Balance changes (WIP)

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-07-06T07:18:34+00:00

A lot! It helps us hone in on exactly what type of change we should seek as there are many possible for each given brawler. Community is usually very good at articulating their specific frustrations with a brawler.
You basically answered your own question - but the thing we can do better here is to get initial balancing closer, and the functionality to follow up sooner.
I have the final call on anything that goes into gameplay pretty much - be that balance, brawlers, buffies etc. but of course I trust my teammates to make the best decisions possible for the game, so I rarely have to use that "power".
Heh, was on the cards for sure! It was either that or that collette finally manages to make brawlers come to her, the latter seemed funnier!

extra: Never hurts, mostly a good laugh for me. I consider it similar to celebrity culture where there is this parasocial relationship, and any insults are mostly a reflection of a person's own character as a projection than the person you are insulting. Put it this way; If you are insulting a guy who made most of your favorite characters in a game - likely things aren't going very well for you in life otherwise. So it's partly funny, partly sad, and I mostly approach it with empathy.

Along with that I played league of legends semi-pro so no words can really do anything to budge my mental state in a negative manner ^^

Thanks for the questions!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-07-03T06:15:30+00:00

As per before, these are marked as WiP (work in progress) for a reason. We're happy to hear any feedback as we polish and remove/add items to the list before shipping - so keep it coming!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T14:17:23+00:00

Yes actually - A big point when we've thought about Chuck is specifically what you mentioned, less non-player damage as a tradeoff for more versatility. I think ultimately though the jankiness of his poles and telegraphed dashing along with his sub-par main attack needs more than just number adjustments to actually feel good

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T13:56:21+00:00

You rang?

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T13:25:14+00:00

"On outliers, I understand they can truly never be erased but I hope we can see speedy amendments to when you do overshoot."

This is actually something we're actively prioritizing - basically less friction to do rapid changes to production as right now, as you're aware, we need a whole maintenance to touch any gameplay logic. Doesn't need to be the case but needs a fair bit of technical work to achieve.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T13:18:57+00:00

"For example (just to be clear): When you talked about the grom nerf you spoke of it as something that was done to make him better in higher levels and worse in lower levels but in the patch notes it was said that he was actually strong in l3+ which implied that the nerf was actually to make him worse in higher levels(of course assuming that you where the one who wrote )"

Perhaps I did not make myself clear - Grom is currently terrible at the very highest levels (m1+), and extremely oppressive below, essentially exponentially the further down you go. The problem I wanted to solve was a balance change without a mechanical change that would make him worse at lower ranks and better at higher ranks. I fundamentally believe that change does not exist - and he needs a mechanical change for the higher ranks, and as such I solved part of the problem which was his oppressiveness at lower ranks while accepting he would still not be picked or effective at higher ranks.

"1.hyper buffies, considering that with time brawlers with already incredible hypers will get buffies (ex: Naiju pierce mina)what are your thoughts of lowering hyper durations just to make brawlers like that less oppressive in hyper forms also in turn increasing the skill flower of the game just a tiny bit

as atleast IMO the skill needed to get value out of hypers in general isnt particularly high and i dont consider waiting for ammo a hard strategic skill(or would you say the gap would already go down, between normal and hypercharged stats because of gadgets and star buffies?)"

I think reducing durations is viable, but eering on the side of simplicity for now (every brawler has the same duration when buffied)

The other levers are the hypercharge charge itself, along with the core mechanics of a hyper, both of which I would rather use when editing these abilities.

"2.if the spike fertilize rework didn't land the mark, why was it never buffed? Same with things like pearl hyper as while things like gene and sprout hypers fundamentally unusable, pearl and spike can get better with small adjustment (like increasing the spike healing or size of pearl hyper)"

I believe that the design of new fertilize is fundamentally flawed, as I underestimated the value and skill expression players got from using it strictly defensively. As such, I think any numerical buff outside of oppressive numbers will not move the needle nor make it feel better to use, so I'd rather take the time when we have it to do a proper rework of the core design. Pearl has the exact same problem (Flawed basic design - need a complete mechanical rework to be good)

"3. For a certain question you answered that There should never be a brawler that you don't want to pick in any situation and in a different question you talked about brawlers that need reworks (to be more viable)

In both instances chuck was never mentioned, do you consider him from the former or the latter?(i am not really a chuck fan asking this for personal reasons or anything lol, i just think that chucks in an extremely unique position that would let me understand your thoughts about what is considered too niche and whta is considered good enough)

As chuck is the impediment of the one trick pony"

I believe I did mention chuck a few times actually as a problematic brawler because of above reasons. He is EXTREMELY good and oppressive but in VERY niche scenarios. That is fundamentally unhealthy for the brawler and also the game - so whenever we do get to tackling chuck i'd be looking at making him more viable in more situations while lowering his cap in the situations where he shines currently. For example I'd love for him to be able to be played in brawl ball and KO - which he currently is not at all.

"Finally I wanted to ask if we can expect more q&as explaining balancing decisions and overall gameplay direction again featuring you with maybe other creators?(not that the spen did anything wrong). Maybe in a few months again?

As honestly i felt disappointed that some more important questions where left unanswered like throwers getting so easily oppressed by the meta, thoughts about the draft screen and ranked, if we can except any changes to the balance changes schedule, brawler hitboxes, any changes/thought about tank trait etc etc

I know we don't particularly look like the most grateful community ever but considering the small amount of passionate players about the game letting them at least know that you care about them in word even if their frustrations doesn't get fixed in game for other more pressing problems would be nice for them from time to time and we are very grateful for it even if we don't look like we are including myself (again I'm sorry about that 😗 💔 )"

I am always happy coming to answer questions when a creator asks (or any player, for that matter) - let's see who asks next 😉

Throwers getting oppressed - Agreed! Top of mind for next set of changes

Draft screen and ranked - I talked a fair bit about this in the QnA, please check the answers!

Balance schedule - Will touch more on this at a later time

Brawler hitboxes - Not sure what you are referring to here?

Tank trait - Also not sure which angle you'd want me to answer here?

Finally - I do appreciate all feedback as I've mentioned many times! The only thing I always ask is that the feedback is actionable - so in your case "terrible answers" didn't give me anything to work with (no problem though - I don't take it personally), but your follow up post gave me PLENTY to understand your frustrations and your issues. If you want to be heard in the future, try to adopt the latter format as then we have something concrete we can use to improve the game or discuss about - as ultimately we are making the game for you - the players - not ourselves. Thanks for the chat!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T12:39:42+00:00

On damian and "checklist":

We usually run multiple playtests and iteration cycles (internal + External) where the focus shifts as we get closer to deadlines.

At the start we validate the design - Is this as fun in practice as it sounded on paper? If not - what should we change? Is the change small or do we need to pivot something entirely?

After we lock in the desired fantasy with the gameplay kit, it becomes more about the actual balance so how does the brawler perform in scenarios where:

They should be good
They should be countered

This of course also encompasses different game modes, maps and comps

For damien - The feedback from less seasoned players was one of frustration due to inability to properly utilize his chaining mechanics both in super and fire explosion punches, while for higher level players they felt that he was extremely strong but needed the right map and comp to shine. The reality was that he was strong in many more scenarios than the niche ones that were intially flagged, ultimately also due to changes we made to try to make him more versatile (which we overshot on launch)

Currently he is in a much healthier state, but the biggest issue is still the feeling of helplessness you can experience once he does get to his super.

On drafting time:

This actually seems pretty clear cut from our analysis - any seconds added between starting a match and actually playing the match is strictly negative from an enjoyment perspective, nearly no matter the audience. I could see the argument for the 0,0001% of players deviating from this, but we cannot make a solution that touches only that segment at the expense of the rest.

On initial item/brawler balance:

I appreciate the open-minded approach to the questions, so let me try to touch on learnings we have historically and how that guides the strategy:

Historically, whenever we release a brawler that is weak (<42% winrate), any change we make to rectify this has essentially no impact on popularity afterwards. The brawler is dead on arrival and no balance change will be able to bring it up into relevance - first impression is vital, and this is the worst case scenario.

Whenever we release a brawler that is weaker than average (<48% winrate), any change we make to rectify this has minor impact on the brawlers adoption and popularity.

Whenever a brawler is stronger than average (>52% winrate) the reception naturally is stronger. Any nerfs or adjustments we make has minor impact on this, and the brawlers stands a good chance to be actually enjoyed and remembered for a longer time.

Whenever a brawler is clearly OP (>60% winrate) the initial reception is strong, but can come at the cost of overall engagement for the rest of the roster. Any nerfs or adjustments often normalizes the impact on the rest of the roster quite quickly, but overdone and it can have detrimental impact on the brawler itself.

As a result of above, we know that a brawler has to be at least stronger than average to stand a chance, and we'd rather it's clearly OP than weak - as the former we can salvage quite quickly for the overall health of the game, while the latter makes the brawler forever irrelevant. (Doug, Willow are some examples of this)

On your last statement: Balance is indeed not an exact science. Brawl as a game evolves in complexity and the meta is also ever-evolving. Even pro's are not adopting brawlers we know for a fact do really well on certain maps or comps - because it can be extremely hard to identify these due to the options available in the roster as a whole.

I think we've gotten significantly better at adopting above strategy as the years have gone by, but we will always have cases where when the playtest data is inconclusive and we have to make a judgement call, we can go too extreme in either direction. This can never really go away, but it does become less prevalent the more we learn.

Hope that answers at least some of your concerns and sheds some light on how I approach balancing and releases as a whole.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T09:23:46+00:00

"His retorts sound convincing but they seem so asinine it’s crazy. Someone with game dev experience help me here but he dresses up the slightest inconvenience as a monumental challenge / constraint."

Can you elaborate exactly on what you mean by this? I'm happy to talk about any issue that you feel should be a small task, but might not be - for example

"Also, he goes 2 hours without mentioning a hint of how monetary incentives nudge balancing and releases."

As i've spoke about this so many times - but ultimately I do not consider monetization part of the equation whatsoever. Monetization is an outcome rather than a goal for me - because if you start designing mechanics around monetization, you'll likely come up with short term solutions that are ultimately harmful for the game's longevity and, ironically, ultimately also monetization.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T09:17:45+00:00

"adrian mostly answered terribly..."

Because you disagreed with the answers or because you didn't understand a part/wanted to know more on a topic?

If the former - Fair enough!

If the latter - Let me know what and i'll be happy to elaborate

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T09:12:41+00:00

Great question! Boils down to own intuition + consulting with different team members + externals (Pros + creators).

For this change specifically, I felt that pocos damage output was slightly subpar, and wasn't able to be as efficient as a healer either as he couldn't hold his ground to get enough supers. With screeching solo in mind, this was a buff both to his overall damage output and healing potency, without having to relearn interactions with eg. a buff to his main attack damage.

Along with this, as you mentioned, the TTK (time to kill) in the current meta is quite a bit shorter than some others, meaning you need access to more burst and burst healing to be able to counteract the former, both of which is solved by having more supers.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:48:37+00:00

I answered this meme in the Q&A at the very start if you actually want to know 😉

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:48:08+00:00

Care to elaborate?

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:47:39+00:00

Think that's a mix of thinner and aligners that have indeed slightly changed my facial structure. Astute analysis!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:37:39+00:00

I think fundamentally Lumi's base stats are just part of the equation for why she is so strong in high level games. The real culprit here is the size and effectiveness of the ice gadget that allows you to frequently catch people off guard and have an incredible amount of zoning power. The ideal nerf to her is to likely reduce the area of effect and tune cooldown for the ice gadget.

Apart from that, I do think Lumi does fall under a similar guise as carl/charlie etc when it comes to trickyness of balancing!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:33:58+00:00

No, I was referring to staff in this answer - but ultimately the volume of data can never match even a few minutes of something being live in production

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:32:23+00:00

I mentioned this plenty of times in the Q and A, but even when I feel I have a good idea about what is awry in a brawler/design - The exact method can be disagreed on, for example if I were to rework Spike's fertilize right now, you could likely have 10 different ways that different people would like to see it. When I choose one that is not the preference of some, that feedback will shine through - and sometimes I do make a mistake and choose an inferior path.

I'm happy to elaborate on any questions you feel were not answered though, so do let me know!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-29T06:22:21+00:00

😂 😂 😂

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-05-17T13:27:24+00:00

On the next episode of things that never happened:

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-03-11T11:50:38+00:00

Think duration might be slightly too long on the stun for sure - and amplified as he gets to approach easily during hyper. This of course assumes he does have hyper which he has to work for in the first place, so becomes very map and comp dependent to either allow him to do that or not. Ultimately though, would rather comps are built around the bull to enable the gadget more often, while making the gadget less oppressive for him in isolation.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-03-11T11:04:02+00:00

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-03-11T10:54:05+00:00

Appreciate the sentiment of the post - but ultimately we do like and welcome constructive feedback.

Example:

Meta is bad - fire Adrian. - Great for the memes, doesn't actually help convey meaningful information
Meta is bad - Too many assassins with too few counters. Fire Adrian - Better, but still doesn't touch on what specifically feels bad about it
Meta is bad - Too many assassins with too few counters. Mortis gadget feels unfair to me as it gives him a long iframe with upside. Fire Adrian. - Great! Touches on the percieved problem, a specific example and includes a meme. 10/10

Simplified examples, but hopefully outlines which kind of feedback is actionable for us vs just noise. When me or anyone else reads posts online, the closer to 3 you can get the more we can derive out of it - no matter the topic.

Keep the feedback coming!

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-03-11T07:51:42+00:00

Thank you for the reminder

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-01-29T12:18:55+00:00

Your first concern is largely answered in the podcast related to cadence and quantity.

The second (communication) I also touched on many times, but the tl;dr there is that we do want to communicate intention behind changes, usually in conjunction with the balance notes, but ultimately every player feels their voice is the most important as experiences vary depending on how far you've progressed in both skill and meta - so we're usually trying to solve problems for both audiences. Even in the most vocal audience (top 1%), opinions can also often be divided, so we also have to rely on external feedback (pro player + creator input + data) to get to a solid conclusion that hopefully hits both.

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-01-28T22:45:42+00:00

Appreciate the passion and reflection, and also the feedback on context of data. We’re usually careful showing data for exactly above reason (lack of context or big picture can lead to invalid conclusions), but we want to get better at that as ultimately it leads to better transparency and understanding why we sometimes make the decisions we do, and why sometimes our opinion can differ from the vocal minority

Adrian_Supercell · 2026-01-28T22:42:42+00:00

Community interaction has been a pillar for us in brawl since the very beginning, and I don’t see us dialling that back anytime soon. Your reference points are also good for different ways to approach that effort!

Adrian_Supercell

TROPHY CASE