Preface: The Aftermath of the Frank Incident

After the massive uproar stemming from u/Frank_Supercell 's infamous statement the other day, we as a community can conclude far beyond any reasonable doubt that a change to gears is desperately needed, no questions asked. We have been crying out WAY too long for Frank to tell us out of the abyss that "gear changes aren't being considered." This is an absolutely unacceptable excuse despite our best efforts to make our thoughts abundantly clear in regards to Gears. Some lost trust (myself included) in the Brawl Stars team, and some even said they were going to quit. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the developers in any sense, I am just very frustrated/infuriated that this was the response that we received after 7 months of no comment on the matter. I just really hope that this can catch the attention of Frank or any developers on the subreddit, so that they can take note of the issues that are taking place as a result of gears, and do something about it based on feedback. They need to do something as the longer they leave Gears untouched with, the further the damage that will be caused to the game's economy and player-base.

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Reasons why Gears/Progression should change (most credit to u/KairosTime_Gaming):

1. Upgrades are way too expensive
2. They don't provide nearly enough depth for their price compared to Star Powers/Gadgets
3. Lack of variety
4. Gear Tokens slow down progression even further
5. They are simply boring
6. They don't feel significant in-game
7. They make the game pay-to-win
8. Heavily restricts the competitive scene
9. Not enough people can access a decent amount of gear features
10. Can't add more without completely breaking the in-game economy
11. There are only 3 levels

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Fix #1: Make Gear Tokens universal

This would merge all different types of Gear Tokens, into one obtainable. This new token will be able to be used throughout any gear type, and if you already have tokens before the supposed change, they will be merged into one counter. Because of this, universal Gear Tokens should be able to be purchased in the Club League shop as much times per day as your Club Coins allow.

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Fix #2: Add a third Gear slot at Level 8 and add new levels

This would make gears more obtainable for a larger portion of the player-base and would create more excitement between a larger bandwidth of players who have less resources to obtain them efficiently. Additionally, the third gear slot will allow for much more diverse builds compared to what we have now. New levels will make upgrades feel more worthwhile, and will also provide endgame players with more to do, without of course, creating a huge financial strain on that person. Because if this were ever to happen, the stats of each existing gear would have to be tweaked in order to prevent them from being too overpowered in higher levels of gameplay.

*Level 4 would have more detailed design with the red Legendary League emblem color scheme.

*Level 5 would have even more detailed design with the gold Master League emblem color scheme.

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Fix #3: Massively reduce Gear Scrap prices and adjust Gear Token requirements

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This is a very commonly suggested and agreed upon concept that would make Gears easier to upgrade for most. The prices of the upgrades are inarguably, ridiculously expensive right now.

Here is a table displaying my concept of reduced tokens/prices:

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Fix #4: Add new types of Gears

By doing this, there will be much more interesting builds and even more to unlock, again, without having the worry of breaking the in-game economy. Gears as they are, just don't provide nearly as diverse options as they could actually roll out to be. Just obtaining the same 5 types of gears, easily becomes very boring after a certain timeline, and they provide little depth for the effort required to reach that endgame position. As the system currently is now, there is just no possible way to implement any new gears without making the price to max your account skyrocket several hundreds of dollars (depending on which country you live in, but regardless, it would still raise the cost massively).

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Here are some suggested concepts that I came up with:

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Cycle:

Allows a brawler to permanently cycle supers slightly faster from their main attack

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Reload:

When a brawler falls below 50% HP, their reload speed increases by a certain amount. This can stack with star power/gadget reload speed boosts like Bull's Beserker Star Power, but may require nerf(s) to already existing reload speed boosts out there.

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[New] Resistance:

When a brawler falls below a certain amount of HP, they will become immune to all negative effects such as freeze, stun, knockback, burn/poison, slows, etc. This may have to result in Frank/Poco gadgets being reworked however. (I think it would make sense because Poco's Gadget is absolutely useless and Frank's 1st Gadget is significantly worse than his 2nd.)

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Range:

When a brawler's super is fully charged, they will gain a small range buff to their main attack. This won't affect main attack dash/projectile speeds, but can stack with abilities such as Colt's Magnum Special Star Power.

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In the chart below are my proposed stats for each of the new Gear types, including the already existent types that should be tweaked:

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*Most of the already existent Gears might not be as strong at level 1 (to prevent them from becoming broken at higher upgrade levels), but this would allow for the upgrading of gears to actually feel like your account is progressing, unlike now, where they lack depth and value for their price tag. Lastly, it will make the upgrades feel more significant and worthwhile in the long run, especially for veteran players like myself.

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Fix #5: Make Gear Scrap purchasable with more in-game currencies

If Scrap can be purchased with Club Coins, why can't we purchase them with Star Points or Gems? Coins should also be purchasable with star points in my opinion, but that's besides the point. I have never understood why this is a thing, and it would drastically improve account progression, especially at the later levels with Gears now involved. Most endgame players have tens if not hundreds of thousands of left-over gold or star points that just sit there in the currency counter. Making scrap purchasable with these two currencies would be a great help to endgame players who face this issue, having little scrap, while withholding mass loads of coins, with no more possible methods of spending in-game currency. The same applies to Gear Tokens, as Token Doublers have always been available in the regular shop.

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Miscellaneous Progression Issues:

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Fix #6: Reduce the Coin and Power Point costs of levels 10 and 11:

This has been quite an underrated suggestion throughout the community and most of us can agree that these levels are too overpriced and way too difficult to obtain without paying real money.* This has caused problems, most notably, in the competitive scene as some P2W players would abuse level 11 brawlers against level 9 brawlers, creating a strong fragrance of frustration throughout Power League. Not only this, but it set the bar between casual gameplay, and endgame, MUCH higher, which isn't necessarily a good thing in terms of how players feel when they progress. The matchmaking isn't great in Brawl Stars anyways, but this issue has been further exacerbated due to the additions from the November 2021 update.

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*To put into perspective on the amount of gold it took to upgrade the 52 brawlers before levels 10/11 were added compared to if the brawler count remained stagnant since then WITH power 10/11, pre-update it would have costed 160,680 Gold to max out all 52 of those brawlers. If we had 52 brawlers now, AND the newly added powers 10/11, it costs 403,780 Gold. Since then however, (soon to be) 6 new brawlers have been added, bringing that cost up to a whopping 450,370 Gold. We are approaching the half-million mark rather quickly. For individual brawlers, this would have costed 3090 Gold total, and now it's 7765 Gold total. This just goes to show that with every new brawler that is being released, progression is being exacerbated time again and again, with every new brawler being implemented at this point, especially when you account for the outrageous price of Gear upgrades. Present day, it costs nearly 300% more gold to max out accounts in terms of levels alone than before levels 10/11, which is absolutely preposterous.

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I would suggest reducing the costs of Gold at levels 8 and higher by 15%, as well as Power Points at levels 8/9 by roughly 10%, level 10 by roughly 15%, and level 11 by roughly 25%. Reducing the level 8/9 upgrades is to prevent too small of a price gap between the higher levels. Here is a chart which displays my proposals below:

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Conclusion:

If something isn't done quickly about Gears, then it could very well mark the end of Brawl Stars' success. It's very sad to say as a veteran player myself, but that's how I truly feel at this point. I don't intend to offend anyone by my statements, including the devs as well (if you're reading this post), but I have been a passionate and dedicated player since the game was released globally in December of 2018. I firmly believe the game could be much more fresh and exciting than it currently is now. We need the old hype we once had for the game, like when Ryan worked exclusively on the game. I never said the current team is bad at all, but they can do much better than they have been the past few months.

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Leave your thoughts down below and tell me why if anything should change, it would be much appreciated!