Experimental Balance Changes for upcoming Milestone #5 (Updated 06/01)

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🔧 Balance Changes

This is the smallest list of Balance Changes we've considered for a major update since the game's first release. The truth is that overall, the range from the best-performing to the worst-performing Beasties is the smallest it's ever been, and team diversity is overall as high or higher than ever. So we're now able to hone in on smaller problems and make surgical tweaks to hopefully keep things in balance without upsetting too many existing teams and strategies out there.

This patch's largest single focus is in curbing Spirit offense in subtle ways, but there are a few other changes we anticipate getting a lot of discussion. Without further ado...



🍄 Traits



• (NEW!) Fortress: When at the net, can attack without volleying and restores 12* STAMINA after Defense
  
  
  
  • 🔄 Given to Armantis in place of Power Forward
    We love Power Forward, but it never felt *perfect* for Armantis, especially after we decided to redesign Ricochet to be more flavorful. It felt like a missed opportunity that Armantis didn't get to make good use of the play that really was designed in honor of them. So we're debuting a new design which is meant to keep the spirit of Power Forward but enables Armantis' more unique gameplan. This notably has virtually no impact on the strength of their net Perfect Shot, which is their current "best" attack.
  
  
  
• Plucky
  
  
  
  • 🔻New effect: Can't be given FEELINGs (except BLOCKED)
    Yeah, it was always kind of weird that Plucky also stopped BLOCK. Goofsder finally had enough positive results that we could justify making this tweak.
    
  
  
  
• Watchtower
  
  
  
  • 🔄New effect: Applies +1 BLOCK to attacks targeting adjacent allies
    This trait has been the center of debate, complaint, and adjustment for many patches. Its ability to redirect attacks exposed a lot of unfun interactions and pushed us to make a lot of careful adjustments in an effort to keep space for this trait and the gameplay it enabled. We decided to take a step back and re-examine what we like about Watchtower, and whether we could come up with something that achieved the parts we liked without carrying the bad, and this is what we came up with.
    
    We like this trait's unique positioning interactions, and the way it allows players to safeguard a brittle Beastie with planning and teambuilding. But its redirection ability took a lot of agency from the opponent and removed a huge variety of counterplay. We're excited to see what players can build with this iteration; it still enables "free" position-based defensive support but without invalidating the opponent's targeting choices.
    
  
  
  
• Deviant
  
  
  
  • Renamed to Rogue^
    
  • 🔼New effect: POW x1.5 and ignores BLOCK when their target is changed
    Deviant/Rogue hasn't quite had enough of an edge for its difficulty to trigger, and we wanted it to still feel relevant especially with the above change to Watchtower.
    
  
  
  
• Decoy*
  
  
  
  • 🔄New effect: Always the nearest to opponents. Becomes the target of opponent Support and Defense plays.&
    We tried really hard in the last patch to give Boldlur a new more effective gameplan, and in many ways we succeeded; Boldlur saw increased usage, and went from bottom-performing to a very balanced winrate. But their ability to wall out teams under certain offense thresholds made them grindy and unfun to play into. Boldlur best excels at being difficult to wipe out, which is not as valuable a gameplan in Beastieball as it would be in conventional tactics games, so we struggled to find a way to make Boldlur relevant. This new Decoy iteration is our new best idea after throwing out quite a few other concepts.
    
    &We saw players express that the new Decoy felt a little too low-value with its at-net condition, especially given that it still allows the effects to happen and simply redirects to Boldlur. We're experimenting with a more open-ended effect which lets Boldlur protect its ally without any setup, and also changes targeting on mechanics like Mimicry, Tool, and Tractor Beam.
    
  
  
  
• Stagecraft^
  
  
  
  • 🔼 When active, reduces to damage to 50 (from 66)
    We're making a couple tweaks around Plumask in an experiment to see if we can make them work better in their intended role. The addition of Rousing Strike made Plumask shine as a supporter, self-ramper and attacker all in one and made them easier to slot onto more teams. We are shifting that tool away from Plumask for being a bit centralizing, and looking for other ways that Plumask can be more consistent without relying on it.
    
  
  
  
• Synchronize&
  
  
  
  • 🔄New effect: Gets any 🔼BOOSTs that their ally gets.
    This suggestion came from a player feedback and we like it enough to try it out. Our intention with the previous iteration of Synchronize was to give Crabaret a new trait that still let them function as an explosive offensive pivot in ways similar to how they did with Agile. In practice the trait was difficult to build around and therefore felt underwhelming. This iteration has many more interactions to build with and keeps the most fun elements of Synchronize, although it also means pushing Crabaret's playstyle further from their origin.
    
  
  
  



🏃 Plays



• (NEW) Passion Strike: SPIRIT Attack, 105^ POW. Feel 1 WEEPY before contact.
  
  
  
  • Via level up
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plumask
      
    
    
  • Via friendship
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Crabaret, Squimage, Diabloceras, Orgella
      
  
  We're tweaking the power and distribution of some Spirit attacks, and in the process we felt there was a vacuum for this power level of attack for Plumask and other Beasties.
  
  
• (NEW) Copycat: SUPPORT. Can target opponents or allies. Copies target's trait.
  
  
  
  • Via level up
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Gremlur
      
  
  Since the introduction of Adaptation, Gremlur has found an exciting spot on a lot of teams and as part of a lot of creative combos, to the detriment of their original trait, Slippery. Since Gremlur has proven to be a good boy when allowed to have any Beasties' trait, we decided to codify it by giving them a signature play that allows them to change their trait. This allows a Slippery Gremlur to get some of the fun of Adaptation at the cost of a move slot, or for an Adaptation Gremlur to adjust their strategy without TAGGING OUT.
  
  
• (NEW)& Dodge Roll: DEFENSE. Nearest opponent feels +1 BLOCKED. TAG OUT with benched ally.
  
  
  
  • Via level up
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Wottle
      
    
    
  • Via friendship
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Daredillo
      
  
  With the change to Daring Pass, some players felt Wottle was lacking in interesting tools to build with, and we tend to agree that historically Wottle has had a challenge carving out its own niche. We really want to see them succeed as a defensive support/pivot Beastie first and foremost, and we think Dodge Roll is a potentially exciting addition to their kit in that light.
  
  
• Faith: Renamed to Daring Pass, with distribution adjusted significantly (see below).
  Faith is one of the oldest plays in the game and something we distributed sort of "automatically" without a lot of intention. When looking back over the gameplay of Spirit focused offense over the last while, we felt that Spirit had too much similarity with the gameplan of Body and Mind, and we wondered whether we could do more to further differentiate the different type playstyles. The solution we're experimenting with is to overall reduce Spirit's access to "easy" offensive support in the form of boosts from tanky or supportive Beasties. Instead, we're giving access to this play only to relatively frail or aggressive Beasties who would prefer to be the main attacker. In this way, Spirit-focused teams need to field multiple offensive Beasties to get mounting offensive pressure, or they can rely on Rally... but it is difficult to get the benefits of both without compromising defense.
  
  
• Share Snack: SUPPORT. Evenly split the STAMINA of target and self. Can target any Beastie in an adjacent row.
  Previously, Diggum could target opponents as long as they used Share Snack from the net. Now, when at the net, Diggum can only target opponents in the front row. We're excited about the ways this play has empowered more use of Diggum, but its all-powerful effect also warped many games around them and made Diggum function all too well as an offensive Beastie when they're meant to shine even more as a support. We hope with this change that Diggum is still effective as a support, but in more passive ways, either intimidating the opponent to keep their healthy Beasties back or restoring their own ally's STAMINA more often.
  
  
• Supercommit
  • 🔻 95 POW. (From 100 POW)
  
  
• Rousing Strike*
  • 🔻 60 POW. (From 65 POW)
    Our main reasoning for setting Rousing Strike to 65 POW was by comparison to Thriller; Rousing Strike gets to be same power level (65 + jazzed), but takes an extra turn to "activate" in exchange for being able to support an ally or boost a different play. In practice, its best use cases saw players trying to use this play to score a point, and then chain the Jazzed boost to a powerful serve on the following turn. We enjoy that and other creative uses of this play, but we want to make them a bit more rewarding by making this play a bit more difficult to score wipes with.
  
  
  
• Distraction*
  • 🔻 Removed the POW debuff effect
    This play had sat unchanged in the game's repetoire for many months and patches, and went mostly ignored. In the previous patch, we tried to find a way to make it more relevant while better enabling defensive playstyles. While we're happy with the improvement to other defensive tools, with this one we may have gone a step too far, making Distraction into a play that was simply grindy and unfun to play into. Now that players have had a taste of the power of controlling targeting from the net, we're curious to see whether this play finds continued use on some Beasties while being less overbearing.
  
  
  
• Launch^
  
  
  • 🔄POW to 65 (from 100). Now calculates based on front-row bonus instead of back-row bonus.
    
  • 🔄 Updated text to clarify that it SHIFTs before contact; can now be used even if the space ahead is obstructed (this was a hidden feature not mentioned in the text before).
    
  
  



👹 Beasties





• Bildit, Handicoot, Bandicraft
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Lure Shot^
    This is just clean-up...
    
  
  
  
• Axolati, Hopsong, Hopra
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Faith (Daring Pass)
    
  
  
  
• Illugus, Shloom
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Feint
    
  
  
  
• Collarva, Wormask, Plumask
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Burnout^, Rousing Strike^
    We love seeing Plumask succeed as an offensive threat, but Rousing Strike made them very efficient at ramping, attacking and supporting and could easily bend the games they appeared in. It was mainly added for Hopra and we would rather keep the move powerful in their hands rather than try to balance it for Plumask's kit. Instead we're giving Plumask other ways to more easily slot on different teams.
    
  
  
  
• Merrifly, Cherrily, Mascurry
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Swarm
    
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Faith (Daring Pass), Confident Pass*
    Cherrily has consistently hovered around the top of usage and winrate for a long time, and for good reason; they are the best in the game at supporting offensive strategies with their incredible trait and support access. What gives us some pause is that Cherrily has become a staple on mixed-type teams as well as type-specialist teams, which to us indicates that they were just a little bit too good at too many roles. We are removing some of their type specialization with the goal to see a wider variety of Beasties shine in offensive support roles. We also want Cherrily to be more of a defensive liability, but their access to powerful passes often meant that opponents didn't want to target attacks into them lest they simply use the opportunity to get more boosts.
    
  
  
  
• Platypulse
  
  
  
  • 🔼 90 SDEF (from 85)
    
  • 🔻 115 MDEF (from 120)
    
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Zigzag*
    
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Ricochet*
    Platypulse is in a tight spot where they are one of the less-used Beasties, and performing perfectly fine, but players frequently bring up how swingy they are into different matchups (being too strong into mono-Mind teams and weak into anything else). We're trying a light touch to even up their matchups. This is where their MDEF was in the game's initial release, but way back in January 2025, players didn't know how to make good use of Platypulse and felt it was weak in its role as a mind defender, while feeling irate about the strength of Mind offense at the time. We're in a different world here in May 2026, so maybe Platypulse can inch closer to what we originally intended for them.
    
    *Ricochet is something we gave to Platypulse without enough forethought, in the wake of having to remove it from Armantis. Now that it's back in its rightful owner's hands, we reexamined its place in Platypulse's kit, and feel it's not quite the right fit. We see Ricochet as an above-curve power attack that is mostly used by Beasties lack high Mind POW or ideal synergy with it; Platypulse is a perfect storm of both. We're changing it out with Zigzag, which has slightly less power at its peak and better synergizes with Platypulse's deep pool of strong passing plays rather than their matchup-dependent trait.
    
  
  
  
• Radillo, Daredillo
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Daring Pass
    
  
  
  
• Diggum, Duggout
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Lure Shot^
    
  
  
  
• Beetlback
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Mark, Lock Target
    
  
  
  
• Wottle
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Faith (Daring Pass)
    
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Flight*
    
  
  
  
• Armantis
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Ricochet
    
  
  
  
• Turogue, Turtaneer, Tortanchor
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Faith (Daring Pass)
    
  
  
  
• Squimage, Diabloceras
  
  
  
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Supercommit^, Challenge, Counter^
    This is just a minor clean-up of rarely used plays which are too similar to their new addition of Passion Strike.
    
  
  
  
• Crabaret
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Daring Pass&
    
  
  
  
• Conjarr
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Distraction^
    
  
  
  
• Opposur
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Daring Pass
    
  • Fixed an issue where they lost access to Counter temporarily&
    
  
  
  
• Grazada
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Distraction^
    
  
  




🚧Other Fixes and Changes





• ^Made many subtle adjustments to certain traits and ball effects to help clarify confusing interactions. Some of these do impact how some traits match up into certain interactions.
  
  
  • Unpredictable now applies 1 NERVOUS to the attacker before receiving the ball (so all subsequent movement effects are cancelled)
    
  • Power Forward now applies 1 JAZZED before receiving the ball
    
  • Overwrite now triggers even if the target is WIPED OUT by the attack
    
  • Ball attack side effects which apply field effects, clear field effects, change traits, or force tag-outs now trigger even if the target is WIPED OUT. (Many already did, but some didn't; we've made this more consistent now).
    
  • In The Clouds prevents damage changes from either using or receiving SPIRIT or MIND attacks in Rally
    
  • When a Maverick Beastie attacks an In The Clouds Beastie in Rally, In The Clouds is ignored and Rally damage changes are applied
    
  • The Block applied by Watchtower is now properly reflected by Stirring
    
  • Adjusted wording on Slippery and the Tough-redirection rule; fixed such that Slippery can no longer redirect ball attacks to TOUGH allies.
    
  • Adjusted wording on Bouncy, Galaxy Brain, and Nimble. Trait text is now much more consistent about communicating whether they trigger "when" receiving an attack (before side effects/attacker traits trigger) VS "after" receiving an attack (after side effects/attacker traits trigger)
    
  
  
• ^Fixed a crash in scenes where the player character spectates sport matches
  
• ^Fixed issues with targeting Share Snack
  
• ^Added a 10% chance for orange Humflits to appear in Garcinia Meadow
  
• &Fixed issues with Gym stat point allocation that made it possible to use/buy tokens which didn't get applied
  
• ^Added more robust safety nets for sending feedback reports (re-sending if they fail to send initially)
  
• ^Adjusted Airblast to keep it original intended power; it was temporarily mistakenly debuffed by some internal damage calc changes
  
• ^Removed mistaken pop-up indicating Sweep is weakened by Rally
  
• ^Changed pop-up resolution order so Anticipation correctly indicates its in effect when a Block is triggered by Watchtower
  
• ^Shorted text on plays that SHIFT Beasties
  
• Many more small fixes and tweaks, but I don't want to write them all out right now.... stay tuned for full patch notes in the Milestone Update!