Welcome to Season 4! In this update we’re delivering rewards for Season 3 and bring in a ton of new balance changes, gameplay improvements, and graduated test features to bring in the new Season. Thank you everyone for your feedback over the last 12 weeks of Season 3, and we look forward to seeing you on the Ranked ladders in Brawlhalla.
New Items In Mallhalla
KO Effect: Thor’s Applause - “What’s the sound of one god clapping?”
Season Changeover and Glory Rewards!
- Season 3 has officially come to a close and Season 4 has begun!
- Season 3 rewards have been delivered! Check your inventories for avatars, borders, and Glory to spend in Mallhalla.
Soft Elo Reset
- Taking into account user feedback, we decided to go with a less aggressive Elo squash. This should reduce the frustration of playing early in the season against more skilled players and create better matchmaking for everyone.
- Your tiers (gold, platinum, etc) and your best rating have been adjusted accordingly
1v1 and 2v2 Personal Rating
- Under 1400: New Elo = Old Elo
- Over 1400: New Elo = 1400 + (Old Elo – 1400) / (3 – (3000 – Old Elo) / 800)
2v2 Team and Legend Rating
- 2v2 Team & Legend Ratings have been brought closer to 750.
- Under 2000: Elo = (Elo + 375) / 1.5
- Over 2000, we aggressively brought you back down as a way of resetting the top tiers. Diamond level players will be reset to high gold or low platinum.
Glory Earnings Calculation
Glory earned is based on a combination of your Peak Rating (highest 1v1, 2v2, team, or Legend rating/elo) and total Wins. This was designed in order to reward both skill and dedication for those who pursue Glory.
You gain 20 Glory per win up to 150 wins which gets you 3000 Glory. After 150 wins, each subsequent win gives you slightly less.
There is a minimum requirement of 10 games played to be eligible for Glory based on your rating.
Ranked Borders from Season 3.
If you placed in gold or better in your best rating, you are given a ranked border that people will see in the match preview screen. There is a ranked border for gold, platinum, and diamond tiers. These will last for one season and will be updated again after Season 4.
Your border from Season 2 does not carry over or have any impact on your Season 3 border.
Ranked Avatars from Season 3
Ranked Avatars will be rewarded, this time with prestigious versions for those who’ve placed in high ranks during previous seasons. For example, if you placed in Platinum last season and Gold this season you’ll receive the upgraded versions of the Competitor’s Badge and Gold Emblem. You will still have your original Platinum Emblem avatar from Season 2.
- Competitor’s Badge: Awarded to anyone who plays 10 Ranked Games or more.
- Gold Emblem: Awarded to players who finish at Gold or above.
- Platinum Emblem: Awarded to players who finish at Platinum or above.
- Diamond Emblem: Awarded to players who finish at Diamond.
- Upgraded versions of Ranked Avatars are awarded to those who have earned the same Avatar in Seasons 1-3.
Multikeyboard Support for Local Play
- Windows (7 or later) players can now have multiple keyboard players on the same machine.
- To enable multiple keyboards, right-click on Brawlhalla in your Steam library, go to ‘Properties’, click the ‘Set Launch Options…’ button, and add ‘-multikeyboard.’
- When Multikeyboard is enabled, keybinds are saved separately from your normal keybinds, and they are saved per keyboard per USB port.
- You cannot play with a mouse while using Multikeyboard unless you pair it to a keyboard. To pair a mouse with a keyboard when Multikeyboard is on, hold down the 'M' and 'O' keys on your keyboard and then right click with your mouse. You can do this at any point once the game client is running, but it's easiest to see that it's working from the controls screen. For example, if your keyboard appears as "KB 24F0-0101" on the tabs on the left side of the screen, it should change to "KBM 24F0-0101" once a mouse is paired.
- Even after being paired with a keyboard, the mouse cannot be used to select a Legend in the select screen or to vote for/strike a map in the map select screen.
- Frame stepping in replays and the training room does not yet work with Multikeyboard enabled.
Movement
Increased Run Speed is the closest to unanimously positive feedback a Test Feature has gotten, so we wanted to make it work despite some potential pitfalls.
Difference in speed between Legends has been narrowed since it was first introduced to keep low speed Legends from feeling inviable after the change. We've toned down the increase to air speed to give some extra edge in mobility to a grounded player against an airborne one.
A number of older Signatures have been given increased travel speed to account for the faster movement of their targets. We’ll be watching to see whether this round of changes is working as intended, and may give a similar treatment to several other Signatures before long.
- Increased Grounded Run Speed by 15%. (Graduated from Test Features)
- Increased Aerial Run Speed by 10%.
For the following Signatures, increased travel speed to push their effective threat farther forward and make them harder to outrun.
- Asuri Side Sword - Increased travel speed during the charge.
- Azoth Side Axe - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Barraza Side Blasters - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Bodvar Side Hammer - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Brynn Side Spear - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Cassidy Down Hammer - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Diana Side Blasters - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Ember Side Bow - Increased travel speed at the start of the leap.
- Gnash Side Spear - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Jhala Side Sword - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Kor Down Hammer - Slightly increased travel speed while rolling along the ground.
- Lucien Down Katar - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Nai Side Katar - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
- Thatch Side Sword - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Teros Side Axe - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Ulgrim Side Lance - Slightly increased travel speed throughout the power duration.
- Vraxx Side Lance - Increased travel speed before the first hit.
Speed Dodge
We've pulled in Speed Dodges in a few ways, building on the last round of Test Features.
The number of consecutive dodges have been lowered to two, reducing the total amount of time a player can spend invulnerable and limiting their options after the chain.
Invulnerability frames when canceling an attack have been lowered to create a more standard window of vulnerability before the hit. This should help address concerns that weapon kits with faster startup times benefit more from Speed Dodges.
The addition of vertical Chain Dodges adds some extra utility to the feature, giving some new options for pursuing a jumping opponent or approaching around corners.
- Number of consecutive dodges when performing a chain dodge reduced from three to two. (Graduated from Test Features)
- Chaining a speed dodge directly upwards or downwards no longer slows to a normal dodge like chaining backwards does. (Graduated from Test Features)
- Invulnerability frames when canceling a Speed Dodge into an attack now end three frames before the first hitbox. (Max 10 frames, min 1 frame)
Gadgets and Item Spawning
Item Spawning at the start of Sudden Death can be frustrating. We've updated that behavior to be more consistent and ensure it places players on even footing.
- Item spawning logic at the beginning of Sudden Death now mirrors the logic at the beginning of the match, i.e., a weapon will spawn in the middle for 1v1, and each team will get a weapon spawned in 2v2.
The rewards for landing a bomb hit have been reduced. We've made some changes to how it directs Force and given a penalty to downward Force to dial down the high variance in whether a bomb is lethal between on and offstage play.
- Bouncy Bomb: Decreased Damage from 30 to 20; Decreased Fixed Force from 76 to 60; Decreased Variable Force by 32%; An additional 25% Force reduction is now applied to downward Force; The Force applied by Bombs is no longer constrained to 45 degree angles; Decreased Stun from 31 to 26.
Proximity Mines have also lost some overall reward, and have been reworked so that they only explode once stuck to a surface. This should push their use case farther from Bombs as well as reduce risk for aggression against a player holding a mine.
It should also be clearer now when a planted mine is expiring and when it’s no longer active.
- Proximity Mine: Decreased Damage from 30 to 25; Decreased Force from 75 Variable/64 Fixed to 45 Variable/64 Fixed.
- Proximity Mines now only explode once planted. If they hit a target while thrown, they do roughly as much Force and Damage as a thrown Horn.
- Instead of fading out like thrown weapons, armed Proximity Mines now flash white when they're about to expire the same way that other gadgets do when they're about to expire. This fixes the bug where fading mines could still be triggered and explode, and it also does a better job of indicating when an armed mine is about to expire.
Modified Test Features:
There's been some pushback against the latest incarnation of fall speed changes. We’ve swapped out the increased gravity and the other changes needed to support it, and are trying a simpler jump reduction instead.
- Upward Jump Impulse for ground and air reduced from 59 to 57.
- Wall Jump Impulse reduced from 55 to 50.
- Removed: Increased fall and fastfall speeds by 15%.
- Removed: Increased upward jump impulse from 59 to 62.5.
- Removed: Increased jump startup from 2 to 4.
Remaining in Test Features:
Final polish for this feature is still being worked on, but we believe it’s a good change.
- Gadgets telegraph for about a second before spawning in, the same as weapon drops. They use a blue highlight as a placeholder for a spawn-in animation.
Balance Improvements
A new season brings fresh changes and many new possibilities to explore! This time around we have updated the existing strings and combos for the older weapons in an effort to bring them up to speed with the more recent releases. That means focusing on setup attacks within the weapon’s kit that lead well into subsequent attacks by leaving the opponent within close reach to continue the fight. We have primarily taken some of the softer hitting attacks that would not reasonably score knockouts, and given them a new purpose for a more cohesive moveset. We have also laid out several changes to reign in the overperforming weapons, primarily Scythe and Katars.
Sword
The Sword will see a shift in KO potential from an aerial light attack, into the aerial heavy attack. This serves to emphasize the resource use of a Recovery attack, while also lending the Neutral Air to better use in early strings. The Neutral Light will lean into its role as a defensive attack with later rewards, resulting in greater Force and Damage to send an opponent flying. The Side Light has had its Force reworked to continue serving its use as an early string component at all stages of a brawl.
- Sword Neutral Light: Decreased Damage from 17 to 15; Increased Force from 30 Variable/40 Fixed to 35 Variable/45 Fixed.
- Sword Side Light: Changed Force of final hit from 20 Variable/72 Fixed to 0 Variable/75 Fixed; Decreased Stun from 16 to 14; Slightly raised angle of knockback.
- Sword Down Light: Decreased Stun from 31 to 19; Decreased Force from 5 Variable/60 Fixed to 0 Variable/60 Fixed.
- Sword Recovery: Increased Force from 32 Variable/55 Fixed to 40 Variable/55 Fixed.
- Sword Neutral Air: Decreased Force from 44 Variable/50 Fixed to 38 Variable/50 Fixed; Decreased Damage from 20 to 18.
Hammer
The Hammer changes begin with updating the Side Light, Recovery, and Down Air to better serve in combos and strings, similar in use as many currently popular strings in the kit. While we have created new and more reliable string routes, we have also toned down many of the attacks upon which the previous routes hinged, as Hammer has proven to be a devastating weapon in tournament play.
- Hammer Neutral Light: Increased Time to Hit from 4 to 5.
- Hammer Side Light: Changed Force from 31~22 Variable/55~35 Fixed to 5 Variable/75~55 Fixed; Increased Stun from 21 to 23; Decreased Damage from 20 to 15.
- Hammer Down Light: Decreased Stun from 33 to 25.
- Hammer Side Air: Decreased Stun from 25 to 23.
- Hammer Neutral Air: Decreased Damage from 25 to 22.
- Hammer Recovery: Decreased Self Impulse from -78 to -70; Increased Damage from 12 to 15; Decreased Force from 40 Variable/50 Fixed to 38 Variable/48 Fixed.
- Hammer Down Air: Decreased Force from 50 Variable/50 Fixed to 35 Variable/50 Fixed.
Blasters
High damage and range have always been an integral part of the Blasters identity, however many situations would leave them wanting for possible followup attacks. The Neutral and Side Light attacks have been molded into more consistent setup tools on the ground, while the Down Air will see an increase in both off-stage reward and on-stage string usage.
- Blasters Neutral Light: Increased Stun from 18 to 20; Changed Force from 5 Variable/50 Fixed to 0 Variable/52 Fixed; Decreased Damage from 23 to 21.
- Blasters Side Light: Decreased Force from 10 Variable/55 Fixed to 5 Variable/40 Fixed; Angled knockback to be more vertical; Decreased Stun from 23 to 20.
- Blasters Down Air: Increased Force from 23 Variable/35 Fixed to 35 Variable/40 Fixed; Angled knockback to be more vertical; Decreased Stun from 19 to 18.
Spear
While spear continues to be a popular weapon, there were a few inconsistent moves in its kit that lead to frustrating situations despite good decisions by players. These adjustments should make spear play more consistent in a variety of situations.
- Spear Down Light: Decreased Force from 11 Variable/50 Fixed to 5 Variable/50 Fixed.
- Spear Down Air: Decreased Self Impulse on hit by 10%.
- Spear Neutral Air: The multi-hit portion now pulls the target inward before the final hit, resulting in more consistent setup locations.
Rocket Lance
The Rocket Lance has also received improved string potential, while still maintaining most of the current set. Similar to the Sword Neutral Light, the Lance Neutral Light now emphasizes its use as a defensive option to force opponent’s off of the user. The remaining grounded light attacks now serve as more consistent string and combo starters, with increased KO potential in the air kit for more cohesive gameplay. In exchange for the improved ability for strings, some of the reward and combo leniency has been reduced in the form of decreased Damage and Stun.
- Rocket Lance Neutral Light: Increased Force from 28 Variable/49 Fixed to 40 Variable/43 Fixed; Increased Stun from 23 to 25; Slightly lowered angle of knockback to be more horizontal.
- Rocket Lance Side Light: Decreased Stun from 30 to 18; Decreased Force from 5 Variable/56 Fixed to 0 Variable/48 Fixed.
- Rocket Lance Down Light: Decreased Force from 8 Variable/50 Fixed to 4 Variable/45 Fixed; Decreased Stun from 23 to 22; Decreased Damage from 23 to 18.
- Rocket Lance Side Air: Changed Force from 36 Variable/67 Fixed to 39 Variable/65 Fixed.
Katar
Katars have been a dominant force in competitive Brawlhalla, and proved to be a mainstay despite previous attempts to bring the weapon in line with others. With these changes, Katars should feel less oppressive to fight against, while still allowing strong play from those who wield them well.
- Katar Neutral Light: Decreased Damage from 15 to 13; Increased Time to Hit from 5 to 6.
- Katar Side Light: Decreased Damage from 13 to 11; Increased Time to Hit from 5 to 7; Decreased Stun from 21 to 20.
- Katar Down Light: Decreased Damage from 11 to 10; Decreased Stun from 24 to a range of 22~16.
- Katar Neutral Air: Increased Recovery on miss from 0 Fixed/22 Variable to 3 Fixed/22 Variable; Decreased Damage from 12 to 11.
- Katar Recovery: Decreased Damage from 20 to 18.
Bow
A fairly major shift for bow routes is implemented here, focusing on the Side Light for increased combo potential. The Down Light receives a boost to use as a setup tool and neutral game poke, as the reduced Stun makes it a string starter with dodge windows available after the attack connects. Bow users would do well to hone their dodge punishes, while enjoying the new rewards the Side Light offers.
- Bow Side Light: Changed Force from 30 Variable/39 Fixed to 0 Variable/52 Fixed; Increased Stun from 18 to 19; Decreased Damage from 21 to 18.
- Bow Down Light: Increased Damage from 10 to 12; Decreased Time to Hit from 17 to 16; Decreased Stun from 26 to 18.
Axe
We have moved the Axe more towards its identity as a larger heavy hitting weapon, with increased Time to Hit on the aerial kit following with increased Damage. The dodge windows within strings have been widened accordingly, while we have also increased the use of the Down Air as a stringable attack by decreasing the force for more stable knockback on-stage.
- Axe Side Light: Decreased Stun from 30 to 28; Increased Damage from 11 to 13.
- Axe Side Air: Increased Time to Hit from 14 to 16; Increased Damage from 17 to 19.
- Axe Neutral Air: Increased Time to Hit from 14 to 15; Increased Damage of the soft hit from 12 to 14.
- Axe Down Air: Increased Time to Hit from 14 to 15; Decreased initial Force from 40 Variable/62 Fixed to 38 Variable/60 Fixed.
Scythe
The Scythe has been a hot topic of debate, with strong showings in the Circuit. We have increased the time between the rotation of attacks by adding Time to Hit and Recover time on some of the quicker attacks in the kit. We have also slowed the Damage build slightly on several key attacks, as well as decreasing the KO potential of the Recovery attack given how well the attack covers the user.
- Scythe Side Light: Increased Recover on miss from 12 Variable/0 Fixed to 12 Variable/1 Fixed; Increased Time to Hit from 6 to 7.
- Scythe Neutral Air: Increased Time to Hit from 11 to 12; Increased Recover on miss from 20 Variable/1 Fixed to 20 Variable/2 Fixed.
- Scythe Down Air: Decreased Damage from 16 to 15.
- Scythe Down Light: Decreased Damage of the normal release from 16 to 14.
- Scythe Recovery: Decreased Damage from 20 to 18; Decreased Force from 46 Variable/65 Fixed to 44 Variable/62 Fixed.
Gauntlets
We have slightly improved the Gauntlets string potential with increased Stun on the Down Air, for stronger pressure both on and off-stage. Some Damage increases to key moves in the kit round out the changes, as we suspect Gauntlets users will have an easier time finding those openings for their impressive strings with the movement and dodge changes going live with this patch.
- Gauntlets Side Light: Increased Damage from 13 to 14.
- Gauntlets Down Air: Increased Stun from 18 to 19.
- Gauntlets Neutral Air: Increased Damage from 10 to 12.
New Weekly Legend Rotation
This week’s new Legend Rotation features Diana, Gnash, Hattori, Lucien, Val, and Ulgrim.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a rare bug where the camera would sometimes suddenly zoom out to full view in the middle of gameplay. This would happen most frequently on Mammoth Fortress. (Credit: GraverageGaming)