r/BrawlStarsSC

As a competitive casual player, Brawl Stars is and has been on a sad trajectory. Trying to enjoy Brawl Stars has become an extremely frustrating endeavor. I am not talking about the game balance, the update cycle, the game being unfriendly to new players, or anything like that, those topics have already been extensively covered. No, rather I want to focus on the casual experience.

I play this game for fun. As a game I open up when I have a little spare time. I find fun in the competitiveness, in the strategy, and in making the exciting play to turn around a tough matchup that gets my adrenaline pumping. This is what I want from Brawl Stars. But increasingly, Brawl Stars is failing to meet these simple bars. The problem is systemic. The game has just turned into a grind, and frankly I find playing Brawl Stars is becoming a serious waste of time.

I opened up Brawls Stars for the first time in a while today to play some ranked for fun with the expectation of well ... playing some other good players, being challenged and having fun; after all, isn't that the point of a ranked mode? Immediately upon opening the menu, I am greeted by being reset to silver 1. "Ok, sure, I can carry for a bit," I thought. First match: Bots. Second match: Bots. Third match: Bots. Why? Why would I be playing a ranked mode to play against bots? 5 whole minutes wasted, 0 fun in sight. My patience gave out and I stopped wanting to play. I do not play this game for the grind. I do not want to grind for 3 hours every season to get a few good matches as a casual. Seriously, why is the ranked reset so brutal? It makes playing ranked entirely pointless for me, I simply cannot keep pace with the ranked reset. This is not some inevitability, the old power league was so much better as a casual. I actually enjoyed power league, it felt challenging and fun to push up the ranks, and it didn't feel constantly punishing to be pushed down over and over and forced to play with new players and bots over and over again. It is so frustrating and infuriating because it does not have to be this way, it can be so much better and so much more enjoyable, but it just isn't due to some stupid game design philosophies the devs have.

On to the other modes. Showdown is downright unplayable of course, the other modes are pretty good. I really do love Brawl Arena in principle and it tends to be the only mode I play nowadays (despite the maps being garbage and several brawlers being OP, it is still the best mode). But even at very high trophy tiers the matchups are typically boring and uncompetitive. Most 1000+ players seem to kind of suck. It's so much worse at lower trophies too. I end up not pushing lower trophy brawlers at all. It is a painful and mindless grind to get a brawler over 1000. Not to mention the matchmaking making it even more painful and frustrating, the cycle of: hard counter -> bot match -> hard counter -> bot match is horrible. I get frustrated from the hard counter and bad team and then get frustrated more from the pity bot match following. It just isn't fun and feels disrespectful of my time. It should be hard but rewarding to push ranks, not just a mindless grind.

My point is that the game is becoming an annoying frustrating grind, more so now than ever before. And the cause is systemic, it stems from the game's developer's design philosophy. It stems from a disrespect of its players and of itself. The game needs to take itself more seriously. It could easily be so much better and it is so infuriating that it isn't. I find myself playing the game less and less. I fear that Brawl Stars has systematically replaced the fun with a terribly boring and mindless grind.

\[This post is a rant on my opinion of the game. I have been playing casually on and off since slightly before the global release all the way till now. I am f2p and have around 34 maxed brawlers (not including buffies). I realize I am no longer the intended audience of this game and that my opinions probably do not align with that of the community.\]

[Posting this here because this was taken down in r/Brawlstars no reason given]