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[BossLackey]

This deckbuilding poker roguelite called Belatro just had it's full release. I have put like 15 hours into it and still have not completed a run and I'm beyond frustrated. I feel like I can't think about anything else until I get a completed run under my belt but I just can't.

I've played a decent amount of poker. I've played MORE than a decent amount of rogelites/likes starting with the browser version of The Binding of Isaac back in the day. This game is breaking me.

My friends have all finished their runs within the first few hours with more after that and here I am with over a dozen hours and can't get past the 7th Ante (there are 8).

I understand all the mechanics of the game and often have runs where I'm winning every round in 1 or two hand with several times the size of the blind, but then one of the bosses will just fuck me.

Went on forums and Steam discussions to see what people's tips were. They're all things I've been doing. I haven't had single "aha, that's what I've been doing wrong" moment. I'm playing as optimally as feels possible and yet I can't fucking win.

I've never been this frustrated with a game in my life. I feel incredibly stupid.

 

[digital_ghost]

 

[tamago84]

Lol only 15 hrs, pleb. Some hints- money is important

 

[BossLackey]

Lol only 15 hrs, pleb. Some hints- money is important

I'm making sure to win first round with 1 hand for the extra dollar. Getting money early to 25 and living off interest. Many runs where I've had more money than I can spend.

What else you got?

 

[Jorav]

I've found having a good set of jokers can make or break your run. Multipliers for suits and numbers are my go to. Tarot cards can be handy in leveling up hands too.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

 

[gothmog]

Stop playing it like poker and more like something you are exploiting with cheats. Focus on the jokers you have available and how they reward you. You can win a whole run doing just high cards if you build it right.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I'm making sure to win first round with 1 hand for the extra dollar. Getting money early to 25 and living off interest. Many runs where I've had more money than I can spend.

What else you got?

Most broken combo Ive found is buffing the shit out of 2 pairs. Easy hand to put together and a bunch of jokers synergize with it. There’s a joker that adds multi every time you play 2 pairs. There’s a joker that adds multi every time you play 1 pair which still counts. I cleared the last stage on one hand of aces and deuces.

 

[SidViscous]

Got lucky on third run with jokers that just grew exponentially… hoping finishing a run is just the start else sorta disappointed by how easy it was

Sorry op

 

[BossLackey]

Finally won!

Died on Big Blind of Ante 10 (but just barely).

I was doing everything right but one. I made sure to have a good distribution of +chips, +multi, and Xmulti.

I wasn't generating enough chips in my other runs.

 

[tamago84]

I'm making sure to win first round with 1 hand for the extra dollar. Getting money early to 25 and living off interest. Many runs where I've had more money than I can spend.

What else you got?

Those jokers that give free tarot/planet cards are good early-mid. But joker with early chip/mult/money bonus are essential. Im getting my ass kicked trying to do the black deck as well

 

[Kiya's Guard]

Cheat, like any proper poker player. I wonder if this will release on mobile some day

 

[FunkMiller]

The positions of your Jokers matter. Don’t put a x mult before a + mult. Each Joker action happens from left to right.

Make sure you’ve got Jokers that increase chips and give multis. You need both!

 

[Deft Beck]

I'm having a similar experience. I'm on hour 19 of the game and I've never won a single time.

I had to block the .exe and force myself to wait a week until I try again.

It didn't help that I didn't understand how X Mults worked until recently.

 

[lh032]

its an overrated game.

Its like what....80% RNG 20% skill game?

 

[Kacho]

its an overrated game.

Its like what....80% RNG 20% skill game?

No? I win often enough just making smart choices. If I fail it’s usually because of a decision I made and I know exactly the reason.

 

[TropicanaTwista]

its an overrated game.

Its like what....80% RNG 20% skill game?

I mean, there's gonna be some rng with it being a game where you draw cards. But it's NOWHERE near that split you have. I would say more like 90% skill 10% RNG, once you understand the strength and weakness of whatever deck you're playing and how to properly play your jokers

 

[V1LÆM]

I’ve only won once but I don’t care. The game is so fun and addictive. Best £10 I’ve ever spent! Bought it again on Steam.

 

[Sooner]

The same people who have trouble with "Belarto" also struggle with "Bloodbourne".

 

[lh032]

No? I win often enough just making smart choices. If I fail it’s usually because of a decision I made and I know exactly the reason.

RNG wins the game for you.

You cant make smart choices with shitty RNG

 

[Kacho]

RNG wins the game for you.

You cant make smart choices with shitty RNG

Nope. I win plenty of runs with basic Jokers. You don’t need a god-tier, game-breaking build to win.

 

[MR ARCADE FOREVER]

Balatro

 

[clarky]

its an overrated game.

Its like what....80% RNG 20% skill game?

More like 10% RNG 90% Strategy.

If you think this is 80% luck then you mustn't understand the game very well.

 

[ChoosableOne]

The same people who have trouble with "Belarto" also struggle with "Bloodbourne".

+Herman Hults

 

[Kacho]

More like 10% RNG 90% Strategy.

If you think this is 90% luck then you mustn't understand the game very well.

Probably the latter. I did a Google search and there’s a lot of people saying they only managed 1-3 wins in 20 hours.

 

[lh032]

More like 10% RNG 90% Strategy.

If you think this is 90% luck then you mustn't understand the game very well.

its a card game. you are not winning with bad cards even with perfect strategy. rng matters

rng 10%? lets no go that far

 

[Come On Tars]

Going through the decks in order, not going to the next till I beat each one in gold stake. I’m in the middle of black deck.

Idk, once you get a win it sort of clicks as far as strategy.

You understand what jokers are good for what strat, you going flushes? 2 pair? You’ll learn that scaling jokers are the move and to keep one economy joker if you don’t have constant cash flow you are doomed.

 

[clarky]

its a card game. you are not winning with bad cards even with perfect strategy. rng matters

rng 10%? lets no go that far

You can completely manipulate the cards with the correct strategy, depending on what jokers are available and what deck you are playing. Its nothing like regular cards. You can end up with a deck that only consists of 52 copies the 9 of hearts for example, if you have built your deck around certain jokers.

I'm ok at the game. I'm about half way through the decks and difficulties. Sure you can get a bad run, but "death" is normally avoidable if you plan accordingly. There's some high level gold players on YouTube that are way above anything my tiny brain can comprehend.

If course RNG matters, but i'd say 20% at the very most.

 

[clarky]

I’ve only won once but I don’t care. The game is so fun and addictive. Best £10 I’ve ever spent! Bought it again on Steam.

I rebought it on mobile, perfect game on the go.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Got lucky on third run with jokers that just grew exponentially… hoping finishing a run is just the start else sorta disappointed by how easy it was

Sorry op

Same. And the next 3 runs were the same for me.
Maybe I’m just incredibly lucky, but I didn’t find it challenging at all and didn’t feel any urge to keep playing.

 

[Dacvak]

Dude, I was so mad… I showed my buddy the game earlier in the year, and really hyped up the gameplay and difficulty. He rolled such a broken-ass game that he completed the run on his first try and was like “ah, I get it, that was kinda fun”. He didn’t play it again.

Spoiler

until like 4 months later

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

I'm having a similar experience. I'm on hour 19 of the game and I've never won a single time.

I had to block the .exe and force myself to wait a week until I try again.

It didn't help that I didn't understand how X Mults worked until recently.

Get synergy with a hand early on and build up jokers with chips and +multi bonuses and then slap a good xmulti in there and watch the points flow in.

 

[MMaRsu]

Cheat, like any proper poker player. I wonder if this will release on mobile some day

Its already on mobile

 

[genesisblock]

This deckbuilding poker roguelite called Belatro just had it's full release. I have put like 15 hours into it and still have not completed a run and I'm beyond frustrated. I feel like I can't think about anything else until I get a completed run under my belt but I just can't.

I've played a decent amount of poker. I've played MORE than a decent amount of rogelites/likes starting with the browser version of The Binding of Isaac back in the day. This game is breaking me.

My friends have all finished their runs within the first few hours with more after that and here I am with over a dozen hours and can't get past the 7th Ante (there are 8).

I understand all the mechanics of the game and often have runs where I'm winning every round in 1 or two hand with several times the size of the blind, but then one of the bosses will just fuck me.

Went on forums and Steam discussions to see what people's tips were. They're all things I've been doing. I haven't had single "aha, that's what I've been doing wrong" moment. I'm playing as optimally as feels possible and yet I can't fucking win.

I've never been this frustrated with a game in my life. I feel incredibly stupid.

Keep collecting the Jokers and find a combination that multiplies your hand and you can reuse the rules over to the next ante. For example, if you found a joker that multiplies pairs, find a combination that use that and pairs are the most common hand you get anyways.

You can even use any suit that contains a pair from 2 pairs or 3 of a kind. Get planet cards to add multipliers to your existing buff like pairs. It's all about specializing in this game and try not to aim for other suits that don't benefit you.

 

[hemo memo]

The same thing happened to me with Inscryption. The solution? I got good. I actually got so good that I laughed at myself later for how bad I was.

 

[Ar¢tos]

After 100h I'm still addicted to it!
I just have one Legendary joker to unlock and 3 vouchers to buy, then I'll move to getting gold stake on all decks.

 

[thuGG_pl]

Commit to some specific build at the beginning. Choose easy hand to play all the time and level it up. My highest run was using two pairs almost exclusievely. Then choose jockers that boost it.

 

[ChoosableOne]

I tried it with apple arcade, then immediately buy it for android. It needs a demo for more sales.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

Its already on mobile

Yes, this was posted a while ago lol

 

[nkarafo]

My issue with this game is the way the scoring changes depending on the order the Jokers are placed. I get that moving them around is needed for various strategies with certain Jokers but at some point i just can't tell where to place them for maximum gains.

Basically, scoring should have been always visible, so you can tell what your best outcome is, not only after you played your hand when it's too late.

Also, the game needs an undo button for those accidental miss-clicks.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

Commit to some specific build at the beginning. Choose easy hand to play all the time and level it up. My highest run was using two pairs almost exclusievely. Then choose jockers that boost it.

This was all a very apparent offensive strategy within a handful of runs, and it’s very fun if you win in that phase. But, you may have bad luck and the fun, offensive game becomes maddening. It gave me the super ultra $300k blind on the run I figured out the above and put it all together. My average hand value was fine until it move the goal post. Fine, I need to go bigger! 4 runs later, my average hand value was enough to beat $300k and I could do this with nearly any bundle of cards (which would be considered a straight), but then I had a blind where each hand could only be played once.

You might say the game is actually defense—not letting the game decide it’s your turn to win. The actual game is to have enough money, card value counters, multipliers, etc WITH money/space to nullify the games BS surprise challenge mechanics through rerolls OR having a secondary point scoring strat that is reliable.

The game is a fun when you understand the offensive mechanics and get lucky and the game designer lets you pass. If you strike out in the fun phase, you are in for one hell of an antagonistic, unfun, defensive exchange with the games mechanics.

I don’t see how fun to would be to play again with different handicaps/bonuses, because that defensive game is the same and is shit to play.

After you win, I guess you unlock new jokers that could do anything…that’s fun and surprising, right?!! Not really, because they only make a difference to the offensive strat for losers and not the defensive strat for winners.

 

[nkarafo]

I've played a decent amount of poker

When you understand how the Jokers and the scoring works in this game, you will realize it has very little poker in it. Same thing with all the other "enhancement" cards like the tarot and planet cards.

It's 90% "roguelike/deck building" and 10% poker game.

Sure, regular Poker rules still exist and a flush hand will score more than a pair. But that's only really useful in the first few rounds where you don't have "end game" Jokers and you try to win rounds with as few hands as possible (because remaining hands give you money). After that it depends on the Jokers. Basically, in order to score big, you need to invest in a certain build/hand and making it stronger each round. The early Jokers usually determine where to invest in.

What i'm saying is, after a certain number of rounds, a random "straight flush" will score orders of magnitude less than a "high card" in your high card build.

And that's just for winning the game. But reaching the cap in "endless" mode is a different story. This is where you need to invest in the made up poker hands that don't even exist in the real poker game, like playing 5 cards of the same rank and color for example. Such cards don't exist at first of course, you need to create them. This is where the "deck building" aspect takes place.

Anyway, the general gist is this: Early game you use a bunch of money making and "utility" Jokers. And as the ante gets bigger, you slowly replace them with "scoring" jokers who give you chips and (most importantly) multipliers.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

I'm 56 hours in and still learning to master the game. Currently on trying to clear purple stake / red deck.

I've come to understand:

• Scaling +mults and xmults will land you ante 8 wins
• Less is more: focus on smaller hands
• Focusing on king cards allows for a lot of winning synergies
• Focus on enhancing cards and copying good enhanced cards
• Jokers (like sock & buskin, mime, dusk) and cards (red seal, steel) with retriggers, as well as jokers that retrigger jokers, are extremely powerful and the to go way for advanced players to create high score builds.

The last mentioned strategy can lead to insane stuff like this, plays 1 card and the retriggering looping machine (mime -> baron -> 4 x brainstorm for every red sealed card + another loop cause gold cards = a few hundred gold) goes wild:

I've found using this tier list as reference to decide on jokers to be very helpful. I will also consider the lower tier ones depending on my run/build:

Balatro Jokers Tier List (Community Rankings)

tiermaker.com

Also, getting a better understanding of the game through YT guides, tips and tricks made by advanced players helped me a lot

Same. And the next 3 runs were the same for me.
Maybe I’m just incredibly lucky, but I didn’t find it challenging at all and didn’t feel any urge to keep playing.

You won some ante 8 on the base difficulty and called it a day?
The challenge lies in clearing all the stakes on every deck, the challenges and beating ante 12+ with insane high scoring builds.

 

[nkarafo]

If course RNG matters, but i'd say 20% at the very most.

I'm not an "e" score player, my biggest hand so far is only 70 million. So i'm only average at best. But from what i have gathered so far, if you play smart enough RNG isn't really a thing, assuming your aim is to simply beat the game. Reaching the scores to beat the final bosses isn't really that hard and you have enough headroom for many mistakes and unlucky shop rolls.

RNG will mostly screw you in endless mode, where you need that last particular joker to appear in the shop and never does, no matter how much money/rerolls you may have.

 

[nkarafo]

Balatro Jokers Tier List (Community Rankings)

tiermaker.com

Is this tier list supposed to show you what each Joker does when you hover your mouse over them? Because it doesn't work for me.

If it's just the images then the list is useless to players who don't remember every single card.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

Is this tier list supposed to show you what each Joker does when you hover your mouse over them? Because it doesn't work for me.

If it's just the images then the list is useless to players who don't remember every single card.

Unfortunately, I don't think it does. I have it open, zoomed in on my 2nd monitor when playing Balatro.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

My issue with this game is the way the scoring changes depending on the order the Jokers are placed. I get that moving them around is needed for various strategies with certain Jokers but at some point i just can't tell where to place them for maximum gains.

Basically, scoring should have been always visible, so you can tell what your best outcome is, not only after you played your hand when it's too late.

Also, the game needs an undo button for those accidental miss-clicks.

Basic rule is, any multiplier joker at the end (right side). The rest doesnt matter as long as they are before the multi ones. Because what happens is those gain a bunch of perks and then in the end it all gets multiplied. If its all mixed up you miss out on max bonus as you will just be multiplying one joker's ability instead of whole deck.

+10 + 50 chips + gold = to the left
X3 Xface cards etc = all the way to the right

One thing that def helped me step up my game was actually using the perks of skipping a tier. You can get rare joker early on or a negative one which gives you +1 added joker. In the beginning I thought its smart to play every single tier but unless you read what you are getting if you skip it, you are missing out on really good jokers.

 

[nkarafo]

Basic rule is, any multiplier joker at the end (right side). The rest doesnt matter as long as they are before the multi ones. Because what happens is those gain a bunch of perks and then in the end it all gets multiplied. If its all mixed up you miss out on max bonus as you will just be multiplying one joker's ability instead of whole deck.

Yes, i know that's the general rule of thumb. But i have seen top players in YT struggling with this and using some kind of external calculator to make sure they make the right choice.

This is mostly an issue with the joker who copies another Joker. Sometimes you can't tell which one to copy to get a better score and no, copying the rightmost multi joker isn't always the right move.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Is Balatro on Apple Arcade the same as on Steam? I got the Arcade for kids so curious if there are any differences?

 

[nkarafo]

Unfortunately, I don't think it does. I have it open, zoomed in on my 2nd monitor when playing Balatro.

Either way i don't think i agree with this list. For instance, those banana jokers, i don't think they are as strong.