New Feature: ACME Gadgets

What’s up, doc?

Two months ago, we informed you about the upcoming features we were working on. One of them is Gadgets, collectible items you could equip to any toon to unlock new utility in combat! 
Gadgets will allow you to personalize your teams to play with your own strategy. Furthermore, “Customize your team” means no two meta teams will play the same!

Are you ready to explore infinite possibilities pairing the right Gadgets with the best toons? Let us give you more detail about this new upcoming feature, going live on June 24th for players level 16 and up! 

1. How do Gadgets work?

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Gadgets are wild ACME Corporation contraptions that can be equipped on your toons. You can equip a toon with up to 4 Gadgets at a time. 

The more Gadgets you pair your toon with, the more bonuses it gets! However, there are some basic rules to keep in mind:

• Each Gadget you equip on your toon grants it bonuses. 
• Equipping multiple Gadgets of the same set unlocks bonuses. Equip 2 for an additional stat bonus and 4 to unlock a new ability!
• Purple Gadgets are Rare! They have the same sets and abilities as common Gadgets, but max out at higher levels and thus grant additional bonuses.

A toon equipped with a level 1 Gadget will immediately take advantage of its newly acquired bonuses and unlocked abilities. However, we encourage you to level up your Gadgets using Gold and Scraps to increase them further. If you’re looking for extra Scraps, you can recycle unused Gadgets to get some in exchange. The higher the level of the Gadget, the more Scraps you will get. 

Finally, you can unequip Gadgets from your toons. You can unequip a level 1 Gadget for a very low price, but said price will increase based on the Gadget’s level.

2. How do Gadgets appear on the game interface?

Your Toon profiles are updated with a Gadget section. You will be able to glance at your equipped Gadgets and available slots, as well as activated bonuses and abilities. 

Now, let’s discover and equip the most appropriate Gadgets for this toon:

• Filter by Gadget Set (ex. Show me “Health Vacuum” Gadgets).
• Sort your available Gadgets by Stat bonus or rarity (ex. Show me gadgets that increase Crit. Damage the most).
• Equip and Unequip available Gadgets.
• Move Gadgets from another toon to this one.
• Need more Gadgets of a specific set? Tap FIND to go get some.

GADGETS IN BATTLE

During Battle, your Gadget activated abilities appear as passive skills – just like all your other abilities. You can tap and hold any toon to see their equipped Gadgets. This works for both your own and enemy toons, allowing you to scout and adjust your tactics during battle.

You will most often face toons that sport Gadgets in PvP game modes like in Brawl, Arena and Alliance Wars. Enemy toons found in PvE modes like Campaign, Events, Tower and R&D cannot have Gadgets.

3. Where and how can we get Gadgets?

You can earn Gadgets from the all-new Gadgets Campaign. Explore the warehouses of ACME Inc., fight enemies and steal storage crates to find the best Gadgets! The Gadgets Campaign is a permanent addition to the game and lives right next to Marvin’s Invasion.

To participate, you’ll need some Gadget Energy and no toon restrictions, meaning that you can bring any team you like! 

The further you go into the Gadget Campaign, the more gadgets you will earn. Beware, the 6th and final act features the toughest enemies ever faced in a PvE mode. 

While enemy toons cannot have gadgets, they will have their stats increased by Boosts. Even the more seasoned players will need strategically picked and leveled up Gadgets in order to clear it.

4. What kind of bonuses can the Gadgets offer?

Gadgets unlock two types of bonuses: additional stats and new abilities. 

Let’s explore the abilities first:

As discussed, gadget abilities are unlocked when you equip multiple gadgets of the same set. These abilities are available from level 1, common gadgets, so you can try them as soon as possible.

At launch, the following Gadget Sets & abilities will be available:

	Gadget set	Equip (2)	Equip (4)
	Health Vacuum	10% Health	This toon has 25% lifesteal.
	Punching Stick	10% Attack	Whenever this toon defeats an enemy, it gets Attack Up until the end of the battle. If it’s an Attacker, it also gains 50% turn meter.
	Iron Curtain	10% Defense	Whenever this toon receives damage, applies Attack Down to the attacker for 2 turns. If this toon is a defender, once per battle, when its health gets below 50%, heal it for 30% max health.
	Slippery Oil	10% Defense	Whenever one or more allies are healed, this toon gains Dodge Chance Up for 2 turns.
	Anger Pills	10% Defense	Whenever this toon receives damage, it gains Attack Up.
	Spiked Poms	10% Health	Whenever this toon deals damage, it gains Defense Up. If this toon is a Support, also heal your allies for 45% of its Attack stat.

In addition to the activated skills, Gadgets grant 2 categories of stats: Main and substat.

• Each Gadget has 1 Main stat, which can increase Attack, Defense or HP. The main substat is randomly determined when earning the Gadget.
• Additional substats are unlocked when leveling up a Gadget. Substats can be any core or special stat (ex. Defense, Crit. Damage, Piercing, etc). 
• Substats are randomly selected and cannot be repeated on the same Gadget.
  

It’s important to highlight that Gadgets will not grant Speed. Indeed, it was important for our team that we didn’t touch this stat as, as you know, this can be a crazy game-changer in a turned-based RPG like ours. 

Devs Note: A lot of power from Gadgets comes from the Skills they grant. Those are available from level 1 Gadgets and are the same for both Common and Rare gadgets. It means that as soon as Gadgets are released, every player will get a significant power bump. Unlike Cosmic Stars, you can farm for specific gadget sets and then equip them to the toon you want. 

5.  Any tips on where to start and remain competitive? 

A good tip is to focus on specific gadget sets first. Gadget sets drop from specific battles in the Gadget Campaign. 

• Focus your resources on key battles to complete your desired Gadget set faster.
• Equip a full set to activate its Gadget ability, which will boost your power considerably even with level 1 Gadgets.
• From then on, start leveling up your equipped Gadgets by recycling your unused ones for Scraps.
• Soon enough, you will have complete, max level Gadget sets increasing your power, which you can move to different toons when you need an extra boost.

6. How did we ensure to keep the game balanced and the matches fun?

For the initial collection of Gadgets, we focused on creating sets that have skills that work with a broad set of toons, but are also fun to interact with. There are 2 Gadgets designed for each toon archetype: Attacker, Defender and Support.

We worked closely with our toons team to create a wide set of Gadgets and narrow it down to the 6 we think are going to be easy to understand, fun but can also create interesting strategic decisions – and upsets – for the popular teams.

After that, we playtested extensively to finetune for balance – a process very similar to the one we use to balance new toons.

We are excited to see how Gadgets will add variance to the dominant teams we see in Arena and Alliance War and what you, our players, think about your favorite Gadgets.

7. Testers’s quotes

We got to work with a few players while developing Gadgets and asked them what they liked about them. Here’s some of their quotes:

“I love the dynamic my toons can have now with gadgets… It feels that I can make my toon be more unique and if I use the gadgets correctly to increase my toons potential… I love to see how creative people will be and how they will choose to use gadgets.”

“Just seeing what each toon can do!”

“Some very interesting battles are possible thanks to gadgets”

“Feels more like an RPG game.”

“Applying gadgets to different toons and watching how that helps or changes their play. Hopefully, it won’t be terribly prohibitive to change gadgets to other toons like that since that is the part I find enjoyable.”