After the recent controversial Brawl Stars landscape update, Supercell is set to release its first balance update to their soft-launched shooter. Interestingly, while the landscape view zoomed the game out dramatically, the camera is even further away in the next balance update, but all characters are bigger too. Also, all movement speeds are 11% faster now. Long-range brawlers see an increased projectile size, and all projectiles, while Brock, Piper, and Ricochet see reduced range. Several characters also see specific balance changes in the update:
- Increased Mortis dash range 2.33 tiles → 2.67 tiles
- Increased speed buff from Colt’s Star Power 50 → 60
- Decreased main attack damage for Bull 440 → 400
- Decreased main attack damage for Shelly 320 → 300
- Bo mine explosion delay reduced 1.3 → 1.15
- Increased main attack damage for Brock 1040 → 1100
- Increased main attack damage for Piper 1480 → 1560
- Dynamike and Barley get an even bigger boost to projectile speeds 9% → 14%
- Ricochet’s bullets bounce farther each time they bounce (roughly 2 tiles per bounce, max 6 bounces)
Supercell also reiterates that they made the change to landscape because of retention. That, while the game is popular in soft launch, and has a community playing it, there aren’t enough players yet, and they believe the portrait controls were a major hindrance to the game’s potential going forward. Also, the new upgrade system costs more to max out characters, but they believe free players dont see their progress slow down much. Also, tap-to-shoot won’t be in landscape due to the lack of comfort of using these controls in landscape, but also in order to ensure that there is one single control scheme for the game that all players can use.
Whether these changes help make the game feel better, and return the perceived quality to what it was before the landscape update. While the change makes sense in some ways, the game feels like it needs a lot of tweaking to make Brawl Stars truly fit as a landscape title. This latest balance update is rolling out now.
