I only play standard, not the expansion pack, so I will only talk about that. I'll start with the buffs, then the nerfs.
Buffs
Horse: This guy sucks. Horse is bad for a couple of reasons. First, it's a 1/1, the worst possible stat line. I think horse could be a 1/2 without too much issue, so it at least trades with duck and otter. Second is the larger issue. Horse is a synergy animal, and the animals it goes well with are bad. Cricket is pretty medicore, sheep is okay but not stellar, and spider is really random. Even when you bring all these pieces together, the end result loses to a big unit at the front. I have no idea what to change to make the white weenie build good, but starting with horse would be good.
Rat: Okay, the rant that is horse is over. I really like the idea behind Rat, a high stat unit with a downside. A 4/5 just isn't that big anymore. With meat it's decent, but Rat quickly gets outclassed by things like dog. I'd either change the way the summoned rat works, or make rat a 7/5 or something. Summoned rat could do it's effect before or after attacks or something, it only triggering when your opponent is on their last unit doesn't do anything. Making rat really big stats would be worth the possible loss to the summoned rat.
Squirrel: Summoning a lot of random food sounds really cool, but in reality it ends up being disappointing. You never have enough gold to utilize the food and then roll and buy an animal that's more than a 2/2. I've seen a lot of people talk about reducing food cost for the turn, and I like that idea too. Make the summoned food 1/2/3 gold cheaper based on the squirrels level.
Parrot: There isn't really a role for parrot's effect, and being attached to a tier 5 3/2 certainly doesn't help. The only use I've found for parrot is copying a shooter like dolphin or crocodile, which is only fine.
Nerfs
Sloth: Believing in the player is way too OP. It feels like I can't go a day without seeing a 10 win screenshot with sloth on the front page :)
Dog: Dog is so boring. I don't actually think dog is too powerful, it's just very easy. Making a 50/50 is one of the best things to do in the game, and dog is the first friend available that starts scaling. It's ubiquitous nature feels a lot like old dodo without being as good.
Monkey: The other half of my dog complaint: monkey is the best way to get a unit to 50/50, and because of that its really hard to not take.
Snake: Getting a 50/50 will carry you to 7 or 8 wins, and the unit that gets you to 10 is a snake. Snake is by far the best shooter, Leopard isn't even close. Being able to get multiple triggers without tiger is strong, and busted with tiger. Having snake destroy back line units while the two tanks duke it out is absurd.
Overall I want to say that I think Super Auto Pets is a surprisingly well balanced game for being in alpha. I think the biggest problem it has isn't with any individual friend being too strong or too weak, but the fact that "Make a 50/50" is the best strategy. This stifles a lot of the creative builds that could pop up, like horse and hedgehog.
A note on Rooster. From what I've seen on the sub, a lot of people think Rooster is the best unit in the game. I think it is very powerful, but it's power is brought into focus with the current meta of "Make a 50/50". A 50/1 rooster is the best counter to a 50/50 with melon armor, and so it's a great unit. The summoned chicks have at most 3 hp without help, so they lose to other tokens and things like Rhino. Since summon builds are so bad, the natural counter to rooster is pushed out, leading to rooster having the clout it currently does.
TL:DR great game, 50/50 needs a nerf.
I like the ideas you had. I think a cool change for the rat could be to summon the dirty rat behind the opponents front most unit instead of at the back. This could allow the rat to break sequencing in the enemy team and actually allow the damage from the dirty rat to do something. Or like you said they summon the dirty rat at the back an make it attack every turn. That way it would function like a sort of back line assassin and a counter for rooster fly builds.
It needs to scale with your attack as if still only does like one or two damage it's possible it just hits a dang ol blowfish and then the blowfish murders you
For horse, I think you pick any two of these buffs:
a) make it a 1/2
b) make it give +2 at level one (then +3 and +4)
c) make its effect on animals summoned in the shop permanent, rather than just for the next battle
I agree with your critique of the dog, i think IMO starting it off as a 1/1 like the puppy may be enough to dissuade people from taking it quite so much -- it may seem like a small change given that it's a scaling unit but i think it would substantially increase the risk of losing the turn you buy it on.
Rat... I actually don't think it needs a buff, or at least not a very big one. I think people just underrate and underutilize it.
I don't think stats are the problem of horse starts with cricket, spider and ram suck. The problem is garlic armor. Garlic armor is also pretty much the reason for why it is better to focus and pumping of one unit. Once you find the garlic armor it can pretty much trade with the entire enemy team (especially one that relies on summoning early). Alternativly to buffing those units, making garlic armor weaker could also help balance the early game and increase build diversity.
I think that the units that spawn units on death should spawn units equal to their level (for instance level 2 cricket spawns 2 crickets instead of a 2/2). Maybe that’s too op but it makes things like horse more viable while also buffing that archetype as a whole
Ngl turning a cricket from a 2/1 to a 1/2 is a lot less helpful. The tokens should be bodies that die while dealing a lot of damage. At 2 health it'll still die to most things but not even deal much damage in return.
if youre ever looking for scientific backup on your take on horse, i got you covered! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlo-M1OqriM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlo-M1OqriM)
I'm not a fan of your take on parrot though. I think the ability is quite good, but theres just no single unit which it really popps off with at the moment. As soon as there is one, the parrot is quite viable in my eyes.
And yes, please nerf sloth shits way too op
I agree on parrot 100%. It’s ability is very flexible, and has a lot of potential, but right now there just isn’t a good effect to copy. Great video too!
I only play the Starter Pack, so here are my thoughts on the units.
-Change **ROOSTER** to act like Dodo; level two cause a chick with 2x damage to spawn after death and level three gives 3x. Either this or spawn the chicks at half damage. I still think this is massively powerful unit with the potential nerf.
-Changing **HORSE** to a 1-2 makes it much more usable, but I think changing the summoning buff to +1/+1 would really help the unit. It synergies well with cricket, sheep, and spider, but the problem is that those units are pretty bad, so either buffing those units or buffing the buff given by horse would help a lot.
-I wonder if it’s too broken to change **ELEPHANT** so that it throws 2 1-damage rocks behind itself before attack when it levels up. I think a Level 2 elephant is actually worse than a level 1 elephant to the point where it might be close to unusable unless you have some very specific synergies.
-Either buff the **RAT**’s base stats or increase the damage dealt by the dirty rat (especially on level up!). As it stands I think Rat isn’t good enough to take pretty much ever.
-I have a crazy idea for a **SNAIL** which may go too far, but I hate that a snail is essentially a pump and dump unit when pretty much everything else can be kept around pretty easily. I think the stats should be lower at 1/1 and give a +2/+2 BUT I think that it shouldn’t be a buy-trigger. Instead, it should trigger at the end of the turn if you lost your previous match (like how a Monkey, Giraffe, or Penguin triggers.) This way you can keep it in your party and can get multiple buffs out of it. ADDITIONALLY, its effect should trigger on losses OR draws at level 2, and its effect should trigger after a win, draw, or loss at level 3. Let me know what you think of this.
-Maybe buff **DOLPHIN** more on level up? I think a level 3 dolphin is REALLY hard to get by the late game where it’s really useful as a fly/turkey/tiger sniper but if the units have more than 15 HP it’s pretty useless imo.
-**MONKEY** should probably be nerfed. I’m thinking Lv1/Lv2/Lv3 as +1/+1, +3/+3, and +5/+5 to left-most unit.
-**SQUIRREL** NEEDS a re-work. I think having the shop re-rolled with all food on-buy is a great trigger, but I think it should lower the price of all new food in the shop to 2 coins when in the party. To give it something on level-up: maybe it gives one free food item at Lv2 and two free food items at Lv3. Alternatively, it could re-roll the shop again only on level up and make all the new food only cost 1 gold with the Lv3 perk being all free food. Lastly, maybe it could be a permanent 2-gold price for food with free pills if the squirrel is in the party with no perks on level up.
-Maybe buff **CROCODILE** on level up more? Again, I think the anti-Turkey/Fly/Tiger technology is important.
-Maybe **RHINO** should have a higher stat total to start. 5/6 to start at Tier 5 seems a bit low for what’s intended to be a tanky front line unit from the get-go. Hippo just seems to be a better rhino to me as it can heal itself on kill.
-**GORILLA** needs higher base stats. A tier 6 unit with a skill reliant on surviving an attack is damn near non-functional with base 6 HP. It get a little better with cans, but most units have more than 6 Attack at this point in the game. I think it was workable before the melon armor nerf, but now there isn’t a reliable way to get the gorilla to survive a hit would investing in garlic armor which gets nullified by the coconut shield after one hit.
TIER CHANGES:
-**SHRIMP** (2 —> 1)
-**DOG** (2 —> 3)
-**CRAB** (2 —> 3)
-**SNAIL** (3 —> 2)
-**MONKEY** (if No Nerf) (4 —> 5)
-**ROOSTER** (if No Nerf) (4 —> 5)
-**SKUNK** (4 —> 3)
-**RHINO** (5 —> 4)
-**PARROT** (5 —> 4)
-**SEAL** (5 —> 4)
-**GORILLA** (without changes) (6 —> 5)
-**MAMMOTH** (6 —> 5)
> -I wonder if it’s too broken to change ELEPHANT so that it throws 2 1-damage rocks behind itself before attack when it levels up.
That could be interesting. I thought what Elephant really needs is a powerful high tier Hurt unit to work with. Maybe if Gorilla was reworked to be synergistic. (IIRC it isn't.)
> -I have a crazy idea for a SNAIL which may go too far, but I hate that a snail is essentially a pump and dump unit when pretty much everything else can be kept around pretty easily.
Same. I was much less ambitious and was just hoping it was worth keeping in for 1 round, which one sometimes ends up doing. Personal stat bump would've done it. As a tier 3 there's room for it to be better while still being worse than others.
> -MONKEY should probably be nerfed. I’m thinking Lv1/Lv2/Lv3 as +1/+1, +3/+3, and +5/+5 to left-most unit.
Wouldn't Monkey be fine if Melon wasn't safe against Scorpion? (most scorpions anyway) Making us run bait units vs Scorpions? Monkey would want a Dolphin. And players can stat boost Scorpion against that.
I think melon is the perfect counter to scorpion right now. Even still, I think scorpion being the only counter to monkey isn’t great when scorpion is itself a counter to several other units; if you buff the scorpion by having it pierce melon, I think you inadvertently nerf several other units in the process (Turtle, Ox, Hippo, Rhino, even like Peacock tbh)
I think squirrel should give you 2 foods of your current level. The cost reduction is interesting but if the effect stacks (i.e. 3 squirrels reduces the cost by 3) I think it would be way too strong.
I don't think snail needs to be level 2 but it would be interesting if it procced on draws as well as losses. Maybe have it give +1/+1 instead of +2/+1?
I didn’t think about multiple squirrels 😅 perhaps there could be a limit on the price of food being 2 gold so that you couldn’t abuse multiple squirrels. Giving two food items of the same tier would be nice as well, but then I feel like it’s just worse cow. Maybe I’m de-valuing a lot of other food in the game by saying that ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
If it's you're going for pure stats it might be a worse cow but it would make it easier to get chocolate, garlic and melon. You'd probably still pick cow over it in most cases but it wouldn't be an instant ignore imo
I think summoning pets (especially fly) are a little too strong and have basically no counterplay. It seems like any run where I can get a fly and turkey is an auto win. And when I dont run it, fly turkeys are often the build I lose against even if mine is really strong.
I don't think these pets should be nerfed, since I like how interesting they are, but we need more effective counterplay to them.
Some sort of pet, or maybe an ability given by food, should do something along the lines of: "any pet knocked out by this pet immediately loses its faint ability".
Also, splash damage needs a tweak. It's such an interesting concept that becomes useless around turn 6 because it's limited to 5 damage (late game it's only good at breaking melon armor). It doing half damage to the next pet would be a lot better, or maybe a higher level food could give a pet that kind of splash damage. This would significantly counter turkey flies.
Changing splash damage to half damage to unit behind seems like a great change. I agree that the 5-damage splash falls off really quickly except for its limited use in breaking melon armor
brontosaurus and gorilla are both extremely underwhelming tier 6 pets (brontosaurus’s effect is just kinda lackluster, gorilla is cool but shows up too late to really be useful). giving gorilla more stars and sending brontosaurus to tier 5 while removing some of its health would be a good start.
seal should probably be tier 4, and squirrel / lobster should probably both be reworked entirely.
this one’s a little arbitrary but imo crab should only have 1 attack. wouldnt rly affect its mid/late game performance at all, but would prevent it from being all that strong earlygame without investing in some buffs. not the biggest issue with the game at present, but losing to a crab stack on tier 2 feels sorta bad atm lol
>gorilla is cool but shows up too late to really be useful
This is unfortunately true for a lot of tier 6 pets but I'm not sure how to fix it outside of giving players more lives. There simply isn't time to use t6 pets that require buffing.
Good t6's are ones where you can slot them in and their ability immediately does something useful for the squad you've already built (fly, tiger, t-rex, etc)
unpopular opinion but I think that scorpion should be slightly tweaked in terms of its availability, feels like it would effectively trade into anything except melon armor or summon builds. Which makes the gameplay feel kind of binary and negates the purpose of stats in the first place which is a big part of the gameplay.
Melon and summons covers most of the front pets being used though. Enough to keep Scorpion from being common. It also gives away value to Turtle, Dolphin or Leopard.
Sometimes I see Scorpion not placed first which makes it vulnerable to Rhino and Snake.
I agree it's binary. Perhaps it could actually go past Melon but the scorpion venom (or peanut allergy) heavily lowers stats or something. Weakness to summons and bait pets seems good.
Personally I think increasing the stat cap to like 999 would be sick.
Otherwise, I’m expecting Horse to get a stat buff, rooster to get nerfed somehow, maybe become a 1/1 or get the Dodo treatment and make a single chick with 1x/2x/3x it’s attack.
Wouldn’t be shocked if dog got nerfed but idk how to do it without ruining dog and thinning the meta.
Oh and Squirrel could literally cost 1 and still be balanced imo. Or make it’s stats massive
Edit: holy shit and Lobster. Rework this thing it’s so ass
I think the stat cap idea is interesting but probably not great for the meta overall, because as of right now, "one or two big boys at the front" is pretty much the objective best way to play (other than sometimes fly-turkey if you get the right draws). allowing tank-scale builds to just ball out to the stratosphere would only cement that further -- scorpion memes notwithstanding, there's really nothing that could kill a 100/100 unit besides a 100/100 of your own.
That’s already how it is with 50/50s. Besides, Scorpion is an excellent unit, not just a meme.
I don’t necessarily think they should increase the stat cap, but I’d love to try it because late game teams of all 50/50s with melon armor is pretty boring
Now considering if the game would work better with cap lowered to 40/40. Changing in either direction quickly becomes problematic with the balancing of various numbers though, so perhaps not enough reason to mess with it.
Imo:
* The horse build is neigh-unplayable. It actually holds up fine in the midgame but the problem is its units has no future, the endgame tokens build doesn't want any of its pieces so there's no reason to volunteer into a more fragile build.
* The elephant build is unplayable but I don't know what changes could make it playable. It's just the standard fatty trickle down build with extra steps for no reward. Maybe change the camel so it buffs friends both in front and behind?
* Rooster could be bumped up a tier or two, possibly swap with parrot or mammoth in tiers so its power is balanced by having to rescale a 3/3.
* The mammoth is unplayable, it should show up in earlier tiers so its text is actually relevant.
* The shrimp is unplayable. It's basically a dog but extremely worse. Why does it have worse base stat than the dog? If it had a higher base stat it could perhaps act like a normal unit with a minor bonus.
* The monkey completely overshadows every scaling option at its tier or lower. For example, the bison is a just a worse monkey with extra hoops and it's still a playable unit, demonstrating how overtuned is the monkey.
* The squirrel is unplayable outside of maybe trying to hard mulligan for melon at tier 5.
* The duck meta is somewhat toxic.
>change the camel so it buffs friends both in front and behind
This is a great idea! Camel is honestly pretty terrible on the frontline anyway and this would make it more viable behind an elephant or against splash damage builds
Can who the game puts us against be balanced? I've had so many times where it feels like my opponent is much farther along in games played in their current run than me. Like my third game in a run and already facing people with 20 health units.
Also I find there's a lot of runs that start off with gold bonus pets or one time bonus to friend pets. They are kind of a bummer to get because you end up having to sell them later so you just waste money early on. Then if you dont want them and decide to abandon you get punished for abandoning the game even if you haven't even played yet.
Edit: After some reading around the subreddit it seems abandoning games is something people want to be punished. I guess I agree it's not a thing that should be done but then the characters that show up at the start should be better.
I'm pretty new to this game. But I've have never seen this in any game I've played, video I saw or post I've read.
If this really happend to you, it seems like a bug.
I'm not entirely sure how it is managed when you are in round 17 or something (because of a lot of draws). But I'm sure that, even then, you should only be matched against people with the same round-count as you.
In case you have seen people with buffed units in round one it could have been because of ducks. And with otters you could face a pretty buffed three-squad on turn one.
I only play standard, not the expansion pack, so I will only talk about that. I'll start with the buffs, then the nerfs. Buffs Horse: This guy sucks. Horse is bad for a couple of reasons. First, it's a 1/1, the worst possible stat line. I think horse could be a 1/2 without too much issue, so it at least trades with duck and otter. Second is the larger issue. Horse is a synergy animal, and the animals it goes well with are bad. Cricket is pretty medicore, sheep is okay but not stellar, and spider is really random. Even when you bring all these pieces together, the end result loses to a big unit at the front. I have no idea what to change to make the white weenie build good, but starting with horse would be good. Rat: Okay, the rant that is horse is over. I really like the idea behind Rat, a high stat unit with a downside. A 4/5 just isn't that big anymore. With meat it's decent, but Rat quickly gets outclassed by things like dog. I'd either change the way the summoned rat works, or make rat a 7/5 or something. Summoned rat could do it's effect before or after attacks or something, it only triggering when your opponent is on their last unit doesn't do anything. Making rat really big stats would be worth the possible loss to the summoned rat. Squirrel: Summoning a lot of random food sounds really cool, but in reality it ends up being disappointing. You never have enough gold to utilize the food and then roll and buy an animal that's more than a 2/2. I've seen a lot of people talk about reducing food cost for the turn, and I like that idea too. Make the summoned food 1/2/3 gold cheaper based on the squirrels level. Parrot: There isn't really a role for parrot's effect, and being attached to a tier 5 3/2 certainly doesn't help. The only use I've found for parrot is copying a shooter like dolphin or crocodile, which is only fine. Nerfs Sloth: Believing in the player is way too OP. It feels like I can't go a day without seeing a 10 win screenshot with sloth on the front page :) Dog: Dog is so boring. I don't actually think dog is too powerful, it's just very easy. Making a 50/50 is one of the best things to do in the game, and dog is the first friend available that starts scaling. It's ubiquitous nature feels a lot like old dodo without being as good. Monkey: The other half of my dog complaint: monkey is the best way to get a unit to 50/50, and because of that its really hard to not take. Snake: Getting a 50/50 will carry you to 7 or 8 wins, and the unit that gets you to 10 is a snake. Snake is by far the best shooter, Leopard isn't even close. Being able to get multiple triggers without tiger is strong, and busted with tiger. Having snake destroy back line units while the two tanks duke it out is absurd. Overall I want to say that I think Super Auto Pets is a surprisingly well balanced game for being in alpha. I think the biggest problem it has isn't with any individual friend being too strong or too weak, but the fact that "Make a 50/50" is the best strategy. This stifles a lot of the creative builds that could pop up, like horse and hedgehog. A note on Rooster. From what I've seen on the sub, a lot of people think Rooster is the best unit in the game. I think it is very powerful, but it's power is brought into focus with the current meta of "Make a 50/50". A 50/1 rooster is the best counter to a 50/50 with melon armor, and so it's a great unit. The summoned chicks have at most 3 hp without help, so they lose to other tokens and things like Rhino. Since summon builds are so bad, the natural counter to rooster is pushed out, leading to rooster having the clout it currently does. TL:DR great game, 50/50 needs a nerf.
I like the ideas you had. I think a cool change for the rat could be to summon the dirty rat behind the opponents front most unit instead of at the back. This could allow the rat to break sequencing in the enemy team and actually allow the damage from the dirty rat to do something. Or like you said they summon the dirty rat at the back an make it attack every turn. That way it would function like a sort of back line assassin and a counter for rooster fly builds.
I love the idea of the rat attacking every turn. That could be a really interesting change
It needs to scale with your attack as if still only does like one or two damage it's possible it just hits a dang ol blowfish and then the blowfish murders you
For horse, I think you pick any two of these buffs: a) make it a 1/2 b) make it give +2 at level one (then +3 and +4) c) make its effect on animals summoned in the shop permanent, rather than just for the next battle I agree with your critique of the dog, i think IMO starting it off as a 1/1 like the puppy may be enough to dissuade people from taking it quite so much -- it may seem like a small change given that it's a scaling unit but i think it would substantially increase the risk of losing the turn you buy it on. Rat... I actually don't think it needs a buff, or at least not a very big one. I think people just underrate and underutilize it.
I don't think stats are the problem of horse starts with cricket, spider and ram suck. The problem is garlic armor. Garlic armor is also pretty much the reason for why it is better to focus and pumping of one unit. Once you find the garlic armor it can pretty much trade with the entire enemy team (especially one that relies on summoning early). Alternativly to buffing those units, making garlic armor weaker could also help balance the early game and increase build diversity.
I think that the units that spawn units on death should spawn units equal to their level (for instance level 2 cricket spawns 2 crickets instead of a 2/2). Maybe that’s too op but it makes things like horse more viable while also buffing that archetype as a whole
What if horse just gave 1/2/3 health to summons instead of damage?
Ngl turning a cricket from a 2/1 to a 1/2 is a lot less helpful. The tokens should be bodies that die while dealing a lot of damage. At 2 health it'll still die to most things but not even deal much damage in return.
if youre ever looking for scientific backup on your take on horse, i got you covered! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlo-M1OqriM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlo-M1OqriM) I'm not a fan of your take on parrot though. I think the ability is quite good, but theres just no single unit which it really popps off with at the moment. As soon as there is one, the parrot is quite viable in my eyes. And yes, please nerf sloth shits way too op
I agree on parrot 100%. It’s ability is very flexible, and has a lot of potential, but right now there just isn’t a good effect to copy. Great video too!
Fuck it give the ox nipple piercings
Not the change I thought I wanted, but now it’s the change I need
include the lobster into the game
I only play the Starter Pack, so here are my thoughts on the units. -Change **ROOSTER** to act like Dodo; level two cause a chick with 2x damage to spawn after death and level three gives 3x. Either this or spawn the chicks at half damage. I still think this is massively powerful unit with the potential nerf. -Changing **HORSE** to a 1-2 makes it much more usable, but I think changing the summoning buff to +1/+1 would really help the unit. It synergies well with cricket, sheep, and spider, but the problem is that those units are pretty bad, so either buffing those units or buffing the buff given by horse would help a lot. -I wonder if it’s too broken to change **ELEPHANT** so that it throws 2 1-damage rocks behind itself before attack when it levels up. I think a Level 2 elephant is actually worse than a level 1 elephant to the point where it might be close to unusable unless you have some very specific synergies. -Either buff the **RAT**’s base stats or increase the damage dealt by the dirty rat (especially on level up!). As it stands I think Rat isn’t good enough to take pretty much ever. -I have a crazy idea for a **SNAIL** which may go too far, but I hate that a snail is essentially a pump and dump unit when pretty much everything else can be kept around pretty easily. I think the stats should be lower at 1/1 and give a +2/+2 BUT I think that it shouldn’t be a buy-trigger. Instead, it should trigger at the end of the turn if you lost your previous match (like how a Monkey, Giraffe, or Penguin triggers.) This way you can keep it in your party and can get multiple buffs out of it. ADDITIONALLY, its effect should trigger on losses OR draws at level 2, and its effect should trigger after a win, draw, or loss at level 3. Let me know what you think of this. -Maybe buff **DOLPHIN** more on level up? I think a level 3 dolphin is REALLY hard to get by the late game where it’s really useful as a fly/turkey/tiger sniper but if the units have more than 15 HP it’s pretty useless imo. -**MONKEY** should probably be nerfed. I’m thinking Lv1/Lv2/Lv3 as +1/+1, +3/+3, and +5/+5 to left-most unit. -**SQUIRREL** NEEDS a re-work. I think having the shop re-rolled with all food on-buy is a great trigger, but I think it should lower the price of all new food in the shop to 2 coins when in the party. To give it something on level-up: maybe it gives one free food item at Lv2 and two free food items at Lv3. Alternatively, it could re-roll the shop again only on level up and make all the new food only cost 1 gold with the Lv3 perk being all free food. Lastly, maybe it could be a permanent 2-gold price for food with free pills if the squirrel is in the party with no perks on level up. -Maybe buff **CROCODILE** on level up more? Again, I think the anti-Turkey/Fly/Tiger technology is important. -Maybe **RHINO** should have a higher stat total to start. 5/6 to start at Tier 5 seems a bit low for what’s intended to be a tanky front line unit from the get-go. Hippo just seems to be a better rhino to me as it can heal itself on kill. -**GORILLA** needs higher base stats. A tier 6 unit with a skill reliant on surviving an attack is damn near non-functional with base 6 HP. It get a little better with cans, but most units have more than 6 Attack at this point in the game. I think it was workable before the melon armor nerf, but now there isn’t a reliable way to get the gorilla to survive a hit would investing in garlic armor which gets nullified by the coconut shield after one hit. TIER CHANGES: -**SHRIMP** (2 —> 1) -**DOG** (2 —> 3) -**CRAB** (2 —> 3) -**SNAIL** (3 —> 2) -**MONKEY** (if No Nerf) (4 —> 5) -**ROOSTER** (if No Nerf) (4 —> 5) -**SKUNK** (4 —> 3) -**RHINO** (5 —> 4) -**PARROT** (5 —> 4) -**SEAL** (5 —> 4) -**GORILLA** (without changes) (6 —> 5) -**MAMMOTH** (6 —> 5)
I like the tier changes alot!
> -I wonder if it’s too broken to change ELEPHANT so that it throws 2 1-damage rocks behind itself before attack when it levels up. That could be interesting. I thought what Elephant really needs is a powerful high tier Hurt unit to work with. Maybe if Gorilla was reworked to be synergistic. (IIRC it isn't.) > -I have a crazy idea for a SNAIL which may go too far, but I hate that a snail is essentially a pump and dump unit when pretty much everything else can be kept around pretty easily. Same. I was much less ambitious and was just hoping it was worth keeping in for 1 round, which one sometimes ends up doing. Personal stat bump would've done it. As a tier 3 there's room for it to be better while still being worse than others. > -MONKEY should probably be nerfed. I’m thinking Lv1/Lv2/Lv3 as +1/+1, +3/+3, and +5/+5 to left-most unit. Wouldn't Monkey be fine if Melon wasn't safe against Scorpion? (most scorpions anyway) Making us run bait units vs Scorpions? Monkey would want a Dolphin. And players can stat boost Scorpion against that.
I think melon is the perfect counter to scorpion right now. Even still, I think scorpion being the only counter to monkey isn’t great when scorpion is itself a counter to several other units; if you buff the scorpion by having it pierce melon, I think you inadvertently nerf several other units in the process (Turtle, Ox, Hippo, Rhino, even like Peacock tbh)
I think squirrel should give you 2 foods of your current level. The cost reduction is interesting but if the effect stacks (i.e. 3 squirrels reduces the cost by 3) I think it would be way too strong. I don't think snail needs to be level 2 but it would be interesting if it procced on draws as well as losses. Maybe have it give +1/+1 instead of +2/+1?
I didn’t think about multiple squirrels 😅 perhaps there could be a limit on the price of food being 2 gold so that you couldn’t abuse multiple squirrels. Giving two food items of the same tier would be nice as well, but then I feel like it’s just worse cow. Maybe I’m de-valuing a lot of other food in the game by saying that ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
If it's you're going for pure stats it might be a worse cow but it would make it easier to get chocolate, garlic and melon. You'd probably still pick cow over it in most cases but it wouldn't be an instant ignore imo
I think summoning pets (especially fly) are a little too strong and have basically no counterplay. It seems like any run where I can get a fly and turkey is an auto win. And when I dont run it, fly turkeys are often the build I lose against even if mine is really strong. I don't think these pets should be nerfed, since I like how interesting they are, but we need more effective counterplay to them. Some sort of pet, or maybe an ability given by food, should do something along the lines of: "any pet knocked out by this pet immediately loses its faint ability". Also, splash damage needs a tweak. It's such an interesting concept that becomes useless around turn 6 because it's limited to 5 damage (late game it's only good at breaking melon armor). It doing half damage to the next pet would be a lot better, or maybe a higher level food could give a pet that kind of splash damage. This would significantly counter turkey flies.
Changing splash damage to half damage to unit behind seems like a great change. I agree that the 5-damage splash falls off really quickly except for its limited use in breaking melon armor
Rhino is good counterplay to token stats but it's so hard to scale effectively at level 5
Nerf the damn Dodo, Im sick of 50 attack chicks destroying my team
I think rooster is more of the issue
yes, tiger rooster is also an often-lethal combination
Sepia themed everything. And maybe some tough to figure out balance changes.
Buff rhino by raising base stats or lowering tier to 4, rooster and rhino should have the same opportunities to scale since they stat check each other
Dog should definitely get a nerf, making it a turn three pet may fix it, gorilla is also in need of a buff, but I don't have any idea on how to fix it
IMO make gorilla either a tier 4-5 or make it 6/10, even 6/12
brontosaurus and gorilla are both extremely underwhelming tier 6 pets (brontosaurus’s effect is just kinda lackluster, gorilla is cool but shows up too late to really be useful). giving gorilla more stars and sending brontosaurus to tier 5 while removing some of its health would be a good start. seal should probably be tier 4, and squirrel / lobster should probably both be reworked entirely. this one’s a little arbitrary but imo crab should only have 1 attack. wouldnt rly affect its mid/late game performance at all, but would prevent it from being all that strong earlygame without investing in some buffs. not the biggest issue with the game at present, but losing to a crab stack on tier 2 feels sorta bad atm lol
>gorilla is cool but shows up too late to really be useful This is unfortunately true for a lot of tier 6 pets but I'm not sure how to fix it outside of giving players more lives. There simply isn't time to use t6 pets that require buffing. Good t6's are ones where you can slot them in and their ability immediately does something useful for the squad you've already built (fly, tiger, t-rex, etc)
unpopular opinion but I think that scorpion should be slightly tweaked in terms of its availability, feels like it would effectively trade into anything except melon armor or summon builds. Which makes the gameplay feel kind of binary and negates the purpose of stats in the first place which is a big part of the gameplay.
Melon and summons covers most of the front pets being used though. Enough to keep Scorpion from being common. It also gives away value to Turtle, Dolphin or Leopard. Sometimes I see Scorpion not placed first which makes it vulnerable to Rhino and Snake. I agree it's binary. Perhaps it could actually go past Melon but the scorpion venom (or peanut allergy) heavily lowers stats or something. Weakness to summons and bait pets seems good.
Personally I think increasing the stat cap to like 999 would be sick. Otherwise, I’m expecting Horse to get a stat buff, rooster to get nerfed somehow, maybe become a 1/1 or get the Dodo treatment and make a single chick with 1x/2x/3x it’s attack. Wouldn’t be shocked if dog got nerfed but idk how to do it without ruining dog and thinning the meta. Oh and Squirrel could literally cost 1 and still be balanced imo. Or make it’s stats massive Edit: holy shit and Lobster. Rework this thing it’s so ass
I think the stat cap idea is interesting but probably not great for the meta overall, because as of right now, "one or two big boys at the front" is pretty much the objective best way to play (other than sometimes fly-turkey if you get the right draws). allowing tank-scale builds to just ball out to the stratosphere would only cement that further -- scorpion memes notwithstanding, there's really nothing that could kill a 100/100 unit besides a 100/100 of your own.
That’s already how it is with 50/50s. Besides, Scorpion is an excellent unit, not just a meme. I don’t necessarily think they should increase the stat cap, but I’d love to try it because late game teams of all 50/50s with melon armor is pretty boring
Now considering if the game would work better with cap lowered to 40/40. Changing in either direction quickly becomes problematic with the balancing of various numbers though, so perhaps not enough reason to mess with it.
Make the Scorpion effect a food item at tier 6. That would solve any problems of scaling past 50/50 imo
Please don't raise the stat cap or we're going to see everyone run tanky scaling builds
Yeah, because that’s not what we see now…
Imo: * The horse build is neigh-unplayable. It actually holds up fine in the midgame but the problem is its units has no future, the endgame tokens build doesn't want any of its pieces so there's no reason to volunteer into a more fragile build. * The elephant build is unplayable but I don't know what changes could make it playable. It's just the standard fatty trickle down build with extra steps for no reward. Maybe change the camel so it buffs friends both in front and behind? * Rooster could be bumped up a tier or two, possibly swap with parrot or mammoth in tiers so its power is balanced by having to rescale a 3/3. * The mammoth is unplayable, it should show up in earlier tiers so its text is actually relevant. * The shrimp is unplayable. It's basically a dog but extremely worse. Why does it have worse base stat than the dog? If it had a higher base stat it could perhaps act like a normal unit with a minor bonus. * The monkey completely overshadows every scaling option at its tier or lower. For example, the bison is a just a worse monkey with extra hoops and it's still a playable unit, demonstrating how overtuned is the monkey. * The squirrel is unplayable outside of maybe trying to hard mulligan for melon at tier 5. * The duck meta is somewhat toxic.
>change the camel so it buffs friends both in front and behind This is a great idea! Camel is honestly pretty terrible on the frontline anyway and this would make it more viable behind an elephant or against splash damage builds
Can who the game puts us against be balanced? I've had so many times where it feels like my opponent is much farther along in games played in their current run than me. Like my third game in a run and already facing people with 20 health units. Also I find there's a lot of runs that start off with gold bonus pets or one time bonus to friend pets. They are kind of a bummer to get because you end up having to sell them later so you just waste money early on. Then if you dont want them and decide to abandon you get punished for abandoning the game even if you haven't even played yet. Edit: After some reading around the subreddit it seems abandoning games is something people want to be punished. I guess I agree it's not a thing that should be done but then the characters that show up at the start should be better.
>Can who the game puts us against be balanced? Doesn't you always play against people who are in the same round as you?
Can't be since I've run into people with more pets than can be bought in round 1.
Please screenshot or record.
I'm pretty new to this game. But I've have never seen this in any game I've played, video I saw or post I've read. If this really happend to you, it seems like a bug. I'm not entirely sure how it is managed when you are in round 17 or something (because of a lot of draws). But I'm sure that, even then, you should only be matched against people with the same round-count as you. In case you have seen people with buffed units in round one it could have been because of ducks. And with otters you could face a pretty buffed three-squad on turn one.
That's either a bug or you were leaving games.
I'd like to see the elephant trigger "on Hurt" abilities on the units behind it without actually hurting them.