Among the many fun things of playing soft launched games like Brawl Stars is being on the bleeding edge of experiencing (and, for many, getting mad at) the game evolving into a better experience for players. After today’s maintenance, five characters are getting tweaked, a couple maps are getting balance fixes, and the gold distribution will be changed, among other things. If this is the first you’ve heard of Brawl Stars, check out our first impressions where we go over what the game is all about. It’s an ultra-fun MOBA by Supercell that’s really worth downloading from the Canadian App Store.
First off, on the buffs and nerfs front, Nita’s super ability is getting some changes. Bear HP is going down from 1,200 to 1,000 but its health no longer decays. Similarly, Jessie’s turret also no longer is affected by health decay either. Ricochet’s attack gains an additional bullet while Dyanamike’s main attack damage goes up 20 points from 140 to 160. Meanwhile, Poco’s attack range has been reduced by 15% but his super now goes over walls.
When it comes to maps, Heist maps are getting some terrain changes to help fix balance. According to Supercell, some maps favored the attacker, which has definitely been my experience in playing this game mode. Additionally, the showdown map Stormy Planes is getting some landscaping as the amount of bushes are reduced.
The most controversial change is undoubtedly going to be the tweaks to gold distribution. Gold rewards across the board have been lowered, in hopes to provide smoother progression to new players. The first event maximum gold reward has been reduced from 80 to 60, the third event coin reward was increased from 12 to 16, while the fourth was reduced from 20 to 16. The second event is unchanged at 40 gold. Additionally, new event coin rewards and first win rewards are reduced from 12 to 8. Leveling up characters results in 50% less gold, rewarding only 10 down from 20 for each character level.
According to Supercell, and anecdotally confirmed by player reactions to the game overall, what was happening was new players were earning gold too fast, and unlocking too many characters too early. This resulted in players having 5-6 brawlers unlocked, and no idea how to play them, instead of focusing on and getting good at a smaller pool of characters. It makes sense to me, but in the process Supercell has really shaken the beehive of vocal free to play critics.
Also, with any update, there were a bunch of other improvements and fixes including some better early game matchmaking, a tweaked calculation for who the star player is, Heist matchmaking shouldn’t throw players on defense too often, and there’s a bundle of fixes to bands when it comes to leaderboards and player limits.
If you’re digging Brawl Stars and looking for people to chat about the game with, you can either head into our forums or join our Discord server. Discord is particularly useful, as you can always find people to play with, which seems to be the best way to win.
