Experimental Balance Changes for upcoming Milestone #2 (Updated 09/05)

% = Changed in patch on 09/05
@ = Changed in patch on 09/01
# = Changed in patch on 08/28
& = Changed in patch on 08/27
^ = Changed in patch on 08/26
* = Changed in quick patch on the same day

*This experimental update is currently built using a new version of our game engine, GameMaker. This engine update has allowed us to greatly optimize the game's texture usage, meaning a big boost to framerate AND a big reduction in memory usage, meaning fewer unexpected crashes during long sessions. This engine update also means anything in the game may be ever-so-slightly different in ways we can't anticipate, so we'll be looking for bug reports related to this!

After our pause on balance updates, the next one is (finally?!) on its way! By allowing for more time between changes, we were able to collect a lot more data and see more clearly how different Beasties stacked up; it also helped us to identify more subtle underlying problems that only became clear after sifting through the noise.

We welcome your thoughts, your feedback, and your playtesting! I encourage dedicated coaches to join us in our Discord community to discuss these changes live with other players. Please note these changes are currently live on PC only for now.

🔧 Balance Changes

Taken at face value, the changes we're making here may seem overly extreme OR not far enough, depending on how you've felt about PvP gameplay across previous updates. I thought it may be helpful to outline the larger problems we're seeing, and how we hope to address them.

📜 Theory and Intentions

Beastieball generally has very "squishy" matchups which make it more fighting-game like; different Beasties represent different playstyles, which give them more rich and subtle interactions, rather than being hard counters for each other. For all its strengths, this paradigm is often tested by teams that are optimized to the extreme in either offense and stall. If you have a Beastie with the best offensive stats in the game, and pair it with the best offensive support, and use the strongest attack, you should reasonably expect it to do high damage to all possible targets. If we added more defense to some Beasties such that they could tank hits like that, those same Beasties would become invulnerable to nearly everything else in the game. The margins we're designing around are just that tight.

The result of this (supported by consensus of analytics data across many PvP events) is that Beasties who are good at creating fast, one-turn kills tend to be more effective than others. The other Beasties that tend to succeed are either ones who best support offense, or those who are extremely tanky and stally and able to survive extremes, with less space for Beasties in-between. This is not an absolute in all cases, and the range of winrates across all Beasties is still surprisingly narrow, but as the player-base optimizes their team builds this is the direction we've seen things slide.

In the past, we've tried to address hyper-offense edge cases by looking at the most powerful options and adding complexities to their usage, or reducing their power level when there was no other viable option. We'll continue to look into and address problems like this as they emerge, but as the game balance tightens we've started to feel like the game needed a more fundamental internal tool to help keep extreme offense in check. In an ideal vision, hyper-offense should still feel like hyper-offense, but savvy players who anticipate what their opponent is going to do should have a way to call them out and gain a defensive advantage.

To that end, one of our main focuses for this update went to buffing Blocking. We have been careful not to take things too far; the balance of offensive and defensive power is critical to the game's fun and flavor. If it were just a little too optimal to focus on defense, then high-level games would easily grind to a halt. So ultimately: the actual list of changes isn't terribly long. But we're excited to see what impact they'll have on the balance going forward!

⚙️ Mechanics

• BLOCK
  • 🔼 BLOCK can now be stacked multiple times on the same Beastie.
  • Higher stacks of block reduce the damage of the next attack using math very similar to negative BOOSTs (2/3 > 1/2 > 2/5 > 1/3 > etc).
  • All stacks of BLOCK clear off a Beastie after they make any attack or tag out
  • Additional plays are being added to take advantage of this new mechanic as well.

• ❗New Universal Play: Double Block
  • Effect: DEFENSE. Only used at net. If ally joins the BLOCK: Target feels +2 BLOCKED.
  • Block, the universal defensive play, now changes to Double Block if both your Beasties are at the net and able to Block.
  • When a Double Block action is queued, if one of your Beasties is disrupted such that they can't join in (ie. they're made ANGRY or TIRED by the opponent) then the play down-grades to a regular Block, utilized by the remaining able Beastie.

• SWEATY
  • 🔄 Sweaty now resets to 1 stack when the Beastie is on the bench With the change from Team Chant to Chant, Sweaty lost a major counter-play option, and has proven to be difficult to play into. Considering we're now pushing for changes that will advantage bulkier Beasties, we don't want to see Sweaty and aggressive stall become a centralizing strategy at the high level. This change will slightly reduce its efficacy/punishment without requiring players to build more anti-meta checks into their teams.

• RALLY
  • 🔻 ...Fixed a bug which made it so that MIND attacks had -33% POW instead of -25% This one is embarrassing, but, um, yeah, we were testing some stuff out before the previous balance patch and didn't properly disable it before letting it loose. We only found out this issue was in the game about a week before this post! We only got one feedback report about it, which was how we found out. ...Sorry!

🍄 Traits

• ^(NEW!) Wallbreaker: BODY,SPIRIT,MIND DEF -1 to Beasties that receive their attacks
  • 🔼 Given to Millimine, Demolipede as a secondary trait

• (NEW!) Roaring: Feels 1 NOISY when they attack
  • 🔄 Given to Maraptor in place of Clamor Oh, Maraptor. What can we do with you? We them Clamor for thematic reasons, long before the game came out, but that trait's centralizing power has always since complicated the balance of this Beastie and, by proxy, Magpike. From the data we have, Maraptor wound up underperforming unless they were using a Trait Dance + Clamor combo, in which case they were vastly overperforming and disruptive. We couldn't find a way to manage the mix of these ingredients, so we're giving Maraptor an all-new trait (but not entirely out of left field) and focusing on giving them and Magpike a much-needed glow-up.

• (NEW!) Tangled: Loses 10 STAMINA when they MOVE or SHIFT.
  • 🔻 Given to Leobro (Miracle Play is now a recessive trait)

• (NEW!) Smooth: Restores ^25 @20 15 STAMINA when they MOVE or SHIFT.
  • 🔄 Given to Broslidon (Miracle Play is now a recessive trait)

• Captain:
  • 🔻 New effect: #When they volley at the net: SHIFTs ally to the net When they use "Volley": SHIFTs ally to the net Across the board, Captain Beasties have overperformed in every event since the game's release. We love this Trait and wanted to find ways to let it exist at its previous power level, but in practice it has proven to be a deadly multiplier on any scary offensive Beastie, and the most common element in every overpowered tool that's surfaced. We hope this tweak will keep the trait's gameplay interesting and powerful while also requiring more intentional team-building to take advantage of. Captain Beasties are already quite bulky, so it works to encourage them to play more at the net and enable Double Blocks. With some testing behind it, the previous change felt like too much of a nerf and made Captain feel underpowered. Ultimately it's a trait that provides action efficiency, but having it require movement to the net undermined its core benefit. We're trying a different implementation which lets it work more consistently but flattens its peak combinations with special passes. With this change, Captain Beasties may prefer to build around Support/Defense plays while relying on their basic volley to get value.

• Mischief:
  • 🔼 New effect: Can use SUPPORT plays while holding the ball and during Defense

• Cleanup:
  • 🔼 New effect: Resets all FIELD EFFECTS and BOOSTS when they TAG OUT

• Moist:
  • 🔼 New effect: When this Beastie is SWEATY, they restore 10 STAMINA each turn instead

• Neural Net:
  • 🔼 New effect: MIND attacks always go to this Beastie and give an EASY RECEIVE

• Study:
  • 🔼 New effect: When hit with a BODY, SPIRIT, or MIND attack: +2 to the corresponding DEF

• Tractor Beam:
  • 🔻 New effect: On turn start, the nearest non-WIPED opponent is beamed, preventing use of TAG OUT. A slight tweak which means Albrax can't change their Tractor Beam target mid-turn. This stops frustrating strategies around using Quick Tag or mid-turn movement to unexpectedly cancel out the opponent's defense action. When we first found these interactions, we thought they were a fun and deep consequence of the game mechanics, which they are, but once they started seeing broader adoption and usage the novelty wore off and we had to contend with how unfun they are to actually play against.

• Watchtower:
  • 🔻 New effect: Attacks that target an adjacent ally go to this Beastie instead and do 1.2x damage Watchtower, similar to Clamor and Slippery, has proven to be difficult to balance around and creates extremely swingy matchups. In particular, it's great at enabling frail offensive Beasties like Servace, Psylusc and Squimage, and we want to see that continue - but it worked a little bit too well for too many matchups. We're pairing this change with some other buffs and stat changes, such that we hope to see struggling Beasties like Fetcham perform better; this change also makes your targeting choices INTO Watchtower more relevant, creating more interesting counterplay that isn't purely dependent on team-building choices.

🏃 Plays

• (NEW!) Wall - DEFENSE. Only used at net. Target feels +2 BLOCKED. -10 STAMINA to self.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Bandicraft, Armantis

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Broslidon, Opposur, Deluja, Yamyth, Servace

  
  
• (NEW!) Menace - DEFENSE. Target feels +2 BLOCKED. Feel 2 ANGRY.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Hydrolm, Crawlurk

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Mistic, Tortanchor, Boldlur, Yamyth

  
  
• (NEW!) Thrash - Spirit attack, 80 POW. POW x1.5 if user is JAZZED.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Fetcham

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Skulkapi, Yamyth

  
  
• (NEW!) Mimic - ? attack, ? POW. Changes to the ally's first attack. POW x1.2.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Squimage, Diabloceras

  • Via friendship
    • . . .

  
  
• (NEW?) Fall Back - DEFENSE. +1 BODY,SPIRIT,MIND DEF to front row active team. SHIFT team to back row.
  This is a glow-up to an existing play, except we never actually let any Beasties learn it via level-up. That changes today!
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Beetlback, Skulkapi

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Zefyre, Servace, Psylusc, Beelb, Gremlur, Blitzwift, Hydrolm

  
  
• (NEW?) Whoosh - SUPPORT. SHIFT self to net. +1 ACTION. @-15 STAMINA.
  This play replaces Tailwind internally
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Zefyre, Broslidon

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Cherrily, Mascurry, Skulkapi, Blitzwift, Deluja, ^Beetlback, @Daredillo

• Hyperspike:
  • 🔄 New effect: Body attack, @125 130 POW. Must charge up for 3 turns. Feel 3 TIRED. Hyperspike can now be used anywhere, but we've added a charge-up meter to delay how often it can be used. Yep, an entire new mechanic just for this play! It's always been a little too big of a number that's too easy to get the full impact of a little too often. We want plays this powerful to exist, but this new mechanic adds a new layer of cooldown to it that makes it fun to play around. We hope you like it as much as we do.

• Perfect Shot
  • 🔻 New effect: Mind attack, 125 POW. Requires 2 ACTIONS. POW x3/4 if user has any FEELINGS.

• Exert
  • 🔄 New effect: Spirit attack, 60 POW. Feel 2 TOUGH + 2 SWEATY. Last patch we debuted Exert with the self-Sweaty effect. Everybody complained about it. We changed it to a stamina cost instead. And then nobody used it. So... you know what? I think we were right. We're putting the sweaty back on it.

• @Nerve Strike
  • 🔻 POW to 50 (from 55)

  
  

• ^Provoke
  • 🔻 New effect: Target feels 2 ANGRY. -1 BODY,SPIRIT DEF to self. We're a little scared of this one. But we want to try it out. Provoke has simply been one of the absolute most centralizing plays in the game possibly before it even came out. The utility of ANGRY to prevent all ranges of offensive and defensive strategies makes it very valuable, and that may not be a problem to be solved, but even so, we want to see what might happen if the play was a little harder to click.

  
  

• Excited Pass
  • 🔄 New effect: VOLLEY. #If STAMINA is over 50, +1 SPOW to self. If STAMINA is over 40: feel 1 JAZZED.

• Call Out
  • 🔼 New effect: +1 BODY,SPIRIT DEF to ally. +2 MIND DEF to ally.

• Hunker
  • 🔼 New effect: +1 SPIRIT, MIND DEF to self. +2 BODY DEF to self. Feel 1 NERVOUS.

• ^Dramatic Exit
  • 🔄 New effect: Benched ally feels 1 NOISY. TAG OUT. Active team feels +1 ANGRY.

• #Dig
  • 🔄 New effect: VOLLEY. Restore 15 STAMINA. Dig has always been close to our hearts as an iconic volleyball technique AND a great flavor addition for so many creatures. But we never re-examined this Jazzed source while others were slowly addressed, and cunning players came to discover a bit too much value out of this play that was on a few too many things. We want to be able to give Dig to Beasties without it breaking the game's power level, so we're changing this play to something a little more generic and have instead adjusted Excited Pass to be a less-distributed version of Dig's original spirit. This new effect does also better match with the way a Dig in volleyball is a purely defensive maneuver.

👹 Beasties

• Albrax
  • 🔻73 BDEF (from 83)
  • 🔻 @Plays Removed: Dispel

• *Armantis
  • 🔻 *Plays Removed: Quick Set
  • 🔼 *Plays Added: Set

• Bandicraft
  • 🔻25 SPOW (from 30)
  • 🔼 85 SDEF (from 80)
  • 🔼 #Plays Added: High Five, Rumble, @Excited Pass

• Blitzwift
  • 🔄 Tweaked level-up plays learned to be higher value

• Merrifly, Cherrily, Mascurry
  • 🔼 @Plays Added: Excited Pass

• Conjarr
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant

• Daredillo
  • 🔼 65 MDEF (from 55)

• Demolipede
  • 🔼 88 BDEF (from 78)
  • 🔼 #Plays Added: Dig (as a level-up play)

• Fetcham
  • 🔼 75 BPOW (from 70)
  • 🔼 83 SPOW (from 80)
  • 🔻 35 MPOW (from 40)
  • 🔼 55 MDEF (from 42)
  • 🔼 #Plays Added: Excited Pass

• Grazada
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant
  • 🔄 #Swapped Dig out, Excited Pass in

• Hydrolm
  • 🔻25 SPOW (from 30)
  • 🔼 60 BDEF (from 55)

• Magpike
  • 🔼 69 SDEF (from 60)
  • 🔼 99 MDEF (from 95)
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant, %Tracker

• Mudslee
  • 🔻80 BDEF (from 86)
  • 🔻#Plays Removed: Trait Dance

• Opposur
  • 🔼 95 BPOW (from 90)
  • 🔻90 SPOW (from 95)

• Platenna, Platypulse, Pladion
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Ricochet, Set

• Platypulse
  • 🔼 46 BDEF (from 38)

• Collarva, Wormask, Plumask
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant

• Riplash
  • 🔻80 SDEF (from 90)

• Gullit, Skiffrig
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant

• Squimage/Diabloceras
  • 🔄 #Swapped Dig out, Excited Pass in

• Turogue, Turtaneer, Tortanchor
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant
  • 🔻Plays Removed: Frazzle, Numbshot, #Rumble

• Trat
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Tough Front

• Varkabond
  • 🔻30 SPOW (from 50)
  • 🔼 80 SDEF (from 70)
  • 🔼 100 MDEF (from 90)
  • 🔼 @Plays Added: Dig

• Vultoxin
  • 🔻@97 MPOW (from 105)

• Maraptor
  • 🔼 93 BPOW (from 89)
  • 🔻 21 SPOW (from 29)
  • 🔼 91 BDEF (from 81)
  • 🔼 59 SDEF (from 49)
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Chant, %Tracker

🚧Other Fixes and Changes

• More strict memory management of 3D models to reduce memory usage and reduce the likelihood of random crashes
• *Game engine updated and new texture compression algorithms implemented, massively reducing texture memory usage and boosting render speed.
• Some changes to have the first serve is determined in private lobbies, to prevent desyncs
• Made it so characters you're playing a story match against don't fade away when the camera zooms in before the game
• Starter Beasties were meant to have a unique recruit event in their memories, but this event wasn't being recorded until now
• Fixed issues with Tower Tourney state preventing research of extinct Beasties
• Fixed an issue that removed "100+" difficulty selection from the Tower Tourney
• Fix for rounding errors on money display in different menus
• Fix for rounding errors on Beastie coached % eliminating the number after the decimal
• Fix for multiple copies of Riley appearing in the crowd of PvP/replay games in some circumstances
• Added new racing behaviour for Radillo and Daredillo on the overworld
• Changed fallback animation behaviour for some Beasties when moving but not in their "move" pose, to use some tweens
• Increased the length of time music is paused after a certain story scene
• Adjusted some logic for accessing the Zip Station in Domain Park to prevent strange teleporting behaviour
• Fixed an issue in Chinese that prevented you from backing out of selling something
• Fixed a broken texture triangle which often appear off-screen in screens with water
• Various small level layout tweaks
• Changed some Bindiva mechanics with attract spray, to create more recruitable variation and also not modify non-recruitable Bindivas
• Fixed typos
• *Fixed crashes and issues related to new traits/plays
• *Optimized some logic on startup to reduce load times (still more work to be done here!)
• ^Fixed Tractor Beam so it still obeys the non-WIPED condition
• ^Fixed texture outputs so models display correctly. Some Beastie texture are still off-color in the new GameMaker version and we're investigating this.
• ^Re-implemented GPU card fixes in the new engine version so the game uses best render settings on laptops with multiple GPUs
• ^Fixed crashes related to uses of Mimic
• ^Changed visual display of healing from Moist to look like healing instead of sweaty damage
• ^Fixed more issues causing crashes/hangs at the "Getting data..." step in private lobbies
• ^Fixed Double Block being cancelled if the original user is disabled
• &Changed Tractor Beam to update AFTER all other feelings and traits tick to account for WIPED from sweat, Ancient, etc.
• &Changed plays with "passing" effects such that Telekinesis and Steal won't update the ball state if the user already has the ball (to reduce exploitation via Mischief)
• #Fixed SHIFT-triggered plays to only trigger if the SHIFT is successful
• #Further adjustments to Tractor Beam logic accounting for more edge cases
• #Fixed a crash that occurs when a Build breaks on certain screens (maybe?)
• @Several changes to the initial load screen to make it go faster and not freeze as much
• @Improved logic for Beasties that follow the player around to eliminate situations where they hang floating in the air
• @Adjusted default Beastie positions during NPC interactions to go behind the player more
• @Fixed a side puzzle in Eburnean Cavern
• @Fixed interactions between Neural Net and Musclebrain
• @Fixed a crash with Riley's 3rd hangout in Chinese
• @Fixed minor text issues and clarified some new effect description
• @Improved message when changing language to include both old and new language text
• @Refactored how Beasties + the ball animate when they are wiped out by an attack
• @Removed new texture compression form Beastie art and refactored compression quality on other assets to remove artifacts
• @Fixed the floating spawn position when exiting a Tower Tourney
• @Changed Double Block to be labelled as a COMBO play
• @Adjusted some model spawn conditions in the Rutile Preserve (shouldn't appear until post-game)
• %Fixed an issue where attacks launched from beside a Watchtower Beastie would yield increased damage
• %Fixed an issue with Smooth giving inconsistent healing on Move VS. Shift
• %Fixed an issue wherein Riven would use incorrect dialogue/team if rematching her in the post-game but before completing some of her hangouts
• %Adjusted spacing on Ranked Boss data when highlighted in the map after being defeated
• %Fixed some particle layering issues

*There might be some other insignificant new things floating around, since this is a stripped-down version of the upcoming Milestone Update. Full patch notes on new features will be revealed when the update is released!