Blockchain Brawlers Deep Dive

50 Things You Absolutely Need to Know About Blockchain Brawlers in October

Hello, Brawlers!

This is our most information-dense article ever and it represents an evolution for the game team in how we keep you informed with the happenings of the Blockchain Brawlers universe.

Now that we have been very present in your lives over the past nine months, we are going to stop writing as many blog posts and focus more on delivering content and features that we know you want. As Elvis says, “a little conversation, a little more action baby”.

This month, we will be all about “action”. As such, this post is going to share with you everything we are planning on delivering to you this month or very soon thereafter.

We are doing our best to answer all of your questions — but, if we fall short on our goal, don’t hesitate to reach out to us on the socials or attend one of our town hall-style meetings and request some mic time.

Without further ado, here is what we have planned for everyone in October.

A. Marketing Update — There has been a lot of discussion around the timing to bring more players into the BCB funnel. The timing is largely dependent upon features and functionality for the target audience.

  1. We will not do any marketing push until the full game is out and we can onboard players into a complete end-to-end experience with easy purchase flows and helpful gameplay tutorials.
  2. The list of features below will be present or are soon to be present once we start acquiring an appreciable number of players. We expect the full launch of the game to be this month.
  3. Starter Pack Giveaways — We are going to aggressively target people within our existing WAX ecosystem to come in and try the game for free. To do this, we have devised an approach that would give them assets (not NFTs) to play the PvP game for a very limited time to see if they enjoy the experience. They will have access to an “Exhibition Room” vs. other players or AI. Think one or two weeks of a “free to try” experience. At the end of the trial period those assets will be removed from their in-game inventory.
  4. These players cannot earn any currencies, but they can try it before they buy it. If they want full experience, the conversion funnel to acquire NFTs assets from the secondary market will be intuitive and frictionless.
  5. Qualifying for these limited-use items will require some actions and the assets they receive are non-transferable and do not live on the chain.
  6. There will also be a flow to easily allow for the creation of a Cloud Wallet if they do not already have one to help onboard non-crypto players into Web3 gaming on WAX. This non-WAX programming will be present, but not a strategic initiative until next month.
  7. Buying NFTs with a Credit Card — We are working with a group to incorporate a way for players to purchase NFTs from the vIRL Marketplace in-game with a credit card. This should also be available towards the end of the month.
  8. Buying BRWL with a Credit Card — We are working with a payment provider to incorporate a way to allow our players to buy BRWL using their credit card. This payment provider will get the order for the BRWL and then go to purchase the token at the current market price. This should be live in November.
  9. Richard Garfield will be making the rounds — After having participated in the last open beta, Richard will be doing some mainstream press to bring awareness to the game. Look for this to happen around the end of the month when all of our funnels are in place and we are ready to go.
  10. We continue to have conversations with a lot of the top gaming guilds in the world and are engaging them on every aspect of promotion and support. These groups are potential customers for buying a BRAWL-O-SEUM, as well as bringing their community of players to the game.
  11. Collection Verification on Open Sea and Ethereum-Based Marketplaces — Now that we have a fully functioning ETH bridge in place where all assets can go both ways, having a presence in these marketplaces help provide legitimacy to players unfamiliar with our game. We will work with these marketplaces to help promote our game.

B. Product Feature Update — The upcoming beta release will take us from (the previously released) version 1.0.9 to (the current release) v1.1.6, which means a lot of material changes await you. Here is a list of what you can expect to see next time you play the PvP mode.

  1. WebGL Beta — On Friday, October 7 at 1 pm PST, we will release the browser-based beta. This will eliminate the need for the PC/Mac client to be downloaded and keys to be distributed. Anyone with an internet connection and a functioning browser can go to the production URL and play the latest version of the game.
  2. Taunt System — If you are the first player to lock in your card choice, you may have the chance to Taunt your opponent.
  3. There should be fewer connection issues.
  4. As far as we know, the crash bugs have been greatly diminished.
  5. The option to “Discard” your cards will be active.
  6. All new and never-before-seen animations will be active.
  7. There will be a new player HUD with a larger player Avi, new Power Meter, new health meter and a cleaner display of all betting actions.
  8. The cards you have been collecting with the corresponding look and feel will replace the cards you have seen up to this point.
  9. We have increased the stats/leaderboards tracked to include total wins (now gross, not net), win percentage and experience points gained. There is even the possibility of an ELO ratings system and leaderboard in Friday’s browser beta.
  10. We are going to lower the buffer for the action to commence to 10 seconds, down from the previous 15 seconds. The previous time window forced players to sit through many seconds of idling. In the new version, if both players have picked their cards within 10 seconds, the action will commence — rather than having to wait an additional 50% longer for the timer to expire. This should make play feel crisper with less lulls in the action.
  11. Also, in the previous version you were allowed to pick an attack “in case you won”. This has now been removed and only the winning player will be allowed to pick an attack.
  12. Eight (8) hero-style introductions have been added in. They can be skipped by hitting the spacebar on your keyboard.
  13. Between attacks, we have added Brawler fidgets, idles and some low impact attacks. All-in-all, there are over 40 additional things to see and hear.

C. Gameplay Balance Update — We are pretty happy with how the new balance changes positively evolved and added to the meta. The final rule has been added. This is the option to “Discard” when you fold at the hand card limit. This could have serious implications for end-of-game situations.

  1. As a reminder, if you are at the hand limit of six (6) cards and choose to fold, you will now be presented with the option of discarding any of your four (4) remaining cards. That, along with drawing two (2) new cards could give players six (6) new cards to choose from. If this proves to be too powerful, we may decide to tune it back.
  2. We are very happy with the health pool increasing to 25 from 20. It had the chance to prolong games, but that concern is unfounded due to the expeditious growth of the Power Meter. We are also adding a gameplay tutorial this month for all new players to be able to learn from.

D. Site Update — There are three (3) major components that make up the Blockchain Brawlers website. There is the PvP game, the storefronts and the BRAWL-O-SEUM. We are going to run through all of the changes you will see in the month of October for the site.

  1. There are times when a frontend session will get out of sync with a backend session. When this happens, players are no longer able to see any of the items, like packs, cards or moves in their in-game inventory. We will move to ensure the “two sides of the house” are always in sync and one will not operate without the other being active.
  2. vIRL Marketplace Currency Sorting — Soon, you will be able to accurately sort prices by desired currency from low to high and vice versa.
  3. Historical sales reviews will be present and easy to review in the vIRL Marketplace.
  4. You will have the ability to sort Rarity Packs by the BoS level that crafted it.
  5. We will display the asset percentage chance per listing of the Rarity Packs so you can view the all Rarity Packs listed and their probabilities at a glance.
  6. In the in-game inventory, we are going to add much greater levels of filtering clarity so you can sort by card type and rarity. You will also be able to sort by deck card per Brawler, per number, per rarity, per foil.
  7. We will add a new call-out in the inventory where your assets will live. We will identify NFTs in your wallet vs. NFTs in in-game inventory vs. Items in in-game inventory. And “All” will mean “All”.
  8. We will also be adding opening options to do things in bulk such as “Open All” per type of pack. Initially, to save on resources we may impose limits such as “Open 100” at a time.
  9. We are going to be adding our oft-talked about card/move “Upgrading” feature. This should be a state-of-the-art feature with highly optimized UI and bulk crafting options to minimize the amount of time you will be spending on actually upgrading. Less clicking, more opening. Look for this around the third week of the month if all goes according to plan.
  10. To avoid accidentally consuming a highly coveted NFT in the upgrading process, we will be adding a “Lock/Unlock” feature per card. The default will be “unlocked”. You can go in card by card and lock those cards you don’t want to risk consuming.
  11. We will be adding an asset counter page category so you can see how many of a particular asset you possess.
  12. The whitepaper has been written and you can actually access it here.
  13. The fully featured, wallet-connected browser version will be out soon enough and we will be monitoring its performance on desktop. Within two weeks of launching the desktop version, we will turn our focus to enhancing the mobile responsiveness for mobile web play.
  14. We will also ship a version of the client for PC and Mac. This will be for players who want the best-looking and fastest-running version of the game.
  15. We will always be adding new stuff to buy for BRWL and Gold in the BRWL Store, so look for new items being sold every week. As an example we added a new “Tyranno Studios” card back that looks incredible.

E. The PvP Game Launch — We believe that the PvP mode will be going live in October at some point, even if this means the very last day. I appreciate everyone would like an exact date. The reality is, at this point in time it is too hard to make a call on precisely when. The desire to deliver something great is far more important than being fast to market. The challenge for us is that this requires a lot of coordination between two teams from two different companies. Building things collectively for the first time has a high degree of schedule risk. And rather than hitting an arbitrary date we rather give you a buttoned-up, turnkey experience. When we are talking about your BRWL being on the line we cannot and will not rush this deployment out the door.

In order for this launch to happen, there are two fairly large gating items that need to be implemented and rigorously tested. The first is user authentication. We want you, your wallet and all of your assets to be validated and viewable when you play.

The other and a much heavier lift is the wiring of the player loadout. Before you go into battle, there is a set of cards and moves required to actually be able to play in a PvP match. This loadout will allow you to place your assets in the right spots and show you if you have any gaps in your arsenal. There will also be more than one loadout for you to use in case you want to go deep on separate Brawler decks.

Here is an early draft of what the loadout could look like, the final product may change, but this is pretty close to final.

  1. This month we will be formally publishing the rake percentage tied to assets (Power Scores). The best rake percentage will be 5% and highest will be 20%. There will be tiers of 20%, 15%, 10%, 8%,7%,6% and 5%. An article on how it will all work is going to be published on October the 11th.
  2. We will be committing to a monthly tournament from here on out. The next one kicks off the weekend of October 28.

F. New Gameplay PvP Mode — We are excited to finally announce the development of a new “Brawl for All ‘’ mode coming later this fall to Blockchain Brawlers. The great developers behind HodlGod, Onessus, have been hard at work at bringing their AI driven combat engine to Blockchain Brawlers, utilizing Unreal Engine 5 and the Epic motion library of moves for a “King of Ring ‘’ style competition.

Forty (40) players will enter the Ring starting with eight (8) all at once, and then one (1) new Brawler will enter every 15 seconds. If a brawler loses all their health, they will get flung over the top rope and out of the ring. There will be a small BRWL entry fee and the top finishers will split the pot. Sign up for a slot and then tune in to watch the live stream. The more Brawlers and higher quality assets that you own, the better your overall stats will be for the Brawler you enter into the competition. Higher rarity Brawlers will also start with clearly better base stats.

And, as we always promised, the BoS owners will get in on the action as well. When this new mode rolls out, you’ll have the chance to craft power ups (think +HP, +Crit%, +Evade). How we handle this is tbd. The thinking at the moment will be a random drop chance with every successful Rarity Pack you create.

In a nutshell, these are some important deliver dates to be mindful of:

The week of October 3 — Beta going live in a browser and improved inventory filtering

The week of October 17 — Asset upgrading

The week of October 24 — Monthly Tournament #2

The week of October 31 — PvP launches (potentially sooner)

We hope this comprehensive overview of the changes heading your way proved insightful and useful. As mentioned above, you can expect to see more posts like this in the future, so keep your ear to the ground for more Blockchain Brawlers news.

If you have any questions or comments, join the conversation on Discord.

Until next time, Brawlers!

04, Oct 2022