Hey everyone! I'm super happy to announce that the first meaty balance patch for Balatro is now live for everyone! Thank you so much to everyone in the community that gave feedback during the public experimental beta. If you have been a beta tester, this version is functionally identical to 1.0.1e -...
I tried it and refunded it. It did not work for my brain. I'm glad they're seeing such success and it's clearly a terrific idea, but man, it just made me feel bad.
It's crazy good on mobile as well. Given that you have to create an unofficial port to play it on mobile it's not strictly speaking well optimized - it drains your battery like mad - but it's the best thing I've played on my phone since Slay the Spire.
Lots of great changes here! The standouts for me are:
Changed Rare tag - Now makes the rare joker free
Negative, Polychrome, Holo, Foil tags all make their respective joker free
Changed Orange Stake - Scrapped increasing pack cost
Added new 'Rental' mechanic, Jokers have a 30% chance to have a 'Rental' sticker (stacks with eternal/perishable), making them cost $1 up front and $3 every round
Changed the first shop in every run to always include a normal Buffoon pack as one of the pack options
Those and reducing the requirements for the early blinds definitely stand out to me, yeah. Reducing the early blinds is a very good change - I think most of my early losses aren't necessarily because I've played badly, but rather because it's too early in the run to have found something to build around or to put any combos together. This change makes you less beholden to RNG in the early game, and also allows you to think a little more about your endgame strategy rather than focusing on surviving right now.
What I think is a bigger early game changer than blinds (at higher stakes mostly) is guaranteed jokers, and free jokers from tags. In orange+ I found rare joker tags impossible to take on ante 1 because you can't usually afford it and sometimes you can't pay for uncommons too. It was easy to get unlucky and not have a joker by ante 2 which can make clearing the small blind tricky. Now with buffoon pack guaranteed and more tags giving a free joker I think you'll more reliably have 1 or 2 going into ante 2
Blue Seals are now strategically viable - I helped a friend through a Spare Trousers run yesterday, when she had a few blue seal cards that we were able to retain at the end of a round and get a pair of upgrades to two pair, or full house once those became easier to obtain.
Also, the change to 8-ball has been a very welcome addition (I enjoyed it with the new Hanging Chad buff).