Question Regarding Removed Content in Live Service Games

[MaybeWantsToEdit]

I'm having this dilemma with Brawl Stars. In the game, a character called R-T had a Gadget ability that allowed him to fire a radiowave signal between 2 of his body parts, which of course, in-tandem feats allow the verse to be like Rela+ with Island KE (which haven't been evaluated yet). However, in the most recent announcement of the next update to the game, that Gadget ability is getting replaced with another that removes the whole "radio wave attack", since the original one was useless. Does this automatically dismiss the feats with that ability before in mind?

Note that the original Gadget ability wasn't intended to be removed in the first place.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

I don't know if we have a definitive rule for this stuff but I don't think it would remove prior use of the gadget, just that it can't be used for later stuff. Now if they said it was a mistake and it should have never been there then that could be something, but if there just putting something new in its place, I wouldn't say it makes the previous gadget invalid.

Question, is it the same gadget just with a different description, or a completely new gadget?

 

[Psychomaster35]

I think I've asked a similar question to this, which is regarding removed content in the form of an ability/piece of equipment that was once in the game after the full release but no longer there after a later version. Usually, if it was stated to be retconned, we remove the ability/equipment outright. Otherwise, it's case-by-case.

 

[MaybeWantsToEdit]

Question, is it the same gadget just with a different description, or a completely new gadget?

It isn't like a rework, it just straight up replaces it with R-T being able to teleport back instead of firing a projectile in between. Also it is incredibly unlikely to be "retconned" given the staff have said they have lore on the watch whenever they add something to the game (and just seems really specific for them to call as noncanon), though this seems to not extent to characters' abilities since they seem to be completely fine with being able to replace them with something else for various balancing reasons

 

[James_Plays_4_Games]

Hmm, this is a good question. Well, let's re-frame the circumstances into something familiar...

In a series that's a show, a character is listed as having scissors as optional equipment, because there was one scene where there were scissors on the table of their home. However, in a flashback to that scene in a later episode, those scissors weren't there. It's the same moment with a difference. This prompts the question: Why were the scissors removed? The context is important. If the scene was re-drawn or re-taken (depending on the medium), then maybe the scissors were simply forgotten or seen as too trivial to include, thus meaning it's still canon that the character has scissors in their home and the flashback just didn't include it for reasons beyond fiction. On the other hand, if footage was re-used, but the scissors were edited out, then maybe there is a reason. Maybe the scissors not being there is meant to set up an implication that will be more obvious when a plot twist happens in a future episode. As you can see, context is important, as you were already told.

Next, we must acknowledge that gameplay is less reliable than narrative. Gameplay can be tweaked any day in an update for a variety of reasons. Often, balancing purposes are the reason. It should be kept in mind that a general idea of how a character functions in canon is more reliable than the specifics of how they function in gameplay, unless the aspects of their gameplay functionality being observed are meant to not ever change. For example, in a video game, if an enemy originally rubber bands the player character during a chase scene, but it was programmed in a way that allows the player character to escape by walking, so the next build makes the enemy chase the player character at a fixed speed, then this establishes that the specifics of how that enemy moves during the chase scene isn't important enough to be demonstrated in one true way. The interpretation that should be prioritized is that the enemy has the portrayal of being able to be fast enough to threaten the player character, but the player character can run fast enough to escape. Narrative isn't bound by a game's programming, only human imagination.

Likewise with the previous paragraph, in a video game, if a character originally has a weapon or ability, but then an update completely removes it, the reason why should be strongly taken into consideration. Was it removed because "this shouldn't have been the case", because "alright, fun was had, but this has come and gone" or because "this was unfair, so it has been replaced with something else"? Even thought it was removed, would it still narratively make sense for the character to have access to the weapon or ability, and thus the feats that come with it? If the only reason why a character would've been ranked in a certain way is because of one feature that has proven to be not important enough for the developers to keep in the game, then perhaps the ranking wasn't solid to begin with. I think the reason why there isn't an official standard concerning your question is because the matter is subjective and ultimately depends on why the content was removed.