StarCraft 2 News

StarCraft 2 Name Change and StarCraft Race Video Overviews

2010-11-12T16:27:00.004-05:00

Blizzard, keeping up with its promise from two and a half months ago, will be providing StarCraft 2 players with one free Battle.net account name change. Therecently announced one-time perk is will be automatically credited to players’ accounts, and is advised to be used wisely – the next ones will not be free.

All StarCraft II accounts have been granted one free name change. If you’d like to change your character name, log in to Account Management and choose your StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty game license. On your game license screen a “Character Name Change” button at the bottom will initiate the request. After confirming that you’d like to change your character name, simply log in to StarCraft II and you’ll be prompted to select a new one. Please be sure to use this name change wisely.

In other news, Blizzard’s Official StarCraft YouTube channel has been updated with 3 new videos, providing lengthy introductions to each of StarCraft 2′s three playable races.

The Zerg:

The Protoss:

The Terran:

Patch 1.1.3 – New Battle.net Filters and Thor AI

2010-11-12T16:27:00.003-05:00

StarCraft 2 Patch 1.1.3 has been deployed, introducing new Battle.net game filters and a minor Thor AI adjustment:

General
New game categories have been added to filter Tower Defense and Tug of War custom maps.

Balance

Thor
This unit will now prioritize attacking ground combat units over Medivacs.

Bug Fixes
Fixed a desync that could occur when trying to watch replays that had a dependency on bank files.

BlizzCon 2010 Summary – Art, Gameplay and Pictures

2010-11-12T16:26:00.001-05:00

BlizzCon 2010 was massive – a massive gaming celebration, catering to fans of all three Blizzard Universes – StarCraft, Diablo and WarCraft. During our stay at the the event, Blizzard has provided us with some cool new information about its custom map plans, a few exclusive answers, as well as a wealth of information from panels and great hi-res in-game screenshots.

Blizzard’s StarCraft 2 : Wings of Liberty FAQ for BLizzCon 2010 focuses mostly on the custom maps Blizzard’s designers have been developing, as well as providing us with a few vague statements about its Heart of the Swarm plans. In case some of you haven’t been following – StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm is the much anticiapted first expansion for StarCraft 2 – the second part of the trilogy.

Q: When can the general public play the official StarCraft II custom maps showcased at BlizzCon 2010?
A: The custom maps created by the StarCraft II development team are currently in a preview state, and require additional development time as well as other work such as localization, before we can release them to the public. We plan to release these maps for free over Battle.net, one-by-one, over the coming months.

Blizzard’s StarCraft II Custom Maps and Editor Panel has provided fans and visitors with many answers and was also used to unveil four internally developed custom projects, including an Official, long-term supported, Blizzard DoTA!

Blizzard’s custom map production philosophy is based on the following trinity:

Find the “fun factor.”
Make sure the map is easy to learn.
Actively seek and encourage feedback.

Courtesy of SCL

Despite the fact that Blizzard is yet to receive major feedback, it does seem to take the first two statements in the list quite seriously, showcasing original, easy to learn and fun custom scenarious during the panel:

Left 2 Die
This is an evolution of the “Outbreak” Wings of Liberty Campaign mission, where the colonists on Meinhoff were infested by a zerg virus. In this cooperative mission, you and a friend will unlock, purchase, and use new technologies necessary to survive nighttime assaults by unique zerg units, repel their attacks, and purge the infestation.

Left 2 Die is a cooperative map where players hold out against hordes of zombies

Special infected are larger, more powerful enemies with special abilities

The base can be easily overwhelmed if players don't work together

Blizzard’s take on the WarCraft’s most popular mod and one of the most popular custom scenarios of any game in the world, Defense of the Ancients, looks absolutely awesome. Understanding the potential of integrating professional level DoTA play into Battle.net, it seems Blizzard has decided to take matters in their own hands.

Towers can pack a punch

The final objective - destroy the enemy base's center

Aiur Chef is perhaps the most peculiar mod Blizzard has even introduced – it’s an 8-player FFA map that focuses on … creating the best possible dish using the ingredients found on each map.

Aiur Chef
This is a whimsical eight-player free-for-all in which you control a chef and must scour the map for ingredients to create succulent dishes. Each round has a secret theme ingredient and three recipes to complete. Completing recipes grant you different rewards such as points, powers, or items. The chef with the most points at the end of three rounds is named the next Aiur Chef!

Explore the map for ingredients

Collect ingredients and return them to kitchen stadium to cook

Compete against opponents for points over three rounds

StarJeweled
StarJeweled combines two distinct game types into a unique 2v2 experience. The right side of the game is a match-three style puzzle game. Matching jewels and clearing them away generates energy. Energy is then used to spawn special units and activate abilities; defeat the enemy base to win.

Starjeweled is a 2v2 game that combines match-3 puzzle gameplay with tug-of-war style combat

Marines constantly spawn from each side to attack the enemy

Next on the menu, Blizzard’s StarCraft II Secrets of the Masters panel revealed many of the semi-hidden Battle.net ranking mechanics – most importantly that the goal of the system is to create 50%:50% W/L records for all players. A gaming eco-system where game are constantly pinned against opponents of similar skill level, until they either graduate to higher levels or drop down a notch.

The Battle.net matchmaker is an adaptive system, which means that the more a player plays, the better the system gets to ‘know’ his or her skill level, with the ultimate goal being for each player to be paired with opponents of equal skill so they win around half of their games. The matchmaker tracks wins and losses and creates a hidden skill rating for a player over time (which is actually a rolling average composed of several different numbers).

Leagues are explained as being simply 20%/20%/20%/20%/20% per-region divisions:

Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, respectively.
There are 5 leagues (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond), and all StarCraft II players in a region are split into these leagues by 20% increments. So, Diamond league players represent the top 20% of players in their region.

BlizzCon Rocks!

The panel’s biggest announcement was the planned upcoming ladder wipe, and the improvement due to be unveiled in Season 2!

New UI Profile elements.
Artwork based on player’s division rank.
Historical season performance records.
Top players get more detailed profiles and featured replays.
A single placement match to reclaim your division placement.
Masters League.
Grandmaster League.

On top of all these new features, two new leagues will be introduced to highlight the top players in each region: the Master League, which places roughly the top 5% of Diamond players in their own league, and the Grandmaster League, a very special, elite league which is comprised of the top 200 players in each gameplay region, which will be visible to other players

During Secret of the Masters panel, Blizzard has also revealed the following :

The hidden player rating consists of several parameters, and is not planned to be revealed.
Will consider introducing a per-race player rating in the future
Replay sharing feature will become available in 2011
Chat channels are due to be re-introduced before the end of 2010

Dustin Browder, StarCraft 2′s lead designer, was kind enough to answer a few quick questions exclusively for SK2news:

1) Can you disclose what % of gamers venture into multiplayer/battle.net without playing the Single player campaign and vise versa – how many players finish the campaign and don’t both with multiplayer at all?

I don’t know the exact numbers but it’s about fifty percent. About forty to 50 percent finish the campaign and a good number more than that play the first couple of campaign levels, and fewer as the campaign advances to the final level. Building the campaign was important in creating the multiplayer, and a lot of people still get involved in the storyline. Some argue that with how many people play Starcraft, campaign is not important, but we still want to keep bringing in more new players. There are always new players to be brought in.

2) The race win % gaps between the leagues can get significant – meaning it would be very tough to balance the game to fit all levels. What’s Blizzard’s most realistic goal on this? Is one level of play more important than another?

We start fixing at the Diamond level. Diamond is the most important. It doesn’t interfere with the lower leagues… well, maybe it interferes with bronze but it only matters if it the game cheeses up a lot at that level. It’s really as long as they’re having fun. There are usually 4 or 5 ways to deal with things like speed, range.. except in a couple of cases where it’s kind of tight. But we usually find a way to usually it doesn’t interfere with any of the other leagues.

Dustin’s own recent blog post on Battle.net has indeed shown that Diamond level gameplay is the most balanced of all leagues. But there are some big balance gaps in other leagues, sometimes opposite to the balance state in Diamond!

With Blizzard revealing most of their short-mid term StarCraft 2 plans, the only missing piece of the puzzle is Heart of the Swarm, which was virtually absent from all StarCraft 2 panels and events.

Q: Why didn’t you showcase Heart of the Swarm at BlizzCon 2010?

A: The development team is already hard at work on Heart of the Swarm, but we’re still in a relatively early stage of development on the first StarCraft II expansion set. We look forward to showing off the game in the coming months.

Q: When will you release Heart of the Swarm?

A: We know that players are eager to find out what happens to Jim Raynor and Kerrigan next in the epic StarCraft II saga, but it’s too early to share a release date at this time.

Q: Will there be a Heart of the Swarm beta test? When?

A: We’ll announce more information about potential beta testing as we draw further into development on Heart of the Swarm.

BlizzCon 2010 itself was an awesome celebration for fans, gamers and Blizzard staff – check out to following gallery for pictures from the many panels, contests , concerts and tournaments that took place during the event.

Patch 1.1.2: Roaches Get Their Groove Back, Void Ray Nerfed

2010-10-17T21:59:00.000-04:00

Surprise, it’s a patch! The newest update to StarCraft 2 is here and it brings with it some of the changes previously announced and a few more surprising ones. While it was scheduled to hit later this year as a part of an “eSports patch”, Blizzard apparently felt it was urgent enough for the game right now, releasing it as a pure balance patch. Here’s the complete list of changes:

General
Players will no longer receive achievement toasts while their status is set to “Busy.”

The messaging when attempting to load a saved game or replay from a previous version has been clarified

Adjusted the amount of points earned and lost by random team participants to properly reflect the strength of a player’s teammates.

PROTOSS
Buildings

Nexus life and shields increased from 750/750 to 1000/1000.

Void Ray
Damage level 1 increased from 5 to 6 (+4 armored).

Damage level 2 decreased from 10 (+15 armored) to 8 (+8 armored).

Flux Vanes speed upgrade bonus decreased from 1.125 to 0.703.

The Protoss Nexus’ hitpoint increase is quite likely a means to nerf the dreaded Marauder drop indirectly. Marauders, with their incredible anti-armor bonus damage and Stim ability, make for awesome commando teams: load up a Medivac or two with Marauders, drop them behind the mineral line, Stim up and watch the Nexus go down in blue flames in a few seconds. This mission will now take Terran players 33% more seconds to accomplish.

The Void Ray change is an interesting one. It continues the trend of Void Ray nerfs throughout the beta, further making the charged-up Void less and less of a flying doomsday weapon of laser death – and almost completely nullifying its use in fast “cheese” strategies. On the other hand, it makes the non-charged Void Ray less ineffective, perhaps transforming this unique unit into a more casual weapon. Interestingly enough, against armored targets and without being charged-up, the Void Ray will only begin being less effective than its pre-patch state after 12.6 seconds. Of course, up to this point, Void Rays were rarely sent into battle in their non-charged state, as players would first charge them up on remote buildings, destructible debris, or even their own units.

It will be interesting to see whether the Void Ray finds its niche on the Battlefield, now that its high price doesn’t mean terrible damage but the unit remains so fragile.

TERRAN
Buildings

Barracks requirement changed from Command Center to Supply Depot.
Supply Depot life increased from 350 to 400.

Medivac

Acceleration reduced from 2.315 to 2.25.
Speed reduced from 2.75 to 2.5.

Reaper

Nitro Packs speed upgrade now has a Factory Requirement.

Thor

Energy bar removed.
250mm Strike Cannons is now cooldown-based on a 50-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown available (useable immediately after upgrade is researched)

The Medivac, a staple of Terran play and a part of the dreaded M&M&M ball, is getting a small reduction in speed. This change is likely meant to keep the Terran slightly less mobile, as other races often have to utilize their mobility to hit the Terran when their forces aren’t around; it’s hard to go toe-to-toe with the Bioball.

The following video includes a great example of a dying, desperate and broken Terran fighting back with his last immortal Bioball against an almost maxed-out Zerg enemy. And winning.

As previously revealed, the Reaper is getting two nerfs in the form of a delayed Barracks and an even more delayed speed upgrade. Here’s what we wrote about the issue when it was first discussed:

Despite being completely ignored by players in the mid and late game, the Reaper is slated to be hit with more early-game nerfs. While on paper, Reapers have the potential to be great economy harassers and tech-deniers, their extreme fragility makes even the puniest defensive measure a prohibitive obstacle – and these can be found anywhere beyond the first few minutes of a game. It’s unclear what Blizzard has in store for the Reaper, but for now, it will definitely see a lot less play.

ZERG
Buildings
Hatchery life increased from 1250 to 1500.

Lair life increased from 1800 to 2000.

Spawning Pool life increased from 750 to 1000.

Spire life increased from 600 to 850.

Ultralisk Cavern life increased from 600 to 850.

Corruptor

Energy bar removed.
Corruption is now cooldown-based on a 45-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown expired (must wait for full 45-second cycle before usable).

Infestor

Fungal Growth now prevents Blink.

Roach

Range increased from 3 to 4.

As promised, the Zerg are getting the better end of the deal with this new patch. Their buildings will now be more resilient, the fragile tech buildings less deniable by other races.

Fungal Growth will now prevent Stalkers from Blinking, as well as Siege Tanks from Sieging, Vikings from transforming, and units from Burrowing.The added Roach range adds a new dimension of play to these units, which can now compete with other ranged units much more efficiently, be used in masses without loss of firepower in the back lines, and break down chokes with added ease. After all the Roach nerfs throughout development, these hardened Zerg bugs are finally catching a break.

Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where players could not cast the Feedback spell on Point Defense Drones.

Fixed an issue where the Phoenix would continue to channel Graviton Beam after the target died.

Fixed an issue that would cause Larvae to spawn and be hidden behind Zerg eggs.

Fixed an issue where players were unable to navigate to the Single Player page or watch replays after canceling map downloads from the queue.

Fixed a desync that could occur on user-created maps with custom mod dependencies.

Another interesting change today is to the Corruptor and Thor, both having their mana pool stripped and their abilities put on cooldown instead. Since both units have only one ability, which – especially for the Thor – are not easily cast, it makes sense to remove their mana pool altogether. This change mainly affects the Protoss High Templar, since its Feedback ability can no longer one-shot Corruptors or halve the lives of Thors who don’t even have their ability researched.

Overall, it appears that this patch furthers Blizzard’s agenda to make the game more “carebear-friendly”, removing more early game “cheese” strategies and making sure low-level players aren’t abused by them – even if they were never much of a problem in high-level and professional play.

StarCraft Win Rate Analysis; Future Patch Hints

2010-10-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

Dustin Browder, Lead Designer of StarCraft 2, has posted a lengthy and interesting article detailing StarCraft 2′s race usage and win percentages as well as gameplay balancing plans for the next patch.

For the Zerg race, the present looks grim (but the future seems bright!) – Blizzard’s numbers show that less than a quarter of all players play as Zerg.

Protoss are played 38.5% of the time.
Terran are played 38.0% of the time.
Zerg are played 23.5% of the time.

These cross-league statistics leave no doubt as to which race drew the shortest popularity stick. Indeed, the Zerg have become increasingly harder to play as the meta-game settled in with both Terran and Protoss openings being “simpler” than the Zerg’s fragile early game.

In reality, however, players that willingly pick Zerg are not the underdogs comapred to their Terran and Protoss opponents. The Diamond numbers are actually quite reassuring, displaying a fairly balanced 3-way relationship, while Platinum is currently favoring Zerg in terms of win percentage.

Win % in Diamond (accounting for player skill)

49.6% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
52.8% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
49.6% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Win % in Platinum (accounting for player skill)

56.3% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
47.3% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
44.5% win for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Win % in Gold (accounting for player skill)

61.0% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
61.1% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
49.5% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Win % in Silver (accounting for player skill)

63.6% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
50.7% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
51.6% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Win % in Bronze (accounting for player skill)

59.0% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
55.1% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
45.4% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Interestingly, while the Zerg are not as popular – likely due to being slightly less comfortable to play with, as Chris Sigaty himself had said recently - it is the Protoss vs Terran match-up that appears to be in need of balancing, especially across the lower leagues. We’ve highlighted those numbers in green. Curiously, Diamond-level Terrans enjoy a slight advantage over the Protoss – probably because of much better use of EMP, abundant M&M drops, and efficient Reaper micro at these higher levels.

Dustin also took the time to preview some of the balance changes planned to be included in the next patch:

• We’re increasing roach range. This will allow roaches to be more effective in large groups, giving the zerg more options in the mid to end game.

The Roach has received many nerfs throughout its life in StarCraft 2, and this change will definitely help settle the score in its favor. By giving extra range to the Roach, large groups of these units become much more viable. Not only can more of them shoot over their brethren on the field, but they’ll also offer nice support when Ultralisks join the battle and clog-up the front lines with their massive size. Busting up walled ramp-chokes will surely become an easier task as well with more Roaches firing.

•   Fungal Growth will now prevent Blink, which will give zerg a way to stop endlessly Blinking stalkers which can be very challenging to deal with in large numbers.
•   The Barracks are going to require a Supply Depot, which will impact a lot of early terran reaper pushes.
•   The reaper speed upgrade will require the Factory, which is meant to weaken a lot of the early terran reaper attacks that dominate so many matches, especially in team games.

Despite being completely ignored by players in the mid and late game, the Reaper is slated to be hit with more early-game nerfs. While on paper, Reapers have the potential to be great economy harassers and tech-deniers, their extreme fragility makes even the puniest defensive measure a prohibitive obstacle – and these can be found anywhere beyond the first few minutes of a game. It’s unclear what Blizzard has in store for the Reaper, but for now, it will definitely see a lot less play.

• We’re making a number of increases to the health of zerg buildings, which will make the very vulnerable zerg technology structures more resistant to raids. We don’t expect these hit point changes to have a super significant impact on the game, but the current numbers felt way too low.

All in all, this patch will definitely make the Zerg’s life easier. However, since it doesn’t address any of the complications in Zerg play that we mentioned in our post on the subject, it’s not clear that it will actually increase the amount of Zerg players. That will remain to be seen.

Zerg Ultralisk stealth nerf

2010-10-01T09:45:00.002-04:00

As can be seen in the patch note discussion of this thread ultralisk splash damage was changed to fix a bug.

This so-called "bug-fix" isn't so much a fix as it is a huge nerf. The splash range was as blizzard intended, but the unit radius +2 from unit center rule got a bit too crazy once they allowed you to target buildings with it. Now they changed it to +2 from the front of the target which fixes the "bug" but effectively nerfs splash range against bigger sized units. ~~Smaller units go largely unaffected. Tanks are also affected, but not as much as they are medium-sized.~~ This last sentence is wrong. See edit on the bottom of this post.

Result?

Ultralisks are no longer a valid counter to Thors.

Tests in the unit tester conclude:
- One thor barely beats one ultra with no micro.
- Groups of more than 6-7 thors vs equal amount of ultras with no micro can win. The bigger the group the better. Focus fire significantly helps Thors as ultras are unable to do something similar.
- Chances of thors winning significantly increase with chokes. Blocking a choke with thors is easy as they are big.
- Worst finding: If you spread out your thors even a little bit, they will receive almost no splash. In this situation thors effectively counter ultras now. It gets worse if you also target fire.

Cool would not have won his tourney match with this patch. Not because SCVs won't die anymore when a PF gets attacked, but because Thors receive significantly less splash damage from ultras.

Fixing a bug with a nerf doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. Additional testing is recommended if anyone is up to it. I did not test much with upgrades, except for getting 6 armor on ultras and seeing how unupgraded thors still counter them if you spread micro. Also I only tested a little while on 1.1 before patching to 1.1.1.

My own short test concludes that I am able to hit a few more marines than listed (but still less than 1.1 I think) but it does indeed seem that siege tanks are affected similarly to thors. Siege tanks only seem smaller but the selection circle size is actually the same.

While the biggest impact is on large units like thors, the nerf actually seems to affect all units.

New Battle.net Privacy Settings

2010-09-30T23:31:00.003-04:00

by Blizzard Entertainment // Sep 30, 2010 9:30:27 PM UTC

We'd like to make you aware of the new Real ID-related privacy options we've introduced to Battle.net. These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences, enabling the ability to opt in or out of the Real ID "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features or to turn off Real ID altogether.

To access these settings, log in to your Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net/account. From there, click on the "Settings" tab located at the center of the Account Management menu and select "Communication Preferences" from the dropdown list. The new settings can be found in the "Privacy" section of the Communication Preferences page.

StarCraft II Players Banned

2010-09-30T23:29:00.003-04:00

by Blizzard Entertainment // Oct 1, 2010 2:02:31 AM UTC

We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.

StarCraft 2 Battle.net Profile Picture Chart

2010-09-30T14:14:00.001-04:00

Here is the full chart of the currently available StarCraft 2 Battle.net Profile pictures. Enjoy! (Click title to view picture.)

Full Resolution: http://1dl.us/128587011775021.jpg

StarCraft 2 Patch 1.1.1 Fixes Best Bug Yet

2010-09-30T14:05:00.002-04:00

Blizzard’s recent micro-patch was of no surprise to most of the community, as Kragg, a Blizzard quality assurance representative, had already confirmed that theUltralisk‘s mega-splash damage is a bug on September 22nd – right after therelease of patch 1.1.

StarCraft 2′s 1.1.1 patch focuses exclusively on bug fixes:

Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Ultralisk cleave range was being unintentionally extended by larger targets.

Fixed an issue where the Phoenix’s Graviton Beam was automatically canceled if you used it just after the Phoenix reached 50 energy.

Fixed an issue where queuing Return Cargo on a worker would cause it to ignore the built-in delay after it finished gathering.

Fixed an issue where players watching older replays or saved games would experience stuttering.

Fixed an issue where some Mac users were unable to join games properly.

We now return you to your previously scheduled StarCraft 2 program.

Blizzard on Starcraft II 1.2 patch, Zerg balance issues

2010-09-29T15:27:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday, Blizzard deployed the first major balancing patch for Starcraft II, swinging the nerfbat at supposed Terran dominance. Already, the Starcraft II team are planning their next update, which as Chris Sigaty, Starcraft II’s lead producer explains, “we’d like it out by the end of the year.” Read on to discover what’s on the table.

Chris said to PC Gamer that the next patch is “largely our e-sport patch. A couple of big things that will be in there are support for the season rolling, so players can look at the history of how they did in past seasons. There will be bugfixes, balance changes and tweaks, too. Chat is the other major thing we want to get in there next patch. We’ll also add more significant features to the editor.”

The 1.1 patch began to address balance issues within Starcraft II. The changes seemed small – mostly changes to build times. But the community seems convinced that Starcraft II isn’t balanced yet, in particular, there’s a sense that the Zerg are underpowered. How do Blizzard respond?

“You can go up and read on the forums at any one time and there are a bunch of different theories about balance and imbalance. We’re being very cautious about making large swinging changes right now because at the highest level things are actually very strong. The things that we’ll probably be addressing are the 2v2 and larger scale games. Ultimately, the 1 to 1 is what we want to keep as sacred as possible, but as a result right now there are some things that we need to address in the 2v2 at the higher level. We’ll be looking at ways to do that without affecting the 1v1 balance.”

Chris is also keen to address the ongoing idea that Zerg remains underpowered – an idea fuelled partly because so few Zerg players made it into the top 200 Starcraft II players in North America.

“That’s not actually the case,” says Chris. “We have fewer Zerg players overall. I avoid playing Zerg as much as possible because I find them to be just more complex in general. Zerg, or rather larvae management is harder for me to deal with, so I don’t enjoy playing them as much.”

But don’t expect the game to perfectly balanced following the 1.2 patch. Balance, explains Chris, “is an ongoing process that, honestly, will take a year of longer to do. Even after Brood War was released we still patched and continued to drive towards a really solid final balance.”

SC2 Assistant

2010-09-29T15:23:00.002-04:00

Assistant for Starcraft 2 is the key to becoming a better Starcraft 2 Player! It will manage and replay all of your SC2 strategies and build orders! Simply enter them into the app and get them replayed with images, sounds, and text to you in real time as you are playing the match. This keeps you on track and will ensure your path to victory!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/assistant-for-starcraft-ii/id387267924?mt=8#

The State of StarCraft 2 Balance; Chris Sigaty Interview

2010-09-29T15:08:00.002-04:00

Despite the release of the first major balance patch for StarCraft 2 last week – or perhaps because of it – many discussions about StarCraft 2′s state of balance have been taking place, possibly even more than during the beta, when things were constantly changing and before people have had the chance to experiment with the game thoroughly.

Is StarCraft 2 balanced? While only little time has passed since the game’s release, many already argue that the game is not as balanced as StarCraft 1, especially when it
comes to the Zerg race. The Zerg have indeed been on the receiving end of quite a few nerfs during the beta. Particularly of note is the Roach, originally geared to be a fast, cheap, regenerating tank unit – which, during the beta, has had its armor rating reduced from 2 to 1, its supply cost increased from 1 to 2, its burrowed move speed reduced by 30%, and its regeneration changed and nerfed again and again to the point where it now regenerates more slowly and only while burrowed – a research that is only available at Tier 2, unlike in the original game, where Burrow is Tier 1.

Indeed, many players complain about the Zerg’s lack of viable options in the early-mid game: the limited ability to tech and macro at the same time (making a Queen prevents the Hatchery from being upgraded to a Lair); the extreme need to be reactive against Protoss and Terran early game attacks, which are themselves more diverse than what the Zerg can field during that period of the game; the much more demanding macro mechanic, requiring constant attention that one is severely punished for lacking; the lack of mobility before creep tumors can spread, and the competition between those and energy reserved for injecting Larva. All of these issues and more are even making some pro-gamers rant about the state of the game, a few going as far as as “threatening” to switch to a different race and to stop playing Zerg altogether.

IdrA, one of the most famous American Zerg players, has published his thoughts on the recent patch here.

The balance problems in early game ZvT come down to the fact that terran is simply stronger and much more diverse early on, zerg has to rely on hard counters to have any chance to survive, but cant scout in time to implement them.

Interestingly, in a recent interview, Chris Sigaty, StarCraft 2′s lead producer, said that he himself finds Zerg difficult to play and that he tends to avoid the experience:

I avoid playing Zerg as much as possible because I find them to be just more complex in general. Zerg, or rather larvae management is harder for me to deal with, so I don’t enjoy playing them as much.

On the topic of 1v1 balance problems, Chris does not seem convinced that any exist:

You can go up and read on the forums at any one time and there are a bunch of different theories about balance and imbalance. We’re being very cautious about making large swinging changes right now because at the highest level things are actually very strong. The things that we’ll probably be addressing are the 2v2 and larger scale games. Ultimately, the 1 to 1 is what we want to keep as sacred as possible, but as a result right now there are some things that we need to address in the 2v2 at the higher level. We’ll be looking at ways to do that without affecting the 1v1 balance.

Discussing the next patch, Chris slates it to be released by the end of this year, calling it “the e-sports patch”. Finally, and after months of being in demand, chat channels will be introduced:

largely our e-sport patch. A couple of big things that will be in there are support for the season rolling, so players can look at the history of how they did in past seasons. There will be bugfixes, balance changes and tweaks, too. Chat is the other major thing we want to get in there next patch. We’ll also add more significant features to the editor.”

Lastly, Chris makes a comment regarding balance and the time it took to achieve it in StarCraft 1:

[Balance] is an ongoing process that, honestly, will take a year of longer to do. Even after Brood War was released we still patched and continued to drive towards a really solid final balance.

Will patches be enough to balance the game, or will an expansion, introducing new units, be necessary for that purpose? Is the game balanced right now? Is the Zerg race “broken”? If you have an opinion on the subject, now’s the time to voice it! We are putting up a new poll on the sidebar to the right to investigate what you think about this important issue.

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Chris Sigaty also took the time to talk to PCGamer about the upcoming BlizzCon 2010 event and, most importantly, Blizzard’s decision to not show any aspect of StarCraft 2: Heart of The Swarm at the convention.

We’re still working on the details [of the expansion],” explains Chris, “andthe last thing I want to do is to talk about theoretical things instead of talking about what’s real.

However, Blizzard will hold a story panel with a Q&A with the fans, tying some loose ends from Wings of Liberty. Some Heart of The Swarm bits of information can be expected despite the promises to the contrary.