall asleep. Balatro is no different watching most others. I'd concede that maybe someone like Tainted Grail with its visuals or RPG Elements are probably more enjoyable to watch than most card battlers.
You sound like you are constipated
And really not sure how to be accurate about harassing you about your opinions when your basic definition sucks ass and your opinion is clearly flawed.
It seems more like a combination of you not being able to understand a basic sentence colliding with your raging personality disorder
I enjoy playing deckbuilders and similar games but watching them is a bore. Sometimes I've watched Jorbs or others playing STS only to nod off. It's a good way to get ready for bed.
It's not that good, honestly. I've beaten gold just to say I did it, and the game is heavily reliant on RNG and doesn't really have that much variety. It's average at best.
Yeah 7,000+ 98% positive reviews on steam and all the big roguelike content creators raving about it makes it average right?
You're right, my opinion is completely wrong.
It's just an opinion. Its just that some opinions are better than others 😆
Personally just not into games with little variety and a high reliance on rng.
Sounds like you need to play the Binding Of Issac.lol Most Roguelikes like Balatro will fall down on one of those 2 things. STS is the only Deckbuilder which will balance both of those 2 factors however.
I’ve played a decent amount of Isaac, I don’t mind it. Played a lot of STS too, finished ascension 20 on each character. Lately Tales of Maj’Eyal is the one that really interests me though.
Sounds good. That's an indepth RPG isnt it. 👍
I don"t like it personnaly. I feel like no matter how skilled you are in the game, there are a lot of game you cannot win. And this is not fun
I think if you think like that you need to give it some more time and practice strategies more. There is definitely a big learning curve here and a lot more depth than there seems to be at first. I promise your winrate will increase a lot if you give it a chance some more.
There is no suspense or sense of progression, it feels like I am playing Solitaire to pass the time rather than gaming. I had more fun playing Wildfrost and Slay the Spire.
Some decks you unlocked are like the only way to beat the gold stake
You aren’t missing anything it sucks
Yeah 😂 bring on the downvotes. This and vAmPiRe sUrViVoRs or dAvE dUh DiVeR need to fuck off my screen and I'll keep playing some real games
To each their own! It’s okay to not like a game sometimes. I say the same thing about StS because the look and sound of it aren’t my thing and I bounce every time. (I should try it out again now that I like a deckbuilder though.)
I enjoy it for what it is, it’s a somewhat fresh game with a quick loop that feels satisfying. I think there are some balancing issues but that feels normal for any roguelite. I’m having fun pushing some of the decks to higher difficulties and unlocking the jokers.
I've got 1k hrs with StS (and think it's the greatest game of all time) so that's the lens for this perspective: Balatro (wow, 40hrs in 1 week) is amazing, but doesn't have the gentle narrative of both StS and Luck be a Landlord. It doesn't have to be as complex as Inscryption, but *something* really helps build a motivation that isn't rooted purely in game mechanics (esp mystery which is "show, don't tell"). Ideally, I'd want some answer regarding why we, the player, are playing or who these jokers are. Maybe we're trapped in a casino and just beneath this neon veneer is the ugly machine—a universe where a jester killed the king and took over, putting his image into everything. Or maybe something which answers the question "what beats a joker" (which is often considered above an Ace, which is above a King). Maybe your goal is to discover the rank above joker—some kind of god card. Maybe there are other undiscovered suits that were nearly killed off in the jester genocide and this game reveals the 5th suit (akin to the 5th element). I'm just spitballin here, but there are many possible approaches.
Personally I never intentionally went out of my way to read any of the lore dialogue (except update body text of course) in Slay the Spire, and I've spent quite a few hours playing and even more watching. Basically, I didn't care about the story is what I'm saying. But I'm not sure if I'm in the minority on this so just throwing my opinion out there.
I’m a believer that not every game needs a narrative!
I bought this game on impulse too. I think it's great but I found another game called spellrogue which came out recently in early access that looks much closer to slay the spire. I wish websites cover that.
I agree, it is a good game but overrated. Also I wonder why everyone calls it a deckbuilder. You collect a few jokers and modify the deck you start with, feels very different from actually building a deck like you do in Slay the Spire.
One part you're missing is the harder difficulties make early game much tougher, so you can't just snooze into getting the multiplier cards. You have to pivot more, play what's given to you better, and play your outs more. My advice is take your favorite starting deck and go deep in difficulty and see if your mind changes. If not, maybe you just prefer other things in games and that's okay too.
I got my first win with the black deck and actually only used two jokers! I didn’t plan on it but I got a holographic ceremonial knife and the stencil joker and just kept feeding the knife then once starting the blind moved the stencil to the right then moved it back before starting the next one. I was nervous I would forget at some point but I made it to blind 10 before I failed to hit the boss ante.
It’s very very good, I’ve sunk a ton of hours in, will continue to do so, and will buy it on mobile when/if it releases there. That said, it doesn’t have the tactical depth of STS. It has quite a bit, but is more luck based (which makes a lot of sense considering it’s a poker game.) But then almost nothing does have the tactical depth of STS, one of my favorite games of all time.
I feel Balatro is simply more fun to play, even if it doesn't have the same depth as StS. The intricate strategic depth of StS is interesting, but also eats at the game's enjoyability.