New Patch out on Itch and Steam. Android will follow very soon. Developer notes are below the changelog.

- Added Boar to pack 1 and 2 that is Tier 6 and 8/6 with ability Before attack: Gain +2/+2.
- Added Dolphin to Pack 2.
- Added Tiger to Pack 2.
- Changed Tiger ability "The friend ahead repeats their ability in battle as if they were level 1/2/3."
- Changed Duck ability to give +1 health to shop pets.
- Changed Fly to 5/5 and ability to trigger 3 times and Zombie Fly to 5/5.
- Changed Squirrel ability to Start of turn: Roll shop with discounted food.
- Changed Spider ability to summon pet with the same level but always as 2/2.
- Changed Rabbit ability to also trigger on itself.
- Changed Dodo to 2/3 and ability to give 50% / 100% / 150% Attack.
- Changed Rooster to 5/3 and ability to inherit 50% Attack.
- Changed Crab ability to trigger on buy and always target the highest health minion.
- Changed Goat to 4/6 and ability to have 2 charges and give 1/2/3 gold.
- Changed Sauropod ability to have 3 charges and give 1/2/3 gold.
- Changed Monkey to 1/2, Tier 5 and ability to give +3/+3.
- Changed Crocodile to 8/4 and ability to deal 8 damage.
- Changed Cow ability to upgrade when leveling and provide better milk.
- Changed Mosquito to always deal 1 damage and hit 1/2/3 targets.
- Changed Tyrannosaurus ability to give +2/+1 and also target itself.
- Changed Rat to 4/5 and ability to summon 1/1 Dirty Rat for the opponent.
- Changed Milk to give +1/+2.
- Changed Canned Food to +2/+1.
- Changed Dog to Tier 3.
- Changed Whale to Tier 4.
- Changed Poodle to 2/2 and Tier 5
- Changed Parrot to Tier 4 and 5/3.
- Changed Puppy ability to cost 3 gold.
- Changed Microbe to Tier 4.
- Changed Pig to 3/1.
- Changed Horse to 2/1.
- Changed Shrimp to 2/3.
- Changed Tabby Cat to 5/3.
- Changed Giraffe to 2/5.
- Changed Skunk to 3/6.
- Changed Worm to 2/2.
- Changed Llama to 3/6.
- Changed Lobster to 4/5.
- Changed Rhino to 5/8.
- Changed Seal to 3/8.
- Changed Gorilla to 6/9.
- Changed Leopard to 10/4.
- Changed Mammoth to 3/10.
- Changed Swan to 3/3.
- Changed Caterpilar to 1/3.
- Changed Kangaroo to 1/2.
- Changed Turtle to 1/2.
- Changed Chicken to 1/2.
Today we are doing something different. I will try to give some insight into why we made the above changes and what are some of the challenges when balancing the pets.

The Rat was reversed to the very original form, which was considered to be weak as a house built from paper and spit. We are aware of that, but we felt the "betrayal mechanic" was just too complex. We try to keep the F2P pack really simple for new players. I thought the right decision was to remove the rat, but it turns out that even the rat has a small vocal fanbase of its own. Being told by your players that a change you want to make would disappoint them, is a hard thing to ignore. We will have revisit the rat in a later patch!

We did a poll that showed that 50% of all voters wanted turkey to be weaker. So why haven't we done that yet? We theorized that the new tiger, and the new fly will indirectly make the turkey weaker. A lot of new players like the obvious combo and making it too weak removes the fun. We are trying to carefully keep the fun in place while removing broken combos. We might be wrong, so we will keep our eyeballs glued to our data and feedback.

One challenge is that our community ages, the feedback we get will mostly be from more experienced players, rather than new ones. I know from my days of playing Hearthstone, that developers move like slugs, even when their most knowledgeable players all scream in unison that X is toxic and needs to be changed. One of our goals was to move quicker in response to feedback. But that can sometimes be an emotional challenge as a developer, if you are also reading feedback from other players who really enjoy X, and still have to consider the game from the perspective of a new player.
Dodo + Rooster was obviously just too strong. Should the Rooster be made weaker? Absolutely. Should the Dodo also be made weaker? Honestly, I am not sure. We have a public test version where we ask players to give their feedback on all changes we made. But in our case, it was mostly played by really experienced players who argued against each other, and against your own best instinct. Paying too much attention to feedback can really put you in a deadlock where nothing gets done.

Chicken seems to be completely ignored by the majority, but if you ask the tournament players in our Discord, it is very overpowered. Something that completely went over our head, and in our first iteration, we went ahead and made it stronger. After a big glass of humble juice, we admitted our mistake and went the opposite way. Obviously, we will mess up sometimes, but we will continuously aim to balance the game.

We got a lot of analytical data to play with, but we are still in the process of figuring out how to use it effectively to determine what pets are too strong and too weak. But sometimes, the data also contradicts popular opinion. So sometimes we have to decide if we are making changes for balance, or making changes for feelings. I could keep going with all of these micro-challenges, but I want to eat ice cream, so time to wrap it up.

Moving forward, we will aim to make less small changes, and instead just make a few big changes to key underpowered/overpowered pets. Making a huge balance patch feels like mistake. It is slow, easy to lose the overview and you probably have to redo stuff anyway because of all the ripple effects that comes with changing previously overpowered/underpowered pets. But let us know what you think about the patch. We will continue to make balance changes, so forgive us for all the things we got wrong this time - we will make it up to you later. 🙂