Tooth and Tail News

[p]Some of the most important changes in this update are about time: How fast can you get to the front line, how long does it take Snake poison to kill...[/p][p]and, yes, it's also been a very, very long time since the last patch. I really would have loved to work more on on Tooth and Tail (and also play more), but life made me focus on entirely different things. Huge thanks to everyone who is here despite the radio silence from my side![/p][p]I am incredibly happy to still see some new players who just picked up the game, as well as others with >1000h and counting; a community that keeps discussing balance changes, making skins and mods, organizing, streaming or competing in tournaments (like that Championship we just wrapped up).[/p][p]Plenty of reasons for more updates... now, quickly back to the actual patch notes:[/p][p][/p][h2]Multiplayer Balance Changes[/h2]

• [p]Toad: 9 HP (from 8).[/p]
• [p]Mole: Commander can burrow to Mole Warrens. 1 DPS against units (from 2), but still 6 DPS against structures. Can simultaneously hit a unit and a structure on the same tile. Moles aggro from their individual position, not from the rally point.[/p]
• [p]Skunk: 32 HP (from 30 HP). [/p]
• [p]Chameleon: 34 HP (from 33).[/p]
• [p]Snake: 1.5 DPS (from 1), for 10s (from 20s), resulting in 15 damage per tag (from 20). 30 HP (from 32 HP).[/p]
• [p]Boar: Explosion on death reduced to 12 damage (from 20).[/p]
• [p]All Tier 3: Build time increased to 50s each warren and unit (from 45s).[/p]
• [p]Formation: Made sure high tier and long range units find tiles more easily (other units move away).[/p]
• [p]Barbed Wire: Regenerates health (like other structures). Cannot be attacked by any unit (but suffers aoe damage). Takes the same damage it deals to enemies (from 1/2 the damage it deals).[/p]
• [p]Land Mine: Invincible to Boar Flamethrower.[/p]
• [p]Reveal: Commanders can uncloak enemies in a 2 tile radius when standing still (previously 1 tile radius, i.e. 3x3 area). Also the sound is a bit more subtle.[/p]

[p]Players on the Pocketwatch Discord server or those who watched the tournament probably already know these changes, because most of them were used in the latest tournament and were widely considered an improvement over the last patch. [/p][h2]Improved Control[/h2]

• [p]Focus Fire: All structures that are blocking movement (i.e. Gristmill, Campfire, MG, Arty) are easier to target (even when enemy units are next to them).[/p]
• [p]Pig: Unit movement can no longer be blocked by Pigs.
  
  [/p]

[h2]UI and QoL[/h2]

• [p]Turkish localization improved, now also using the usual font style.[/p]
• [p]Matchboard (Discord) reactivated.[/p]
• [p]Default name and sorting changed for replays, displaying the newest on top (custom names starting with letters will even be higher up).[/p]
• [p]Changes of deck size in unranked/offline lobbies are registered properly.[/p]

• [p]Better Layout of deck selection screens with more or less than 6 available options per tier. (Currently only in mods.)[/p]
• [p]Automatically update mods and maps before playing them.[/p]
• [p]No crash when leaving a modded lobby while a unit with mod-only graphics is selected.[/p]

• [p]Observer name display fixed.[/p]

[h2]Linux Fix[/h2][p]Some Linux distros could no longer start the game (due to an issue related to their glibc version) - this seems to be fixed, now. I could only do minimal testing, so please tell me if you still experience trouble starting the game. 2025 Championship just ended, and once again it was an amazing event. Roughly 50 players competed on a mod that already contained most balance changes of this patch. We've seen underdogs beat giants, sometimes with novel decks and strategies. Most of the games have been casted - and the truly amazing grand finals can be watched on Tooth and Tail TV.[/p][p]Go and watch if you have not seen them yet - or grab a flag and test those changes yourself![/p][p](Also: Delthius mentioned he's preparing another tournament for March...)[/p][p]See you soon![/p][p]Eel[/p]

During the last few months, Sergeant Volkov and the Matriarch demonstrated their full potential when working as a team: Wolf & Owl have been proven to be an incredibly strong combination, because doubling the spawn rate of an Owl did not only mean twice the damage, but also twice the meat shield. Once they hit the field, fighting the almost endless stream of Mice quickly became a disheartening endeavor for the opponent. Preventing the duo, however, was not easy, either: especially Lizards, Snakes, Skunks and Machine Guns served as powerful tools to safely get to the late game.

That is why this balance patch introduces several changes, not only to the interaction of Wolf and Owl, but also generally trying to empower aggressive playstyles in the early and mid game.

It also contains some modifications behind the scenes that should improve ranked matchmaking and prevent occasional desyncs.



[h2]Changes in a Nutshell[/h2]

Expansions start with 1/3 of their full health and slowly increase their max. hitpoints in the first 200s after construction.
Wolf buff lasts longer on cheap units, but shorter on anything expensive. A buffed Owl will no longer spawn Mice twice as fast, but only 50% faster.
Skunk gas deals less damage, but can be fired at longer range. Snake poison kills more slowly, but lasts longer.
Health automatically regenerates anywhere on the map (not only in friendly territory).
Toad, Falcon, Ferret, and Barbed Wire get a small buff.
Lizard and Machine Gun get a small nerf.
Neutral Cabins deal less damage.
Commander burrows faster.



[h2]Details on Big Changes[/h2]

Gristmill: Expansions will start with 50 HP and gain +10 HP every 20s, until they reached 150 HP (starting Mills remain unchanged, with 150 HP from the beginning). Mill HP is displayed during construction, when the Mill is damaged, or briefly after it gained +10 HP.

Wolf: Buff duration depends on the target's cost, i.e. 4s on t3 units/warrens and Drumfire Cannons (180 Food), 6s on Balloons and t2 warren (120 Food), 12s on t2 units, t1 warrens, Pigs and Machine Guns, 36s on t1 units. As a rule of thumb, one Wolf can keep 360 Food continuously buffed. (Previously it could buff up to six units/structures of any kind, and was thus much more efficient combined with t3 than with t1.)

Skunk: Has 6 range (from 4), deals 2 DPS (from 3).

Snake: Has 32 HP (from 28), can no longer attack structures. Each tag of poison lasts 20s, deals 1 DPS per tag, no longer slows down affected units, and prevents natural healing (previously 2 DPS, got cured only when natural healing kicked in). Healing in water or from Pigeons still works, but does not cure the poison.

Natural Healing: Starts after 10s of not getting hit regardless of territory (5s for cold bloods, at the same rate), and only if the unit is not poisoned. Previously, natural healing only worked in friendly territory, after 5s, cured poison, and was 3x as strong for cold bloods (Lizards, Toads, Chameleons, Snakes).



[h2]Smaller Changes[/h2]

• Lizard: 7 HP (from 8).
  
• Toad: 8 HP (from 9), flat 3 damage in a 3x3 area (from 4 single target damage + 2 aoe); 4x "crit" factor on aoe damage against structures remains.
  
• Falcon: Shoots 16 bullets in one burst (from 12), then reloads for 2.4s (from 1.8s); damage per bullet, DPS etc. remain the same.
  
• Ferret: 7 DPS (from 6 DPS), i.e. one shot in 2s, dealing 14 damage.
  
• Owl: Spawns 4 Mice at 2s intervals, then pauses for 8s. Wolf buff will only reduce the spawn interval from 2s to 1s, not the 8s pause. (Previously 3 Mice at 1s intervals with 7s pause; Wolf buff doubled the speed.)
  
• Mouse: Cannot be healed, stimmed or targeted by focus fire, and cannot attack Barbed Wire, anymore. Life time to 36s from 30s.
  
• Barbed Wire: 8 HP (from 7), vision to 2 tiles (from 4), sell timer removed.
  
• Land Mine: Vision to 2 tiles (from 4; also fixed a bug that could result in a desync when Mines were sold).
  
• Machine Gun: 5 DPS (from 6).
  
• Cabin: 50 HP (from 32) and 1 DPS (from 3).
  
• Flying: All flying units/structures have +4 vision (from +2); only Balloon vision range has been reduced by 2, so it remains unchanged.
  
• Cloaked: Cloaked units/structures do not emit visible particles.
  
• Commander: Burrows in 1s (from 1.5s).
  

In November, the Tooth and Tail Championship 2021.2 culminated in a very close match between the Premier league finalists, mad Dr. Mishi and Tatanka, the master of Wolf-Owl. I really recommend you watch them: url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgAcMDAzeH0
Congrats to both of them, as well as to the other finalists: Queen Sasha (Premier Division), Meek, xnor, and Big Pimpintosh (Intermediate Division)!

Meanwhile the "Fall Open" of Gent's 21 Duels only waited for the Championship to end, and started right afterwards - a series of boss battles with special rules.
See the stages and challengers here.
... and find the links to (re-)watch the casted episodes here.

Enjoy!
EELuminatus

It's tournament finals weekend For Tooth and Tail! The modern meta master Tatanka faces off against the old school great Mishi today at 3pm CST (Sat, 21:00 UTC) on ToothAndTailTV for the grand finals of the 2021 TnT Champions Premier League!!

Tomorrow for the intermediate league finals we have our previous season winner Meek up against Xnor at 4pm CST (Sun, 22:00 UTC) on Tandordraco's Twitch channel!!!

A new season starting with clean ranked leaderboards, a couple quality of life features and fixes regarding multiplayer games, and a few balance adjustments come with this patch. You'll also find some news about past/current/upcoming community events at the end of this announcement.


We have seen lots of familiar names in Season 5, but also some new players making it to the top of the ladder (in no particular order):
NightSlayer, Kipo, Imari, Tatanka, Ploob, QQ, Trumpet, Melvinfro, Snake, The Gentleman, Arilou, mocaccino, Satoros, Tiki Gray, Pile, Big Pimpintosh, R22, Epicosity, James, and Meek have all made it past 1,000 points (hope I didn't miss anyone, you've been rushing past me way too fast).

Now we all go back to a fresh start. Have fun climbing the ladder, again, in Season 6, beginning now!
(Or simply take a few steps and have a good time anywhere on that ladder.)


These adjustments are mostly minor tweaks (Mole buff, Toad nerf, better counters against Barbed Wire), and a slightly bigger change to Mines, which are now faster to build, slower to sell, easier to reveal, and less efficient against units of higher tiers: That should shift their use towards offensive play, covering your retreat or protecting your siege and poke attacks.

• Commander: Reveals cloaked enemies after standing still for 1.6s (from 2s)
  
• Toad: 9 HP (from 8 HP), 1x speed (from 1.3x), 2 single target damage (from 4)
  
• Mole: warren has 24 HP (from 18) and loses 2 HP (from 3) per Mole spawn; effectively increasing the durability of Mole warrens, and reducing the loss per Mole from 10 to 5 Food
  
• Barbed Wire: 7 HP (from 14 HP), takes only 50% damage when touched; effectively making Wire more fragile against melee/aoe attacks and during construction
  
• Mine: 5s build time (from 10s), 2s sell time during which the Mine is revealed/can be attacked; 8 single target damage (from 14), revealing that unit if it is cloaked/can cloak
  

• Multiplayer on Mac has not been possible for a while due to some changes on the infrastructure TnT multiplayer is running on. but it's finally fixed!
  
• Ranked matchmaking goes faster to full search range (14/14, which means any rank in any region) and restarts automatically every 2 minutes (with full search range) to prevent your lobby and search from timing out. (There has been a bug that prevented you from finding a match after searching for too long without restarting the search - should be better now!)
  
• Hourly leaderboards don't get wiped completely when the next hour starts, only entries older than one hour disappear. (Thanks to pyro for significant help on this!) Also, the style of the "Me" filter changed, showing other players' rank in relation to yours.
  
• Some players reported crashes in local FFA games due to a divide by zero error. I cannot reproduce that issue, but I changed something that will hopefully prevent this bug from occuring. (In case you've had that issue: please tell me whether it actually got better with this patch!)
  
• Sometimes players started without a full deck in multiplayer games. This should no longer happen. It was a rare and irregular bug, though, so I cannot verify this is fixed 100% - please tell me if it still occurs!
  

[h2]Running[/h2]
The "Summer Open Lunch" of the (20)21 Duels just started. It's a competitive play-at-your-own-pace series of games against "bosses", each with their own special rules. See all details here: https://21duels.delamarche.com/

The TnT Dual Championship's grand finals will be streamed live, soon. This series of 2v2 matches has been interrupted due to the Mac multiplayer issue mentioned above, but now we are looking forward to see Premish vs MeekSlayer and Heartaru vs Satball in the semi-finals of the upper division, as well as SzenPaw (already qualified for finals) vs GEG (semi-), Gortoros or The Tatankas (quarter-finals) in the lower division - guess yourself who's in there or watch the finals to find out!

Tandordraco is now doing a show called TnTTalks on Twitch every other week, discussing various topics like tournaments, balance and meta with changing guests, showing highligths of recent games etc. - You can find it on Twitch or YouTube!

Kipo recently started a King of the Hill format: Players can claim a hill by winning a best of 5 match against a King of the Hill. There are four hills for different skill levels, and you can jump in or drop out at any time - just contact Kipo on the Pocketwatch Discord!

[h2]Past[/h2]
The first season of the 2021 TnT Championship ended in March, with these medal-grabbers: Meek (1st), Melvinfro (2nd), and The Gentleman (3rd) in Premier Division; Tatanka (1st), Kerpa (2nd), and Epicosity (3rd) in Intermediate Division; Leon (1st), Tandordraco (2nd), and Cavernus (3rd) in Beginner Division. Congrats to you, and thanks to everyone taking part in the Championship, as player, organizer, caster or viewer on Twitch!

The idea of TnT Clan Wars may have started as a joke, but eventually they also became a cool new tournament ending earlier this year, with Lizard Wizard Magic beating the Toad Road Gang for first place, and the Badger Missionaries in third place. Congrats and thanks to everyone involved!

Enjoy and have a great feast!
EELuminatus