Balatro is a good example of how if your game gets the fundamentals right, you can get away with a lot of nitpicky design flaws.
Like, there's a lot of reset mitigation left on the table in Ante 1. In higher difficulties, you are heavily incentivized to skip the first small blind; but you can roll skips that are just too bad to continue, forcing a reset before taking any game action.
Or note how the game's balance is completely skewed around effects that copy or duplicate jokers, particularly Blueprint. Runs where you have access to those effects simply have a higher ceiling than runs where you don't.
But does it really matter? By the time you understand any of those balance issues, you are in so deep that the game already has you.
The loot table for badges is, no-joke, kind of absurd if you think about it. Like, you can roll:
- Get $15 (deferred for two rounds)
- Get $5
- Get $4
on the same loot table, as the very first random event in the game. And in truth you don't really want to see any of those. Reset city, folks.
