Beastieball News

* = Added or changed in an update on 06/05 - PC ONLY ^ = Added or changed in an update on 06/09 - PC ONLY

We've got a hefty one for you! Following this past weekend's Bigmoon Bash, we've got a slew of new changes coming in.

We're testing these balance changes in anticipation of a major milestone update releasing on June 12! These changes will come into effect in the base game on that day, so we'll be excited to get all the feedback an testing we can from the community before then. I encourage dedicated coaches to join us in our Discord community to discuss the changes live with other players.

[h3]🍄 Traits[/h3]
• (NEW!) Confident: Gets +1 Body POW and +1 Body DEF boost when TAGGING IN
  
  
  
  • 🔄 Given to Supilero in place of Fearless
    
• (NEW!) Forager: Restores 50 STAMINA when TAGGING OUT
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Given to Supilero in place of Scavenger
    
• (NEW!) Thrasher: POW x1.3* when any Beastie on the opponent team is WIPED
  
  
  
  • 🔄 Given to Maraptor instead of Echo
    Echo made sense on Maraptor before the introduction of Quake, when instead it spread damage to both opponents. In general, we try to give Beasties a more offense-oriented trait and a more support-oriented trait; however, with splash damage changed to Quake, Echo became more like a support Trait, and one which was notably inferior to Clamor, so Maraptor was lacking in interesting build variety. The intention of Thrasher is to give Maraptor more of an effective aggressive role option again. This Trait is less tested than other changes in this patch and may require more testing and feedback to solidify.
    
• Slippery:
  
  • 🔻 New effect: This Beastie's damage is reduced 25%. Adjacent allies receive attacks in their place.
    This reduces ALL damage dealt, including via Nettle. Gremlur has strong offensive potential which they can invest in heavily since Slippery makes their defense stats irrelevant. Slippery also guarantees the option to double-use high value support plays. This trait adjustment means Gremlur gets less free value from this easy utility, but still can function as an annoying and sustainable field presence as intended.
    
• (NEW!) Adaptation: Copies their ally's Trait when they TAG IN
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Given to Gremlur as a recessive Trait
    Since Slippery now reduces Gremlur's damage output, and has basically always obsoleted their defensive stat spread, we wanted to give them an alternative mode which allows them to actually leverage their stats and offensive potential.
    
• Rumpus:
  • 🔼 Now triggers after every offense and defense turn, not just after offense.
  Launcher*:
  • 🔼 "Always targets straight ahead" effect has been adjusted to prioritize over all sources of redirection.*
• Agile:
  • 🔻 No longer confers a bonus for play effects with the "if ball is hittable" condition, ie. Juggle and Set.
• Flee:
  • 🔼 Triggers starting on 50 STAMINA rather than 49
  Flow*:
  • 🔼 New effect: When on the field with RHYTHM, opponents can't give their allies any bad feelings*
• Precise:
  • 🔼 Given to Conjarr as a recessive Trait
  
  [h3]🏃 Plays[/h3]
  • (NEW!) Exert - Spirit attack, 65 POW. User feels 2* TOUGH + 2 SWEATY^. -30 STAMINA^.
    
    
    
    • Via level up
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Daredillo, Opposur
        
      
      
    • Via friendship
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Supilero, Grazada, Skiffrig, Squimage, Xiphosaur, Yamyth
        
      
      This attack combines well with other spirit options and gives spirit-focused offense teams a unique serving option that fits their unique strengths.
      
  • (NEW!) Echo Strike - Mind attack, 70 POW. Sets target's Trait to user's Trait.
    
    
    
    • Via level up
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Plumask
        
      
      
    • Via friendship
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Platypulse, Mistic, Trat, Magpike, Bindiva
        
      
      
  • Finisher:
    • 🔄 Updated text to reflect damage bonus starting on 50 STAMINA
  • Demolish
    • 🔼 80 POW (from 70)
      
    • 🔻 No longer gets a POW bonus when it clears field effects
  • Rocket
    • 🔼 Now always goes where it is targeted
  • Cook
    • 🔻 55 POW (from 60)
  • Grit
    • 🔻 60 POW (from 65)
  • Scream
    • 🔻 90 POW (from 95)
  • Contest
    • 🔻 Can now only be used at the net
  • Thriller
    • 🔼 65 POW (from 60)
  • Relentless
    • 🔼 70 POW (from 50)
    • 🔼 Can now use when WIPED
  • Challenge
    • 🔼 95 POW (from 85)
    • 🔻 No longer makes the target ANGRY
      Our experimental change to Challenge to make the target ANGRY was effective at giving Spirit offense better disruption options, but at too great a cost. Challenge offered too much value and interaction potential and became a very centralizing play that bolstered the effectiveness of Rally teams. In the past, players have voiced that they felt Spirit and Rally offense was lacking in strong disruption options. This experiment has showed us that Spirit probably doesn't need to have the best disruption options in addition to its offensive potential.
  • Doze
    • 🔄 New name*: Exhaust
    • 🔄 New effect: Feel 4* WIPED
  • Torch Pass
    • 🔻 Lowers the user's Max STAMINA by 10
  • Team Chant*
    • 🔄 New name: Chant
    • 🔼 Now only cures negative feelings, not positive ones
    • 🔻 Targets a single allied Beastie (self, ally, or benched ally)
  • Shield*
    • 🔼 Applies 2 TOUGH + 2 ANGRY (from 1)
  
  [h3]👹 Beasties[/h3]
  
  • Collarva/Wormask/Plumask
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed^: Challenge, Supercommit, Sneak Attack, Call Out, Teleport, Doze^
      Plumask is a Beastie that has been with us for a very long time, and from very early on in development was given new plays frequently as we added them. They were long overdue for a re-examination for what was actually uniquely relevant to them.
      
  • Shooga/Supassum/Supilero*
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Demolish*, Thunder^
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Energized*
      
  • Platenna/Platypulse/etc
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Prepared Attack
      
  • Noizard
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Forward Pass
      Noizard has continued to dominate usage since we reduced its defensive capabilities. Although this play isn't their flashiest option, it has enabled Noizard to serve a critical function as a support for hyper offensive partners. Removing this passing option pigeon-holes them more into their intended disruption role. We're curious to step back and assess their power level after this change, along with the various nerfs made to spirit offense that tends to pair with them. Further nerfs may be made if this hasn't pushed them far enough.
      
  • Gastic/Wisper/Mistic
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Prepared Attack
      
  • Armantis
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Sneak Attack (As a level-up play)
      
  • Grazada
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Challenge
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Supercommit
      
  • Hydrolm
    
    
    
    • 🔼 85 BPOW (from 75)
      
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Rocket
      
  • Heliath
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Thriller
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Challenge
      
  • Maraptor
    
    
    
    • 🔼 89 BPOW (from 87)
      
    • 🔼 87 MPOW (from 85)
      
    • 🔻 81 BDEF (from 83)
      
    • 🔻 86 MDEF (from 88)
      

• Significantly optimized the map menu, particularly when zoomed out
  
• Re-increased the text size for the "MATCH SCHEDULED" UI event
  
• Fixed collision on large trees in Mythwood
  
• Fixed an issue where editing a saved team would list their equipped plays twice in the list of available plays
  
• Made Conjarr "Cryptic" trait pop up less often in reaction to certain attacks which didn't have relevant side effects*
  
• Fixed a crash that occured when two Adaptation Gremlurs were fielded against two Mimicry Squimage^
  
• Fixed some potential softlock issues around cutscene triggers for encounters against Jack
  
• Fixed a bug wherein the Unflappable trait reduced damage from Quake to 0 instead of 5^
  

*There might be some other insignificant new things floating around, since this is a stripped-down version of next week's update. Full patch notes on new features will be revealed when the update is ready!

This past weekend the CHEER SQUAD BASH invaded the world of Beastieball! Noizard, Diggum and Cherrily decided to duke it out and determine which Beastie was the ultimate cheerleader.
[h2]🏆 Final Results![/h2]
Diggum is the winner of the Cheer Squad Bash, scoring highest in both popularity AND winrate! Congratulations to Diggum and to all the coaches who fought hard to get them to the top!



Hey, speaking of. Let's take a look at the coaches who scored highest this time around!
[h2]👑 Top-Scoring Players[/h2]

1. Satoros (The Diamond Ducks) | Bash Score: 3132
2. Kyyg (The Wacky Worms) | Bash Score: 3100
3. MochaTeehee (The Hello Fishes) | Bash Score: 3028
4. Theta (The Nefarious Ballers) | Bash Score: 3012
5. Reverie (The Nervous Folks) | Bash Score: 2968
6. Arc Tech (The Arcane Machines) | Bash Score: 2868
7. • Rosery (The Roaring Knights) | Bash Score: 2828
   • Kesephim (The Dazzling Lovers) | Bash Score: 2828
8. N/A
9. Melanie (The Eternal Moons) | Bash Score: 2816
10. Astra (The Tiny Girls) | Bash Score: 2784

We've got a mix of returning champions and new names on the list this time. Congrats to the players above, and everybody else who jumped in on the fun during this event! For players curious beyond this list who are curious about where they stand; the median Bash Score this time around was 1940.

In general, you can expect the median score to be around 2000, since that's the value that players generally start at, with some variance. Coaches who haven't finished the story will start lower; coaches who have done a lot of post-game challenges or have placed high in previous events will start higher. The reason for variance like this is to help seed the matchmaking a bit so that players match into opponents that are closer to their skill level.

[h2]📊 Beastie Usage Stats![/h2]
As has become tradition, we've collected a ton of data on Beastie usage during this event and we're happy to share that data with you for further investigation!
[h3]> Check out the STATS here![/h3]

[h2]🚨 Big updates coming soon![/h2]
We're well underway on a balance update which we plan to release to Experimental players within the next couple days. Changes are coming based on usage stats and other data we have, as well as community feedback. We're excited to get your thoughts on how the PvP scene is evolving!

These experimental balance changes will be rolled into the base game when we release Milestone Update #1 of 10 on June 12. This update will have a pretty good chunk of stuff, enough that I think every player is gonna have something to enjoy in it. We're excited to share more on that... very soon!

Shhh... hold on a second. Do you hear that sound?

That rumbling from the forest?

Beasties are converging from all directions. And the ones leading the charge... Cherrily, Diggum, and Noizard?

Oh, great and terrible Shloom! There's so many of them. It... It must be...



⏰ When: May 31, 2025 00:00 UTC to June 2, 2025 00:00 UTC (equivalent to May 30, 4PM PST to June 1, 4PM PST) 🤼 Theme: Cherrily VS Diggum VS Noizard (Note: any Beastie related to these Beasties will also be treated as playing for their team)

Another BIGMOON BASH is beginning soon in Beastieball! During Bigmoon Bashes, coaches can challenge each other in open matchmaking for a limited time.

This bash is a contest between 3 guilds: Cherrily, Diggum and Noizard! Your wins and losses will count towards the global score of the Beastie you bring. When the Bash is over, only one of the theme Beasties will be declared the Bash Champion! Choose your favorite and fight to bring them to the top! But if you don't have a team with one of these Beasties ready, not to worry! The game can automatically generate you a random legal team to use, too.

During the event you'll have a Bash Rank, which will improve based on your performance. After it's over, you'll receive in-game rewards based on your participation, such as Social Battery and Sports Points.

Players of all skill level are invited! All you need to do to participate is to play the game on that day and join the Bash on SportNet! SportNet is typically unlocked within the first 2 hours of your adventure, after beating your first Ranked boss.

[h2]📜 Official Game Rules:[/h2]

• First to 2 Points wins
  
• Standard time limit on move selection
  
• No Undos allowed
  
• No duplicate Beastie species allowed
  
• Relationship Combos are disabled
  
• All Beasties are set to Level 50
  

Here's a quick little mid-month update! As always, please note that we're working on lots of other stuff which isn't noted here. Our first major milestone update is on track to ship in June, so please look forward to that!

[h2]✨New Features[/h2]

• Edit Teams in Team Setup - this has been a top-requested feature from PvP players. You can now edit the content of your teams as defined in Team Setup! Specifically, you can modify your team order and what plays are equipped. This does come with some weird caveats worth mentioning.
  
  • Uploaded teams won't update when you edit the team locally. If you want to update the data you have uploaded, you'll need to stop sharing the team and re-upload it to generate a new share code.
    
  • Beasties that belong to you will have access to whatever plays they currently know. So it is possible to teach a new play to a Beastie that's already in a saved team, and then add it in
    
  • Teams you have downloaded will only have access to the plays currently equipped on those Beasties.

[h2]🔧Balance Changes[/h2]
We're still assessing the shifts in game balance since our last major balance update. We'd like to see how the meta feels in at least the next Bigmoon Bash before we shake things up dramatically again.

[h3]🍄Traits[/h3]

• Power Up, High Spirits and Full Focus: These traits associated with the 3 starter Beasties now confer a +50% power bonus when the Beastie has less than 34 stamina, rather than a 1.5x power multiplier.
  
  This is a very subtle change that mostly limits how much this power level interacts with other ramping methods.
• Superorganism: Changed to trigger when the Beastie hits 0 STAMINA, rather than when they are WIPED.
  
  This is essentially only relevant for plays that can self-inflict WIPED and these are only relevant on Beasties that can access this trait via Trait Dance. For players who successfully ran this strategy, it would often make the game unplayable for opponents, so we've decided to mitigate its most offensive abuses.

[h3]⛰️Expedition[/h3]
Increased the rarity of Leobro and Waglash so that they aren't available in the pool of recruitable starter Beasties.

[h2]🚧Other Fixes and Changes[/h2]

• Fix for a load/softlock issue that can happen when exiting replays or online matches
  
• Fix for a crash when attempting to queue in a "Local Network" on Sportnet as part of a story sequence
  
• Removed Assess from Diabloceras (this was noted as a change in previous balance patches but wasn't properly implemented)
  
• Removed incorrect popups when Illugus with the Precise trait lands a sideways attack on a shielded Beastie
  
• Reduced how frequently Conjarr's Crpytic trait visually activates from receiving an attack
  
• When attempting to queue in a Bash with an illegal team, the game now offers to automatically assign you a random legal team instead
  
• Updated damage preview to account for the damage boost from the Hunter trait on opponents that are benched
  
• Moved some NPCs in Beryl
  

This past weekend we hosted a BIGMOON BASH in Beastieball, where coaches could challenge one another in fierce contests of sport! In light of the recent balance patch, we opened this Bash up to every Beastie and team out there to see how things are shaping up!

But first: here are the coaches who achieved the highest Bash Scores in this event!
[h2]🏆 Top-Scoring Players[/h2]

1. Satoros (The Diamond Ducks) | Bash Score: 3208
2. Bolimar (The Crimson Waves) | Bash Score: 3088
3. Kesephim (The Dazzling Lovers) | Bash Score: 2992
4. AshleyETA (The Musical Girls) | Bash Score: 2904
5. Rosery (The Roaring Knights) | Bash Score: 2896
6. MochaTeehee (The Hello Fishes) | Bash Score: 2796
7. Kyyg (The Wacky Worms) | Bash Score: 2760
8. • Ket (The Lonesome Lovers) | Bash Score: 2744
   • Arc Tech (The Arcane Machines) | Bash Score: 2744
9. N/A
10. Vega (The Dancing Dragons) | Bash Score: 2740

Honorable Mention: Kim (The Happy Hearts) | Bash Score: 2820 (We initially reported kim among the top Bash Scores but we later realized she hadn't actually played enough matches to certify the score.)

NOTE: During the first few hours of the event, Mac and PC players were mistakenly treated as though they were on different balance patches, preventing them from matching up. Everyone was still able to play, but this did have an effect on the available pool of opponents and likely had an effect on early Bash Score calculations. We apologize for this tech issue!

[h2]👥 Community Spotlight[/h2]
Thanks primarily to the efforts of kim, we've got mini-interviews with some of these top-ranking players here:

You can read more interviews like this in kim's official sheet!

I also want to acknowledge that there are tons of amazing players in our community, including many who have made huge contributions to the game's competitive exploration but don't happen to appear in the top Bash Scores. If you're enjoying the game and want to meet friendly like-minded players, our official Discord is always humming with Beastieball chatter and fan tournaments!

[h2]📊 Beastie Usage Stats![/h2]
As has become tradition, we've collected a ton of data on Beastie usage during this event and we're happy to share that data with you for further investigation!
[h3]> Check out the STATS here![/h3]

[h2]🕵️ Meta Insights[/h2]
I'm sure players will have their own discourse about the stats from this Bash, but here are my own thoughts on what we're seeing.

• This is the first Bash where Bandicraft was legal but not the most-used Beastie! That crown was taken by Hopra, a different starter Beastie.
  • I think this moment represents a major inflection point in the developing meta of Beastieball. Beasties' relative popularity with casual players has always been a major driving force in what gets used, and that's what we've seen reflected in usage with Bandicraft being the most popular Beastie both casually and competitively. But we're seeing more and more players start to optimize their team building, and that means usage is shifting more towards the Beasties that provide greater utility.
  • Bandicraft might have incredible offensive passing utility with Captain, but with a diverse array of support and offensive capabilities, Hopra is easy to fit onto any team whether they're gearing more for an offensive or defensive playstyle.
• Illugus, Surgus and Bongus still dominate the usage near the very top and still in that precise order.
  • Illugus has been through some finicky tweaks to their moveset and trait balance as we try to get them in line with other offensive tools. It's nice to see that despite their setbacks, players are still using Illugus and finding success with them.
  • We hope the recent changes have made Illugus more fun to play against, too!
• Rally-focused teams are still popular. Roughly 7 or the top 10 Beasties all like to play in Rally. Despite the recent addition of Demolish, a powerful Body-type play which clears field effects, we're not seeing Body-focused Beasties make a meaningful dent in Rally's control of the meta.
  • We'll definitely be thinking about how much we need to intervene with balance chnages here VS. giving the community space to find answers for Rally with the tools already in the game.
• If we turn our eyes to the bottom of the usage list, there's a few regular suspects, but Platypulse is a surprise last-place contender!
  • Platypulse has amazing utility to shutting down mind-style offense, but players may be overlooking it due to Rally being prevalent in usage right now.
  • However, if Platypulse isn't seeing use, that just means mind-type offense has a greater opportunity to shine without its scariest counter to stop it...
• Broadly, we're seeing the meta continue to diversify. There were (almost)* no fully-grown Beasties with 1% or less usage, which is pretty exceptional when there are so many different Beasties to choose from.
  • It's exciting to see players exploring all the possibilities offered by so many different Beasties. I'm sure there are tons of scary combos still waiting to be discovered out there and keep our balance team** up all night!

*Sorry Grazada. **(Damian and I)
[h2]🏐 BONUS STATS: Serving Advantage![/h2]
Many high-ranking players have felt anecdotally like it's more difficult to play from the side that gets the first serve in a match. During this Bash we put some extra analytics towards measuring this dis/advantage! Here are the results from 2,300 matches played.

• Winrate when NOT serving: 52.2%
• Winrate when NOT serving (for players in the top 50% Bash Score range): 53.5%

So: The anecdotes are true! The player who gets the first serve is playing with a very minor disadvantage right now. We'll continue to collect data on this over a larger sample size to see whether this holds true. With a disadvantage so small, and which disproportionately impacts high-ranked games rather than casual players, it may be hard to find a balance adjustment that makes these odds even more fair, but we'll be thinking about it. In looking for stats to compare these numbers with, we found that these numbers are very comparable to what was observed in Hearthstone for the player who goes first. It's a smaller advantage than you typically see in Chess.

For now, if you're worried about the serve disadvantage, you should factor it into your team building; having a strong serve option that can disrupt your opponent's first turn should be a very important part of any strong team. Bolimar said as much eloquently in their mini-interview above; and notably, even with their jaw-dropping 3088 Bash Score, they happened to be the serving player in the vast majority of their matches, so there's provable ways to put that advice into practice and see results!

[h2]🙇 THANK YOU![/h2]
I'm grateful every day that this gets to be my job. I love seeing the competitive game grow and change in the hands of players! We'll keep working hard on balance changes and other things. Stay tuned!