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Brawl Stars/Version Differences/Beta Softlaunch

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This cactus is UNDER CONSTRUCTION
This article is a work in progress.
...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

This is a sub-page of Brawl Stars/Version Differences.

Hmmm...
To do:
  • Detail everything a bit more
  • Document all versions missing up to version 13
  • Add some screenshots for each version
  • Document unused files in each version

Version 1

Version 1 released on June 15, 2017, and it marks the softlaunch of Brawl Stars. The game was only available in Canada, and was exclusive to iOS devices. The game was very much different from what it is nowadays, featuring portrait gameplay, and being pretty barebones.


Brawlers & Balancing

In-game footage of the version 1 softlaunch developer build featuring the old upgrade system.

Most of the Brawlers in the game at that time were as basic as they could be. Levelling functioned very differently, as you needed Elixir, a scrapped currency, to upgrade 3 individual stats to level 10:

  • Health (health points for a Brawler).
  • Attack (how much damage the main attack would do).
  • Super (how much damage the Super would do.)

Star Powers, Gadgets, and Gears were all absent from the game at this point. Brawlers were obtainable by either getting them from a Brawl Box, or by purchasing them with Chips. The first Brawl Stars Beta released with 15 Brawlers and 4 rarities, those being:

Starting Brawler

  • Shelly

Common Rarity

  • Nita
  • Colt
  • Dynamike
  • El Primo
  • Brock
  • Jessie

Rare Rarity

  • Bull
  • Ricochet
  • Barley
  • Poco

Epic Rarity

  • Mortis
  • Bo

Legendary Rarity

  • Spike
  • Crow

The Super Rare and Mythic rarities weren't present in the game yet, and many brawlers were in different rarity positions compared to nowadays.

Gameplay

Softlaunch gameplay.

While Brawl Stars has faced many changes throughout the years, the gameplay is probably one of the aspects that have changed the most if not the one with most changes. The game was much slower in pace, having smaller brawlers on the map and slower speeds overall.

Two ways to play the game were being prototyped in softlaunch: Tap to Move and Joystick. Tap to Move was the preferred option for a huge portion of the playerbase. You could simply tap anywhere on the screen to move as long as it was an empty tile and there was a clear path on-screen. Joystick, in later updates, became the definitive way of moving. In version 1, it was not as pleasing to the user, seeing as the movement joystick covered a huge part of the screen and just wasn't as practical.

Firing worked differently: you had to drag your finger to the position of the target to aim and release to fire. Autofiring wasn't a thing.

To account for the Brawler size, 3x3 maps featured a 17x33 tile resolution (as opposed to nowadays' 21 x 33 resolution). and Showdown maps featured a 60x60 tile resolution (oddly enough, the Showdown map resolution has had no changes as of version 44.)


The game released with only 4 gamemodes:

  • Smash & Grab (nowadays, Gem Grab).

The only gamemode to remain untouched (albeit changes were made to the match duration in version 32).

  • Showdown

Showdown has seen a few changes throughout the years. In version 1, there were no gas clouds closing into the players as the match progressed.

  • Heist

Heist was the gamemode that changed the most. Players were randomly put into attacking and defending side. The Defenders would have to make sure the Heist safe wasn't destroyed by the Attackers, and the Attackers had to destroy the safe in order to win. Maps were built to favor the Defenders, having tiles around the Heist safe.

  • Bounty

Bounty was not so different, either. However, there was no Blue Star and players began the game with only one Bounty Star above their heads.

Brawl Boxes & Currency

Currency:

Four currencies were available at launch:

  • Coins

The free to play currency. With coins, you could purchase Brawl Boxes and get a variety of different rewards. Coins were obtainable through post-game rewards, level-up rewards, or through the shop.

The four Event Slots for the gamemodes had a Coin limit (Just like the Token limit nowadays, but per event), so you couldn't just grind forever for Coins. New Events would also grant you Coin rewards.

  • Elixir

Elixir were used for Brawler upgrades (much like nowadays' Power Points, but acting as a currency instead). They were obtained through Brawl Box rewards, or through the shop.

  • Chips

Chips served the purpose of purchasing a Brawler. They were obtained through getting Brawler Duplicates in a Brawl Box.

  • Gems

The paid currency of the game. You would only obtain Gems with real money in the game's shop. With Gems, you were able to get Coin Boosters, Coin Doublers, and Brawl Boxes.

Brawl Boxes:

Brawl Boxes functioned like much like they do today, except you would only open them using 100 Coins or 10 Gems, and the rewards were very different.

You had the chance of getting:

  • All 15 Brawlers available.
  • Elixir.
  • Brawler Duplicates.

Brawl Boxes had the chance of giving you more Elixir per reward, however those multi-Elixir drops were much rarer, as they were also categorized into the game's rarities.

Brawler Duplicates would be obtained if you already had the Brawler. If you were to get a Brawler Duplicate, the game would turn it into a Chip. Depending on the rarity of the Brawler Duplicate, you could either get more, or less Chips per Brawl Box reward.


Social

The social part of the game has been pretty solid since then, but there are differences.

Friends could only be made by linking your Facebook account to your Brawl Stars one, and served pretty much no purpose as you couldn't really do anything with friends without Bands.

Bands (nowadays' Clubs) worked not so different from how they do today. You could do everything you can with Clubs, except for toggling the Family Friendly option. It supported up to 50 members and allowed for users to create Game Rooms for a multiplayer experience.

Game Rooms:

The Game Rooms were a feature that allowed users to play with their bandmates, allowing for communication and better team coordination. It had a pretty simple structure, having 3 icons displaying who would play which Brawler at the top and the chat at the bottom. You could advertise the Game Room in your Band with a button, and also practice against bots with your bandmates.

The Daily Brawler:

The Daily Brawler was the name of the "newspaper" in the News tab. It functioned almost exactly like it does today, except it had no community tab. Game Updates would be posted from time to time, explaining game features to the users in the first few days and being another one of the communication means the Brawl Stars team would use for feedback and whatnot.

Post-release Patches

The game received three patches in a short span of time prior to Version 2 with balance changes, improvements, and bug fixes.

06/20/2017 Patch

Balance Updates:

  • Nita: Bear HP decreased to 1000 (from 1200), removed Bear health decay;
  • Jessie: Removed health decay from the turret;
  • Ricochet: Shoots one additional bullet with the main attack;
  • Dynamike: Increased main attack damage from 140 to 160;
  • Poco: Attack range reduced by 15%, Super goes over walls now, can heal allies behind walls.

Maps:

  • Heist maps balance fixes and terrain changes (Some maps favored the attacker side too much);
  • Showdown map Stormy Plains has had a reduction in bushes.

Improvements:

  • Event gold distribution changes - Overall max coin rewards lowered to give smoother progression to new players:
    • Event 1 max coin reward changed from 80 to 60 gold;
      • New event coin reward changed from 12 to 8. (First win changed from 12 to 8);
    • Event 2 not changed, still 40 gold;
      • New event coin reward changed from 12 to 8. (First win changed from 12 to 8);
    • Event 3 max coin reward changed from 12 to 16;
    • Event 4 max coin reward from 20 to 16.

Bug Fixes:

  • Adjusted the Star Player calculation.
  • Fixed Heist matchmaking issue that caused players to end up on Defense too often;
  • Fixed a matchmaking issue causing more than the maximum amount of players to appear;
  • Fixed local Band leaderboard to display correct local data;
  • Bands can no longer have more than 50 members;
  • If a Band has more than 50 members, the leaderboard will only include the lowest 50 ranked members.


06/22/2017 Patch

Balance Updates:

  • Mortis' dash range is decreased by 25%.
  • Bo now reloads 13% faster.


06/27/2017 Patch

Balance Updates:

  • Dynamike: Super damage increased from 400 to 500.
    • Dynamike's Super was a little underwhelming, doing only slightly more damage than his main attack (increased in last update).
  • Bo: Health increased from 800 to 900.
    • Bo is getting stronger! This health increase should bring him closer to becoming a ranged-tank.
  • Jessie: Main attack damage reduced from 160 to 140.
    • Jessie was one of the strongest characters in high-trophy games.
  • Nita: Reload time increased from 1.0s to 1.25s.
    • Nita was too quick!
  • Spike: Health decreased from 700 to 600.
    • Spike was very strong in high-trophy games. He was a bit too much of a tank for the amount of damage he did.

Improvements:

  • Coin Boost now costs 20 gems (from 50) and lasts 7 days.
  • New Maps for Bounty and Smash & Grab
  • Changes to event rotation to include more Bounty (and new maps)


Version 2

Version 2 released on July 3, 2017. It introduced the first brawler to ever be added in a patch, Piper, as well as new content, improvements, balance changes, and bug fixes.

New Brawler: Piper

Piper in version 2.

Piper, a third epic brawler, released alongside the update. She was leaked and teased a few days prior, and was the first Brawler to ever come in a new update.

Mechanics

  • Main attack: Shoots one projectile in a straight line that deals more damage the further it travels.
  • Super: jumps high into the air, being invincible to land attacks while airborne and dropping 3 grenades behind.

Balance Updates:

  • Brock reloads 8% faster

Improvements:

  • Players from the same Band cannot join the same match in regular matchmaking
  • Player names hidden in Showdown in high-trophy games
  • Reduced maximum amount of available Gems
  • Heist: When defending, Safe HP is blue instead of red
  • Reduced Virtual Joystick visual size
  • Improved character textures for El Primo, Nita, and Brock
  • El Primo and Poco’s attack effects have been improved
  • Bo Mines’ visual improvements

New Content

  • A new skin for El Primo, El Rey, was added.
  • A new Showdown map, "Feast or Famine", entered rotation.
  • Bull received voice acting, as well as many new voice lines.
  • A new soundtrack was added:

Battle 5


  • New player profiles exclusive for reaching XP and Trophy milestones were added.
  • New Sound effects for level and rank ups
  • Added Healing sound effects
  • New “Player Defeated” UI
  • New and improved Brawl Box animations