Improved Matchmaking for Teams

While the matchmaking system as a whole is looking very strong, one area we identified for improvement was matchmaking for arranged teams that were still in placement matches. We found these first few matches for arranged teams were giving them an unfair advantage against their opponents. Since so many new arranged teams were being created every day, this was resulting in a noticeable amount of imbalanced matches for team games. The corrections we’ve made should show an improvement for many team players, especially in the sub-Gold leagues.

When two Diamond league players casually pair up for a few games, the placement matches can easily become a 5:0 freeroll for the arranged team and a hopeless encounter for the random Silver league players facing the duo. The new and improved mechanism will provide challenging matches for high-level teams from the get go.

Improved Placement for Teams

Another related issue we’ve received feedback on and experienced firsthand is the difficulty of placing in a high league while in an arranged team. We made two changes that should improve the experience. 1) The improved matchmaking mentioned above will help teams find opponents of similar skill sooner and, as a result, help to more quickly place teams in the league in which they belong. 2) We also found we were being too conservative in how teams were being placed in leagues and have made some adjustmentsto allow teams to be more easily placed in higher leagues. 3v3 random and arranged teams will likely notice this change the most.

A complimentary aspect to facing higher-level opponents is progressing faster through the ranks, placing the team in a fitting league after fewer matches.

Team Matchmaking Improvements
We found conditions where the matchmaking system was forcing certain teams and players to wait longer than needed for team matches. Those conditions have been addressed and the wait times should be reduced without affecting the quality of the matchmaking.

A very interesting and insightful FAQ has been posted by a user named ExcaliburZ on the Battle.net forums. The post is one of the highest rated forum posts in the US and includes answers to the following, very commonly asked questions:

Q: If I’ve never played 1v1, but I’m 2v2 Diamond, who will I face in 1v1 Placements?

A: Your performance in other brackets is considered when initiallyseeding your placement matches. In this case, you’d likely be paired with a Diamond player to start.

Q: Do I need to reach a particular point value to get promoted?

A: No. Promotions happen independently of your displayed rating.

Q: I won 10 games in a row! Why am I not promoted yet?

A: Your MMR and sigma may not have reached stability, or the system is simply unconfident about you. Expected outcomes cause you to stabilize the fastest. Your MMR will continue to rise until you hit your skill ceiling, at which point your win ratio will decrease and your rating will start to stabilize.

Q: I’m in Bronze. Is it possible to get promoted directly to Gold?

A: Yes. It’s possible to go from any league to any other league, wherever your MMR and sigma stabilize.

Q: Is it possible I haven’t been promoted because my APM or end-game score isn’t high enough?

A: Both factors are irrelevant because they can be gamed. The only contributing factor to promotion is the end outcome (win or loss) and the skill level of your opponent (his MMR). This is confirmed by Blizzard’s Leagues and Ladders FAQ, found in a sticky at the top of the Multiplayer and eSports forum.

While Blizzard has not officially confirmed most of this information, many have researched these details thoroughly and have produced rather-conclusive results.

For many, getting to play StarCraft 2 is as easy as going to the store, buying and installing the game; for others, who have fallen out of the race to maintain a modern computer, capable of playing new games, it may not be so simple. Now that StarCraft 2 is finally out, the time has come to get some new gear, and one of the main things to consider is the graphics card.

Nvidia has just released a new graphics card – the GeForce GTX 460 – targeted at those wishing to get a cost-efficient gaming system without breaking the bank, and we will review it here today. As well, we’re going to go over some more hardware and recommend the best parts for a system built to play StarCraft 2.

At $199 ($229 for the 1GB variant) and including a trial coupon for the game, this card is positioned to compete in the mid-range graphics card arena and provide exactly the right amount of GPU-juice for StarCraft 2. Can the card really live up to this claim? The guys at Nvidia have sent us a shiny new EVGA GeForce GTX 460 with 1GB of memory to test just that.

THE CARD

First of all, let’s go over the card’s story and specs. If technobabble isn’t your thing, skip right ahead to the results down the line.

The GTX 460 is Nvidia’s second Fermi (GF104 core) graphics card, released after the GeForce GTX 465 – a more expensive variant that was essentially a stripped down version of Nvidia’s higher-end GeForce GTX 480 card. Not priced competitively, it didn’t do so well in the market.

The 460 is everything the 465 should have been in the mid-range market: as a slightly updated design, it performs more efficiently per clock cycle; it also has a higher price/performance ratio than the rest of Nvidia’s GTX line. It is indeed priced very competitively, performing better than the equivalent AMD model – the Radeon 5830. Not only that, it also overclocks like a champ: enough to outperform much more expensive cards and go toe to toe with its older and more powerful brother, the GeForce GTX 470; but more on that later.

SPECIFICATIONS

 —————————— GTX 460 1GB GDDR5   |   GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 ——————————

Graphics Clock                             675                                 675

Processor Clock                          1300                               1300

Memory Clock                            1800                               1800

Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)         37.8                                37.8

Memory Interface width             256 bit                            196 bit

Memory Bandwitdh (GB/sec)      115.2                               86.4

Maximum Power Draw                160W                              160W

Price                                           $229                               $199

TEST SYSTEMS

We tested 3 different cards in different price ranges, attempting to isolate GPU performance and determine the sweet spot for StarCraft 2 gaming. As well, two different CPUs were used to evaluate the impact of the CPU on performance.

System #1: Old/Mainstream

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 3.6GHz
• Motherboard: Asus P5B
• Hard Disk: Intel X-25V SSD X 2 (RAID 0)
• Memory: Kingston DDR2 800MHz 1GB X 4
• Video Driver: Nvidia – 258.98 WHQL; ATI – Catalyst 10.7

• Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit, freshly installed

System #2: New/High-End

• CPU: Intel i7 860 @ 3.8 GHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3
• Hard Disk: Intel X-25M SSD
• Memory: Kingston DDR3 1600 MHz 2GB X 2
• Video Driver: Nvidia – 258.98 WHQL; ATI – Catalyst 10.7
• Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit, freshly installed

THE TEST

Two different replays were used. The first is of a typical 15 minute 1v1 game on Kulas Ravine, testing normal gameplay conditions with two players only. The second is a 2v2 game, meant to test our systems in an environment with 200-food armies clashing.

We tested the GTX 460 under many conditions: 1680X1050 using the high graphics option preset and high texture levels; 1920X1200 using the ultra graphics preset and ultra texture levels; 1920X1200 ultra with 4xAA/8xAF; and 1920X1200 with 4xAA/8xAF – overclocked. We also tested the impact of the windowed fullscreen mode on performance.

As well, we compared the GTX 460 using 1920X1200 ultra against ATI’s low-range Radeon HD 5750 card and Nvidia’s high-range GTX 470 card.

You can download both replays here:

1v1 | 2v2

We measured the minimum, average and maximum frames per second (FPS) in each test. The more powerful a system is, the more frames it can churn out in a given time frame. In the 1v1 game, we started measuring at minute 5:00 in the game and stopped at the end. For the 2v2 game, recording started at minute 26:00 and lasted till the end once more. If you wish to replicate our test with your system, download Fraps, play the replay until the aforementioned time point, hit the Fraps benchmark hotkey while simultaneously unpausing the game (Hotkey “P”), and let it record on “Faster” speed until the of the replay.

RESULTS

We began by benchmarking the GTX 460 and quickly noticed that it’s highly CPU-bottlenecked when tested on the main benchmarking system with the relatively old C2D E6700 CPU, even with its high overclock speed. Therefore, to make future tests more GPU-dependent, all tests were conducted with “Physics” turned off and “Effects” turned to low, as both of these options rely mostly on the CPU.

To start things off, we compared the different cards to see how the GTX 460 holds up against them. We used the highest quality settings – without anti-aliasing (AA) or anisotropic filtering (AF), as the ATI drivers don’t support them in StarCraft 2 – to make sure the different graphics cards show their strength.

Since StarCraft 2 isn’t a particularly graphics-intensive game, it’s not entirely surprising to see the $229 GTX 460 performing almost as well as the much more expensive, $350 GTX 470. It’s also easy to see that our 2v2 test was heavily influenced by the CPU, as the different cards show very little difference between them in the minimum FPS measurement.

Next, we evaluated the GTX 460′s performance using different quality settings and added a test to determine the effect of fullscreen windowed mode as well.

While lowering the resolution and decreasing the quality clearly has an effect on speed, the GTX 460 is more than able to take on the high resolution and maximum graphics quality settings and allow for smooth play. Throwing anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering into the mix and further increasing image quality still allows an acceptable gaming experience, though the intensive 2v2 test brings the minimum FPS level below what we’d recommend for serious gameplay. For those of you who are playing on struggling systems, it is important to note that windowed fullscreen mode takes a significant toll on performance. While it makes quickly tabbing out of the game easy, it’s definitely not worth it if it means the game itself becomes less playable. (Extra note: using an SSD makes tabbing out and back in, in normal fullscreen mode, much faster!)

Next comes the overclock test. As we mentioned, the GTX 460 is an amazing overclocker. Using the EVGA Precision overclocking program, our card easily achieved a 21% increase in core clock and 18% increase in memory clock – and we were quite conservative about pushing it! Using GPUTool and HWmonitor to stress test and monitor the card, we quickly increased the speeds until finding a stable point.

And off we were again to test the card! We chose to compare the most intensive graphics settings, running the ultra quality with AA and AF benchmark.

The GTX 460 benefits very nicely from overclocking, though the system is still clearly bottlenecked by the CPU. The most amazing find in our overclocking test, though, is the fact that the GTX 460 is almost completely unfazed by the extra speeds! Temperatures and fan speed at maximum operation levels remain almost exactly the same as when operating at standard levels; a 2-3C degree change at most, and almost 30C degrees below the maximum operating temperature as stated by Nvidia. What this means is that this level of overclocking can be applied indefinitely, increasing the value of this incredible card even further.

Lastly, we tested the GTX 460 on a system with an extremely fast CPU – Intel’s recent i7 design, running at 3.8GHz. It doesn’t get much faster than that, and it showed in this benchmark.

As we suspected, the mainstream system with the relatively old CPU is indeed quite bottlenecked by it. When installed on the newer system, the GTX 460 shows just how held back it was before, and confirms that it is more than sufficient to handle anything StarCraft 2 can throw at it. To get more information about different CPUs and their effect on StarCraft 2 performance, check out Techspot’s excellent writeup on the subject.

At this point of our analysis, we can whole-heartedly confirm Nvidia’s claim: to play StarCraft 2 at the highest quality settings, one does not need more than Nvidia’s new ~$200 offering – the GTX 460. And not only StarCraft 2, mind you; other reviewers have already crowned the GTX 460 as the “$200 king”.

CONCLUSIONS

In order to get the best performing computer for StarCraft 2 without going overboard with the expenditure, one should get:

1) An Intel i5-760 processor – another $200 wonder. Since StarCraft 2 only utilizes two cores, quad core CPUs such as the one used in our faster test system are somewhat of an overkill for it and for most other games. The 750 is the current sweetspot for Intel CPUs – despite its four cores, its price/performance ratio is hard to beat even in a dual core limited game – and it can also be heavily overclocked, which leads us to

2) A nice CPU heatsink/fan combo. We recommend one of the following models for their high price/performance ratio, quiet idle noise levels, and relatively powerful cooling abilities. Our first test system is equipped with a Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B, as can be seen in the picture above. Our second test system sports a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. The Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is a nice solution that’s cheaper.

3) An LGA 1156 board such as the one in our new test system or an Asus P7P55.

4) A good graphics card. It’s hard to not recommend the GTX 460 we reviewed here – it certainly does an amazing job and can handle everything StarCraft 2 can throw at it even at the maximum quality settings. At the $200-$250 price range, choosing the GeForce GTX 460 is a no-brainer.

To start off, we’ll focus on the common rush-type openings, before moving on to the more general gameplay strategies.

Reaper Rush

The Reaper, The Terran’s jetpack-equipped infantry unit, has been hotly discussed from day one. This super fast, ranged, cliff-jumping, light-damage dealing, tier 1.1 unit takes down workers in three rapid shots and can infiltrate an enemy mineral line before he’s able to produce a single unit. The fastest variation calls for building a Barracks and Refinery before the first supply depot, attaching a tech-lab to it and getting a Reaper out as soon as possible.

Since this is an economy-crippling build, the goal in this rush is to inflict more economy damage to the opponent than the Terran player has sacrificed for it. In low-mid levels of play, groups of 2-3 Reapers will be gathered first before an attack. However, in higher level play, players can smell a Reaper rush a mile away, and so, the Terran player will send his first Reaper to attack as soon as it emerges from the Barracks.

Reapers are basically invulnerable to tier 1 melee units and can kite those forever while taking shots at them if proper micromanagement is applied. The only exceptions are Zerglings on creep and Speedlings, which can catch up with the Reapers and quickly surround them. Still, with the Reapers’ ability to jump up and down cliffs, their survivability and harassment potential are greatly increased.

Some are calling it the “Terran 6pool” because of the somewhat obnoxious feeling one gets from being attacked before any defensive capabilities are available. However, just like early Zergling rushes, Reaper rushes can be defended against as well if one scouts ahead and prepares accordingly.

Counters:

• A single Stalker or Marauder in the mineral line, Roaches
• ~2 Marines per Reaper
• A Spine Colony or Photon Cannon + whatever units are at hand to chase the Reapers

Fast Banshees

Banshees, the Terran’s rotor-spaceships, are somewhat slow and can’t take a lot of hits, but dish out damage at an incredible rate. Despite being relatively high on the tech tree, the Terran’s walling-off abilities make this strategy both relatively safe and hard to scout. Getting these out to the field quickly gives the Terran player a good chance to find his opponent lacking any meaningful anti-air capabilities. With more than a couple at hand, the Banshees are very capable at hit and run attacks against anti-air defenses and units, wearing down the opponent until the mineral line is exposed and the workers are good for the picking. However, even single Banshees can take out their immediate counters in one on one battles – Both Queens and Stalkers lose to a Banshee in a head-on fight, and groups of Marines are not guaranteed to repel it as well. When the defenses go down, two Banshee volleys are enough to kill one worker! If that wasn’t enough, delaying the Banshee attack a little longer can allow the Terran player to research Cloak for it, making its harassment (and game ending-potential) even more effective.

Counters:

• Missile Turrets with Marines, quick Vikings with Ravens
• Spore Colonies, quick Hydralisks with Overseers
• Photon Cannons, Stalkers with Observers added later on

Marine Rush

As simple as it gets. Get a bunch of trusty Marines and send them to the enemy base, mowing down everything on the way. This build was very uncommon in the early days of the beta – the simplest things are sometimes hardest to see – but it’s been gaining traction as of late, despite the nerf to the Marine build time in patch #6. After getting a first Barracks and an Orbital Command, three more Barracks are quickly added (before the second Supply Depot, for brave players) and Marines start being produced in masses. The gang heads out to the enemy base, trying to take advantage of their long weapon range and concentrated DPS to quickly and painlessly take down any target of opportunity. With some micro inserted into the mix, the Marines will run back a bit after each firing cycle: this makes them take less hits from melee units and prevent them from getting surrounded as well as makes it harder for shorter ranged units to engage with their full attack potential. When the Terran player finally pushes his Marine force into the enemy base – usually supplemented by more and more waves of rallied reinforcements – the opportunity to deal a knock-out blow to the enemy economy is great, and the game is often decided right at that point.

Counters:

• Bunkers, especially with Reapers OR very quick Siege Tanks
• Banelings, Roaches and/or Spine Crawlers in sufficient numbers
• Quick Colossus, dancing Stalkers, Cannons + Force Field in chokes, Charging Zealots

Hellion Opening

Hellions, the StarCraft 2 Firebat/Vulture hybrid, have been seeing more and more use throughout all stages of the game. Still, one of their most effective uses is early in the game, where few offensive units are available. Their linear splash damage effect makes them particularly suitable for killing workers – especially if these try to run away – and makes the Hellion one of the units most benefiting from good micromanagement. The Terran player will get a fast Factory right after the first Barracks, on which a Reactor addon is pre-built, and then move the Factory over it to quickly start pumping out Hellions for a devastating drive-by on the enemy economy. With their bonus damage against light targets, the Hellions remain very handy later on, if Zerglings, Banelings, Hydralisks, Zealots, and Dark Templars come into play. While the Hellions can’t survive many hits, their relatively long range allows them to stay safely behind the rest of the Terran army, scorching enemy units without inflicting friendly fire damage in the process.

Counters

• Blocked ramps and choke points (units on Hold Position work well!)
• Static defense in the mineral line

Standard M3 Ball

Ahh, the dreaded M&M&M army. Much has been said about this unit composition – comprising Marines, Marauders and Medivacs – and not surprisingly so, as it can be seen in the vast majority of Terran games, in all match-ups. The reason, of course, is the incredible robustness and all-roundedness of this build – and some would say: ease of use. The M3 ball, composed of easy to mass units, capable in both defense and offense, mobile to the extreme yet beefy enough for a stand-up fight, is clearly the “correct” go-to strategy in many situations. With Marauders dishing out heavy anti-armor damage, Marines – the highest DPS/cost ranged unit in the game, who have a great anti-air weapon – and Medivacs, the mobility and healing granting fliers, the M3 ball can be where it needs quickly, counter almost any unit composition, and stay alive long enough to get the job done. With the three upgrades added – Combat Shields, Concussive Shells and Stim Packs – the ball can serve many Terran players for the entire match.

When building up for an M3 ball, one would best be served by quickly setting up two extra Barracks after upgrading to an Orbital Command. One Barracks should have the Reactor addon while the other two get a Tech-Lab. From then on, pumping out units is an easy affair, and the ball is quickly formed by continually building two Marauders and two Marines at a time. This build allows the production of a relatively heavy army while still teching up and/or getting unit upgrades – a must for a dedicated M3 ball. When a small complement of M&Ms is gathered, a Starport is built to supplement them with Medivacs.

The M3 ball is made! This well-rounded army can then push out, look for weaknesses in enemy positions, drop on unsuspecting mineral lines, or serve as cannon fodder for Siege Tanks.

Counters

• Siege Tanks, Cloaked Banshees
• Fungal Growth, Banelings + Swarm, Brood Lords in the late game
• Colossi or Psi-Storm with Charging Zealots

Mid-game transitions: Siege Tanks, Thors

Once the Terran player has opened with one of the above and successfully transitioned into the mid-game, the time comes to choose a unit composition that will best serve the next transition – into a victory, or at least into the late-game. The Terran race has a variety of options and answers for all situations, but some counters are very hard and serve almost no purpose against anything but their intended targets.

Siege Tanks

The Siege Tank, one of the Terran’s most symbolic units, returns to serve the same role in StarCraft 2 – ground-control and crowd-control. With the huge damage and splash effect, Siege Tanks are effective in all numbers, whether by softening up enemy units for an M&M blob or by completely denying an area of the battlefield from ground units when large enough numbers are used. Often, the Terran player will quickly get a couple of Siege Tanks after settling into the game and march straight towards the enemy base, slowly wearing him down with the help of the incredible long range of the sieged-up tank artillery cannon. From then, the Terran player is a Siege-Tank push away from victory – slowly leap-frogging the Siege Tanks closer and closer to where it hurts while keeping the enemy contained inside his base.

Counters

• Siege Tanks, Banshees
• Swarming the tanks when they unsiege, Brood Lords
• Immortals, Phoenix Gravity Beam, Dark Templars, carefully managed Charging Zealots

Thors

The Terran Thor, still a menacing unit despite the recent size cut, has slowly managed to find a niche on the battlefield, thanks to some patched-in changes to its attributes and a greater understanding of its role in the game a couple of months into the beta. Despite its cost, the Thor has many advantages and is very useful in many army compositions – and sometimes, even just by itself.

Since the Thor is able to take down many units – including workers – in one volley of its cannons, Thor drops can actually be very effective if done right. A Terran producing a Thor quickly and dropping it on an enemy mineral line will rack up a few worker kills easily and will also be able to deal with many offensive units unless they swarm him all together – in which case, it’s back to the Medivac.

Thors are also a great addition to an M&M ball when deciding to push out with one. Its great anti-air attack, which deals area-of-effect damage in a small radius, is a perfect complement to Marines against flying threats such as the Mutalisk and Banshee. The Thor’s special Strike Cannon ability is great when dealing with other Massive targets, since, despite not dealing much more DPS than its normal attack, the bombardment stuns the unit in place until it dies. Also, since abilities ignore the Immortal’s hardened shield, the Strike Cannons destroy a fully-shielded Immortal in one use.

What is the Standard

When Terran players wish to play it safe and solid, they’ll often wall-up inside their base while gathering the standard M&M force. Constantly scouting the enemy, additional units will supplement this basic army to counter upcoming threats to the Terran infantry: Hellions for masses of light units, mainly Zerglings, Banelings and Zealots; Vikings for heavy air units, such as Brood Lords, Void Rays, Carriers and Battlecruisers, as well for decapitating Colossi; Siege Tanks to deal with masses of tier 1-2 units; Thors to deal with light-air swarms; and eventually, Battlecrusiers to put the hurt on everything or break down turtles. Some pressure can be applied using Reapers, Banshees or Hellions, as described above, until the Terran player is ready to seal the deal with a well-timed push.

Addendum: Terran as the Real Infestation

While fighting the Zerg often feels like dealing with bugs that keep harassing you all over and are impossible to get rid of, the Terran race can actually play the infestation game just as well, “infesting” the battlefield and never releasing their hold on it. The Terrans have always been the turtle-friendly choice, but in StarCraft 2, thanks to some new tools and additional mobility, the turtle can now more easily spread around and hold more and more of the battlefield. Almost every Terran unit can be treated like a mobile turret with various properties designed to keep enemies away from the Terran mining operations. Their units have the longest range, their buildings are bulky and durable, and their static defenses – Bunkers, Missile Turrets and Planetary Fortresses, provide the most robust defense.

The Thor often makes more sense when seen as a walking turret, patrolling the base and guarding it from Mutalisk invasions; Vikings, one of the slower flying units, have an incredible range of 9, and are more than suitable for taking down Void Rays trying to penetrate the Terran base before they even think of charging up. With Siege Tanks, the building armor upgrade, the Raven’s Point Defense Drone and Auto-Turret, and the amazing staying power of infantry backed by healing Medivacs, a well-built Terran fortress is indeed the hardest to break.

A Terran player playing the infestation game will periodically take over an expansion, sending many SCVs to quickly put down defenses and buildings as well as Siege Tanks and the other necessary walking/flying turrets to secure the area. The purpose, of course, is to create a stronghold that the enemy will have to spend many more resources to remove than it took to secure. Slowly taking over the map while occasionally harassing the enemy, this strategy is often hard to deal with even if it’s seen coming.

Protoss

Forge

Build time increased from 35 to 45.

Life and shield values decreased from 550/550 to 400/400.

Situation Report:

We are seeing a Photon Cannon rush against protoss and zerg. Against protoss, players usually use a cliff edge or the enemy minerals in combination with their forge to protect their pylon. Against zerg, you can use the Forge and Pylon to block the zerg player’s ramp. We have a few numbers we can tweak to fix this, build time on the Forge being the most obvious. However if we make the build time too high it will be difficult to panic build a Forge and Cannons to block a badly played cloak attack. So we are going to try a mixture of health nerfs to the Forge and a small timing change.

Indeed, offensive Protoss Cannons, Terran Bunkers, and Orc Towers are all viable strategic choices. These have always existed in the tactical inventory of players in many games. As virtually any other strategy, be it a Zergling rush or a fast Nuke build, once executed correctly versus an unprepared opponent, it will yield a victory.

Mothership

Vortex now removes Force Fields within its area of effect.

Starcraft Scientist strikes again… for the first time!

Situation Report

Vortex continues to be an exciting ability with some known issues. Limiting how Force Fields are used around Vortexes will help fix a few exploitable situations. Our thanks go to the community for continuing to find and report issues with it. =)

This change is a nerf aimed at a tactic that requires the following:

• A Mothership and a well placed Vortex.
• Multiple Protoss Sentries casting Force Fields around the Vortex.
• Several Colossi and/or High Templars focusing on the resulting trap.

If someone pulls this off, does he not deserve to inflict the terrible, terrible damage?

TERRAN

Thor

Radius decreased from 1.375 to 0.8125.

Model size reduced to match new radius.

Situation Report:

We have reduced the physical and pathing size of the Thor just to make him more useable. This will end up being a minor buff to the Thor (which he didn’t really need). We made the change just to make him less frustrating to use. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this change plays out and if Thors become too dominant we will deal with them in other ways in future patches.

As discussed in the recent massive Q&A session with the devs, the Thor had some issues with its humongousity. This change helps a lot in controlling the Thor, which now has a much more standard size. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as awe-inspiring and fear-inducing as before.

Before:

After:

ZERG

Roach

Supply count increased from 1 to 2.

Many have been surprised by the recent, arguably hardest to date, nerf to the Zerg Roach. The Situation Report delivers an interesting rationale to the Roach’s food cost doubling, blaming 200 supply clashes.

Roaches are just too mighty to be a 1 supply unit. In 200 supply battles Roaches can be very difficult to deal with even with the correct counters in play by protoss or terran players.

Of course, the nerf also applies to the early game, where players will have to dedicate more Larva to Overlord production, also making each Roach cost an additional 12.5 minerals.

The Roach change caused quite a stir on Battle.net’s forums, prompting Nethaera to post the following:

As we mentioned in the original post, all changes we have planned are not in yet and we have been trying to be careful about layering them in and watching the results closely. This patch is no different and we have more coming down the pipe before much longer. StarCraft II is like an onion with many layers, but instead of peeling the layers, we’re adding them in like paper mâché only without the messy flour paste and with a slightly less predictable outcome.

More changes are promised, with everyone’s attention focused on the Ultralisk. What will happen to the Zerg race next?

We’ll combine the patch notes with relevant info from the situation report in order to present the full picture.

Balance Changes

TERRAN

Battlecruiser

The build time has been decreased from 110 to 90.

Situation Report:

We are trying to make this ship a little more useful. In reality this unit is easily countered by Corruptor, Void Ray, or Viking which may already be in play by the time it arrives, but we think it might see a little more play if it’s just easier to build.

Fusion Core

The build time has been decreased from 80 to 65.

Hellion

The range has been increased from 5 to 6.

Situation Report:

This is not an actual change to the area effect of the weapon. The weapon was always range 6, but it would only acquire targets at range 5 so it would get a little bit of splash that would hit enemies behind its initial target. By making the weapon range 6 it is easier to shoot and run from enemy units. It does make the splash a little less useful if you are just using the “attack move” command.

The Hellion’s range adjustment is in line with Blizzard’s recent statements about its plans to increase the responsiveness and micro-oriented benefits for certain StarCraft 2 units, Hellions being mentioned specifically.

Planetary Fortress

The splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.

Situation Report:

Splash

We have changed how splash works for several units across the game to make it always hit the dead center of the target unit. Previously splash was centered on the front of the target unit. This makes splash generally more effective, though against certain large targets (buildings, Thors, Ultralisks) you will now not get any splash damage since the splash radius will be contained entirely within the radius of the large target.

Raven

Seeker Missile range has been decreased from 9 to 6.

Seeker Missile splash radius has been decreased from 2.4 to 2.

Seeker Missile upgrade no longer requires Fusion Core.

Situation Report:

We are hoping to see some more Seeker missiles without unbalancing the unit. At the same time we want to reduce the effectiveness of Seeker missile in 2v2 games where mass Ravens have (on occasion) been a problem.

Siege Tank

Life increased from 150 to 160.

Siege Mode splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.

Situation Report:

Siege Tanks are seeing good use in several match-ups but we still think they could be a little tougher so they can maybe get in one more shot during big fights.

The Tank’s hit point increase comes to address the simple and obvious truth – for a tank, the Terran Siege Tank is a mighty fragile unit. Ironically, tanks can’t tank at all, and more often than not, a Terran Bio-ball is used for tanking damage while the tanks deliver their AoE blows.

Thor

Ground damage decreased from 45 to 30.

Ground rate of fire improved from 1.93 to 1.28.

Air damage changed from 8 (+4 Light) to 6 (+6 Light).

250mm Strike Cannons are now an upgrade at the Factory Tech Lab.

250mm Strike Cannons research now costs 150/150 and 110 seconds.

250mm Strike Cannons energy cost increased from 100 to 150.

Anti-Air splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.

Situation Report:

The damage change reduces the Thor’s opening burst, which will mean that some units will be able to shoot a little longer before being destroyed. The increase in rate of fire means the damage-per-second remains the same, but it does change a few relationships. Thors are no longer as effective against Roaches (for example) without fire support from Marauders.

The Thor Strike Cannons have become an upgrade to try to help out the Ultralisk, who is countered so hard by this attack that we see very few Ultralisks in Terran vs. Zerg. This is (of course) not enough to really change that relationship, but we have some more plans for the Ultralisk in the next patch.
The anti-air changes make Thors a little more clear in their role as an anti-light AA weapon which gives more value to Vikings and Marines.

All three Massive ground units – the Terran Thor, Protoss Colossus and Zerg Ultralisk have received significant adjustments to their damage output. The Thor, being a mega-hard counter to the Ultralisk due to the stun and focused heavy damage effect of its Strike Cannons ability, has gone the way of the Marauder, and now requires a research to match its pre-patch state. It’s worthwhile to note that with this change, the Thor will no longer one-shot Hydralisks.

PROTOSS

Archon

The splash radius has been increased from 0.8 to 1.

Splash damage now originates from the center of the target, rather than the impact location near the unit in order to maintain more reliable splash damage.

Situation Report:

This minor buff to the Archon makes it a little bit more useful but doesn’t really change a lot of its core relationships. We still view the Archon as a recycle for a High Templar who is out of mana and not a core unit that you will build unless you are facing very specific opposition (like mass Mutalisks for example).

Colossus

The damage has been decreased from 20 to 15.

The rate of fire has been improved from 2.2 to 1.65.

Situation Report:

The changes to the Colossus damage and rate of fire are similar to the changes to the Thor. They reduce the burst damage from the Colossus so fewer units will die in the initial blast and get to shoot a little bit longer before they are hit by more blasts. The damage is lower, but the damage per second is DPS is the same.

Phoenix

Can now attack while moving.

Situation Report:

This is a huge change that allows a Phoenix to dance around Mutalisks and other air units and attack them while moving. Phoenix always did hard-counter Mutalisks, but now even a very small number of Phoenix can challenge a very large number of Mutalisks so long as they are willing to attack and move away. Use your Phoenix to keep out of the Mutalisk attack range while firing yourself and you can do a lot of damage to a pack of Mutalisks.

Sentry

The damage has been decreased from 8 to 6.

Situation Report:

We are seeing a lot of Force Fields which we really, really like. We don’t want to see fewer Force Fields, but we do want to see a higher cost for those Force Fields. By reducing Sentry damage we believe that Protoss players will have to be more careful about the number of Sentry they make.

The Sentry damage reduction is reminiscent of the Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos caster nerf several years ago. Before the nerf, it was common to mass casters because of the relatively high damage output coupled with bonus ability spam such builds enabled. With a 25% damage nerf, the Sentry’s damage per cost is significantly reduced, forcing Protoss players to not rely on them as much as they did before. While the Sentry was previously an important anti-Mutalisk unit for the Protoss, the Phoenix buff will certainly help balance this change.

ZERG

Brood Lord

Life has been decreased from 275 to 225.

Armor has been decreased from 2 to 1.

Situation Report:

Broodlords are awesome. They needed to be a little weaker. They should still be pretty scary.

Corruptor

Corruptor damage changed from 12 (+10 Massive) to 14 (+6 Massive).

Corruptor speed increased from 2.75 to 2.9531

Corruption ability redesigned:

Single target.

Increases damage taken by 20%.

Lasts 30 seconds.

Costs 100 energy.

Range 6.

Cannot target structures.

Situation Report:

All of these changes are a buff to the Corruptor. You will pay less gas for a similar level of Corruptor fire power. The Corruptor is faster and more able to keep up with your Mutalisks. In addition its special ability has changed. You no longer use Corruptors just to stun important enemy buildings but you can weaken important enemy units on the battlefield to make them more vulnerable to attack by both your air and ground units.

Infestor

Neural Parasite is now an upgrade at the Infestation Pit.

Neural Parasite research costs 150/150 and 110 seconds.

Neural Parasite can now target Air units.

Neural Parasite energy cost increased from 50 to 100.

Situation Report:

The changes to Neural Parasite are there to try to protect the Ultralisk from being mind controlled too easily. It is also consistent with what we think the power level of the ability is against Thor and other units. We have also buffed the ability to allow it to target air units so you can use it as a defense against Void Rays.

Spine Crawler

The root time has been increased from 6 to 12.

Situation Report:

At some levels of play we are seeing spine crawlers used to protect a Zerg player until he can advance to some dangerous technology (like Mutalisks). In these cases players are using Spine Crawlers almost exclusively to defend themselves and the ability to move the Crawler as a way to protect not only their base but their expansion as well. We want there to be a higher cost to this strategy and more risk associated with choosing to go “Only Spine Crawler.”

Spore Crawler

The root time has been increased from 6 to 12.

Ultralisk

Damage has been increased from 18 to 25.

Situation Report:

We are buffing the Ultralisk, but we don’t think this buff is sufficient. Expect more changes to the Ultralisk in the next patch.

As a concept, the Ultralisk is awesome. It warms our heart to see Ultralisks used in high-level gameplay. Few effects can match a giant, 600 HP-strong, über-armored biological monster dishing melee splash damage. However, the Ultralisk’s cost and its front-line battle position (unlike the Terran Thor and Protoss Colossus) make it a prime target for strong single-target effects like Neural Parasite and the stunning/damaging Strike Cannons – both being nerfed in the recent patch.

The patch also brings numerous minor bug fixes, hotkey swaps and leftie key layout changes – all found here.

All in all, this patch feels like an attempt to refine the game, pushing players from all races to diversify their builds and incorporate different units into their army. It will be interesting to see whether Blizzard succeeds in doing this and what other changes are in store, especially for the Ultralisk!

Q: There has been talks about possibly changing the queen a bit, can you elaborate if that is indeed true?
A: We have no current plans to change the queen, bearing possible balance changes.

Q: Are there plans to release a chat utility to be used outside of game, similar to say how steam/xfire currently works?
A: Eventually we would like an external client for chat and other Battle.net related features, but we don’t have anything firmly planned at this point.

Q: What unit do you feel is completely different from when it was first designed [in both art and gameplay] within SC2?
A: The Corruptor has changed many times in his life cycle, though he was always designed as an anti-air unit. The Mothership has had a long list of different abilities that have changed substantially over the years.

The Mothership is indeed one of the units that the developers have played around with the most. Many different abilities and attributes had been given to and lifted from it before it attained its current form – some just recently, in the first two patches of the beta.

Q. Currently, FPS UMS maps are viable but prevented by lag. Are there any plans to reduce Battle.net 2.0′s minimum latency from 250ms?
A. In the newest patch latency network turns have been reduced to 125ms latency. We’d love to see an FPS-like custom map in the beta as soon as publishing is available!

The latency discussed here is the time between each game-state update over the network, translated to the delay between issuing an order and the game acknowledging it. Previously, at 250ms, this value was relatively high (although still lower than that of StarCraft 1) for modern games, and many have questioned Blizzard’s decision about it. Blizzard has previously discussed this issue and promised to review it over the beta, the result showing here.

However, 125ms of latency is still quite high for first person shooters (FPS) that rely on split-second decisions and super-tuned reflexes. These sort of games require a sub-50ms latency to really be played smoothly, and so the reduction is still unsatisfactory when it comes to this genre. Surely, not all FPS games are of the Quake and Counter-Strike variety, and there’s plenty of room for less twitchy first person experiences with the StarCraft 2 engine.

Of course, all of this is purely theoretical for someone whose connection’s latency isn’t equal to, or lower than, 125ms to begin with. Since many players will indeed not reach these relatively low latency values, Blizzard had originally opted to even the playground by setting a higher hard cap.

Q. Any plans to allow allies to see one another’s resource and supply totals as was possible in past Blizzard RTS games? If not, why?
A. We had talked about this and felt that the additional complexity was not worth it in our current UI. It was also a tool that was largely used by players in random games to give grief to their less-skilled allies. But we don’t hate the feature and could get enthusiastic about if we saw a need while playing.

Another reason to implement this feature is neglected here: as many 2v2 players – both in arranged teams and random team ups – can testify, losing an ally to a disconnection or a ragequit is not an uncommon occurrence. This is when players can often push the pedal to the metal and leverage their ability to control two armies synchronously into an advantage and win what would otherwise be a doomed fight. Of course, without this crucial economy knowledge, the task becomes that much more difficult.

Since Blizzard is concerned with player interactions and griefing, this could be painlessly implemented to work only when one’s ally is down or as a toggle similar to the one allowing shared unit control.

Q. Any UI improvements in the works for commentators, such as the ability to hide the replay bar?
A. Yes, we’re currently looking at this and will likely have some additional features when the game launches for hiding some of the interface.

Q: Which unit was the hardest/most time consuming to work on aesthetically? Are you proud of certain unit? Does one still haunt you?
A: Thor is still difficult. We want to make him big and bad ass but then there are issues with him clipping or hiding units. We’re still polishing the God of Thunder. Favorite unit would be the Stalker, Reaper and Baneling. Simple design-wise but they add a cool newness to there armies. None haunt me. Though zergling with wings and certain dark templar have haunted our fans.

The Thor has gained a lot of popularity lately, especially after the recent improvement to its anti-air attack. Still, its humongous size makes it somewhat of an odd creature on the battlefield, and its quirky behavior isn’t always easy to work with. Can you spot the hidden Marines in this picture? (click to see them!)

Q: How does the dev team accomplish making StarCraft II units and maps “blend” together, despite three distinct races?
A: The races are pretty simple as we follow basic guidlines. Terrans are grey, bulky and grimy. Protoss are gold, smooth surfaced and regal. Zerg are brown, purple and spiny. With maps we usually try to make the textures more simplistic to help the units pop out. Sometimes when the texture gets too busy or dark (i.e. Creep) we lose units on them. We are still working on that issue.

Q: Will Real ID have more privacy controls for people nervous about sharing their real name/what they’re playing?
A: There will be parental controls available to prevent accounts from using real ID. Other than that players should create Real ID friends with people that they feel comfortable sharing their name with.

Q: Last Dev Chat, Terran was behind in all 1v1 and 2v2 matchups. How do the racial matchup numbers look now? Any outlier matchups?
A: We have several tools to measure race balance. The simplest is the win loss by race, factored by leagues. In Platinum and Gold leagues the numbers look like this.

• Terrans vs. Protoss 46% – 54%
• Protoss vs. Zerg 51% – 49%
• Terrans vs. Zerg 51% – 49%

I do not have the more interesting numbers that factor for player skill. The last time I saw these numbers Zerg were ahead of Protoss, Protoss were ahead of Terrans and Terrans and Zerg were fairly even.

Obviously there is a lot more work to be done and more beta time in front of us but we are very pleased with the current numbers.

Considering how complicated and profoundly different StarCraft 2′s races are, achieving such a level of balance in less than three months of beta is undoubtedly a win for Blizzard.

Q: Are there any plans to allow creep to spill over the edge of cliffs?
A: We do not plan to have creep spread down cliffs. We like that there are some restrictions to creep movement.

Q: Do you think you will add any new units (or take any out) before release or is the current unit roster definite?
A: I doubt we will cut units but I expect that we will make some changes to current units. The Phoenix and Corruptor are currently being evaluated and may see some changes in the next few weeks.

Previously, the developers made it very clear that they’re not afraid to cut (or add) new units during the beta. As the beta progresses and the balance solidifies, the chances of seeing new units diminishes.

Q. Currently the Map Editor has a small variety of unit/item models for mappers to use. Will there be additions to usable models?
A. Yes. Currently the beta is limited to objects ONLY in the beta, which is a limited number of tilesets and no campaign units or objects. There will be a much larger set of models and assets for mappers to use at launch.

Q. The Hydralisk attack animation has gotten a lot of complaints in beta. Will it get its acid back as a part of its attack?
A. The Hydra attack was always meant to be spines. In the original game you couldn’t see that so we gooped it up. Now with Banelings exploding goop and the Roach attack’s looking all gooby, we thought that the Hydras would look more unique having the original spine idea incorporated back in.

FYI: Goop and gooby are Samwise trademarks.

Q. Do you plan to implement 3v3 and 4v4 match-ups at some point during the beta? If so, when?
A. We do intend to release 3v3 and 4v4 matchmaking in the beta around the middle of May. We will likely limit the number of maps because we still want players to primarily focus on 1v1 games to continue to help test balance.

Q: With the large discussion on Zerg changes, is there any planned? Or do you believe that they’re not being used fully?
A: We are looking at changes to the Corruptor. We are looking at the balance on Ultralisk and Infestor. We are not planning to introduce new units at this time, though we shall see as Beta progresses. =)

The Zerg race still stands out as the one most in-need of refining. Since many Zerg match-ups still revolve around fewer units than the two other races, Blizzard will definitely seek to make other options more attractive at all levels of play.

Q: Will we be able to use original units for the map editor before release?
A: No. The beta editor will not include campaign units prior to release.

Q: Do you feel that micro needs to play more of a role in SC2? Will moving shot be re-introduced?
A: I don’t that we need MORE micro in SC2. We have a ton of it. But we are always looking to make the game more fun. A large number of units do drift in SC2 as they shoot (I assume that is what you are asking about). However our engine is a lot more precise than the original StarCraft so when you tell a unit to do something, it does it. We did find a few units this week that we felt were less responsive than we wanted (Hellion for example) and we will be making some changes to make them more responsive in a future patch.

It is a different game, we did make a new engine. We will never be able to duplicate the controls of the original StarCraft exactly.

Q. Will you be adding a timer in-game so we can stop using stop watches/clocks ?
A. We know a stop watch is desired in-game by the community and are currently discussing the feature. This is not likely to happen by launch, but is definitely something we’ll consider for a patch shortly after we’ve shipped the game.

While it may sound outlandish to casual gamers, using a clock to know exactly how long the match has been going on is not uncommon in higher levels of play. StarCraft is a game of timing, after all, and one needs to know when a Dark Templar attack might arrive to take care of detection or when a 2-base Mutalisk raid is likely to come in full force. The builds, tech levels and strategies the enemy is practicing are only meaningful if one also knows the stage the game is in.

Q. Any plans to implement a clan system that automatically adds “clan tags” in front of your ID?
A. Clans are definitely something we plan to implement in the future. No specific date has been identified yet. They will likely correspond with the first expansion or a future patch.

Q. Are there plans for a “Do Not Disturb” option that prevents incoming messages from showing?
A. Yes. You will have options when StarCraft II officially launches to turn off incoming messages and prevent toasts while playing the game. This may not be available in the beta prior to release.

Q: Do you plan on rework/rebalance of the Forcefield or are you already statisfied with it.
A: We are never “happy” about anything in the game.=) We are always looking at everything and trying to see if it works or it is broken. We think Force Field is a fun ability that has a lot of great uses that introduces a ton of new strategy into the game. We worry that it might be a little powerful. We are looking at some nerfs to the Sentry to create a higher cost for Protoss players who choose to bring too many Sentrys to a fight.

We will continue to evaluate the ability as we do all abilities during the beta and beyond.

The Protoss’ ability to instantly create a wall or a choke at will is seen as incredibly overpowered by some. While this very cool ability leads to highly skillful and entertaining play, it might indeed offer too great of an advantage in the hands of capable players. It will be interesting to see what solution Blizzard goes with for this issue – assuming they deem a solution necessary. An HP value instead of indestructibility, perhaps?

Q: Art direction in beta looks great so far. Will the Star Map make an appearance of some kind or has it been cut completely?
A: On behalf of the StarCraft II art team, thank you. We use the star map in the single player alot but it isn’t like what we have shown previously. A big galactic map is something I really want to use for future expansions.

Q: The damage modifiers have been slowly weeded out through the patches, have you thought about getting rid of them completely?
A: StarCraft had a damage system that was similar to ours only it was more complicated and a lot less clear. We are very happy with our damage system as a significant improvement over the original StarCraft and will continue to use it as a balance tool to try to create the best strategy game we can. There are no plans to cut it.

Q. Will multiple building selection for Terran stay like it is now and why is it so? (e.g. 2 barracks with different add-ons in one control group requiring the Tab key to switch between them seems odd)
A. We are changing the way Terrans build from their buildings with different add-ons. I get confused about what is live and what is in the version I played at the office today. =)

If it isn’t out now you’ll see it in a future patch.

Q. Will you ever give the Medvac a follow command that does not force it to pick up units ?
A. We hadn’t planned on it, but I can look into it. =)

Q. Are there any plans to giving Reapers more of a late-game viability, similar to the Zealot charge?
A. If we need to we can always add upgrades that make units more powerful in the late game. We have no current plans for the Reaper. Frankly the meta-game has not settled down enough yet for us to know what is and is not really useful in the end game. But I would worry about the Reaper and your suggestion is interesting.

Because of the Reaper’s extreme fragility, it tends to lose its usefulness when more units and static defenses can be found on the battlefield. In most games, the Reaper is sort of a one-trick pony. Once the enemy knows you’ve got a few, it becomes very hard to make any use of them past the early game.

Q: How far in the ‘long term’ are those plans which allow for swapping to U.S. servers on an E.U. account – or a global account?
A: Jumping to the region you want is definitely in the long term plan for Battle.net, although we do have some concerns about communicating properly to the player what’s happening if they choose this because it WILL affect the latency of the game. As far as a date on when, I don’t have one yet. There are a number of features that we want to make sure get out their first and jumping to different servers is lower on the priority list at the moment.

Q: Will there be cross-game communication options for people who don’t want to use RealID?
A: There are no plans for cross-game/realm communication without Real ID.

Q: Would you ever bring back the cobra for the thor? Seems like it would be a much better fit and fix mech.
A: The Cobra was not that fun. He is OK for solo but he does not have the precise control with his “fire-on-the-move” ability for multi. There are no plans to cut the Thor.

What’s a Cobra, you ask?

Q: Are there any plans to change the current high ground advantage to the Wacraft III/StarCraft mechanic or other alternatives?
A: No. We like the high ground rules and we think they are cool for StarCraft II. The random high ground from StarCraft just didn’t seem right for a such a skill based game. The clarity of “if you can see, you can shoot” makes a lot more sense to us.

Q: For several Australian players at a LAN, who have logged into a custom Battle.net game, will the game be local once initiated?
A: You’ll be connected through Battle.net. However, we’re locating game servers more strategically to allow the best possible game experience from where you play. For Australia we are by default routing games through the Oceanic region which should provide a much lower latency experience.

Q: Blizzard you ROCK!
A: You rock! Thanks so much for taking the time to join in the chat today!!

Q. Do you plan to redo the Hatchery (Lair, Hive) art so that it represents the classical evil, sharp-looking building from StarCraft: Brood War?
A. No changes will be made on the Hatchery and its upgrades. We added some of the sinister, spiny-ness (is that a word?) to newer buildings like the Infestation Pit and the Baneling Nest. The core buildings were revamped to be more of what a standard zerg building would look like. They now look like upgrades to the Hatchery as opposed to completely new structures.

Q. Will there be any more voice acting changes for the units and such before the final release?
A. No, the actors are final, though we may choose different “takes” they did in the studio or change some of the processing on their audio.

Q. Any plans to put decals on units as well? As they are now only on buildings, you don’t see them much.
A. There are decals on some (Marine and some others), but the units are already so small and clean we don’t want to mush them up with decals. We could put them on larger ones, but there weren’t enough big bad boys to do this to. Plus, it would delay the game. Do you want to be personally responsible for delaying the game?

Q: Really excited about campaign. Can you tell us about a mission that was a challenge to create?
A: We have a mission that takes place in deep space around a Xel’Naga space platform. This ancient floating artifact has powerful “Rip Fields” around it that warp time and space, doing damage to all of your units so long as they are in a Rip Field. Creating this exotic location and balancing the difficulty of the Rip Fields was challenging.

Blizzard recently showcased some of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty‘s single player’s original mission design and innovative campaign mechanics, demonstrating a few of the mission-unique units, artifacts and features that players will encounter over the course of the campaign.

Our biggest campaign challenges usually center around creating really unique game mechanics that tie to the story. It’s easy to make a battle, it’s hard to make a battle that really pushes your skills as a commander and asks you to do something you have not done in our game before.

Q: SinglePlayer – will we see installation missions in Zerg hives or tunnels? Always wished for this in StarCraft.
A: We’d prefer not to ruin any further surprises . . .

Q: People think zerg is boring and doesn’t support much diversity in playstyles, but it doesn’t mean imba. How do you feel about this?
A: We are always working on our race match ups and we will continue to do so. We have certainly heard this complaint. We think we have the tools to solve the problem. If we get more play out of Infestor, Corruptor and Ultralisk we think we might have a more fun and more diverse race. If that doesn’t work then we’ll evaluate what else we can do. We have some time left in the beta as well as patches after the beta is complete (not counting expansions) to continue to work on these races to meet our quality standards.

Still I don’t think the Zerg are boring. They can do some fun stuff.=)

Q: You boast fewer classic “kill everything” missions but will there still be some in the campaigns? They have their place!
A: There are a few missions that allow you to “play with your toys” and just crush the enemy. They usually have some kind of twist (like you are fighting on a giant space platform that contains several highly unstable fusion reactors) but they are at their heart missions where your objective is to search and destroy.

Q: Will the map editor be revised to be more newbie-friendly around release?
A: We have plans to put some new user help files online and additional help text, but overall the editor will not get many more newbie-friendly options as making custom maps is a pretty technical endeavor and there is already a lot of great information appearing all over the web to help with more complex development.

Q: Please clarify response: Has the 125ms latency update been in effect since the last update or will it be available with the next?

A: We put this in a while ago in the US to see what the community response was. We did not announce it (even internally) to see who noticed. There was suprisingly little response to such a huge change. But some of us noticed and we thought it felt better.

Q. The latest we’ve heard, the single-player campaign would feature about 25+ missions. Does this include the optional missions?
A. There are 29 total missions in the campaign. In a single play through you can get to 26 of them if you do everything. You’d have to play again to see the other optional missions. Of course, your experience through how you play those missions can vary widely depending on the technology, research, or mercenaries you’ve decided to purchase along the way.

Q. Getting custom script into maps is currently complex. Are there plans to implement Galaxy scripting directly into the editor?
A. There are currently no plans for Galaxy script editing in the editor itself. However, through the Import Manager it should be pretty easy to add in your scripts as necessary. Are you having trouble doing it that way?

Q. Flying units fly through the Colossus. Will there be any changes to make sure they fly over them?
A. No changes on this one. We realize this could look doink, but in a 3D game, the higher the flyer, the closer to the camera it is. We could shrink the flyer, but then its scale would be off when looking at the art from certain angles (mostly single-player). We could shrink the Colossus but then his/her/its cliff walk would look bad. We thought that it was okay enough that it would only be noticed by the most(!!)eagle-eyed fans of our games. Good job!

Q: Any plans to allow players to pick what races they want to fight vs off of ladders so they can get some practice in ? (ie: custom game search for only people playing X race)
A: We are aware of the issue of players not wanting to try new races or strats on the ladder and so we know there is a desire to play “unranked” play to get some practice. I like your idea, though I don’t know that we could get to it before launch. Sounds like something we would have to consider for a future patch.

As far as unranked play goes we are discussing it, what we still have time for is the big question.=)

Q: Can you detail how the map publishing feature is going to work?
A: Sure. Map publishing will allow the user to store a few maps or mods associated with their account. You can choose to publish a map privately which will not display the map in the custom game list when you open it up, but you ca invite your friends into a game on the map to help you test your map and ideas. Once you decide the map is ready for the rest of the community to play you can publish it publicly and then the map will be available for the rest of the community to see and start playing games with.

Q: Please please please let us, excited mac users, know when we can expect the client to be available on the EU realm.
A: We’re targeting next Monday to release the European English, French, and German versions of the StarCraft II Mac beta.

Q. After the beta has commenced, how many CPU cores will StarCraft II be optimized for upon final release?
A. For launch, StarCraft II will be optimized for dual-core only. In the future we will definitely be looking into other optimizations to support additional cores, but do not have specific dates yet.

With the introduction of 3v3 and 4v4 games, even high-end gaming rigs will be challenged by the amount of actions, pathing calculations, physical interactions and concurrent Pretty Explosions that a 1600-food battlefield introduces.

Or… one could produce an infinite amount of Overlords.

Q. Will Dustin Browder PM me his name & identifier so i can show him how to play his own game? =p
Dustin: Sir, you could not handle my terrible, terrible damage. But if you are playing in Platinum, I often play in the evenings and you may get your shot. Just play everyone to the best of your ability and sometime you may end up showing me how to play. =) Hell, I lost 4 in a row yesterday. Mabye one of those was you?

Samwise: You don’t want to play Dustin. He can’t even beat the UI, let alone the AI.

Chris: Only if you’re willing to cyber . . .

That’s all for this epic Q&A session. Chris, Dustin and Samwise deserve a lot of credit for putting it all out there, though it certainly looks like they’ve had fun doing it!

Players will manage their mission progress, research for upgrades, interact with NPCs and hire special in-game units from four different locations in Jim Raynor’s massive Battlecruiser, the Hyperion. Navigation is done by simply selecting the desired destination on the Hyperion navigation bar at the bottom of the screen.

Armory - Bridge – Cantina – Laboratory

These areas have actually been revealed after the press event in July, 2009 – an interesting complimentary read to the current post, which is the result of hands-on experience with the most recent version of Wings of Liberty.

The Bridge

This is where you choose your campaign missions. Key characters will appear on the Hyperion bridge during the campaign, allowing Raynor to interact with them.

Players can also access all of the previously completed missions and unlocked cinematics here. It is possible to go back and replay a mission once you have unlocked more units and upgrades, and it is sometimes the only way to get to some previously inaccessible areas and unlock some extra rewards and achievements.

The Armory

Here players can inspect, in great detail, various units that can be deployed to the battlefield, as well as access the unit upgrade console which allows purchasing upgrades for each unit in the game.  Unit screens include cool bits of information and awesome, highly detailed models of the units. You’ll  find quotes by “Franko Tildon, widely credited as the first fighting firebat, reformed mass murderer” along with other profiles for the people behind the units we know and love.

Unlike in multiplayer StarCraft matches, during the campaign, players do not research things like Stim Packs or Neosteel Plating in each mission. These are instead purchased while staying on the Hyperion with the credits you earn by completing missions.

Once you buy an upgrade, your units will have it for the rest of the game; no research required in-battle. Every unit in the game has two such upgrades: for example, Firebats gain +40% splash damage area for the first upgrade and +2 armor for the second one. The second upgrade is usually more expensive and powerful than the first.

The Cantina

There are many interactive objects spread across the room, like a television that plays news reports based on Raynor’s recent activities. A retro arcade machine featuring The Lost Vikings is on the scene as well – a classic Blizzard puzzle/platform game. The game was not functional during the press event, but the development team was pretty excited that they were able to integrate this classic into StarCraft 2, meaning it will likely be available when the game ships.

The fellow Cantina patrons will speak shortly when you click on them (but offer no real conversation options), but the Cantina is mainly the place to go when you wish to speak to the mercenary vendor. Once you unlock certain units in the campaign, these will be available through the mercenary, who you’ll pay with your credits.

The Laboratory

In the lab, players can research special upgrades that enhance existing units and buildings, as well as introduce completely new units to the campaign. There are two distinct tech trees: one for Protoss technology and one for Zerg technology. During missions, depending on which race you are facing, research points can be gained that can later be spent in the lab. Sometimes, this is as simple as thoroughly searching the map for pickups, and at other times specific enemies must be killed.

When starting a mission, players are informed about the total amount of research points that can be gathered, and you can go back and replay the scenario in case you missed some.

Check out the researchable abilities and their costs in the game (big thanks goes to SCLegacy for creating this table):

Merc Compound

Originally called “Merc Haven”, the Merc Compound was a Terran building that Blizzard created to be a part of the StarCraft 2 multiplayer game, producing Terran Reapers and Marine upgrades. In 2008, it was removed, and during the press event in August 2009, its current function was established.

The Merc Compound is similar to WarCraft 3′s Mercenary Camps, where special units can be recruited based on a unit production cooldown. The units are available during gameplay, however, unlocking the units for production is done by visiting the Hyperion Cantina in between missions.

Campaign Missions

During the visit, we got the chance to play a few missions and were also given a video with gameplay footage of two brand new missions, focusing on Raynor’s quest for Terrazine, an important gas resource found only on sacred Protoss ground. StarCraft Scientist has created a version of the video with descriptions and explanations of the gameplay, so make sure to check it out:

Each mission in StarCraft 2 has a unique feature, gameplay mechanic or goal that sets it apart from the rest. This is something that old RTS games did very badly – rehashing the same scenario over and over – and that newer ones have attempted to correct in recent years. As expected, Blizzard is trying to perfect the RTS campaign design with the lessons learned, and the results show.

Like StarCraft 1, the missions are sometimes interrupted with transmissions from units on the ground or NPCs who broadcast messages to you, the player. Unlike StarCraft 1, where the majority of information and commutation occurred in the pre-game briefing, StarCraft 2 transmissions are often interspersed with the game, greatly enhancing the immersive experience, keeping the player focused on the objective, and setting the mood for the mission. A portrait is shown on the side of the battlefield screen with the relevant unit or character until the transmission ends.

As previously described, the mission progression/selection screen has also been enhanced greatly, and is now a part of the story itself. You enter missions by clicking planets from the galaxy map, where available mission-planets are clearly shown. When you click on a planet, a relevant NPC explains what he wants to hire you for, and you can view the research point opportunities and credit reward before deciding whether or not to commit to it. Some missions, however, are mysterious. Questions marks cover the details, and there’s no telling what reward the mission might yield!

Once the player chooses a mission, the game returns to the bridge in a special zoomed in view where the computer terminal is seen. It displays videos, overviews of the mission, and dialogue between Raynor and NPCs prior to launching the actual mission. Overall, all these sequences are highly engaging and work very well for setting the tone for the following mission.

We were also given a chance to see a part of the Protoss “mini-campaign”, centered around Zeratul and his few Protoss allies. You get to relive the memories of Zeratul as he goes to a planet with archives of Xel’Naga-related information. There, he meets Kerrigan, and hears a disconcerting message about the future…

Zeratul must then fight his way through a map full of narrow canyons that is infested with Zerg. The StarCraft 2 Zeratul is very powerful, dealing 100 damage per psi-slice. Zeratul also possesses Blink – a short teleport ability -  along with “Suppression”, an ability that stuns units and is used by Zeratul to sneak pass the Overseers which can detect him and Brood Lords which are out of his reach. Later, a few Stalkers join Zeratul as he continues his quest, complicating matters and keeping the gameplay intense. It’s clear that the designers put a lot of thought into starting out simple while constantly adding more obstacles and variables for the players to watch out for, never letting the mission go stale!

The unit attributes, or “balance” in the single player game is very different from that of the multiplayer game. Units have different stats, abilities, and upgrades. With quite a few units that are not present at all in the multiplayer game, the single player gameplay is going to be quite different from what StarCraft 2 beta players are now used to.

Challenge Mode:

Blizzard is aware of the cold-water-dip sort of shock that players go through when they decide to dabble in multiplayer StarCraft. Most get completely crushed by even the lowest ranked players due to the difference in gameplay mentality.

Challenge modes will hopefully lessen that initial shock by presenting players with scenarios that are challenging  enough to force players into using the game’s more advanced mechanics. Currently, There are a total of nine challenges, which are divided into Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced mission groups. We got to play in two such challenges, one focusing on Protoss caster control and one focusing on multi-front army management. Both challenges were graded Bronze, Silver and Gold according to the amount of enemy kills attained – 75, 150 and 225 kills respectively.

The first challenge was of the intermediate level, and it involved controlling some High Templar and Sentries. This is a very challenging mission as you are positioned on a platform and required to use force fields and hallucinations to keep the enemy from attacking your fragile units while using Psi-Storms to deal AoE damage to masses of incoming enemies. One cool feature is printed messages in red text , saying “9 kills… Terrible Damage” when killing that amount of units. The challenge is not random, so players will eventually learn how to beat it by correctly saving energy and using the units’ abilities with maximum efficiency – an excellent preparation for online battles!

Another challenge puts you in command of a large Protoss army of a dozen Stalkers, six Carriers, some Zealots, High Templar, and a group of Phoenixes. You also get three Warp Prisms and six Warp Gates as well as full tech for ground units. Each group of units is positioned to attack one segment of the map with units that are easy to kill. For example, the Phoenixes fight against groups of Mutalisks with one Hydralisk that players are expected to target with the Gaviton Beam. Carriers fight against Marines and Missile Turrets, while Stalkers fight Terran Reapers on cliffs. To succeed, one must maintain control of everything that’s going on. Interestingly, one part of the challenge in this mission is that button clicking is completely disabled! In order to build units, issue orders, or use abilities players must press the correct hotkey on the keyboard. This is a great way to familiarize new players with hotkeys, which are absolutely required in competitive games but are often overlooked by beginners.

Overall, the single player component of StarCraft 2 is shaping up to be an epic experience. A lot of effort has gone into making it a unique experience among the somewhat generic gameplay normally found in the RTS genre, and it looks like it won’t be for naught!

Chronozeal

This strategy dominated the early days of the beta and can still be seen quite often. It is simple to execute, fast to achieve and quite devastating – especially before the Chrono Boost nerf, the 10 point reduction in Zealot shields, and the 30% increase in Gateway build time made it a little less quick and easy. This strategy involves quickly getting 3 gates up while building one assimilator for gas. While constantly pumping out Zealots and Chrono Boosting the gates, a large group of them could be amassed rather quickly. The attack is best timed with the completion of Charge research, which greatly enhances the effectiveness of Zealots. Not only does it become impossible to dance around them, they also surround enemies very quickly since the added distance already attacking Zealots add is negated by the superspeed. The toughness and relatively high attack damage of Zealots make this one of the first winning strategies for the Protoss in the StarCraft 2 beta. Evolutions of this strategy involve adding a Sentry or two, helping the Zealots take less damage from ranged attacks or trapping enemies with the Force Field ability.

Counters:

• Well-defended choke points
• Mass Roach
• Marine and Marauder balls with a couple of Hellions for flavor

Quick Colossus

After players began exploring the game some more, many have found the awesome power of the Colossus to be too good to pass up in just about every match. Soon enough, Protoss players understood that the Colossus literally wipes the floor with just about any ground unit, and so, many now rush to get one out as soon as possible. The most common strategy involves getting a Zealot wall to be used as fodder along with a handful of Stalkers and Sentries, with the Colossus laying back and lasering everything in sight with its huge, sweeping beams of scorching death. The upgrade found in the Robotic Bay is a critical one, increasing the Colossus’ range of attack from 6 to 9. Most players seem to understand that despite its cost (200/200), this upgrade is more important than getting a second Colossus out. Indeed, upgraded Colossi are a mainstay unit for the Protoss: not only are they easy to use effectively, but with a little micro, positioning the Colossus so that the the beams inflict maximum damage or dancing with it up and down cliffs is extremely rewarding.

Counters:

• Immortals, Void Rays
• Banshees, Vikings, carefully handled Marauders with EMP support in the early game
• All Zerg air units

Void rush

The Void Ray is a very unique unit with a distinct Protoss feel. Few tier 2 units in the game can inflict so much damage in such little time, and so it did not take long for Protoss players to abuse the potential of this unit. Requiring only the Cybernetic Core as a prerequisite and the Stargate to manufacture, the first 200/150 Void Ray can be brought to the field very quickly – especially with some help from Chrono Boost. Protoss players would quickly block off the entrance to their base, hopefully prohibiting the enemy from knowing what they’re up to, and then send 2-4 Void Rays to attack their unsuspecting enemy right inside their home.

The usual harassment at this point of the game focuses on the mineral line, but Void Ray rushers do not compromise for such petty means and go straight for the Town Hall. Players who lack any sort of anti-air will lose immediately, while others who can defend will spend the next few minutes losing various units and buildings to hit and run attacks while the Protoss player solidifies his economy and expands. Players who wish to use this strategy must make sure they possess the ability to micromanage these attention-requiring units, which are quite slow and not heavily armored, while also taking the time to take care of their economy and production.

Counters:

• Stalkers with Sentry (Sentries are light and, with Guardian Shield, take little damage from Void Rays)
• Mid-sized Marine groups
• Hydralisks

Dark Templar harassment

Still alive for the most part, and as effective as ever, or more so – now that Overlords are not detectors anymore. StarCraft 2′s Warp-in mechanic allows Dark Templars to be summoned directly to expansions, proxy pylons and to the occasional Warp Prism, hitting where detection is lacking and where the dark ones are least expected. Players lacking detection or an observant eye on the battlefield will take heavy damage before stopping the sneaky, hard-hitting Templar.

Mothership

Before Yo Mommaship got so fat, it was quite the unit to aspire to and get out to the field as soon as possible. Not only did its devastating Vortex ability cost 75 energy units, allowing it to be cast in every battle easily – it was also a fighting beast itself. With 400/400 hp/shields, a powerful, rapid attack that could take down workers (sans SCVs) and Marines in a single shot, a base armor of two, and an insta Town Portal button, the Mothership was often seen patrolling the skies all by itself, looking for prey. What was the risk?

Later in the game, the Mothership carried the entire Protoss army (or just cruised around with an air force) under its cloaking veil, vortexing everything in its path and destroying the remnants. Fortunately for the enemies of the Protoss, the wide range of nerfs to the Mothership have reduced it to something resembling more of a powerful Arbiter than anything else.

Counters:

• Sucked into a Vortex

What is the standard?

If one could point out a “solid” strategy, which does not either over-commit the player to a certain route nor expose him to a hard counter, it would be the standard Gateway/Robotics build.

Zealots, Stalkers and Sentries are all availiable practically from the very beginning, and Immortals coupled with Observers provide the early-mid game Protoss player with enough tools to deal with most normal threats. Healthy scouting and pressure that can be applied via the early attainable army would often counter most cheese tactics and allow the Protoss player to force an end to the game right away or comfortably segue into late-game play.

No more rumors, no more waiting. The StarCraft 2 beta is here, and we’re all downloading it like mad. In a few hours from now, the net will be flooded with all the information, screenshots, and videos we’ve all been waiting for – and a few lucky thousands will be providing them.

Just a couple of hours before the beta was unleashed on the suspecting but unknowing public, the official system requirements page went up on Blizzard’s support page. Only the minimal requirements are up at the moment, and they’re indeed quite minimal. If you’ve purchased a computer with a standard graphics card in the last 5 years, you’ll be just fine.

PC Minimum Requirements:

• Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
• 2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
• 1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
• 128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
• 1024×768 minimum display resolution
• 4 GB free hard space (Beta)
• Broadband connection

An attached note informs that these are not final. Also, it mentions that the Mac beta version is not ready yet, but will be available during the beta.

Important note: we’ve been getting reports of many people who have not received any email notification, but have just logged into their Battle.net account and found the following. If you’ve opted-in, don’t wait for a notification!

David Kim, associate game balance designer, has shown that he can handle the Protoss race just as well after winning the last Battle Report game as the Terran. He shines with the Protoss, handling their forces in an intelligent manner and beautifully micromanages his few units to inflict maximum damage on the Zerg enemy. It’s so good, in fact, that in some points it’s hard to believe the game wasn’t orchestrated in advance.

Consistent with previous Battle Reports, this game also includes the unveiling of a new terrain feature, which was likely introduced due to the fact that Brush wouldn’t fit well on the metallic platforms where the battle at hand takes place.

This brings the list of StarCraft 2 terrain features to:

• Destroyable barriers
• High yield minerals
• Xel’ Naga Watch Towers
• Brush
• Smoke
  

*Green – Smoke . *Yellow Squares = Starting Spots. *Red = High Yield

The map’s topography puts the opponents very close to each other, separated by a gap of space and a bridge with a destructible rock barrier. Scrapyard’s smoke placement is somewhat similar to the brush placement in Blistering Sands of Battle Report 2, providing enemy forces with a retreat/regroup/ambush option at the very entrance of the main bases’ ramps. The ramps are wider than “normal”, which makes sealing them early on more expensive and complicated.

Battle Highlights:

• Expansion harassment takes its toll on the Zerg player, preventing an early expansion and forcing the Zerg to expand 2 minutes later than planned.
• The Nullifier, recently renamed “Disruptor“, is showcased as a potent defense and trapping tool, easily dealing with Zergling harassment at 6:05, and demonstrating beautiful divide & conquer tactics at 7:25-8:10 to cut the Zerg forces into manageable batches time after time. This unit has been used extensively and skillfully throughout the game, defensively and offensively, and looks to be a great addition to the Protoss arsenal of powerful units which benefit greatly from smart, precise use.

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• A Dark Pylon is seen in “action” near the Protoss main mineral line, enhancing the Probes’ harvest rate. This is a remnant from earlier build, before the Dark Pylon was replaced with the Obelisk.
• Stalkers and Roaches clash around 9:00, with the Protoss micromanaging the Zerg forces into oblivion while continually warping in more and more forces to aid his outnumbered army, eventually chasing the Zerg forces down by blinking into range. The Roaches have also been used well, burrowing in and out of battle to avoid the death blow and quickly regenerate their health.

• David proceeds with some Overlord hunting using his single Phoenix, but the Phoenix’ true value is shown when its Graviton beam renders the Zerg Queen helpless while a Void Ray quickly melts it down at 11:00.

• Banelings deliver a massive blow to the Protoss economy at 12:00, evaporating around a dozen Probes in a second.
• The Protoss, on the counter-attack, decide to cut through the destructible rocks and make a shorter land path to the Zerg base… only to run into more cleverly burrowed Banelings, which quickly obliterate an entire company of bunched up Zealots.
• The Zerg employs its mind-controlling Infestor for the first time at 14:12 to take control of the Protoss Immortal - a portent of things to come.
• Total pwnage ensues at 15:55 when two Neural Parasite controlled Colossi “team up” with a hoard of Zerglings to eradicate a large self-trapped Protoss force.

It’s at that very point of the Zerg’s triumph that the true nature of StarCraft becomes apparent. StarCraft 2 is first of all a macromanagement RTS, and virtually no amount of micromanaging will save a player lagging behind from defeat. The Protoss player has maintained an economic advantage throughout the game and is able to sustain heavy losses for the purpose of distracting his opponent while pressing the offensive on two other fronts, completely obliterating the Zerg’s economy just seconds after losing the major battle by warping forces right into the Zerg’s nearly-defenseless expansions. The Zerg quickly yields with a “gg” as this excellent match comes to an end.

This Battle Report represents StarCraft 2 a lot better than the previous two instances. Both players keep the pressure on each other throughout the match with every available resource, from the first Probe blocking the Zerg’s expansion to the Phoenix/Void Ray combo picking off key Zerg units. It’s very apparent that the Blizzard players have had a while to work on their game and have reached the point where they’re proficient with both the tactical and strategic aspects of it. No unit goes to waste and every ability is used to maximum utility, from the Stalkers’ Blink to the Disruptors’ well-placed Force Fields.

Disruptors are definitely the surprise of this game, being built and magnificently used by the Protoss player before any other unit, replacing the Zealot in its traditional role as the Protoss’ first offensive unit. However, this does not mean that Disruptors are now required to play an effective Protoss game – both Zealots and Stalkers could easily be used alone or together in their stead to produce a viable early-game strategy.

With all signs pointing to the beta starting in the very near future, this Battle Report is great for exhibiting how far StarCraft 2 has already come. It shows that the game features all the strengths that made StarCraft 1 a masterpiece – and then adds some more into the mix.

Watch:

Battle Report 3 on StarCraft2.com

Download for Windows

Download for Mac