EPTBut don’t expect the game to be perfectly balanced following the 1.2 patch. Balance, explains Chris Sigaty, “is an ongoing process that, honestly, will take a year or longer to do. Even after Brood War was released we still patched and continued to drive towards a really solid final balance.”
I regularly read statements like this, not just from Blizzard employees, but also from players. Many of these statements imply that there were tons of balance changes and that it would have been a hard process to balance the game. Personally, I don't think so. I've copied the whole patch log and erased all parts, which didn't have any influence on the balance. It shows that there were only 4 balance patches after the release of Starcraft vanilla. The patches are: 1.02, 1.04 with the release of Brood War, 1.05 and 1.08, which is huge considering that it didn't come with a release. The other patches sometimes included bug fixes, which might have altered the balance in some ways.
So the last real balance patch was 1.08. According to creepcolony.com it was released on 4/18/01. Starcraft was released in March, 1998. Brood War was released in November, 1998. It took 2 and a half years to release the final balance patch for Brood War, but there weren't any balance patches after that, only bug fixes, which might have influenced the balance.
I just wanted to write this down, because balancing Brood War wasn't such a big deal. In fact, they did it in quite an occasional way. It certainly didn't took so much changes as in Frozen Throne and that game isn't balanced at all in the end.
I guess, Blizzard will stay sloppy about the balance and we can only hope for severe changes in the addons, which will probably overthrow a lot.
Here are the down-sized Patch logs. + Show Spoiler +
Patch 1.16.1
Patch 1.16
Patch 1.15.3
Patch 1.15.2
Patch 1.15.1
Patch 1.15
Fixed a bug that allowed burrowed units to be stacked:
Patch 1.14
Patch 1.13f
Patch 1.13e
Patch 1.13d
Fixed a bug that prevented the training of infested terrans.
Patch 1.13c
Patch 1.13b
Patch 1.13
Patch 1.12b
Patch 1.12
Added right-click feature that will set your building rally point.
Patch 1.11b
Fixed a bug that allowed SCV's to heal Marines.
Fixed a bug that allowed Zerg to build without the need for creep.
Patch 1.11
Patch 1.10
Fixed a bug involving burrowed units - if a burrowed lurker was attacked by air, it would stop acquiring other targets. Changed so that non-AI lurkers won't unburrow when attacked by air, which is a better idea all around.
Patch 1.09b
Patch 1.09
Patch 1.08b
Patch 1.08
TERRAN:
Valkyrie:
Damage increase to 6 per missile.
Acceleration and velocity increased slightly.
Build time decreased.
Science Facility:
Build time decreased.
Irradiate research cost increased to 200 minerals, 200 gas.
Yamato Cannon research cost decreased to 100 minerals, 100 gas.
Missile Turret:
Decreased cost to 75 minerals.
Factory:
Charon Missile Booster research cost decreased to 100 minerals, 100 gas.
Dropship:
Increased speed.
Goliath:
Increased ground attack range.
Battle Cruiser:
Build time decreased.
Supply cost decreased to 6.
PROTOSS:
Dragoon:
Build time increased.
Scout:
Decreased cost to 275 minerals, 125 gas.
Carrier:
Supply cost decreased to 6.
Templar:
Psi Storm Damage reduced.
Corsair:
Disruption Web spell duration decreased.
Zealot:
Shields decreased to 60 and hit points increased to 100.
ZERG:
Queen:
Decreased build cost to 100 minerals, 100 gas.
Ultralisk:
Supply cost decreased to 4.
Queen's Nest:
Spawn Broodling cost decreased to 100 minerals, 100 gas.
Hydralisk Den:
Lurker Aspect cost increased to 200 minerals, 200 gas.
Hydralisk speed upgrade cost increased to 150 minerals, 150 gas.
Spawning Pool:
Increased build cost to 200 minerals
Sunken Colony:
Building armor increased to 2.
Hit points decreased to 300.
Patch 1.07
Patch 1.06
Exploits
Fixed the Nydus Canal cancellation bug that allowed creating a mobile exit.
Patch 1.05
Reduced Academy cost to 150 minerals.
Reduced Science Facility cost to 100 minerals, 150 gas.
Reduced Spider Mine research cost to 100 minerals, 100 gas.
Reduced the cooldown for units on unload from a transport.
Hallucinated devourers no longer leave acid spores on targeted units.
Spider mines are now properly affected by disruption web.
Patch 1.04
Changes:
StarCraft compatibility with Brood War implemented.
You can select all burrowed units of the same type or cloaked units of the same type by using the Ctrl+select method or by double clicking.
If you have multiple Carriers or Reavers selected you can build Interceptors and Scarabs for all of them at the same time.
Cooldown times of units being dropped out of transports corrected.
Stim Pack causing Firebats to fire slowly corrected.
Zergling adrenal gland upgrade effects corrected.
Balance Changes:
Terran:
Wraith:
Decreased cost to 150 minerals, 100 gas.
Increased cooldown rate of ground attack.
Increased air to air damage to 20.
Dropship:
Increased speed slightly.
Science Vessel:
Decreased cost to 100 minerals, 225 gas.
Increased acceleration
Increased overall damage of Irradiate
Increased sight radius
Battlecruiser:
Increased starting armor to 3
Increased Yamato Cannon damage to 260
Goliath:
Increased ground damage to 12
Increased effectiveness of weapon upgrade on ground to air weapon system
Nuke:
Nuclear Missiles build faster
ComSat:
Decreased energy cost to 50
Starport:
Decrease cost of Starport to 150 minerals, 100 gas
Decreased add-on cost of Control Tower to 50 minerals, 50 gas
Decreased build time
Protoss:
Archon:
Increased acceleration
Dragoon:
Decreased cost to 125 minerals, 50 gas
Decreased build time
Increased range upgrade (Singularity Charge) by 1
High Templar:
Decreased energy cost of Hallucination to 100
Scout:
Increased Air to Air damage to 28
Decreased starting armor to 0
Increased shields to 100 and hit points to 150
Increased cooldown rate of ground attack
Carrier:
Changed build cost to 350 minerals, and 250 gas
Increased hit points of Carrier to 300
Increased starting armor of Carrier to 4
Increased Interceptor shields and hitpoints to 40
Increased Interceptor damage to 6
Decreased Interceptor cost to 25
Arbiter:
Decreased cost to 100 minerals, 350 gas
Shuttle:
Increased build time
Reaver:
Increased build time
Templar Archives:
Increased cost to 150 minerals, 200 gas.
Citadel of Adun:
Decreased cost to 150 minerals, 100 gas.
Stargate:
Decreased cost to 150 minerals, 150 gas
Decreased build time
Robotics Facility:
Increased build time
Robotics Support Bay:
Increased cost to 150 minerals, 100 gas
Observatory:
Decreased cost to 50 minerals, 100 gas
Forge:
Decreased cost to 150 minerals
Photon Cannon:
Decreased build time
Fleet Beacon:
Decreased cost of "Increased Carrier capacity" upgrade to 100 minerals, 100 gas
Decreased research time of "Increased Carrier capacity" upgrade
Shield Battery:
Increased starting energy to 100
Increased effective range of “Recharge Shields” ability
Zerg:
Overlord:
Increased speed bonus for "Pneumatized Carapace" upgrade
Decreased research time of "Ventral Sacs" upgrade
Scourge:
Increase hit points to 25
Hydralisk:
Increased build time
Queen:
Increased range of Broodling by 1
Increase energy cost of Parasite to 75
Decreased Parasite casting range to 12
Defiler:
Increased cost to 50 minerals, 150 gas
Hatchery:
Decreased the speed at which the Hatchery/Lair/Hive spawn new larva
Decreased build cost to 300 minerals
Increased build time
Sunken Colony:
Decreased cost of Sunken Colony upgrade to 50 minerals
Decreased build time
Increased attack rate of Sunken Colony
Increased damage to 40
Spore Colony:
Decreased build time
Changed damage type to normal
Greater Spire:
Increased build time
Patch 1.03
Patch 1.02
Changes:
Flying units no longer receive 'cover' from terrain features.
Fixed the bug when cancelling a guardian in high latency games that killed the Mutalisk and gave multiple refunds.
Increased the cost of a Zerg Hatchery from 300 to 350 minerals.
Changed the damage type of the Photon Cannon weapon system from explosion to normal.
Fixed a bug that could potentially, in high latency games, over-charge zerg players when morphing larva into units.
Patch 1.01
Changes:
Enemy Science Vessels no longer continually unmask after irradiating units.
