The TL/DR — The Open Beta is live on 9/20 at 1 pm PST. Download the client on Steam (PC/Mac), no keys required. There are some limited moves and some stats are tracked. Rule changes were added that allow for bigger momentum swings.
Hey, Brawlers!
The Open Beta Preview will be the next step in our continuing journey to launching the full game. As always, there have been a lot of things accomplished since we ran our last closed beta test.
Whether you are just joining us or you are a cagey old vet, here is what to expect when the Open Beta is released on Tuesday, September 20 at 1 pm PST. How and where to go within Steam is all to be determined and will be shared broadly in Discord, Telegram, Twitter and everywhere else our Brawlers socialize. If you still can’t find it, @ us in our BB Discord Gen Chat channel.
What to Expect
Every testing session we do gives us insight into how we can better improve our game to deliver the best possible Brawlers experience to you.
Our main goal for this play session is to better understand how well the game is balanced since we’ve made some adjustments, including four (4) major rule changes and an increase to the player starting health pool. We also want to get a read on how newly tracked statistics impact session performance.
Plus, we’ve put in a limited number of moves for players to view, where you can see what it really looks like to land that final blow to your opponent.
Lastly, we are going to have more new players than ever, so onboarding will also get looked at despite the fact that we still won’t have a tutorial in game.
Let’s start with changes that impact actual game play.
Gameplay Details and Updates
Our last beta revealed to us that a popular meta consisted of turtling early and often, fold, fold and then fold again was a popular start. To counter this, we added the “1/3” card rule change. When a player wins with a 1 card or a 3 card in their hand after the hand resolves, instead of just getting +1 added to their Power Meter for winning the hand, they get +2 for each 1 or 3 they played that round. If they win a hand with a 3/3, their Power Meter goes up +5 (1 for the win a 4 because they used two (3) cards and so on).
The tendency is also to dump a lot of 1’s, 2’s and 3’s — now, the 1 and 3 cards have increased utility and power. Players will have to think twice about if they keep or dump a 1 or a 3. They will also have to think twice about calling or folding in the presence of a 1 or a 3 card.
What we have noticed in our internal testing is that the Power Meter is consistently higher sooner. The chance for massive blows and dealing out big damage quickly is real.
To make sure games don’t end in 15 seconds, we have increased the starting HP pool from 20 to 25. This will allow players to adjust to the new power curve and weather a blow or two while acclimating to these new rules.
We think the 3/8 hand is now maybe the most interesting hand in the game with a total of 11. Having a 3 present will give your opponent a lot to consider in terms of how they are going to respond.
We also updated “Ties” to resolve correctly. From now on when two players tie, both sides will receive full damage, but each player will also have their Power Meters reset to 1.
The final rule change is tied to “Folding” when at the hand card limit of 6 cards. Now, if you fold with 6 cards in your hand, you will have the chance to discard some or all of your cards currently held.
We’ve also fixed a lot of major bugs tied to intermittent crashing, UI conflicts and information being collected and displayed correctly in the game console.
The last build we published in the previous test was v0.2.1 and we are now on v0.3.1. There have been a significant number of additions and improvements. Below is the minimum number of different things that will be in the build you play or what you can expect to experience:
- Round timer (the Declare Phase, the Bet Phase and the Call Phase will all have timers unique to each phase)
- Six new Brawler introduction videos with music (press spacebar to skip)
- All six Brawlers are able to be selected to use in game, you can select them via the “Inventory” tab on the home page of the client.
- Card played particle effects (1 through 8 have different effects. The higher the card, the bigger the effect)
- Card pathing updates and motion effects
- Crowd sound f/x (limited)
- Statistics tracked will be displayed and leaderboards will be present tied to those results
- Final card art for the Common (Alpha Edition) cards will be in
- Now, when you win or lose a match, the system will send you an email with the match history
- One (1) / Three (3) rule is in
- Starting health pool now begins at 25 and not 20
- Most all crash bugs have been addressed, some may still persist
- Limited Brawler intros are in with music (Spacebar to skip)
- Ties resolve as designed with full damage dealt to both players and both Power Meters reset to one (1).
- Slightly smarter bots, but not too much smarter. They use cooler playing cards than you do. They can be found hanging out in the “Exhibition Room” waiting to make dumb moves with beautiful cards.
- Still no BRWL, Gold or XP will be granted during this test. The cost of this test experience is free to all.
- Achievement System implemented with limited functionality, but there will be no carryover.
- Three (3) resolution settings are now present. Lower end Macs should use the lowest resolution available for best performance.
- Nineteen in ring idles, fidgets and reactions are now in the game and viewable.
- Attacks are now selectable if you win a hand. You will be limited to the following attack moves: Eye Poke, Face Slap, Knife Edge, Thigh Kick, Straight Kick, Uppercut and Cyclone Uppercut. These are mostly common and uncommon attacks. The significantly better attacks are rarely-legendary and they are being held back for the full release of the PvP mvp. These are seven attacks, there are actually 19 in total, including “Steel Justice” yet to come.
- Finishers are in and selectable — depending on your Brawler you win with you will be able to choose the following finishers: Straight pin, Rollover Pin, Super Kick, Doomsday Piledriver. There will be 13 finishers in total upon the release of the PvP mvp.
- To be clear, all stats and results will be reset once the game goes live.
As always, join the conversation on Discord and let us know your thoughts.
16, Sep 2022