To download it go to the game and codes section of your battle.net account (In browser) and there you will find "StarCraft®II: Arcade (1.5.0) Beta" and download it.
The Patch 1.5.0 Beta introduces an entirely new Battle.net experience: the Arcade. The Arcade offers exciting new ways to find and play your favorite custom games -- and discover new favorites too -- with the option to search for games based on categories including genre, star ratings, release date, and more. After you’ve found a game that you’re interested in, the new Game Info page will provide you with all the information you need to know before you dive in, including a description, screenshots, instructions, patch notes, tutorials, as well as star ratings and reviews provided by your fellow players. The Open Games list will help keep wait times down by displaying games that are waiting for players too.
Patch 1.5.0 also introduces a new streaming launcher that should make download, installation, and patching times shorter than ever before, as well as an incredible array of editor changes and improvements.
When you log into the beta, you’ll find the Arcade has games available to play, because the industrious StarCraft II custom gaming community has already been hard at work crafting, refining, and posting their creations.
Now’s your chance to explore the Arcade Beta to play, rate, and review their contributions. To access the new beta test, just visit your Battle.net account management page and install the Arcade (1.5) Beta that you’ll find in the Game Accounts section. Your feedback is an important part of the beta process, so after you’ve played some games, rated them, and written a review or two, please visit the official forums to share your opinions on the new Arcade Beta General Discussion forum, or report any bugs you’ve discovered on the Arcade Beta Bug Report forum.
Visit our forums to read the full patch notes for the Arcade Beta.
Please note: While the beta installer is available to all players, the Patch 1.5.0 Arcade Beta will only be available in the following client languages: English, German, French, and Korean. The final patch release will be available in all languages as usual.
Hmmm, I was planning on posting a thread for this, but this is what I've gathered so far.
The Patch 1.5.0 Beta introduces an entirely new Battle.net experience: the Arcade. The Arcade offers exciting new ways to find and play your favorite custom games -- and discover new favorites too -- with the option to search for games based on categories including genre, star ratings, release date, and more. After you’ve found a game that you’re interested in, the new Game Info page will provide you with all the information you need to know before you dive in, including a description, screenshots, instructions, patch notes, tutorials, as well as star ratings and reviews provided by your fellow players. The Open Games list will help keep wait times down by displaying games that are waiting for players too.
Patch 1.5.0 also introduces a new streaming launcher that should make download, installation, and patching times shorter than ever before, as well as an incredible array of editor changes and improvements.
When you log into the beta, you’ll find the Arcade has games available to play, because the industrious StarCraft II custom gaming community has already been hard at work crafting, refining, and posting their creations.
Now’s your chance to explore the Arcade Beta to play, rate, and review their contributions. To access the new beta test, just visit your Battle.net account management page and install the Arcade (1.5) Beta that you’ll find in the Game Accounts section. Your feedback is an important part of the beta process, so after you’ve played some games, rated them, and written a review or two, please visit the official forums to share your opinions on the new Arcade Beta General Discussion forum, or report any bugs you’ve discovered on the Arcade Beta Bug Report forum.
Visit our forums to read the full patch notes for the Arcade Beta.
Please note: While the beta installer is available to all players, the Patch 1.5.0 Arcade Beta will only be available in the following client languages: English, German, French, and Korean. The final patch release will be available in all languages as usual.
The Arcade has arrived! To make way for this new feature, significant changes have been made to the StarCraft II user interface. Two new buttons have been added: the Arcade button, which will act as a portal to a brand new custom games experience that features dramatic improvements in finding, rating and playing custom games, and the StarCraft II button, which will provide access to classic single player and multiplayer experiences, including the StarCraft II campaign, multiplayer ladder, melee maps and more. The Battle.net user interface has been completely refreshed with a new look and feel.
Arcade Button
A new Arcade button has been added to the main Battle.net navigation panel at the top-left of the user interface. Custom games once found in the Custom Games interface will now be found here with an improved interface and tools. Players now have more flexibility to find, play, and review custom games, more quickly and easily than ever before.
The Spotlight page displays new or up-and-coming games. Players can visit the Spotlight to browse featured games, new games on the rise, and top-rated games as reviewed by the community. Players can search for games based on genre, popularity, star ratings, newness, and recent spikes in popularity. Each custom game in the Arcade is represented by a game icon. The game icon contains a large game image (provided by the creator), and includes the game’s name and star rating. Hovering over the icon displays the game description. Clicking on a game icon brings players into the Game Info page, the main portal for each game in the Arcade. This page contains summarized information about a custom game, including a description, screenshots, play instructions, reviews, and other information. The Game Info page consists of several sections:
Overview: This contains the game description and a set of screenshots that show off the action. How to Play: This is where players will find instructions (basic and advanced) and how to win. There is also space for additional images to supplement the game instructions. Patch Notes: This is where the game creator can list updates that have been made to the game, so that players can see how the game is growing and improving. Review: After playing, players can give a game a star rating and enter a text review. Once enough ratings have been submitted, the game receives an Average Star Rating that displays on the game icon. Players can also mark other players’ reviews as “Helpful” which will ensure that the best reviews rise to the top. Tutorial: Game creators can now publish tutorials for their creations. If a tutorial exists for a game, a “Play Tutorial” button will appear on the Game Info Page, which can be clicked to immediately launch the tutorial.
There is now a “Join Chat” button on the Game Info Page that allows players to join a channel named after that Arcade game. The new Open Games List displays games that have players, but aren’t full and ready to start yet. This should help players identify active games and find partners or opponents more easily.
StarCraft Button
The StarCraft II multiplayer ladder, melee games and other classic gameplay options have been moved to a separate StarCraft II button.
The StarCraft button has been reorganized to consolidate all single player and multiplayer StarCraft II play types in one easy-to-navigate screen. Players can now access the following from a single unified StarCraft screen:
Multiplayer: Quick Match, Coop vs. A.I., Team Games, and Melee Custom Games Single Player: Campaign, Challenges, and Versus A.I.
New Streaming Launcher
A new StarCraft II Launcher will allow game data to stream during play. This should reduce download, install, and patching times. We look forward to your feedback on the new launcher!
User Interface
General
Maximum selection size has been increased to 500, up from 255. Items can now be instantly sold by pressing Control + Right-Click. Instant items can now be used while in targeting mode without canceling targeting in custom games. Items can now display range indicators and AoE targeting cursors when in target mode in custom games. Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys in custom games. Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI. A new in-game pathing display has been added that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap.
Battle.net
The News and Community and Help Buttons have been removed from the main navigation panel to simplify the display. These can now be accessed from the Home Screen. The Player Profile Screen has been reorganized to streamline the overall display of profile information. From this screen, players can access their Profile Summary, Career Summary, Match History, Arcade Reviews, and Rewards. New statistics have been added to the Player Profile: Games Played This Season, Most Played Mode, and Total Career games. Certain statistics that were previously shown on the Player Profile Screen have now been consolidated into the Career Summary Screen. Career Summary has been moved from the Leagues and Ladders Screen into the Player Profile Screen. A new Join Chat button has been added. The Help Screen is now accessible from the Home Screen instead of the navigation panel. Tutorials are now more appropriately accessible from the StarCraft menu. A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation. The following new slash commands have been added :
/help – displays available /slash commands /close – closes the focused chat window /min – minimizes the focused chat window /max – maximizes the focused chat window /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size /afk – puts the player into AFK status /dnd – puts the players into DND status /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party /partykick – removes the targeted player from party /block – blocks the targeted player /unblock – unblocks the targeted player /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
Editor
New Editor Modules
A new Cutscene Module has been added, replacing the Previewer Window. The Cutscene Module allows mod makers to visually create cinematic sequences that can be played back in-game. Cutscenes can range from simple camera, light, or animation control to epic story moments suitable for a campaign. Several new native functions have also been added to control cutscene playback. A new AI Module has been added for user-friendly management and visualization of attack wave timing and unit composition for computer players. Further customization is possible by attaching triggers to attack waves. Several new trigger functions have been added for working with attack waves defined in this module. A new UI Module has been added. It allows modification of the UI layout files that control most aspects of the in-game UI. The initial release of this module focuses on exposing a simple XML editing interface for SC2Layout files, and further improvements are planned for the future.
General
New support has been added for control over frames, portraits, status bars, text, Trigger Dialogs, and more. Full details, tips, and tutorials are in the process of being created to help game creators take full advantage of these tools. Some of these changes are:
Support has been added for custom unit status bars. New “Nineslice” Border Method for additional image border support. Support for bulleted lists for use in Trigger Dialogs have been added. New word wrapping tags for use in Trigger Dialogs have been added. Frames in the standard UI can now be hooked up as Trigger Dialogs. Editor users can now use LastCreatedHelpItem to store tips, and the DestroyHelpItem trigger function has been added to destroy tips individually instead of destroying tips all at once. New Trigger Dialog item types have been added: Tooltip, Unit Status, Unit Status Bar, Unit Status Duration Bar, Portrait, Unit Model, Offscreen Unit, Unit Target New Trigger Dialog item properties have been added: Behavior, Actor, Unit, Unit Link, Model, Paused, Light, Team Color, Team Color Index, Camera, Paused Support has been added to allow mod makers to control the UI for observers, and to control the behavior of individual dialog items when observing.
Various improvements have been made to the Overview Manager:
The Game Data component now displays all objects used by the document, even if they are defined in dependencies. The folder hierarchy has been simplified, and view options for folder and type display have been added. The usage count for each object is now displayed in the item text. The tree view state is now preserved after reloading data.
Support has been added for custom, high-resolution minimap images. Support has been added for a self-cast hotkey. Support has been added to allow for item stacking. Support has been added to define multiple lighting regions in the game world. Minimap icons can now be adjusted by scale, background, background scale, and color. The editor has been updated to use Visual Styles. Font Style editing has been added to the Text Module. Optimizations have been made to improve dependency loading. Additional Test Document preferences have been added for editor and game window minimization behavior. A new map option called Static Shadow Intensity has been added, which is used during static shadow generation. This option is found in the Map Options section of the Map menu. A new map option called Stagger Periodic Trigger Events has been added. This option is found in the Map Options section of the Map menu. The New Document dialog has been improved to make it easier to configure starting document types and dependencies. Preliminary support has been added to allow for better configuration of new physics FX, such as ragdoll deaths, combat-driven impulses, water ripples, and collision-based water splashes. Future updates will include additional editor support, documentation, and physics-enabled assets for creators to use in their maps. Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys. Font Glow support has been added. A new InlineJustification font flag has been added. Red text has been improved to now filter into different error type groups. Pressing Control + Alt + F11 now allows mod makers to reload the UI. This allows changes made to layout files to be reflected immediately without having to restart the game. Frames now have a field called AlphaMaskTexture that can mask out the rendering of their children. This can be used primarily to mask out the hard edges of Portrait Frames. Lighting can now be changed per player via triggers. Unit-specific Halo support has been added for pre-targeting. It is now possible to customize the intensity of a map’s pre-generated static shadows.
Data Module
Support has been added for effect, behavior, and learn ability tooltip images. Support has been added for the Launch Missile effect to validate placement at the targeted location. Support has been added for missile reflection effects. A unit flag has been added to specify that a unit’s vision test should only occur from its center (and not include its radius). A Stunned flag for Behaviors has been added that allows the queuing of commands. Effects can now be executed when an attribute, power, or veterancy level changes. Behavior modifications can now be upgraded. Effect abilities can now specify a custom tooltip, icon, and name for the learn ability to use. A new flag has been added to button data to disable showing an ability level in the tooltip. Doodads can now be configured to change their opacity when the local player has vision of them. Occluded model opacity can now be customized. The launch offset on missile effects is now supported. Existing units may be launched as missiles with the launch missile effect. “Unified” movement and attack speed factors have been added which add the most positive and negative factors together to get the actual adjustment. This factor will be multiplied by the existing cumulative modifiers. “Supported filters” have been added to the attack ability to control what types of units are allowable targets and which units are simply ignored. “Follow filters” and “move filters” have been added to the move ability to control what types of units can be followed or moved to. Charges now maintain their existing count when the max count increases. A new power alliance state has been added. A “pre-emptable” flag has been added to effect abilities to indicate that the ability should not be canceled when pre-empted (ie. due to a stun). A separate camera height map has been added. This height map is much smoother than the flyer height map, and the camera data can now choose which height map to use. The “Override Colors” associated with Game UI data can now be upgraded. Conjoined behaviors can now customize what properties are shared by each unit in the group (including visibility and specific vitals). Effect ability times are now upgradeable. A new User-Defined Data System has been added. This can be accessed through the new User type in the Data module, as well as its corresponding functions in the trigger library. The Data Module has been updated to use a horizontal auto-layout to better utilize available screen space. New data types have been added:
Army Categories Army Units Army Upgrades Bank Conditions Characters Heroes Hero Abilities Hero Statistics Locations Maps Objectives Physics Materials Preload Tactical AI Cooldowns User Types
Terrain Module
Two new brushes have been added to the Terrain Module:
Preplaced Creep brush Lighting Regions brush
Support has been added for multiple layer selection operations (see Layer >> Select From). Preplaced units and doodads can now be configured to adjust the height map. A new distance measuring tool has been added, which measures both straight-line and pathing distances (see Tools >> Measure Distance). New terrain copy/paste options have been added to include or exclude textures, geometry, and water (see Edit >> Copy Options). Placed units and doodads may now be named and shown/hidden on an individual basis (see View >> Show UI >> Show Palette Existing Objects). Custom tags may now be defined and assigned to placed objects to help categorize and display them (see View >> Show Tags). A new option has been added for diagonal grid display (see View >> Show Grid >> Diagonal Grid). New map image export options have been added for using minimap dimensions and importing directly into the map (see Data >> Export Map Image).
Trigger Module
When a player now pings the minimap or game world, a new event called Player Ping is dispatched which contains the location of the ping and the unit that was pinged (if any). The minimap now updates when water changes through triggers. A new player property has been added to disallow resource splitting when players drop from a game. Functionality has been added to the script test window to show overall memory usage within the script system. Array sizes may now be defined using constant integer variables. An Expression value source has been added for more easily defining complex mathematical expressions or text concatenations. Many new Library functions have been added! Please visit our Custom Maps forum for a complete list of these additions.
Actor
A new ActorInfoDisplay cheat has been added for live actor debugging. Support has been added for Line and Arc targeting cursor support. Terrain squib support has been added for tileset-specific dust or snow clouds FX. Attach, AttachModel, AttachModelOffset, and AttachOffset messages have been added for dynamically adding, positioning, and rotating attached actors more easily. This will makes it easier to arbitrarily cobble together units made out of multiple models and attachments. New messages have been added for configuring strobe selection on actors (such as halos and strobe pulses). Associated messages have also been added for setting halo, strobe color, width, and more. Initial support has been added for Serpent Actors, which allows for creation of serpent units by driving attachment points within a model or by stringing together multiple models. This functionality will continue to change and improve with future updates. Additional custom death support has been added for making situational unit fatalities. There is now built-in support for triggering fatalities from X damage over Y intervals, and by “overkilling” a unit by X damage or more. Added CActorSiteOpMotionDirection to enable unit death models to continue forward with the velocity the unit had at the time of death, enabling corpses to skid to a stop. It is now very easy to add terrain-specific launch and impact FX, such as a snow burst on a Siege Tank impact. Added a number of minimap icon customization options in CActorUnit, both via field and several new messages. CActorRegions can now be filtered based on an associated ability if configured. Region queries can now send a unique response to the closest unit if configured. Regions can now also be rotated. CActorRange can now restrict the icons drawn to relative cliff levels. Added SetTextSize message for changing text size on CActorText. Added CActorSiteOpIncoming, which makes it easier to configure attach FX to match the incoming direction of an attack (regardless of whether it is a ranged direct attack or a missile attack). Added CActorSiteOpRotator for spinning actor around arbitrary axes at arbitrary rate. Propellers can be made with this. Added CActorSiteOpRotationRandom for randomly positioning actors within a given yaw and/or pitch angle. Added CActorTermKilledByEffect for customizing deaths to particular abilities. Added CActorTermIsKnownAs for testing whether actors have a particular alias. Added CActorTermUnitWalking for testing when CActorUnits are walking. Added CActorSiteOpHigherOfTerrainAndWater for positioning actors on the terrain or the water above it (if any). Added CActorTermMissileTentacle and CActorTermMissileTentacleIsReturning to allow for better configuration of customized tentacles, particularly for units with multiple tentacles. CActorDoodad now has a number of new fields for customizing opacity, imposing no-fly zones, and boosting terrain levels underneath the doodad, so that creep can show up on bridges. Added CActorPropertyCurveSet to animate properties like TintColor, Position, and Rotation with splines. Added a GameInitialize message for creating actors at game initialization. Added a message for showing all power circles at once. Added a term to check the level of an ability for ability messages. Added a new ScenePowerShowAll actor message that will show/hide power for all allied power sources. It is now possible to send actor messages to portraits in the glue screens. It is now possible to swap a CActorModel’s model, a CActorSplat’s splat, and a CActorSound’s sound before they initialize to avoid the performance hit of first creating one model and replacing it with another. Compose portraits from multiple CActorModels can now be used more easily. FaceFX and animations can now be redirected to models other than the one in the main CActorPortrait. A new Camera Actor has been added for controlling the camera through actor events. A new Scene Actor has been added for controlling global actor settings (Halo settings, Power visual hiding). A new Light Actor has been added to allow for easier light creation in data. Many new messages for configuring light in this manner have also been added. A new Creep Actor has been added for higher performance creep effects, such as creep engulfment.
Galaxy
New support has been added to the Trigger Debug Window for breakpoints, stepping through functions, and variable inspection. Galaxy script code memory limit has been increased: 4x-10x more memory can now be utilized depending on how scripts are being used. New support has been added for passing structure, array, and function references as function parameters. Galaxy error message output has been improved.
Publishing
The Game Variants dialog now includes a Genre setting which determines a fixed category for Arcade maps. Arcade support has been added to the Editor for mod creators to fill out their Arcade game info page.
Graphics
Anti-aliasing support has been added to smooth out edges in the game. This can be toggled on or off in the Graphics section of the Options Menu. New support has been added to define multiple lighting regions in the game world. Lighting can now be changed per player via triggers. Unit-specific Halo support has been added for pre-targeting. It is now possible to customize the intensity of a map’s pre-generated static shadows.
Bug Fixes
General
Many improvements and fixes have been made to the terrain avoidance subsystem when missiles pass cliff edges. Many improvements and fixes have been made for combat reveal relating to tentacles and long-range beam attacks. The BlizzCon 2011 Fist of Furry decal is now displaying properly in-game again. The Free For All Gladiator achievement is now properly awarding points for Free For All kills on Nerazim Crypt. The “CPM” observer shortcut is no longer cut-off in the observer dropdown UI. The Stat Panel bar will no longer show up as grey when rapidly pressing their hotkeys. Unbinding universal hotkeys no longer causes them to appear as structures. Canceling out of the Hotkey Menu via the escape key no longer causes temporary hotkeys to be saved. Loading a saved game during a transmission no longer results in an empty transmission frame. It is no longer possible to rename saved game files that are currently in use. Entering cinematic mode while holding the Alt key no longer causes unit status bars to persist after releasing it. Queuing a Move, Hold, then Patrol command no longer causes the display of the Patrol rally point to appear at an incorrect location. Fixed a crash that could occur when compiling a galaxy script. It is no longer possible to add AI players to a game of Aiur Chef. Fixed an issue where galaxy scripts would parse decimal numbers incorrectly in some cases. Fixed an issue where Spectators and Referees would see an extraneous Requirements header in various tooltips that did not have any upgrade options. Fixed an issue where sending a transmission could cause in-game portraits to freeze. Fixed an issue where units could display an inconsistent tint color to an observer when switching between viewing modes. Fixed an issue where numbers in the Stat Panel would occasionally display as all zeroes. Fixed some string inconsistencies in the Observer Hotkey options. Fixed an issue where doodads were not properly drawing under the Black Mask until the map was revealed near them. Fixed some missing textures with certain Char doodads. Fixed an actor error that occurred when upgrading Viking attacks while Vikings were in Fighter Mode. Fixed various references to Sentries being available in the Wings of Liberty campaign. Mothership shields now properly count towards the Frugal Fighter achievement. Fixed an issue where the protoss player slot UI would disappear in a loading screen with 11 or more players.
Battle.net
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty. Addressed performance issues that could occur over time when navigating between various Battle.net pages. StarCraft II players can no longer send party invites to RealID friends playing World of Warcraft. The Score Screen for Versus AI and Cooperative matches now displays the correct victory or defeat message after completing a game. Friend status icons now update properly when a player joins a single-player game while Away or Busy. Achievements will now be properly awarded when logging onto Battle.net from offline mode. Players no longer lose progress with streak achievements when other players leave the automated matchmaking queue while being matched. The Invite button no longer stays lit after inviting all friends to a conversation chat. The Skip button in the Welcome to Multiplayer screen now has a sound effect. Pressing Esc on the Starter Edition offer screen no longer prevents subsequent logging-on attempts on accounts with valid SC2 licenses. The News and Community pages now process HTML characters properly. Fixed an issue where the Battle.net UI would overlap the game world if a replay was launched too quickly. The Invite to Party button can no longer be spammed repeatedly. Maps can no longer be published if they begin or end with whitespace, contain consecutive whitespace, or contain non-printable characters. Custom game lobbies now properly default your race to the last race played. Chat no longer scrolls to the bottom of a chat window when a new message is added if a player has previously scrolled up in the chat window. Fixed an issue where the “You have voice chat disabled” message would occasionally display in-game despite having voice chat enabled. It is no longer possible to select “Block Communication” for RealID friends. Fixed an issue where matches would occasionally fail to appear in a player’s match history. Fixed an issue where the Current Team State Box would occasionally update to display inaccurate data. Fixed an issue where the multiplayer game mode would switch to 2v2 when reaching the Battle.net input limit. Fixed an issue in custom games with AI where the score screen would improperly list AI players as zerg regardless of their actual race played. Fixed an issue where the Bonus Pool would occasionally display an incorrect value. Fixed an issue where players would lose points for wins and gain points for losses on very rare occasions. Fixed an issue where the Start/Skip Practice League dialogue could appear blank when spam-clicking the Multiplayer button. Fixed an issue where maps with custom dependencies would not appear in the Versus AI screen when playing offline. Fixed an issue where certain words could pass through the profanity filter by appending other characters. Fixed an issue where players could sometimes temporarily lose license-based achievements. Fixed an issue where player race would default to terran when changing a custom game lobby to Co-Op vs. AI. Fixed an issue where bookmarks could disappear when navigating between certain screens. Fixed an issue where pausing a game and surrendering would occasionally cause the Score Screen to display an error message. Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a map that has six or more dependencies.
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
Editor
General
Many UI fixes have been made throughout the editor, including overlapping issues, missing panes, and resizing issues. Imported objects are now immediately available for browsing upon saving a map. The time of day now consistently matches the actual set day length when cycling through a 24-hour time period. Fixed some issues where the editor would display inconsistent file sizes for published documents. Fixed an issue where exporting editor preferences would not properly save all values. Fixed a display issue that could occur when selecting units with different inventory slot configurations.
Data Module
Editing sub-fields of an expanded parent field will no longer remove the data from similarly named sub-fields when using raw data view. Resetting objects to their parent value now properly resets the previously entered values. Changes to the Background of a map in the Data Module now immediately updates the map in the Terrain Module. Augmented abilities now properly show linked objects inside the object explorer. Behaviors that have Requirement Nodes now properly display those nodes in the behavior’s “Used By” dropdown field. Fixed an issue where style controls could become disabled when highlighting text too quickly. Fixed an issue where units with rotation animations would no longer rotate after being revived. Fixed an issue where duplicated units would not be referenced properly in their documented fields.
Terrain Module
Painted pathing now shows properly in the Terrain Editor when a new map is opened while viewing the Pathing layer. Fixed an issue where textures could occasionally become corrupted when opening maps in the terrain module. Holding down shift when moving a doodad now properly ignores placement requirements until after the doodad is moved to a valid location. Fixed an issue when generating static shadows where the progress bar would not fill up completely. Fixed an issue where replacing doodads would reset the doodad height to zero.
Trigger Module
Fixed a crash that could occur when passing an invalid player to the DialogControlGetPropertyAsString trigger function. It is now possible to copy and paste the Ability Command parameter in trigger functions. The ability parameter for the Unit Uses Ability event now has a preset to choose “Any Ability Command”. The “Set Portrait Tint Color” action is now working properly. Fixed an issue where fade calls would be ignored if another fade was already in progress. Fixed an issue where only boolean variables could be referenced from a record as the first value in a comparison condition.
MAC
Fixed a crash that could occur when relogging into Battle.net after playing a multiplayer map. Saving and reloading a game will no longer generate a prompt saying that your graphic settings have changed. Fixed an issue in Windowed Mode where the client’s presence would remain as Away despite being in focus.
The Patch 1.5.0 Beta introduces an entirely new Battle.net experience: the Arcade. The Arcade offers exciting new ways to find and play your favorite custom games -- and discover new favorites too -- with the option to search for games based on categories including genre, star ratings, release date, and more. After you’ve found a game that you’re interested in, the new Game Info page will provide you with all the information you need to know before you dive in, including a description, screenshots, instructions, patch notes, tutorials, as well as star ratings and reviews provided by your fellow players. The Open Games list will help keep wait times down by displaying games that are waiting for players too.
Patch 1.5.0 also introduces a new streaming launcher that should make download, installation, and patching times shorter than ever before, as well as an incredible array of editor changes and improvements.
When you log into the beta, you’ll find the Arcade has games available to play, because the industrious StarCraft II custom gaming community has already been hard at work crafting, refining, and posting their creations.
Now’s your chance to explore the Arcade Beta to play, rate, and review their contributions. To access the new beta test, just visit your Battle.net account management page and install the Arcade (1.5) Beta that you’ll find in the Game Accounts section. Your feedback is an important part of the beta process, so after you’ve played some games, rated them, and written a review or two, please visit the official forums to share your opinions on the new Arcade Beta General Discussion forum, or report any bugs you’ve discovered on the Arcade Beta Bug Report forum.
Visit our forums to read the full patch notes for the Arcade Beta.
Please note: While the beta installer is available to all players, the Patch 1.5.0 Arcade Beta will only be available in the following client languages: English, German, French, and Korean. The final patch release will be available in all languages as usual.
The Arcade has arrived! To make way for this new feature, significant changes have been made to the StarCraft II user interface. Two new buttons have been added: the Arcade button, which will act as a portal to a brand new custom games experience that features dramatic improvements in finding, rating and playing custom games, and the StarCraft II button, which will provide access to classic single player and multiplayer experiences, including the StarCraft II campaign, multiplayer ladder, melee maps and more. The Battle.net user interface has been completely refreshed with a new look and feel.
Arcade Button
A new Arcade button has been added to the main Battle.net navigation panel at the top-left of the user interface. Custom games once found in the Custom Games interface will now be found here with an improved interface and tools. Players now have more flexibility to find, play, and review custom games, more quickly and easily than ever before.
The Spotlight page displays new or up-and-coming games. Players can visit the Spotlight to browse featured games, new games on the rise, and top-rated games as reviewed by the community. Players can search for games based on genre, popularity, star ratings, newness, and recent spikes in popularity. Each custom game in the Arcade is represented by a game icon. The game icon contains a large game image (provided by the creator), and includes the game’s name and star rating. Hovering over the icon displays the game description. Clicking on a game icon brings players into the Game Info page, the main portal for each game in the Arcade. This page contains summarized information about a custom game, including a description, screenshots, play instructions, reviews, and other information. The Game Info page consists of several sections:
Overview: This contains the game description and a set of screenshots that show off the action. How to Play: This is where players will find instructions (basic and advanced) and how to win. There is also space for additional images to supplement the game instructions. Patch Notes: This is where the game creator can list updates that have been made to the game, so that players can see how the game is growing and improving. Review: After playing, players can give a game a star rating and enter a text review. Once enough ratings have been submitted, the game receives an Average Star Rating that displays on the game icon. Players can also mark other players’ reviews as “Helpful” which will ensure that the best reviews rise to the top. Tutorial: Game creators can now publish tutorials for their creations. If a tutorial exists for a game, a “Play Tutorial” button will appear on the Game Info Page, which can be clicked to immediately launch the tutorial.
There is now a “Join Chat” button on the Game Info Page that allows players to join a channel named after that Arcade game. The new Open Games List displays games that have players, but aren’t full and ready to start yet. This should help players identify active games and find partners or opponents more easily.
StarCraft Button
The StarCraft II multiplayer ladder, melee games and other classic gameplay options have been moved to a separate StarCraft II button.
The StarCraft button has been reorganized to consolidate all single player and multiplayer StarCraft II play types in one easy-to-navigate screen. Players can now access the following from a single unified StarCraft screen:
Multiplayer: Quick Match, Coop vs. A.I., Team Games, and Melee Custom Games Single Player: Campaign, Challenges, and Versus A.I.
New Streaming Launcher
A new StarCraft II Launcher will allow game data to stream during play. This should reduce download, install, and patching times. We look forward to your feedback on the new launcher!
User Interface
General
Maximum selection size has been increased to 500, up from 255. Items can now be instantly sold by pressing Control + Right-Click. Instant items can now be used while in targeting mode without canceling targeting in custom games. Items can now display range indicators and AoE targeting cursors when in target mode in custom games. Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys in custom games. Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI. A new in-game pathing display has been added that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap.
Battle.net
The News and Community and Help Buttons have been removed from the main navigation panel to simplify the display. These can now be accessed from the Home Screen. The Player Profile Screen has been reorganized to streamline the overall display of profile information. From this screen, players can access their Profile Summary, Career Summary, Match History, Arcade Reviews, and Rewards. New statistics have been added to the Player Profile: Games Played This Season, Most Played Mode, and Total Career games. Certain statistics that were previously shown on the Player Profile Screen have now been consolidated into the Career Summary Screen. Career Summary has been moved from the Leagues and Ladders Screen into the Player Profile Screen. A new Join Chat button has been added. The Help Screen is now accessible from the Home Screen instead of the navigation panel. Tutorials are now more appropriately accessible from the StarCraft menu. A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation. The following new slash commands have been added :
/help – displays available /slash commands /close – closes the focused chat window /min – minimizes the focused chat window /max – maximizes the focused chat window /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size /afk – puts the player into AFK status /dnd – puts the players into DND status /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party /partykick – removes the targeted player from party /block – blocks the targeted player /unblock – unblocks the targeted player /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
Editor
New Editor Modules
A new Cutscene Module has been added, replacing the Previewer Window. The Cutscene Module allows mod makers to visually create cinematic sequences that can be played back in-game. Cutscenes can range from simple camera, light, or animation control to epic story moments suitable for a campaign. Several new native functions have also been added to control cutscene playback. A new AI Module has been added for user-friendly management and visualization of attack wave timing and unit composition for computer players. Further customization is possible by attaching triggers to attack waves. Several new trigger functions have been added for working with attack waves defined in this module. A new UI Module has been added. It allows modification of the UI layout files that control most aspects of the in-game UI. The initial release of this module focuses on exposing a simple XML editing interface for SC2Layout files, and further improvements are planned for the future.
General
New support has been added for control over frames, portraits, status bars, text, Trigger Dialogs, and more. Full details, tips, and tutorials are in the process of being created to help game creators take full advantage of these tools. Some of these changes are:
Support has been added for custom unit status bars. New “Nineslice” Border Method for additional image border support. Support for bulleted lists for use in Trigger Dialogs have been added. New word wrapping tags for use in Trigger Dialogs have been added. Frames in the standard UI can now be hooked up as Trigger Dialogs. Editor users can now use LastCreatedHelpItem to store tips, and the DestroyHelpItem trigger function has been added to destroy tips individually instead of destroying tips all at once. New Trigger Dialog item types have been added: Tooltip, Unit Status, Unit Status Bar, Unit Status Duration Bar, Portrait, Unit Model, Offscreen Unit, Unit Target New Trigger Dialog item properties have been added: Behavior, Actor, Unit, Unit Link, Model, Paused, Light, Team Color, Team Color Index, Camera, Paused Support has been added to allow mod makers to control the UI for observers, and to control the behavior of individual dialog items when observing.
Various improvements have been made to the Overview Manager:
The Game Data component now displays all objects used by the document, even if they are defined in dependencies. The folder hierarchy has been simplified, and view options for folder and type display have been added. The usage count for each object is now displayed in the item text. The tree view state is now preserved after reloading data.
Support has been added for custom, high-resolution minimap images. Support has been added for a self-cast hotkey. Support has been added to allow for item stacking. Support has been added to define multiple lighting regions in the game world. Minimap icons can now be adjusted by scale, background, background scale, and color. The editor has been updated to use Visual Styles. Font Style editing has been added to the Text Module. Optimizations have been made to improve dependency loading. Additional Test Document preferences have been added for editor and game window minimization behavior. A new map option called Static Shadow Intensity has been added, which is used during static shadow generation. This option is found in the Map Options section of the Map menu. A new map option called Stagger Periodic Trigger Events has been added. This option is found in the Map Options section of the Map menu. The New Document dialog has been improved to make it easier to configure starting document types and dependencies. Preliminary support has been added to allow for better configuration of new physics FX, such as ragdoll deaths, combat-driven impulses, water ripples, and collision-based water splashes. Future updates will include additional editor support, documentation, and physics-enabled assets for creators to use in their maps. Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys. Font Glow support has been added. A new InlineJustification font flag has been added. Red text has been improved to now filter into different error type groups. Pressing Control + Alt + F11 now allows mod makers to reload the UI. This allows changes made to layout files to be reflected immediately without having to restart the game. Frames now have a field called AlphaMaskTexture that can mask out the rendering of their children. This can be used primarily to mask out the hard edges of Portrait Frames. Lighting can now be changed per player via triggers. Unit-specific Halo support has been added for pre-targeting. It is now possible to customize the intensity of a map’s pre-generated static shadows.
Data Module
Support has been added for effect, behavior, and learn ability tooltip images. Support has been added for the Launch Missile effect to validate placement at the targeted location. Support has been added for missile reflection effects. A unit flag has been added to specify that a unit’s vision test should only occur from its center (and not include its radius). A Stunned flag for Behaviors has been added that allows the queuing of commands. Effects can now be executed when an attribute, power, or veterancy level changes. Behavior modifications can now be upgraded. Effect abilities can now specify a custom tooltip, icon, and name for the learn ability to use. A new flag has been added to button data to disable showing an ability level in the tooltip. Doodads can now be configured to change their opacity when the local player has vision of them. Occluded model opacity can now be customized. The launch offset on missile effects is now supported. Existing units may be launched as missiles with the launch missile effect. “Unified” movement and attack speed factors have been added which add the most positive and negative factors together to get the actual adjustment. This factor will be multiplied by the existing cumulative modifiers. “Supported filters” have been added to the attack ability to control what types of units are allowable targets and which units are simply ignored. “Follow filters” and “move filters” have been added to the move ability to control what types of units can be followed or moved to. Charges now maintain their existing count when the max count increases. A new power alliance state has been added. A “pre-emptable” flag has been added to effect abilities to indicate that the ability should not be canceled when pre-empted (ie. due to a stun). A separate camera height map has been added. This height map is much smoother than the flyer height map, and the camera data can now choose which height map to use. The “Override Colors” associated with Game UI data can now be upgraded. Conjoined behaviors can now customize what properties are shared by each unit in the group (including visibility and specific vitals). Effect ability times are now upgradeable. A new User-Defined Data System has been added. This can be accessed through the new User type in the Data module, as well as its corresponding functions in the trigger library. The Data Module has been updated to use a horizontal auto-layout to better utilize available screen space. New data types have been added:
Army Categories Army Units Army Upgrades Bank Conditions Characters Heroes Hero Abilities Hero Statistics Locations Maps Objectives Physics Materials Preload Tactical AI Cooldowns User Types
Terrain Module
Two new brushes have been added to the Terrain Module:
Preplaced Creep brush Lighting Regions brush
Support has been added for multiple layer selection operations (see Layer >> Select From). Preplaced units and doodads can now be configured to adjust the height map. A new distance measuring tool has been added, which measures both straight-line and pathing distances (see Tools >> Measure Distance). New terrain copy/paste options have been added to include or exclude textures, geometry, and water (see Edit >> Copy Options). Placed units and doodads may now be named and shown/hidden on an individual basis (see View >> Show UI >> Show Palette Existing Objects). Custom tags may now be defined and assigned to placed objects to help categorize and display them (see View >> Show Tags). A new option has been added for diagonal grid display (see View >> Show Grid >> Diagonal Grid). New map image export options have been added for using minimap dimensions and importing directly into the map (see Data >> Export Map Image).
Trigger Module
When a player now pings the minimap or game world, a new event called Player Ping is dispatched which contains the location of the ping and the unit that was pinged (if any). The minimap now updates when water changes through triggers. A new player property has been added to disallow resource splitting when players drop from a game. Functionality has been added to the script test window to show overall memory usage within the script system. Array sizes may now be defined using constant integer variables. An Expression value source has been added for more easily defining complex mathematical expressions or text concatenations. Many new Library functions have been added! Please visit our Custom Maps forum for a complete list of these additions.
Actor
A new ActorInfoDisplay cheat has been added for live actor debugging. Support has been added for Line and Arc targeting cursor support. Terrain squib support has been added for tileset-specific dust or snow clouds FX. Attach, AttachModel, AttachModelOffset, and AttachOffset messages have been added for dynamically adding, positioning, and rotating attached actors more easily. This will makes it easier to arbitrarily cobble together units made out of multiple models and attachments. New messages have been added for configuring strobe selection on actors (such as halos and strobe pulses). Associated messages have also been added for setting halo, strobe color, width, and more. Initial support has been added for Serpent Actors, which allows for creation of serpent units by driving attachment points within a model or by stringing together multiple models. This functionality will continue to change and improve with future updates. Additional custom death support has been added for making situational unit fatalities. There is now built-in support for triggering fatalities from X damage over Y intervals, and by “overkilling” a unit by X damage or more. Added CActorSiteOpMotionDirection to enable unit death models to continue forward with the velocity the unit had at the time of death, enabling corpses to skid to a stop. It is now very easy to add terrain-specific launch and impact FX, such as a snow burst on a Siege Tank impact. Added a number of minimap icon customization options in CActorUnit, both via field and several new messages. CActorRegions can now be filtered based on an associated ability if configured. Region queries can now send a unique response to the closest unit if configured. Regions can now also be rotated. CActorRange can now restrict the icons drawn to relative cliff levels. Added SetTextSize message for changing text size on CActorText. Added CActorSiteOpIncoming, which makes it easier to configure attach FX to match the incoming direction of an attack (regardless of whether it is a ranged direct attack or a missile attack). Added CActorSiteOpRotator for spinning actor around arbitrary axes at arbitrary rate. Propellers can be made with this. Added CActorSiteOpRotationRandom for randomly positioning actors within a given yaw and/or pitch angle. Added CActorTermKilledByEffect for customizing deaths to particular abilities. Added CActorTermIsKnownAs for testing whether actors have a particular alias. Added CActorTermUnitWalking for testing when CActorUnits are walking. Added CActorSiteOpHigherOfTerrainAndWater for positioning actors on the terrain or the water above it (if any). Added CActorTermMissileTentacle and CActorTermMissileTentacleIsReturning to allow for better configuration of customized tentacles, particularly for units with multiple tentacles. CActorDoodad now has a number of new fields for customizing opacity, imposing no-fly zones, and boosting terrain levels underneath the doodad, so that creep can show up on bridges. Added CActorPropertyCurveSet to animate properties like TintColor, Position, and Rotation with splines. Added a GameInitialize message for creating actors at game initialization. Added a message for showing all power circles at once. Added a term to check the level of an ability for ability messages. Added a new ScenePowerShowAll actor message that will show/hide power for all allied power sources. It is now possible to send actor messages to portraits in the glue screens. It is now possible to swap a CActorModel’s model, a CActorSplat’s splat, and a CActorSound’s sound before they initialize to avoid the performance hit of first creating one model and replacing it with another. Compose portraits from multiple CActorModels can now be used more easily. FaceFX and animations can now be redirected to models other than the one in the main CActorPortrait. A new Camera Actor has been added for controlling the camera through actor events. A new Scene Actor has been added for controlling global actor settings (Halo settings, Power visual hiding). A new Light Actor has been added to allow for easier light creation in data. Many new messages for configuring light in this manner have also been added. A new Creep Actor has been added for higher performance creep effects, such as creep engulfment.
Galaxy
New support has been added to the Trigger Debug Window for breakpoints, stepping through functions, and variable inspection. Galaxy script code memory limit has been increased: 4x-10x more memory can now be utilized depending on how scripts are being used. New support has been added for passing structure, array, and function references as function parameters. Galaxy error message output has been improved.
Publishing
The Game Variants dialog now includes a Genre setting which determines a fixed category for Arcade maps. Arcade support has been added to the Editor for mod creators to fill out their Arcade game info page.
Graphics
Anti-aliasing support has been added to smooth out edges in the game. This can be toggled on or off in the Graphics section of the Options Menu. New support has been added to define multiple lighting regions in the game world. Lighting can now be changed per player via triggers. Unit-specific Halo support has been added for pre-targeting. It is now possible to customize the intensity of a map’s pre-generated static shadows.
Bug Fixes
General
Many improvements and fixes have been made to the terrain avoidance subsystem when missiles pass cliff edges. Many improvements and fixes have been made for combat reveal relating to tentacles and long-range beam attacks. The BlizzCon 2011 Fist of Furry decal is now displaying properly in-game again. The Free For All Gladiator achievement is now properly awarding points for Free For All kills on Nerazim Crypt. The “CPM” observer shortcut is no longer cut-off in the observer dropdown UI. The Stat Panel bar will no longer show up as grey when rapidly pressing their hotkeys. Unbinding universal hotkeys no longer causes them to appear as structures. Canceling out of the Hotkey Menu via the escape key no longer causes temporary hotkeys to be saved. Loading a saved game during a transmission no longer results in an empty transmission frame. It is no longer possible to rename saved game files that are currently in use. Entering cinematic mode while holding the Alt key no longer causes unit status bars to persist after releasing it. Queuing a Move, Hold, then Patrol command no longer causes the display of the Patrol rally point to appear at an incorrect location. Fixed a crash that could occur when compiling a galaxy script. It is no longer possible to add AI players to a game of Aiur Chef. Fixed an issue where galaxy scripts would parse decimal numbers incorrectly in some cases. Fixed an issue where Spectators and Referees would see an extraneous Requirements header in various tooltips that did not have any upgrade options. Fixed an issue where sending a transmission could cause in-game portraits to freeze. Fixed an issue where units could display an inconsistent tint color to an observer when switching between viewing modes. Fixed an issue where numbers in the Stat Panel would occasionally display as all zeroes. Fixed some string inconsistencies in the Observer Hotkey options. Fixed an issue where doodads were not properly drawing under the Black Mask until the map was revealed near them. Fixed some missing textures with certain Char doodads. Fixed an actor error that occurred when upgrading Viking attacks while Vikings were in Fighter Mode. Fixed various references to Sentries being available in the Wings of Liberty campaign. Mothership shields now properly count towards the Frugal Fighter achievement. Fixed an issue where the protoss player slot UI would disappear in a loading screen with 11 or more players.
Battle.net
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty. Addressed performance issues that could occur over time when navigating between various Battle.net pages. StarCraft II players can no longer send party invites to RealID friends playing World of Warcraft. The Score Screen for Versus AI and Cooperative matches now displays the correct victory or defeat message after completing a game. Friend status icons now update properly when a player joins a single-player game while Away or Busy. Achievements will now be properly awarded when logging onto Battle.net from offline mode. Players no longer lose progress with streak achievements when other players leave the automated matchmaking queue while being matched. The Invite button no longer stays lit after inviting all friends to a conversation chat. The Skip button in the Welcome to Multiplayer screen now has a sound effect. Pressing Esc on the Starter Edition offer screen no longer prevents subsequent logging-on attempts on accounts with valid SC2 licenses. The News and Community pages now process HTML characters properly. Fixed an issue where the Battle.net UI would overlap the game world if a replay was launched too quickly. The Invite to Party button can no longer be spammed repeatedly. Maps can no longer be published if they begin or end with whitespace, contain consecutive whitespace, or contain non-printable characters. Custom game lobbies now properly default your race to the last race played. Chat no longer scrolls to the bottom of a chat window when a new message is added if a player has previously scrolled up in the chat window. Fixed an issue where the “You have voice chat disabled” message would occasionally display in-game despite having voice chat enabled. It is no longer possible to select “Block Communication” for RealID friends. Fixed an issue where matches would occasionally fail to appear in a player’s match history. Fixed an issue where the Current Team State Box would occasionally update to display inaccurate data. Fixed an issue where the multiplayer game mode would switch to 2v2 when reaching the Battle.net input limit. Fixed an issue in custom games with AI where the score screen would improperly list AI players as zerg regardless of their actual race played. Fixed an issue where the Bonus Pool would occasionally display an incorrect value. Fixed an issue where players would lose points for wins and gain points for losses on very rare occasions. Fixed an issue where the Start/Skip Practice League dialogue could appear blank when spam-clicking the Multiplayer button. Fixed an issue where maps with custom dependencies would not appear in the Versus AI screen when playing offline. Fixed an issue where certain words could pass through the profanity filter by appending other characters. Fixed an issue where players could sometimes temporarily lose license-based achievements. Fixed an issue where player race would default to terran when changing a custom game lobby to Co-Op vs. AI. Fixed an issue where bookmarks could disappear when navigating between certain screens. Fixed an issue where pausing a game and surrendering would occasionally cause the Score Screen to display an error message. Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a map that has six or more dependencies.
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
Editor
General
Many UI fixes have been made throughout the editor, including overlapping issues, missing panes, and resizing issues. Imported objects are now immediately available for browsing upon saving a map. The time of day now consistently matches the actual set day length when cycling through a 24-hour time period. Fixed some issues where the editor would display inconsistent file sizes for published documents. Fixed an issue where exporting editor preferences would not properly save all values. Fixed a display issue that could occur when selecting units with different inventory slot configurations.
Data Module
Editing sub-fields of an expanded parent field will no longer remove the data from similarly named sub-fields when using raw data view. Resetting objects to their parent value now properly resets the previously entered values. Changes to the Background of a map in the Data Module now immediately updates the map in the Terrain Module. Augmented abilities now properly show linked objects inside the object explorer. Behaviors that have Requirement Nodes now properly display those nodes in the behavior’s “Used By” dropdown field. Fixed an issue where style controls could become disabled when highlighting text too quickly. Fixed an issue where units with rotation animations would no longer rotate after being revived. Fixed an issue where duplicated units would not be referenced properly in their documented fields.
Terrain Module
Painted pathing now shows properly in the Terrain Editor when a new map is opened while viewing the Pathing layer. Fixed an issue where textures could occasionally become corrupted when opening maps in the terrain module. Holding down shift when moving a doodad now properly ignores placement requirements until after the doodad is moved to a valid location. Fixed an issue when generating static shadows where the progress bar would not fill up completely. Fixed an issue where replacing doodads would reset the doodad height to zero.
Trigger Module
Fixed a crash that could occur when passing an invalid player to the DialogControlGetPropertyAsString trigger function. It is now possible to copy and paste the Ability Command parameter in trigger functions. The ability parameter for the Unit Uses Ability event now has a preset to choose “Any Ability Command”. The “Set Portrait Tint Color” action is now working properly. Fixed an issue where fade calls would be ignored if another fade was already in progress. Fixed an issue where only boolean variables could be referenced from a record as the first value in a comparison condition.
MAC
Fixed a crash that could occur when relogging into Battle.net after playing a multiplayer map. Saving and reloading a game will no longer generate a prompt saying that your graphic settings have changed. Fixed an issue in Windowed Mode where the client’s presence would remain as Away despite being in focus.
Some interesting tid-bits from the patch notes. I'm currently installing the beta right now, so I might confirm them later.
The new Open Games List displays games that have players, but aren’t full and ready to start yet. This should help players identify active games and find partners or opponents more easily.
This could be quite awesome...
User Interface
General
Maximum selection size has been increased to 500, up from 255. Items can now be instantly sold by pressing Control + Right-Click. Instant items can now be used while in targeting mode without canceling targeting in custom games. Items can now display range indicators and AoE targeting cursors when in target mode in custom games. Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys in custom games. Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI. A new in-game pathing display has been added that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap.
Definitely seems to be preparation for Blizzard DotA (I think it's called something else nowadays? Blizzard All-Stars?)
New statistics have been added to the Player Profile: Games Played This Season, Most Played Mode, and Total Career games.
Cool. I love statistics.
A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation.
This seems nifty. It could probably cause some high-APM navigating of Battle.net. Bisu can now multitask better within Battle.net.
The following new slash commands have been added :
/help – displays available /slash commands /close – closes the focused chat window /min – minimizes the focused chat window /max – maximizes the focused chat window /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size /afk – puts the player into AFK status /dnd – puts the players into DND status /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party /partykick – removes the targeted player from party /block – blocks the targeted player /unblock – unblocks the targeted player /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
I've never used /slash commands before, but I guess these could be useful.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs.
On June 02 2012 05:06 MicroTastiC wrote: Will this be included in HoTS. Isn't this like a major change?
They talked about this patch at last years blizzcon. The idea with the Arcade was to release it as the last major patch before HoTS. It is for everybody, not just HoTS players (remember, it's going to be seperated bnets for each game)
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range."
Im understand this correct ?
If you have burrow banes.. and collosus come close , they auto unburrow ? wtf ? , collosus new obserwer or what ?:D
I hope that isn't the case. I thought they mean that auto-cast Unburrow (you can set burrow to autocast) will work vs Colossus now (as if it was a bug that they didn't), but the wording is ambiguous.
Grandmasters league. Notice how it says "Wings of Liberty" on the side, so they are definitely having a separate ladder for HotS, possibly with WoL profiles visible from the HotS client.
Notice the green dot where that the SCV is heading to. Apparently, you get a destination dot thingy for all movements whenever you have the units selected, kinda like how you had them for queued up commands, but this now applies to non-queued commands as well.
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range."
Im understand this correct ?
If you have burrow banes.. and collosus come close , they auto unburrow ? wtf ? , collosus new obserwer or what ?:D
I hope that isn't the case. I thought they mean that auto-cast Unburrow (you can set burrow to autocast) will work vs Colossus now (as if it was a bug that they didn't), but the wording is ambiguous.
I'm sure that's the case. The word "properly" is missing in the sentence.
Those are excellent screenshots. So far, I love what I'm seeing. I read a patch note or two that had something to do with the speed of navigating the UI in general. If it runs smoothly and doesn't hiccup so often like the current interface, then I'll be 100% satisfied.
"The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac." Terran buff!
Uncomfortable with split ladder for HoTS and WoL, especially with a noncompetitive ladder/matchmaking feature being added (I think they mentioned that in May or April). Battle.net upgrades look hella good though.
Well so now we can see again win/loose as non masters player with "games played this season" minus won games.( Aslong u just play 1on1). Or do i missunderstand?
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range."
Im understand this correct ?
If you have burrow banes.. and collosus come close , they auto unburrow ? wtf ? , collosus new obserwer or what ?:D
No sir, Auto cast Unburrow, you can autocast unburrow where if units get clos they'll auto unburrow and attack. Because Colossus is an Air-ish Unit, It didn't work. so now it will work.
/help – displays available /slash commands /close – closes the focused chat window /min – minimizes the focused chat window /max – maximizes the focused chat window /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size /afk – puts the player into AFK status /dnd – puts the players into DND status /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party /partykick – removes the targeted player from party /block – blocks the targeted player /unblock – unblocks the targeted player /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
Fixed an issue where certain words could pass through the profanity filter by appending other characters.
Well, that is fuking retrded.
New quick match interface and quick nav interface.
1v1 map pool. Why the hell is Shattered Temple and Typhon Peaks in there? It's probably nothing to over-analyze, as this is just a beta for testing the interface.
Grandmasters league. Notice how it says "Wings of Liberty" on the side, so they are definitely having a separate ladder for HotS, possibly with WoL profiles visible from the HotS client.
Notice the green dot where that the SCV is heading to. Apparently, you get a destination dot thingy for all movements whenever you have the units selected, kinda like how you had them for queued up commands, but this now applies to non-queued commands as well.
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
Haha. Tbh, I've done this before.
:O... Really? Not fake? They really added an open games list? Can you change the map names? Please, somebody get more info on this!
Am i the only one who thinks its ridiculous i have to download over 7gb for what is basically just a new UI? wtf is this shit, id like to try this out, my internet blows, i mean, its the same engine, the same resources as SC2 for the most part, why do we need to dload so much for this.
This looks great, so excited to try out these changes. Its awesome that they have taken a serious approach to the UI in HOTS, at least that's what it looks like from this latest release.
On June 02 2012 05:46 Chicken Chaser wrote: Can we petition to revert the order the 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA back to the old way? I don't like seeing it as 4v4, 3v3...etc.
This, and probably different ladders for different races, but I don't think that will be changed in WoL.
Grandmasters league. Notice how it says "Wings of Liberty" on the side, so they are definitely having a separate ladder for HotS, possibly with WoL profiles visible from the HotS client.
Notice the green dot where that the SCV is heading to. Apparently, you get a destination dot thingy for all movements whenever you have the units selected, kinda like how you had them for queued up commands, but this now applies to non-queued commands as well.
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
On June 02 2012 05:39 rebuffering wrote: Am i the only one who thinks its ridiculous i have to download over 7gb for what is basically just a new UI? wtf is this shit, id like to try this out, my internet blows, i mean, its the same engine, the same resources as SC2 for the most part, why do we need to dload so much for this.
Um...thats why it is a beta. They don't want it to mess with your current build of SC2, because its a beta and could mess everything up. So, they have you download an entire new client, because it is a beta.
On June 02 2012 05:39 rebuffering wrote: Am i the only one who thinks its ridiculous i have to download over 7gb for what is basically just a new UI? wtf is this shit, id like to try this out, my internet blows, i mean, its the same engine, the same resources as SC2 for the most part, why do we need to dload so much for this.
Um...thats why it is a beta. They don't want it to mess with your current build of SC2, because its a beta and could mess everything up. So, they have you download an entire new client, because it is a beta.
Haha, we get it now
Thank goodness I'm using my university's Internet-- 5.33 MB/s what's up!
/Commands! Turnin into a proper chat! SC2 Lookin better. Lots of nice little things. The fact they decided to swap around the 1v1-4v4-FFA thing might say something for how unpopular 1v1 is? Its so dumb though we dont read right to left. Somehow thats actually really irritating lol.
On June 02 2012 06:07 GizmoPT wrote: tell them to add TimeStamps on chat and also does the chat auto-scrolls down whenever someones writes smthing ?
It doesn't. If you have scrolled up it stays there until you scroll down again. It's in the (huge) patch notes
On June 02 2012 06:08 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: What do the /commands mean when referencing "targeted player"? Is that like an in-game command where you have a player's units targeted, or is that just referencing the traditional "insert player name here" when you use the command?
What do the /commands mean when referencing "targeted player"? Is that like an in-game command where you have a player's units targeted, or is that just referencing the traditional "insert player name here" when you use the command?
I guess instead of waiting to release a beta for the HotS blizzard shop thing they instead decided to release this arcade to test it out, sounds pretty cool though
Disappointed at teh leave match = loss thing. Only reason i've had to do that is because the interface freezes up on me and won't let me cancel in time.
Chat no longer scrolls to the bottom of a chat window when a new message is added if a player has previously scrolled up in the chat window. (god this was annoying as hell)
The Invite to Party button can no longer be spammed repeatedly. (no more spam-invite?)
Fixed an issue where the “You have voice chat disabled” message would occasionally display in-game despite having voice chat enabled.
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
Fixed an issue where pausing a game and surrendering would occasionally cause the Score Screen to display an error message.
Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. The following new slash commands have been added :
A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation.
Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI. (maybe fixes colors for 2on2 casters as khaldor mentioned)
On June 02 2012 06:08 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: What do the /commands mean when referencing "targeted player"? Is that like an in-game command where you have a player's units targeted, or is that just referencing the traditional "insert player name here" when you use the command?
Well I'd asume it has to do with custom games and not something that will affect normal games in any way.
Overall I think the screenshots looks pretty sweet.
Something you really can't tell from the screenshots but the interface is super fluid now. In the old interface it sometimes felt like it went rather sluggish. Here it's super responsive. It feels great.
Looks pretty good and improved, atleast they try to implement chat channels now. Better than the old one, I'd say we have reached battle.net 0.5 when this patch comes out.
On June 02 2012 06:10 gawk wrote: Some other very nice improvements:
Chat no longer scrolls to the bottom of a chat window when a new message is added if a player has previously scrolled up in the chat window. (god this was annoying as hell)
The Invite to Party button can no longer be spammed repeatedly. (no more spam-invite?)
Fixed an issue where the “You have voice chat disabled” message would occasionally display in-game despite having voice chat enabled.
A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
Fixed an issue where pausing a game and surrendering would occasionally cause the Score Screen to display an error message.
Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. The following new slash commands have been added :
A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation.
Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI. (maybe fixes colors for 2on2 casters as khaldor mentioned)
Great improvement over the previous UI! Admittedly, that's not saying a whole lot, but a step in the right direction is always appreciated.
One minor quibble: ladder play seems to be an afterthought in the current UI, there's no place where it's prominently advertised (unless I missed it). Hum.
On June 02 2012 06:35 wo1fwood wrote: Also There's a new Quick Nav function, that is also bound to F1-F5 where you can assign whatever you want to these slots, kind of neat.
really nice, especially the chat channel changes (although old bnet was still better imo^^). But it should save the previous pos. of the chat channel window, eg a clan chat that id like to keep on the left should still be there when i return from a game.
now the only changes imo they need to fix/add in the chat though is... - 1) chat moderation - I need to kick people from my clan's chat, but I guess once/if the clan stuff is finally added I can do this?... (if not... ffffffffffff) - 2) timestamps.
I tried to start a game vs ai. Graphics looked really weird. The bar across the bottom of the screen, which includes the minimap was replaced with black screen. Minimap ended up being in the top corner of the screen. Anyone else having this problem?
The way the custom maps are set up are a billion times better than they currently are. Makes it really easy to find what you are looking for and new ones to try.
omg.. get out.. ITS INTERFACE PATCH , before HOTS beta.. NOT balance patch...
Also, this is using a very old build. Stim for example is 150/150 at 140 seconds, instead of 100/100 at 160 seconds. I wouldn't take ladder on here very seriously at all.
omg.. get out.. ITS INTERFACE PATCH , before HOTS beta.. NOT balance patch...
Also, this is using a very old build. Stim for example is 150/150 at 140 seconds, instead of 100/100 at 160 seconds. I wouldn't take ladder on here very seriously at all.
Interesting. I didn't notice that small balance hiccup.
The Alpha version of this interface patch was basically a frankenstein version of all the balance patches, with Zerg retaining some of their old beta values while Terran and Protoss had changes from the most recent patches. It was really weird to look at.
But I don't think these balance changes are of any importance. It's probably just a bad merge of different patches, as someone speculated in the Alpha thread.
edit: And it definitely looks like this Beta has the same merge problems. A lot of the old Zerg upgrades that were removed in the WoL Beta seem to be back. Flux Veins is back lol. But this is just going through the hotkey lists. It could be different in-game.
If anyone else is interested, I noticed that the new interface for the match making screen makes MPQ background editing problematic. The new buttons cover up a lot, and there isn't a background to begin with. Thoughts?
On June 02 2012 07:06 Chicken Chaser wrote: If anyone else is interested, I noticed that the new interface for the match making screen makes MPQ background editing problematic. The new buttons cover up a lot, and there isn't a background to begin with. Thoughts?
That means the space is actually being used.
Overall, this is what SC2 should have been like from the beginning.
They had the 1.5 alpha running for quite some time so that amateur developers and mod-makers could create their own custom games in time for the official 1.5 launch. Is there anything cool that people have seen yet, and is Blizzard Dota up there (I thought it was supposed to be ready by 1.5)?
omg.. get out.. ITS INTERFACE PATCH , before HOTS beta.. NOT balance patch...
Also, this is using a very old build. Stim for example is 150/150 at 140 seconds, instead of 100/100 at 160 seconds. I wouldn't take ladder on here very seriously at all.
Interesting. I didn't notice that small balance hiccup.
The Alpha version of this interface patch was basically a frankenstein version of all the balance patches, with Zerg retaining some of their old beta values while Terran and Protoss had changes from the most recent patches. It was really weird to look at.
But I don't think these balance changes are of any importance. It's probably just a bad merge of different patches, as someone speculated in the Alpha thread.
edit: And it definitely looks like this Beta has the same merge problems. A lot of the old Zerg upgrades that were removed in the WoL Beta seem to be back. Flux Veins is back lol. But this is just going through the hotkey lists. It could be different in-game.
I would not say it's a very old build. The queen buff and the overload speed buff are also in the game. BTW I mean beta version. The alpha version was using a very old build indeed.
As mentioned earlier, the green circle that appears when you execute a command (e.g. move an SCV somewhere, queue waypoints) is an odd change to me. It feels like I am playing with a delay because the circles stay. Also, when selecting your workers (spammage) you will see the circles on every mineral patch. I don't know if this is intended?
On June 02 2012 07:16 Excalibur_Z wrote: They had the 1.5 alpha running for quite some time so that amateur developers and mod-makers could create their own custom games in time for the official 1.5 launch. Is there anything cool that people have seen yet, and is Blizzard Dota up there (I thought it was supposed to be ready by 1.5)?
just wanted to try 1.5, installed it, etc, but everytime I try to launch the beta, it says it cannot start the game b/c icuuc44.dll can't be found. What do I have to do? I downloaded the Beta Installer from eu.battle.net, so it cant be corrupt or smth. Help me please (:
Just downloaded it and played around a little bit.
I must say I am pretty happy with the changes and would love if this was implemented ASAP. Only thing I didn´t like is that the Home screen looks kinda empty.
And yeah graphics have changed they seem to look somewhat nice, even on low settings.
Blizzard would just be using the maps that they believe are least likely to cause lag issue.
On June 02 2012 06:08 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: What do the /commands mean when referencing "targeted player"? Is that like an in-game command where you have a player's units targeted, or is that just referencing the traditional "insert player name here" when you use the command
Surely this would be the name you type after the command, such as 'Llama' in /givewaterto Llama or /partyinvite Llama.
On June 02 2012 06:08 GoldenH wrote: Disappointed at teh leave match = loss thing. Only reason i've had to do that is because the interface freezes up on me and won't let me cancel in time.
I think the change only applies to stalemate situations. Previously, in the unlikely event of a stalemate situation within a game, when the countdown timer was in effect, people would log out, as doing so would actually result in a tie for both players (as I recall). Blizzard is simply changing this to a loss for people who do so but only a tie/draw for those who stay in the game during the countdown. That interface problem when searching for a match is really stupid though, so they should fix that too!
Not sure if it was mentioned earlier in the posts but some small things i noticed
Obs timing is 40 sec Probes now show a "waypoint" on the mineral patch they are gathering from, even if multiple are selected you see dots on all minerals. Moreover, there seemed to be more waypoiting shown by probes on movement command. Though, all of the above may have just been because the client was not full updated when i was playing.
There are now chat channels that u can join when looking through strategy, multiplayer(arcade) etc at the top of each game type. This is to help I guess with the "community" aspect.
Overall, not much changes.. and personally I don't think it's really "better" just different. Though, some of the other things that will be introducted with Hots i think will make the new UI much better and smooth with the game. We will see though.
OMG they added open games! I was worried that due to the private/closed beta that they wouldn't add it, and just use fun-or-not like they said at Blizzcon (and I think even in earlier 1.5 patch notes, although it didn't work when I tested it)
Also:
The following new slash commands have been added : • /help – displays available /slash commands • /close – closes the focused chat window • /min – minimizes the focused chat window • /max – maximizes the focused chat window • /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size • /afk – puts the player into AFK status • /dnd – puts the players into DND status • /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party • /partykick – removes the targeted player from party • /block – blocks the targeted player • /unblock – unblocks the targeted player • /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend • /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend • /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player • /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player • /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
FINALLY. Long overdue. I guess open games list was also really long overdue too (although I could see it taking more time than chat commands to implement)
On June 02 2012 08:33 NeWeNiyaLord wrote: One thing I noticed was, that you can only fungal units. This way, you can't miss.... Can't fungal if there's no units -.- ridiculous..
sure hope this is a bug or troll, absolutely ridiculous indeed
On June 02 2012 08:40 ThePlayer33 wrote: WHAT is this???
"Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range."
Relax, it's just that the auto attack while burrowed for banelings didn't trigger for colossus before. (Colossus could walk right over baneling mines set to explode, now they properly explode)
just did a ladder game and saw: stim now costs 150/150 and is back to 140 sec combatshild costs 150/150 concussive shells 100/100 and 80 sec nitro packs 100/100 and 100 sec
On June 02 2012 05:20 Ben... wrote: Keeps telling me it can't read a file when it tries to install.
Any fix for this? I've tried all kinds of things.
try to diable antivirus, it fixed it for me edit:
On June 02 2012 08:48 EuSpex wrote: they also did balance changes?
just did a ladder game and saw: stim now costs 150/150 and is back to 140 sec combatshild costs 150/150 concussive shells 100/100 and 80 sec nitro packs 100/100 and 100 sec
I think they use an old SC2-game build for this beta
I'm downloading the beta now, I didn't know I had it until now, maybe they opened up the beta to a lot more people? anyone following this thread should check their account to see if they got it.
On June 02 2012 08:40 ThePlayer33 wrote: WHAT is this???
"Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range."
all zerg units can auto-unburrow if you decide to auto cast their burrow icon while they are burrowed. All it does is unburrow your burrowed units when any enemy units comes within sight range of your unit. We've had this functionality since launch but no one uses it because you get less DPS as the baneling will have to unburrow, then find it's target, which leaves room for it to die without doing anything. A small bug fix that literally doesn't do shit for zerg because no one in their right minds ever used auto cast on unburrow.
After checking it out, i must say, I am quite fond of the UI...maybe some tweaks and changes and it will be reaaaally good..seems off to me though that they would leave out the clan UI and restarting from replays for HOTS...seems like they might have to redo the UI when that comes out...
The "can't read file" problem... just disabling anti-virus didn't do it for me. I went thorugh all my processes and made sure all AVG and Spybot were off... checked every process. I had to right click, properties, use Run as Administrator... which still didn't work... then, still in properties, I had to tell it to "unblock"... where it warns you that the program came from another computer... etc. Windows7... that finally got it go work.
I think they use an old SC2-game build for this beta
jea that could be true
dat protoss was really annoyed when I stimmed his ramp up that early lol =D.
A very great patch, can not wait to have this released! It is an online multiplayer game with lots of people playing.. thats how it feels now )))))) no more "lost alone"
On June 02 2012 09:00 EuSpex wrote: A very great patch, can not wait to have this released! It is an online multiplayer game with lots of people playing.. thats how it feels now )))))) no more "lost alone"
I really like the new creep look, though it threw me off at first because I didn't notice my natural expansion had finished because I didn't notice the difference on the minimap.
Low graphics looks significantly different now. The textures are way different. I don't know if I like it.
On June 02 2012 09:27 Ben... wrote: I really like the new creep look, though it threw me off at first because I didn't notice my natural expansion had finished because I didn't notice the difference on the minimap.
Low graphics looks significantly different now. The textures are way different. I don't know if I like it.
Could you post a few pics of those if its not too much to ask?
omg.. get out.. ITS INTERFACE PATCH , before HOTS beta.. NOT balance patch...
Also, this is using a very old build. Stim for example is 150/150 at 140 seconds, instead of 100/100 at 160 seconds. I wouldn't take ladder on here very seriously at all.
Interesting. I didn't notice that small balance hiccup.
The Alpha version of this interface patch was basically a frankenstein version of all the balance patches, with Zerg retaining some of their old beta values while Terran and Protoss had changes from the most recent patches. It was really weird to look at.
But I don't think these balance changes are of any importance. It's probably just a bad merge of different patches, as someone speculated in the Alpha thread.
edit: And it definitely looks like this Beta has the same merge problems. A lot of the old Zerg upgrades that were removed in the WoL Beta seem to be back. Flux Veins is back lol. But this is just going through the hotkey lists. It could be different in-game.
In my beta, stim and concusive researches are 100/100 and 50/50. With the queen buff and overlord buff, this is the newest build
On June 02 2012 09:27 Ben... wrote: I really like the new creep look, though it threw me off at first because I didn't notice my natural expansion had finished because I didn't notice the difference on the minimap.
Low graphics looks significantly different now. The textures are way different. I don't know if I like it.
They said that in Blizzcon 2011 that they will improve the look of the lowest settings in HOTS. Since like they are going to do it in 1.5
On June 02 2012 08:19 AsymptoticClimax wrote: Welcome to the party Blizzard, you're 2 years late.
Get job at blizzard and make things faster , but now just stfu
What I said may have seemed like I've taken blizzards time and effort for granted but ffs this should of been the final released version not introduced two years later..
On June 02 2012 09:27 Ben... wrote: I really like the new creep look, though it threw me off at first because I didn't notice my natural expansion had finished because I didn't notice the difference on the minimap.
Low graphics looks significantly different now. The textures are way different. I don't know if I like it.
Could you post a few pics of those if its not too much to ask?
The creep is a more faded purple, and it's also transparent, allowing you to vaguely see the terrain below it.
working on more actual creep photos^^
Click for gallery (4 pictures)
I'm not Zerg, so I'm not really sure what's changed.
On June 02 2012 10:21 Gl!tch wrote: Is anybody with a low end computer (like mine) having any troubles or noticing slightly lower fps with the graphics changes?
Was reading post of many people with low spec cpu .. that they have less fps. Was playing some games today and i see no diffrence with fps . I have Athlon x2 240 2.8 ghz , 3 gb ram , geforce 9500 GT 1 Gb , using windows 7 32 bit.
I would love to post my lower end computer results but with a 10GB download I will need to wait until I get to my house on sunday to download the game. Im surprised its a whole 10GB download O.O
I have the following specs, if someone with a similar PC can let me know if they took a performance hit I would appreciate it
I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
You just listed a bunch of bug fixes... what's to be concerned about?
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
On June 02 2012 08:02 l_Kyo_l wrote: Not sure if it was mentioned earlier in the posts but some small things i noticed
Obs timing is 40 sec Probes now show a "waypoint" on the mineral patch they are gathering from, even if multiple are selected you see dots on all minerals. Moreover, there seemed to be more waypoiting shown by probes on movement command. Though, all of the above may have just been because the client was not full updated when i was playing.
There are now chat channels that u can join when looking through strategy, multiplayer(arcade) etc at the top of each game type. This is to help I guess with the "community" aspect.
Overall, not much changes.. and personally I don't think it's really "better" just different. Though, some of the other things that will be introducted with Hots i think will make the new UI much better and smooth with the game. We will see though.
Also not sure if this was mentioned earlier but clicking the mineral patches shows how many workers are mining from it (like how gas buildings worked already).
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
If this is because they implemented an acceleration rate for screen scroll, it will hurt professional play, since it actually means "less responsive".
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
If this is because they implemented an acceleration rate for screen scroll, it will hurt professional play, since it actually means "less responsive".
It will hurt most of the competitive players. It actually sounds terrible to me and I'm only a mid master player -_-
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
LOL wait so if you were to morph a ling into a bling, it would glitch and be stuck as an egg underneath a hatchery?
Also, didn't even know you can tell if Bunkers are empty or not, wtf o.o
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
If this is because they implemented an acceleration rate for screen scroll, it will hurt professional play, since it actually means "less responsive".
I bet they will implement some sort of optional "Use Scrolling Acceleration" option, Blizzard is pretty good about that sort of thing.
EDIT: "Optional... option." Check out dem repetitive redundancies, man.
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
LOL wait so if you were to morph a ling into a bling, it would glitch and be stuck as an egg underneath a hatchery?
Also, didn't even know you can tell if Bunkers are empty or not, wtf o.o
An empty bunker has its uppermost bit look kind of "lifted" and the portholes where the marines fire from are black. When the bunker has units in it the top bit lowers slightly and the ports light up based on how many marines are in it, along with the shooting animation from each port based on the number of marines. One marine will mean that if a marine shoots you only see shots from one of the ports, the one that is closest to the bottom of the screen for example.
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
Thanks for the response. Can I get a clarification?
When you say smoother, did you mean more responsive or something else?
the removal of bfh splash to burrowed units seem unfortunate (i assume still works against cloaks?) or maybe same principle as irradiated burrow unit not effecting unburrowed units.
On June 02 2012 12:35 SpecFire wrote: Can I get Grandmaster on this Beta?
OMG if you can i wanna play on it! lol
On June 02 2012 12:40 jinorazi wrote: the removal of bfh splash to burrowed units seem unfortunate (i assume still works against cloaks?) or maybe same principle as irradiated burrow unit not effecting unburrowed units.
I think you read that wrong. It says that if there is a zergling burrowed, and there are unburrowed zerglings behind it, previously the hellion would only hit the burrowed unit. But now, it will hit the burrowed unit and also splash the ones behind it if they are within range.
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
Thanks for the response. Can I get a clarification?
When you say smoother, did you mean more responsive or something else?
Well, on the mini map with current version( not 1.5beta) when u move ur screen through ur mini map it feels like small jumps all the time, if u know what I mean. On 1.5, it feels very smooth, U can't really feel the jumps. Also i noticed that it's different feel with the cursor too. Feels really good. I love the changes, although the one thing I'm not happy with is that they didn't add ANY statistics.
Such as ur winrate vs Z vs P vs T etc etc. Just same old shit with better lighting. No stats of ur winrate on maps or anything like that.
The one thing that I really love is ur Ladder menu, with new Race icons and graphics.
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
Thanks for the response. Can I get a clarification?
When you say smoother, did you mean more responsive or something else?
Well, on the mini map with current version( not 1.5beta) when u move ur screen through ur mini map it feels like small jumps all the time, if u know what I mean. On 1.5, it feels very smooth, U can't really feel the jumps. Also i noticed that it's different feel with the cursor too. Feels really good. I love the changes, although the one thing I'm not happy with is that they didn't add ANY statistics.
Such as ur winrate vs Z vs P vs T etc etc. Just same old shit with better lighting. No stats of ur winrate on maps or anything like that.
The one thing that I really love is ur Ladder menu, with new Race icons and graphics.
Can anyone clarify that "Look for team" on the top right of the picture? Does this mean some sort of clan/team support that allows one to look for teams and be in one?
Can anyone clarify that "Look for team" on the top right of the picture? Does this mean some sort of clan/team support that allows one to look for teams and be in one?
No, it opens the chat channel "Looking for a team".
On June 02 2012 12:52 jinorazi wrote: why they switch it lol. 1v1 being stuck between others seem weird. (or subliminal attempt at making 4v4 more popular)
The baneling thing is a bug fix. Any other "balance changes" are completely irrelevant because this is a UI/custom game patch. They don't care about the balance of the actual game for this beta because they don't want you to play it.
On June 02 2012 11:38 SarcasmMonster wrote: I remember one of the mapmakers saying that patch 1.5 has more responsive mouse inputs (ie. scrolling around the map using the mouse on the edge of the screen, etc.). Can anyone confirm?
Yes. I can say that is a lot smoother to move ur screen from minimap / on screen. Before it was all like sharp and shiet. Totally love the changes. Also I'm playin on LOW and the graphics looks pretty smooth / good too. Not that gloomy/depressing.
Thanks for the response. Can I get a clarification?
When you say smoother, did you mean more responsive or something else?
Well, on the mini map with current version( not 1.5beta) when u move ur screen through ur mini map it feels like small jumps all the time, if u know what I mean. On 1.5, it feels very smooth, U can't really feel the jumps. Also i noticed that it's different feel with the cursor too. Feels really good. I love the changes, although the one thing I'm not happy with is that they didn't add ANY statistics.
Such as ur winrate vs Z vs P vs T etc etc. Just same old shit with better lighting. No stats of ur winrate on maps or anything like that.
The one thing that I really love is ur Ladder menu, with new Race icons and graphics.
Yay! It shows art instead of the stupid pictures from the campaign scenes xD
Though I still would have liked for the Marine, Zealot, and Hydralisk to represent the 3 races, but doesn't matter too much.
I sorta don't like the new art direction though... I mean, it doesn't exactly look cleaner nor better. And I don't understand why 1v1 is on the right side now lol.
Shit, just realized that all those custom backgrounds... ;_;
New statistics have been added to the Player Profile: Games Played This Season, Most Played Mode, and Total Career games.
Cool. I love statistics.
So can we figure out our win/loss now?
Yeah, it's 50%.
But seriously, Blizzard has explained time and time again that win ratio is a meaningless statistic in Bronze-Diamond since you will always stabilize at 50% with enough games played. I don't see them reverting their decision to remove that statistic.
The most important thing of everything in this new update imo, is that there is an OPEN GAME LOBBY. You can see the games that are being hosted. This is the one thing that can really make a difference to the custom map community. I am really glad it is in there, and not a moment too soon
I like this a lot, just dont get why 4v4 is first and not 1v1. Makes no sense to me lol.
Besides that, I think the new patch looks really cool, seems like a much needed improvement on battle.net. I'm very excited for HOTS with this patch... Cant wait! :D
I really dont understand how can anyone like the new quick match page more than the current one. This new one looks like a joke compared to the one right now ; /
On June 02 2012 08:05 Xapti wrote: OMG they added open games! I was worried that due to the private/closed beta that they wouldn't add it, and just use fun-or-not like they said at Blizzcon (and I think even in earlier 1.5 patch notes, although it didn't work when I tested it)
The following new slash commands have been added : • /help – displays available /slash commands • /close – closes the focused chat window • /min – minimizes the focused chat window • /max – maximizes the focused chat window • /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size • /afk – puts the player into AFK status • /dnd – puts the players into DND status • /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party • /partykick – removes the targeted player from party • /block – blocks the targeted player • /unblock – unblocks the targeted player • /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend • /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend • /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player • /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player • /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
FINALLY. Long overdue. I guess open games list was also really long overdue too (although I could see it taking more time than chat commands to implement)
On June 02 2012 14:35 mrtomjones wrote: "Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range"
What is this about? Do banes do that for other units?
Yes, if you put a baneling on auto-unburrow it will pop out and explode if anything walks near it with the exception of the colossus, this is merely a bug fix that makes it act consistent with all the other ground units.
A new distance measuring tool has been added, which measures both straight-line and pathing distances (see Tools >> Measure Distance). New terrain copy/paste options have been added to include or exclude textures, geometry, and water (see Edit >> Copy Options).
AAAWWWEEEESOMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!! YES! especially the second option has the potential to save hours of time when making maps.
On June 02 2012 14:35 mrtomjones wrote: "Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range"
What is this about? Do banes do that for other units?
Yes, if you put a baneling on auto-unburrow it will pop out and explode if anything walks near it with the exception of the colossus, this is merely a bug fix that makes it act consistent with all the other ground units.
Think of auto-unburrow Banelings like Vulture's spider mines. Only it's better because you can detonate them manually.
Having played the Beta, the open games list is a huge improvement. I can actually play customs now.
Also really nifty, there's a "join chat" button on a lot of screens that kicks you into a relevant chat room. The home page gets you into a general chat, the arcade page has a button for the arcade chat, and quick-play 2v2 and up has a button for looking for teams, etc. It makes more people go into the chat, which in turn makes the chats livelier. It's a nice improvement.
There isn't an easy way to invite someone into a game you're in the lobby for. I'd like that.
A lot of the buttons have been redesigned to be nicer, but that UI still feels empty, especially the home page.
It's funny to see that ''Starcraft'' button at the top left corner of the screen, it looks as if you can play the original game inside starcraft 2, not to mention that ''Arcade'' button, which reminds me of these old rom emulators. So yeah the whole UI is a blast from the past, but a much needed improvement.
Btw, can you write the name of your game in Open Games, for example ''1x1 PROs only no n00bs''. I miss those things from WC3?
For those of you who've actually tried it out, have any of you noticed a bug where instead of "Terran, Zerg, Protoss, Random", it says "Red, Blue, Teal, Purple"? I thought that was weird and funny— "I'm going to play as purple [race] today"
On June 02 2012 08:05 Xapti wrote: OMG they added open games! I was worried that due to the private/closed beta that they wouldn't add it, and just use fun-or-not like they said at Blizzcon (and I think even in earlier 1.5 patch notes, although it didn't work when I tested it)
Also:
The following new slash commands have been added : • /help – displays available /slash commands • /close – closes the focused chat window • /min – minimizes the focused chat window • /max – maximizes the focused chat window • /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size • /afk – puts the player into AFK status • /dnd – puts the players into DND status • /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party • /partykick – removes the targeted player from party • /block – blocks the targeted player • /unblock – unblocks the targeted player • /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend • /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend • /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player • /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player • /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player
FINALLY. Long overdue. I guess open games list was also really long overdue too (although I could see it taking more time than chat commands to implement)
Still no /whisper.
They actually added that ability a while ago. It may have been a ninjaed change. I was happy when they added that, too. I kinda doubt it works in the lobby, but you can do it in-game. It even has an auto-search pop-up list of names to choose from when you've partially typed the name (rather necessary considering the fact that you can have people with the same name (it shows their ID number as well))
On June 02 2012 08:33 NeWeNiyaLord wrote: One thing I noticed was, that you can only fungal units. This way, you can't miss.... Can't fungal if there's no units -.- ridiculous..
I noticed that was the case with the old 1.5 arcade beta, along with a bunch of other weird things (unable to cast infested terran while burrowed), but I didn't notice it in the bunch of games I played today in the new version. Are you talking about hte right version?
Downloading it right now. Lets see what it is and HOW it is
Is this like another full game of starcraft or will I be logging into my real battlenet account and having the same MMR and be in my old league and everything?
On June 02 2012 15:54 enemy2010 wrote: Is this like another full game of starcraft or will I be logging into my real battlenet account and having the same MMR and be in my old league and everything?
It's like a second account. You get a new name, new ID, new rfiendlist, new MMR. Only your login is the same.
I really like some of the changes and I really dislike others. The "Arcade" is great. An "Open Games" tab, sorting maps by genres, the rating system and especially the preview option for every map is awesome. If they implemented that earlier, a lot of casuals would still be playing the game. I'm not so fond of the look of the UI, especially the Quick Match screen looks kinda meh :/ But since it's only a game menu, I don't really care. What I really don't like is the changes they made to the look of the game itself. I have the feeling that everything that's not in my vision looks gritty and darker than what I'm used to. Played about 15 laddergames and I still have the feeling, that it just doesn't look right.
New arcade looks cool, but there's one thing, that I don't like it. The main problem is to reach my division ladder. If i press on portrait it doesn't show my league, division - nothing useful. If I want to get to my division I have to go like this Starcraft>Quick Match>View ladder. The other thing is with other players. If I want to know in which league they're I have to go to career summary, but there is no way I can get in other people division ladder.
all the open games list needs is a player count in each lobby. There also needs to be some kind of veto system where players can boot the host so afk hosts don't clog up the open lists.
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
You just listed a bunch of bug fixes... what's to be concerned about?
No Im only asking, is this a real patch for the normal game, or is this patch for a separate custom game of SC2? I am confused because it says "arcade" beta, instead of the previous patches where the names were simply "patch 1.3.0, patch 1.3.1", so on.
Oh this is weird. When I played the game at about 40% downloaded/installed, Typhon Peaks and Shattered Temple were part of my 1v1 map pool along with new maps like Ohana and Cloud Kingdom. When I played the beta at 100% installed, the correct, current map pool was displayed. Weird.
On June 02 2012 17:15 CrtBalorda wrote: Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range.
I dont think blizzard thought this one through. This 1. removes skill from the game (like we need that blizz) and 2. it makes a cllossus an observer.
Maybe sometimes it might even be better to have banelings blow up on colossus. So I really hate this unit automization.
Also they added support for self cast hotkey? What is that?
1: You could already right click on unburrow and it would enable the autocast that would automatically unburrow if a unit came within range. (Less effective then casting it yourself) 2: This is just a fix. If a colossus would walk over a baneling it wouldnt trigger the auto unburrow this just fixes it so it will react in the same way as every other unit.
On June 02 2012 11:26 ZeromuS wrote: I would love to post my lower end computer results but with a 10GB download I will need to wait until I get to my house on sunday to download the game. Im surprised its a whole 10GB download O.O
I have the following specs, if someone with a similar PC can let me know if they took a performance hit I would appreciate it
I have a similar laptop, except it's not overclocked, has a Nvidia 320M, 4GB DDR3 RAM (just because of this, it might take a performance hit) and the same harddrive specs. I'll get back at you, if you want me to.
There's still a massive lack of focus on competitive ladders.
You can't even view other people's ladder profile and division ladder anymore. There's no stats. Still no way to compare the rank of players not in the same division.
I must say, the Beta-patch game looks amazing. It feels like a return to the original SC2 beta feel, with all the buttons and the whole interface just being much more... defined. Looks good, the arcade system is useful. I've got high hopes for this one.
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
You just listed a bunch of bug fixes... what's to be concerned about?
No Im only asking, is this a real patch for the normal game, or is this patch for a separate custom game of SC2? I am confused because it says "arcade" beta, instead of the previous patches where the names were simply "patch 1.3.0, patch 1.3.1", so on.
It's just a regular patch, the actual patch number is patch 1.5.0, They're making a big deal about it because it introduces a lot of stuff designed to bring custom game types to the front hence the "Arcade Patch".
game is crashing, have to wait till it's loaded fully, but the interface and the graphics seem better, though i am not sure if the starcraft/arcade button is better than single/multplayer as arcade and custom don't seem toooooo relevant in the community. pls correct me if i am wrong as i am a campaign fan and don't follow custom maps too much.
On June 02 2012 20:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: anything that gets more people playing a larger variety customs is a good thing , sc2 melee is just soooo boring compared to brood war
Thanks for your... valuable... input.
On topic: Looking forward to everything except 4v4 being at the beginning of the list
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
You just listed a bunch of bug fixes... what's to be concerned about?
No Im only asking, is this a real patch for the normal game, or is this patch for a separate custom game of SC2? I am confused because it says "arcade" beta, instead of the previous patches where the names were simply "patch 1.3.0, patch 1.3.1", so on.
It's just a regular patch, the actual patch number is patch 1.5.0, They're making a big deal about it because it introduces a lot of stuff designed to bring custom game types to the front hence the "Arcade Patch".
Thanks for that. Wow...if this is a real patch...then, the Baneling and Colossus one is a bitwierd O.o
On June 02 2012 11:53 dynwar7 wrote: Wait....guys, is this a real patch 1.5.0 or is this for a completely different custom game within SC2?
Protoss
The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings. Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.
Terran
It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs. The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac. The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings. Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed. Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit. Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.
Zerg
Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range. Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery. Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation. Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.
I am concerned with these changes.... so are they just for custom or for the actual gameplay of SC2?
You just listed a bunch of bug fixes... what's to be concerned about?
No Im only asking, is this a real patch for the normal game, or is this patch for a separate custom game of SC2? I am confused because it says "arcade" beta, instead of the previous patches where the names were simply "patch 1.3.0, patch 1.3.1", so on.
It's just a regular patch, the actual patch number is patch 1.5.0, They're making a big deal about it because it introduces a lot of stuff designed to bring custom game types to the front hence the "Arcade Patch".
Thanks for that. Wow...if this is a real patch...then, the Baneling and Colossus one is a bitwierd O.o
It's nothing balance related. It was just a bug that banes didn't react to colossi when auto-casting was on.
lol, I just found some funny things in the hotkey setup: It's possible to assign hotkeys to the following zerg upgrades (dunno about the other races): - ultralisk speed - infestor speed while burrowed - roach organic carapace
"A new player property has been added to disallow resource splitting when players drop from a game."
does this mean that if a player now drops from a multi game, you wont get his resources untill the 5 minute mark? If so, its a good fix against purposely dropping to split resources but the majority of drops seem to be accidental and then you severaly hamperd if 1 player drops not sure am happy with this
Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
On June 03 2012 00:29 Math.random(); wrote: Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
Those HP-bars are ugly. We must have option to change sizes of HP bars.
On June 03 2012 00:29 Math.random(); wrote: Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
yep the graphics on low for me are different too, im getting lag in 200/200 battles , i guess blizzard just hate people with low spec comps :D
On June 02 2012 23:57 virpi wrote: lol, I just found some funny things in the hotkey setup: It's possible to assign hotkeys to the following zerg upgrades (dunno about the other races): - ultralisk speed - infestor speed while burrowed - roach organic carapace - faster regenaration while burrowed
Other than that there are: Research Neosteel grame - increase cargo space in bunker by two, same for planetary and cc Flux vanes - speed and acceleration for void rays (didn't they remove it?) Kaydarin amulet
Did they just put it there like that or what? pretty strange to have these things
On June 03 2012 00:29 Math.random(); wrote: Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
yep the graphics on low for me are different too, im getting lag in 200/200 battles , i guess blizzard just hate people with low spec comps :D
Do you bitch at Microsoft for not being able to play xbox 360 games on your xbox? Spend the 100 dollars to upgrade, if you don't have it blame yourself not Blizzard.
Shit you can buy a whole rig (reman) for like $200.00 that will play SC2 on medium settings.
Hey, I'm having a problem I can't seem to figure out with the beta and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced it, and has been able to fix it? My hotkeys weren't working during games on ladder. My numbers on the keyboard worked, but none of the letters did. So I had to manually build everything.
On June 03 2012 00:29 Math.random(); wrote: Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
yep the graphics on low for me are different too, im getting lag in 200/200 battles , i guess blizzard just hate people with low spec comps :D
Do you bitch at Microsoft for not being able to play xbox 360 games on your xbox? Spend the 100 dollars to upgrade, if you don't have it blame yourself not Blizzard.
Shit you can buy a whole rig (reman) for like $200.00 that will play SC2 on medium settings.
The hell are you on about, blizzard provide a low setting for people who have too bad computers for the higher settings, people shouldn't have to buy a new computer after a patch. Expansion sure arguably but for a compulsary patch the computer requirements shouldn't change.
On June 03 2012 00:29 Math.random(); wrote: Is there a way to have better contrast concerning the health bar? It's hard for me to recognize if I already stimmed my units and if which have low health. And also the quality of graphics seem to be better, but maxed battles on low graphics is unplayable for me
yep the graphics on low for me are different too, im getting lag in 200/200 battles , i guess blizzard just hate people with low spec comps :D
Do you bitch at Microsoft for not being able to play xbox 360 games on your xbox? Spend the 100 dollars to upgrade, if you don't have it blame yourself not Blizzard.
Shit you can buy a whole rig (reman) for like $200.00 that will play SC2 on medium settings.
The hell are you on about, blizzard provide a low setting for people who have too bad computers for the higher settings, people shouldn't have to buy a new computer after a patch. Expansion sure arguably but for a compulsary patch the computer requirements shouldn't change.
This isn't a patch, how do you know how this will affect your gameplay until it is implented live, it is a BETA afterall
Overall, I really like the changes to the UI in this patch. It seems much nicer, with a better focus on being social. It's not perfect, but I think its a solid step in the right direction.
On June 03 2012 04:12 Greenei wrote: omg ladder is soooo hard. i offraced a bit, landet in silver and am playing against pre-arcade plat/diamond/masters lol.
Dude, I was Plat and played TvZs for all my placements and got into Bronze XD.
Granted, I did throw my last placement since I didn't want to play any more TvZs since I'm soooo bad at the matchup right now .
Huh, my client crashed when it started loading SC1 Greatest Hits. Strange...
The problem with the lag might be happening because there was a patch a while ago that made the graphics run smoother or something. Can't remember exactly but it would make sense if people are reporting old values for units/costs etc.
I don't know why so many people are having a problem with the newer graphics. I have a laptop and play on low settings and i don't notice the difference. Maybe it makes more difference in low/medium settings?
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
It's wrong. Zerg units are easier to see on creep, than now. Lighter creep - harder to see zerglings for example.
And look at HotS presentation. They already said, that they will make textures better and sharper on low settings. And I understand that change. Players, who are playing on lowest settings, turning EVERYTHING off, including things, that do not change game readability, but makes game to look a bit better.
•Banelings will now auto-cast Unburrow if a Colossus comes within their attack range.
Only relevant balance change I see.
And... what? So the banelings unburrow and evaporate to the thermal lance? Are they on hold position? Attack (towards the colossus)? Why has this changed?
EDIT: It was explained to me a few posts below I don't play Zerg ^^
And... what? So the banelings unburrow and evaporate to the thermal lance? Are they on hold position? Attack (towards the colossus)? Why has this changed?
They already can auto-unburrow when units come close to their range. This is not worked, if colosus walking over them.
This is not a balance change, this is only a bug-fix of unpopular function "Auto-cast unburrow" for banelings vs colosus.
Launch SC2 now and burrow ANY zerg unit. Then see, that you can auto-cast unburrow commandfor ANY zerg unit.
if that hydra, then they will unburrow at 5+1 range from enemy unit. If ultralis, then at 1 range, etc
But, there is some bugs with balance. If you play ladder games, it is a 2010 WOL 1.0 build. But if you play Versus AI or custom games, it is the newest 1.4.3.2 build (with queen buff, overlord speed and all that).
I don't understand why they would reverse the order of the game mode buttons (1v1, 2v2, etc.). Maybe to attract first-timers to the more casual modes? Also kind of upset there's no clan support yet (although there are signs of it!) and no old-bnet-like public chat. :/
On June 03 2012 04:54 eviltomahawk wrote: I'm getting about 10-20 less FPS in this Beta.
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
Me too, exactly the same stuff, except for models. It feels weird to play because of colors and I also get fewer FPS. Here's my post on US B.net forums + photo comparasion: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5592452722
On June 03 2012 04:54 eviltomahawk wrote: I'm getting about 10-20 less FPS in this Beta.
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
Integrated graphics are your problem. Add any $40.00 card and it will run much much better
On June 03 2012 04:54 eviltomahawk wrote: I'm getting about 10-20 less FPS in this Beta.
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
Me too, exactly the same stuff, except for models. It feels weird to play because of colors and I also get fewer FPS. Here's my post on US B.net forums + photo comparasion: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5592452722
Sorry i must ask , you have 150+ fps , and you cry abouth fps drop ? And the other thing is .. your brightnes in options , are not set the same. You can see this on screens , dont need look at creep , you can see this on mini map , minerals , and even on space platform.
PS . You need only around 30-35 fps for rts games , to play smoth
On June 03 2012 04:54 eviltomahawk wrote: I'm getting about 10-20 less FPS in this Beta.
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
Me too, exactly the same stuff, except for models. It feels weird to play because of colors and I also get fewer FPS. Here's my post on US B.net forums + photo comparasion: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5592452722
Sorry i must ask , you have 150+ fps , and you cry abouth fps drop ? And the other thing is .. your brightnes in options , are not set the same. You can see this on screens , dont need look at creep , you can see this on mini map , minerals , and even on space platform.
PS . You need only around 30-35 fps for rts games , to play smoth
I can't edit brightness on Windowed Fullscreen. Also, yes, I cry about it since it seems they've improved the highest settings while lowering FPS lowest. Also, when there is a big 200/200 vs 200/200 battle, I have like 40-50 fps on 1.4.3 and when I stream I go at about 25-30. If i lose another 15 fps, what can I do ?
If you don't micro&mutlitask, yeah, 35 fps is enough.
And... what? So the banelings unburrow and evaporate to the thermal lance? Are they on hold position? Attack (towards the colossus)? Why has this changed?
They already can auto-unburrow when units come close to their range. This is not worked, if colosus walking over them.
This is not a balance change, this is only a bug-fix of unpopular function "Auto-cast unburrow" for banelings vs colosus.
Launch SC2 now and burrow ANY zerg unit. Then see, that you can auto-cast unburrow commandfor ANY zerg unit.
if that hydra, then they will unburrow at 5+1 range from enemy unit. If ultralis, then at 1 range, etc
Thank you for clarifying this Clearly I don't play Zerg ^^
On June 03 2012 04:54 eviltomahawk wrote: I'm getting about 10-20 less FPS in this Beta.
I'm running with everything on low, except for medium textures and high models.
My specs are i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 6 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
Integrated graphics are your problem. Add any $40.00 card and it will run much much better
Obviously a card would be preferred, but don't underestimate the Intel HD 3000 coupled with a Sandy Bridge processor. That baby got me through Skyrim with high textures and distant actor/object fade, and I'm stuck with laptop for the time being so no graphics upgrades for me.
But with vanilla SC2, I get about 80 fps with everything turned off, and about 60-70 with medium textures and high models. I'm fine with how the normal game looks and performs. In this Beta, my FPS is a bit lower at a noticeable level, at about 40-60 FPS with those same settings, dipping to 20-30 later in the game.
That being said, I've noticed that ground textures are sharper-looking, and I'm on the fence on whether or not I like the new Creep look. Sometimes it's harder to discern Zerg units when they are on Creep.
It's wrong. Zerg units are easier to see on creep, than now. Lighter creep - harder to see zerglings for example.
And look at HotS presentation. They already said, that they will make textures better and sharper on low settings. And I understand that change. Players, who are playing on lowest settings, turning EVERYTHING off, including things, that do not change game readability, but makes game to look a bit better.
Smooth textures looked weird really
I'm fine with the sharper textures, though I would prefer if my FPS didn't take that much of a hit since I do like my medium textures and high models, especially since high models is useful for gameplay since you can get some info by glancing at dead debris.
And regarding the Creep, my problem isn't really with its brightness but rather its specific shade of brown, at least on lower settings. Grey-ish units like Roaches were kinda hard for me to see on the old Creep since they both are a similar shade of grey, especially when I'm watching a livestream in a bad quality. With this new brownish Creep, the brownish units like Hydras and Lings and Overlords seem to be slightly harder to discern but not by much, but it seems that this really depends on the lighting of the map for medium shaders and higher. For example, I was okay with the lighting on Korhal Compound, but playing with medium shaders on Cloud Kingdom was kinda hard due to the night lighting making the color shades look too similar and washed out.
I dunno. It's really subjective, at least for me. I like the new Creep on some maps but not on others, and I hope Blizzard can make it so that Zerg stuff is easier to see on it, even if I'm okay with it right now.
I personally hope that Blizzard will eventually implement an internal option to enable team colours like shown in the "stronger team colours" mod, for sake of greater clarity. I know some of the Blizz staff were saying it was a cool idea and they were taking a look at it for consideration.
In the meantime, really liking the visual improvements done to lower settings. I tend to play on low settings for better performance, but it sucked that the ground always looked like random blobs of colours.
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
It's always been there, since beta, you just never realized it,. Also auto unburrow banelings suck compared to a well place/timed press X
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
It's a bug FIX, meaning if you set your baneling to AUTOCAST unburrow, it now works for the colossus. Meaning that before, every other unit on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for the colossus, and the baneling on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for everything except the colossus. Now the baneling will unburrow for all units, including the colossus.
The thing I'm getting at here if you couldn't tell is AUTOCAST unburrow. Yes, AUTOCAST. Meaning this only happens when you set it to autocast. Your banelings won't just unburrow randomly now that there are colossi on the field. Also, this has been answered 20 times already, whatever happened to people reading things before they set themselves into AUTOCOMPLAIN mode?
As long as the menu runs a lot smoother, i'll be happy. I can't stand it when the current system greys out my entire game and goes unresponsive due to clicking on the damn ladder tab. t.t
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
Also, this has been answered 20 times already, whatever happened to people reading things before they set themselves into AUTOCOMPLAIN mode?
Yeah. I just read the thread (before posting, what a concept) and I can't believe how many people continue to bring that up when it has been explained on like every page...
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
It's a bug FIX, meaning if you set your baneling to AUTOCAST unburrow, it now works for the colossus. Meaning that before, every other unit on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for the colossus, and the baneling on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for everything except the colossus. Now the baneling will unburrow for all units, including the colossus.
The thing I'm getting at here if you couldn't tell is AUTOCAST unburrow. Yes, AUTOCAST. Meaning this only happens when you set it to autocast. Your banelings won't just unburrow randomly now that there are colossi on the field. Also, this has been answered 20 times already, whatever happened to people reading things before they set themselves into AUTOCOMPLAIN mode?
/AUTOCOMPLAIN
Lol. Yea. I think I'll start applying this assessment to my real life experiences as well.
...Don't pay him any mind, he's just entering AUTOCOMPLAIN mode.
It's likely still very beta, I'm almost certain the machmaking for arcade games straight doesn't work yet, only those that put you straight into a lobby like currently seem to get any games going, this was the case for the alpha as well where pretty much only private lobbies were working.
Also the profile is worse than the current one, you can't view your division from the profile you have to go to quick match, and by extension that means you can't view a friends division ladder, don't know yet if that's a conscious decision or an oversight.
It's likely still very beta, I'm almost certain the machmaking for arcade games straight doesn't work yet, only those that put you straight into a lobby like currently seem to get any games going, this was the case for the alpha as well where pretty much only private lobbies were working.
Also the profile is worse than the current one, you can't view your division from the profile you have to go to quick match, and by extension that means you can't view a friends division ladder, don't know yet if that's a conscious decision or an oversight.
liking it a lot: now we can even delete chat channels!
I like the additional visual indications as well (such as the drone rally line for mineral), not sure what the real purpose is for but it looks better whenever you try to count how many harvesters you have.
The creep on minimap looks ok, I prefer the current one because it makes the map more purple, showing the effort to creep spread is paying off. The one in beta somehow feels a bit empty.
On June 03 2012 13:13 Doodsmack wrote: Not a fan of the graphics changes, like the fog of war and darkness...just feels very different.
It does feel different but it feels more accurate and precise. It might be more annoying if you have higher graphic settings or something. I guess we'll have to wait to see what the pros think about it.
I didn't play the 1.5 beta patch so I can't really comment on the functionality of the new UI, but from what i've seen from the screenshots it looks bland and lifeless.
It's not working for me at the moment ? I couldn't join anything, and decided to restart the game, and now I get an error, I can't start it. anyone else that has this problem ?
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
It's a bug FIX, meaning if you set your baneling to AUTOCAST unburrow, it now works for the colossus. Meaning that before, every other unit on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for the colossus, and the baneling on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for everything except the colossus. Now the baneling will unburrow for all units, including the colossus.
The thing I'm getting at here if you couldn't tell is AUTOCAST unburrow. Yes, AUTOCAST. Meaning this only happens when you set it to autocast. Your banelings won't just unburrow randomly now that there are colossi on the field. Also, this has been answered 20 times already, whatever happened to people reading things before they set themselves into AUTOCOMPLAIN mode?
Theres an autocast for unburrow...... oh all right..... still seems dumb but whatever XD
Wonder if they'll work in some balance changes to this patch later. If this thing is coming out in couple of months, then it might be time for some balance adjustments.
On June 03 2012 08:24 Xenocryst wrote: WTF is with the auto baneling unburrow!?!?!? this makes me feel like blizzard is trolling a little but because thats just so fucking dumb....
It's a bug FIX, meaning if you set your baneling to AUTOCAST unburrow, it now works for the colossus. Meaning that before, every other unit on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for the colossus, and the baneling on AUTOCAST unburrow would unburrow for everything except the colossus. Now the baneling will unburrow for all units, including the colossus.
The thing I'm getting at here if you couldn't tell is AUTOCAST unburrow. Yes, AUTOCAST. Meaning this only happens when you set it to autocast. Your banelings won't just unburrow randomly now that there are colossi on the field. Also, this has been answered 20 times already, whatever happened to people reading things before they set themselves into AUTOCOMPLAIN mode?
Theres an autocast for unburrow...... oh all right..... still seems dumb but whatever XD
I feel a bit cranky when saying this..but I really hate the fact that they changed the order of quickmatch game modes. Together with the arcade/starcraft partition it just shouts "Casual!" right into my face.
Mentioned multiple times already is that the mineral patches, when selected, view the number of harvesters mining the patch. If you select multiple fields, does it show the total number of workers mining any of the selected patches?
On June 04 2012 03:39 Melwach wrote: I feel a bit cranky when saying this..but I really hate the fact that they changed the order of quickmatch game modes. Together with the arcade/starcraft partition it just shouts "Casual!" right into my face.
WTH is wrong with people, why do people like to classify things into Casual and Hardcore or Competitive or whatever. You are all consumers of the same product called Starcraft and the intentions you have for the product doesn't really change the fact that you paid for it.
Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
On June 04 2012 03:39 Melwach wrote: I feel a bit cranky when saying this..but I really hate the fact that they changed the order of quickmatch game modes. Together with the arcade/starcraft partition it just shouts "Casual!" right into my face.
WTH is wrong with people, why do people like to classify things into Casual and Hardcore or Competitive or whatever. You are all consumers of the same product called Starcraft and the intentions you have for the product doesn't really change the fact that you paid for it.
Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
I wondered about this too ... and the irony is that some of the people complaining about the "Casualness" of it all have LoL sigs - Which is the most casual of the Moba games.
On June 04 2012 08:37 NukeD wrote: Will this come with Blizzard DotA? If i remeber correctly they said something along those lines at blizzcon, they also said it wont be free :D
They said they have no intention of testing blizzard dota in the beta. They also haven't announced their plans for Blizzard Allstars (dota) though from the last blizzcon they mentioned it might be free for players who have starcraft, then a limited version for people without it, whether that's WoL or HotS remains to be seen.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
On June 04 2012 08:37 NukeD wrote: Will this come with Blizzard DotA? If i remeber correctly they said something along those lines at blizzcon, they also said it wont be free :D
How the hell do they expect to compete with LoL/Dota2?????
On June 04 2012 08:37 NukeD wrote: Will this come with Blizzard DotA? If i remeber correctly they said something along those lines at blizzcon, they also said it wont be free :D
How the hell do they expect to compete with LoL/Dota2?????
Dont listen to troll.
Blizzard dota will be ABSOLUTLY free , and everyone why buy WoL ( or who buy HOTS , i dont remmember , but i think you need only WoL ) will be able to play it. Blizzard never said , that BD wont be free. And also blizzard never said that BD will be in patch 1.5 , they said BD will be when they lunch HOTS.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
That is the idea. Furthermore, your selection "sticks" so you don't have to keep selecting 1v1 to quick match. No change to current players. Encouragement for new players to jump into laddering in a friendlier environment than 1v1.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
The actual quote is over here from an interview with Game Informer during the beta:
Dustin Browder said: "We're definitely going to be looking at Achievements and other tools to encourage our players, once they graduate from cooperative vs. AI to move into team play before they move into 1v1. We're going to offer 4v4 and 3v3 to encourage them to get into a team play environment [and] get with a team. It's a much more casual environment than the 1v1. You've got somebody to help you to play with, you've got allies who can come to your rescue if you get into a little bit of trouble. We really consider the 1v1 the final endgame arena-style gameplay that we hope players will only get to after 30, 40, 50, 60 hours played depending on their enthusiasm for it."
On June 04 2012 08:37 NukeD wrote: Will this come with Blizzard DotA? If i remeber correctly they said something along those lines at blizzcon, they also said it wont be free :D
They said they have no intention of testing blizzard dota in the beta. They also haven't announced their plans for Blizzard Allstars (dota) though from the last blizzcon they mentioned it might be free for players who have starcraft, then a limited version for people without it, whether that's WoL or HotS remains to be seen.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
They said it would be available in the Starter Edition, meaning that it's F2P just like LoL and DotA 2.
And it's blizzard, so the gameplay's GOT to be good
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
They actually said a couple of times in the interview during the beta or shortly after launched that they intend people to work their way up from the team game to the 1v1. But it's so old that most people could forget about it.
I think they mixed up the units/buildings in the "build order" tab of previously played matches. Supply depots show up as engineering bays, and SCVs show up as reapers, and then I think orbital command comes up as warpgate. 10engineering bay, 12factory, 15warpgate all the way baby.
On June 04 2012 18:05 Kid-Fox wrote: I think they mixed up the units/buildings in the "build order" tab of previously played matches. Supply depots show up as engineering bays, and SCVs show up as reapers, and then I think orbital command comes up as warpgate. 10engineering bay, 12factory, 15warpgate all the way baby.
The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I really like the red HP bars for the ennemy. It helps a lot in deathball vs deathball engagements or marines vs marines where the outcome feels somewhat random and you can't predict if this will end in your favor until it's too late. Now you have a sense of losing or winning a fight a lot sooner and you can disengage if needed. Definitely a good option.
one question, can you filter your customs game in only "1v1"? cause right now you enter custom game and find the same map like three times in three different speeds :s
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
That is the idea. Furthermore, your selection "sticks" so you don't have to keep selecting 1v1 to quick match. No change to current players. Encouragement for new players to jump into laddering in a friendlier environment than 1v1.
Great point! And as mentioned before like a million times, you can save different screens to F1-5. So all you have to do is press F1 and click find match. Seems pretty simple to me.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
That is the idea. Furthermore, your selection "sticks" so you don't have to keep selecting 1v1 to quick match. No change to current players. Encouragement for new players to jump into laddering in a friendlier environment than 1v1.
Great point! And as mentioned before like a million times, you can save different screens to F1-5. So all you have to do is press F1 and click find match. Seems pretty simple to me.
I don't like it.
From the perspective of a new player, the ladder games are hidden behind a few menus and there is nothing at all to suggest that "quick match" is the core game.
And given that they find quick match, why should they play 4v4? Team games often lead to frustration because of bad teammates, the game is also not balanced around 4v4.
It also doesn't look right that 1v1 is between 2v2 and FFA.
If they wanted to suggest that new players should start with 4v4, then they should simply add some sort of welcome tour where it guides the players through the menus and some voiceover says that new players should start with 4v4.
On June 04 2012 03:39 Melwach wrote: I feel a bit cranky when saying this..but I really hate the fact that they changed the order of quickmatch game modes. Together with the arcade/starcraft partition it just shouts "Casual!" right into my face.
WTH is wrong with people, why do people like to classify things into Casual and Hardcore or Competitive or whatever. You are all consumers of the same product called Starcraft and the intentions you have for the product doesn't really change the fact that you paid for it.
Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
I wondered about this too ... and the irony is that some of the people complaining about the "Casualness" of it all have LoL sigs - Which is the most casual of the Moba games.
Yes, people would have still complained if it was ordered like that since release.
4, 3, 2, 1 is not a natural ordering. Everything (except for countdowns) are ordered ascendingly, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4.
I play on low graphics (macbook pro) and its significantly different with the 1.5 update.
The ground textures are much sharper and detailed, which wouldn't be too bad except that I'm noticing significant lag between issuing commands and execution.
Also has anyone else noticed that you can expand a chat window further than what '/max' applies?
On June 04 2012 22:28 pimsc2 wrote: I really like the red HP bars for the ennemy. It helps a lot in deathball vs deathball engagements or marines vs marines where the outcome feels somewhat random and you can't predict if this will end in your favor until it's too late. Now you have a sense of losing or winning a fight a lot sooner and you can disengage if needed. Definitely a good option.
I really want the red/green team bars to have a gradient based on damage. For example, full health enemy units are orange and low health enemy units are red. That visual distinction has been very important for me in the past to micro hurt units out of the line of fire. But at the same time, I really like being able to tell my units from my opponents, e.g., ling/bane wars.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
That is the idea. Furthermore, your selection "sticks" so you don't have to keep selecting 1v1 to quick match. No change to current players. Encouragement for new players to jump into laddering in a friendlier environment than 1v1.
Great point! And as mentioned before like a million times, you can save different screens to F1-5. So all you have to do is press F1 and click find match. Seems pretty simple to me.
I don't like it.
From the perspective of a new player, the ladder games are hidden behind a few menus and there is nothing at all to suggest that "quick match" is the core game.
And given that they find quick match, why should they play 4v4? Team games often lead to frustration because of bad teammates, the game is also not balanced around 4v4.
It also doesn't look right that 1v1 is between 2v2 and FFA.
If they wanted to suggest that new players should start with 4v4, then they should simply add some sort of welcome tour where it guides the players through the menus and some voiceover says that new players should start with 4v4.
They could certainly be more overt about it. However, team games are less stressful for new players since (1) you have three other players to rely on and (2) it makes the game more social. Team games are only really frustrating for players that think they're better than their teammates (which may or may not be true), a trait that players new to the game will likely not possess.
Purple and other dark colors are still unreadable on minimap.
Also red-HP bars fully counter Changelings.
Couldn't a changeling just have a green HP bar?!
Impossible.
EDIT: It's a joke, btw. I don't really see the problem with just letting the changeling have a green HP bar...can't be that complicated to do. I mean it's already a unit that changes form, so making it have a different HP bar shouldn't be a challenge either.
On June 04 2012 04:26 [17]Purple wrote: Beyond that however, I don't see any issue with why people would actually get peeved with the order of the quickmatches, they really show no significance. Had the game been released with that order instead, would people have gotten peeved about it?
That's kinda the point. As you say, it's a completely meaningless change.
So why change it? If it means nothing, one way or the other, why bother doing something that isn't making the interface objectively better in any way, shape, or form? The only thing it will do is force people who memorized it one way to do it backwards.
Yeah, that annoyance will last for about a day, but still, why do something that will only cause annoyance?
It's not something people need to harp on, but this is beta. And the most likely chance of getting it changed back is now.
It's an annoyance at best for someone who wants to play 1v1, but it makes all the difference in the world for someone who's just starting out when the default is 4v4. They've never hidden the fact that they intend people to start with team games and work their way towards 1v1. It's an extremely low-impact change for current players, but with a potential benefit for new players, that's the kind of changes people should be happy about, but apparently the fact that new players exist and are affecting their game in any way makes them angry.
Why now? They had to re-do a lot of the interface screens anyway so they all made use of their new UI editor tool because it allows them to iterate more quickly on the interface so they took the opportunity to swap the ordering, I don't think it represents a huge shift in their thought process surrounding the game.
I've never bought into this notion that people are supposed to play team games and work towards 1v1. Blizzard may not be hiding this idea, but they're certainly not advertising it either. I don't recall them saying anything about suggesting that players play team games for a time.
But yes, if that's what they're trying to say (and simply not communicating very well), then the UI change does have some positive benefit to it.
That is the idea. Furthermore, your selection "sticks" so you don't have to keep selecting 1v1 to quick match. No change to current players. Encouragement for new players to jump into laddering in a friendlier environment than 1v1.
Great point! And as mentioned before like a million times, you can save different screens to F1-5. So all you have to do is press F1 and click find match. Seems pretty simple to me.
I don't like it.
From the perspective of a new player, the ladder games are hidden behind a few menus and there is nothing at all to suggest that "quick match" is the core game.
And given that they find quick match, why should they play 4v4? Team games often lead to frustration because of bad teammates, the game is also not balanced around 4v4.
It also doesn't look right that 1v1 is between 2v2 and FFA.
If they wanted to suggest that new players should start with 4v4, then they should simply add some sort of welcome tour where it guides the players through the menus and some voiceover says that new players should start with 4v4.
They could certainly be more overt about it. However, team games are less stressful for new players since (1) you have three other players to rely on and (2) it makes the game more social. Team games are only really frustrating for players that think they're better than their teammates (which may or may not be true), a trait that players new to the game will likely not possess.
Yes, they can suggest new players play 4v4 without ordering the game types in an unnatural way.
On June 04 2012 23:35 Existor wrote: HP bars sizes are still ugly. SC2 is a still game of health bars and counters, not real units. Units just are skins only, that are hidden by HP bar
So? Just remove the health bars if you don't like them.You'll obviously have to give up on the competitive aspect of the game, which should not be a big loss for you, you don't seem to like SC2 very much.
Here's hoping for Shattered Temple and Typhon Peaks returning to the pool. Those maps were awesome.
SC / Arcade buttons are ugly. They need icons of some sort, in addition to the text.
Burrow bug fix needed to be more clearly worded; I don't think that the ability to autocast unburrow is well known (I for one didn't), and if you don't know both that and the fact that Colossi fail to trigger it, then the change sounds very strange indeed.
On June 04 2012 23:35 Existor wrote: HP bars sizes are still ugly. SC2 is a still game of health bars and counters, not real units. Units just are skins only, that are hidden by HP bar
So? Just remove the health bars if you don't like them.You'll obviously have to give up on the competitive aspect of the game, which should not be a big loss for you, you don't seem to like SC2 very much.
he is obviously bitter about sc2 and wishes we were all still playing BW on a DSL connection.
This makes me look forward to HOTS. The UI improvements really make it look like a more complete game and indirectly shows off the power of the map editor.
Purple and other dark colors are still unreadable on minimap.
Also red-HP bars fully counter Changelings.
Couldn't a changeling just have a green HP bar?!
Impossible.
EDIT: It's a joke, btw. I don't really see the problem with just letting the changeling have a green HP bar...can't be that complicated to do. I mean it's already a unit that changes form, so making it have a different HP bar shouldn't be a challenge either.
On June 04 2012 23:35 Existor wrote: HP bars sizes are still ugly. SC2 is a still game of health bars and counters, not real units. Units just are skins only, that are hidden by HP bar
So? Just remove the health bars if you don't like them.You'll obviously have to give up on the competitive aspect of the game, which should not be a big loss for you, you don't seem to like SC2 very much.
he is obviously bitter about sc2 and wishes we were all still playing BW on a DSL connection.
56k is what real men play with ! I actually started playing Starcraft on battle.net in 1999 with a 56k modem... jesus how the time flies...
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
On June 04 2012 20:26 trips wrote: So is it better for playing custom games now or should i just wait for the finished patch.??
You can have two installed sc2 . One with 1.4 patch , one with 1.5 beta . You dont even need to download it all , you can start playing after i think 500mb of download.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
On June 04 2012 23:35 Existor wrote: HP bars sizes are still ugly. SC2 is a still game of health bars and counters, not real units. Units just are skins only, that are hidden by HP bar
So? Just remove the health bars if you don't like them.You'll obviously have to give up on the competitive aspect of the game, which should not be a big loss for you, you don't seem to like SC2 very much.
he is obviously bitter about sc2 and wishes we were all still playing BW on a DSL connection.
56k is what real men play with ! I actually started playing Starcraft on battle.net in 1999 with a 56k modem... jesus how the time flies...
I played sc2 on 56k in my parent's place for three months, lol. I must be super mega man
On June 05 2012 04:57 Snowbear wrote: Can anyone explain what "sc2 is now a streaming game" means? Does this mean that every time I play, I am downloading / uploading stuff?
The launcher has a built-in downloader which transfers game data (and uploads it if you have peer-to-peer enabled). The data is tiered so that you first receive the framework for the game, and the game can't be launched until this phase is finished. The second tier is the critical data, such as most of the graphics and sounds, and the game can be launched while this is downloading but may be missing some pieces. The third tier is the noncritical data such as movies and other bells and whistles, and you can launch the game during this phase too. The game will continue downloading in the background if you choose to launch before it's completely finished, essentially "streaming" the game content to your PC.
On June 04 2012 23:35 Existor wrote: HP bars sizes are still ugly. SC2 is a still game of health bars and counters, not real units. Units just are skins only, that are hidden by HP bar
So? Just remove the health bars if you don't like them.You'll obviously have to give up on the competitive aspect of the game, which should not be a big loss for you, you don't seem to like SC2 very much.
he is obviously bitter about sc2 and wishes we were all still playing BW on a DSL connection.
I think he is (obviously) noticing the the health bars are too large, obscure the action in large battles, and could use an improvement ... such that they could still remain on, and NOT obscure the action in large battles.
At least, that's what I got from it. Maybe I'm reading too deep into it ...
I'll throw one in that's been bugging the custom community for a long time:
How have they adapted the b.net netcode to handle third-person and first-person lookaround latency? There's a lot of games that have been scrapped because of a small amount of forced latency from b.net. TSP and FPS customs suffer drastically as a result. Do they have plans to address this?
Additionally, are they planning on upping the map publishing limit? I was hoping to re-create a lot of BW customs, but the 10 map limit really sours things. Why can't they make it 50?
From here. I've never even realized this was an issue o_O. Hopefully it can be looked into.
Patch 1.5 would be the time to make any of the changes needed for the custom scene. If this is a dealbreaker for mapmakers, then we need Blizz to know ASAP. Any other mapmakers/knowledgable people confirm what was said in the post?
On June 05 2012 04:57 Snowbear wrote: Can anyone explain what "sc2 is now a streaming game" means? Does this mean that every time I play, I am downloading / uploading stuff?
The launcher has a built-in downloader which transfers game data (and uploads it if you have peer-to-peer enabled). The data is tiered so that you first receive the framework for the game, and the game can't be launched until this phase is finished. The second tier is the critical data, such as most of the graphics and sounds, and the game can be launched while this is downloading but may be missing some pieces. The third tier is the noncritical data such as movies and other bells and whistles, and you can launch the game during this phase too. The game will continue downloading in the background if you choose to launch before it's completely finished, essentially "streaming" the game content to your PC.
Isn't this THE nightmare for every player with a download limit (like me)?
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
On June 05 2012 04:57 Snowbear wrote: Can anyone explain what "sc2 is now a streaming game" means? Does this mean that every time I play, I am downloading / uploading stuff?
The launcher has a built-in downloader which transfers game data (and uploads it if you have peer-to-peer enabled). The data is tiered so that you first receive the framework for the game, and the game can't be launched until this phase is finished. The second tier is the critical data, such as most of the graphics and sounds, and the game can be launched while this is downloading but may be missing some pieces. The third tier is the noncritical data such as movies and other bells and whistles, and you can launch the game during this phase too. The game will continue downloading in the background if you choose to launch before it's completely finished, essentially "streaming" the game content to your PC.
Isn't this THE nightmare for every player with a download limit (like me)?
Well it's not like game is always downloading data. It's only downloading what the client needs to run properly. If you have a 10GB/month limit and the game is 6GB, that 6GB is a one-time download (plus whatever patches happen to come along which are typically 200MB on the high end). It's not like you're downloading that 6GB every time you run the launcher. It's just a way for players to get started playing earlier, like when they're initially downloading the game via Battle.net onto a new computer.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
When this is such a good solution and normal players dont like to see overall statistic, why is sc2 the only game that does this? Even games for causal players show this kind of information. Its plain arrogant by blizzard, that they think they know better than us what we want.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
So you think you have not enough experience to talk about this topic. Thats fine, but please dont act like you can speak for me too. I know enough to have an opinion. I dont know everything about it but i take incomplete information and form an opinion out of it. Thats what people do when you discuss. Thats what people do when they have opinions. I think you are well aware of this and the fact that your sentence was just a "kill "argument.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
What on earth are you talking about? The system is SUPPOSED to encourage players to be active, not climb to a particular position and sit on it. Every good ranking system will penalize your rank for inactivity.
Also, your English is very hard to read even if it isn't your first language, so I have no idea what you're arguing other than "the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." And that's flat out false.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
What on earth are you talking about? The system is SUPPOSED to encourage players to be active, not climb to a particular position and sit on it. Every good ranking system will penalize your rank for inactivity.
Also, your English is very hard to read even if it isn't your first language, so I have no idea what you're arguing other than "the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." And that's flat out false.
1) Im sorry for my English.
"the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." The good thing on the quote function is: when you use it you dont change what people wrote.
2) In this case every sport have a bad ranking system. I never heard about a ranking system that takes inactivity every 2h into account to rate your skill value new. If they are all bad perhaps you should write letters to all sport and chess unions and 99% of the game publisher that they have bad ranking systems and should learn from sc2.
On June 05 2012 08:13 Limniscate wrote: I don't know if any of you guys have checked this out, but I seem to be getting 9% better performance for frame rate in 1.5.
Yup there is better performance. But instead of 9% for me, I get around 100 fps on maxed settings without anti aliasing. Before the beta, I got around 70 fps.
100 fps in the beginning of course, then it drops to around constant 50 fps.
On June 05 2012 08:13 Limniscate wrote: I don't know if any of you guys have checked this out, but I seem to be getting 9% better performance for frame rate in 1.5.
Yup there is better performance. But instead of 9% for me, I get around 100 fps on maxed settings without anti aliasing. Before the beta, I got around 70 fps.
100 fps in the beginning of course, then it drops to around constant 50 fps.
Yeah I get 59-60-ish on the beta at 2560x1440 no AA ultra settings on a GTX 460 and i5 750 overclocked to 3.8Ghz as opposed to 55 on the normal game.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
What on earth are you talking about? The system is SUPPOSED to encourage players to be active, not climb to a particular position and sit on it. Every good ranking system will penalize your rank for inactivity.
Also, your English is very hard to read even if it isn't your first language, so I have no idea what you're arguing other than "the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." And that's flat out false.
If you can only speak one language then your brain gets too used to the same "correct" stuff and gets lazy. I can understand him just fine. I'd say the problem is mainly the English speakers thinking they don't need to learn any other language, ignoring the benefits for their cognition system. You can't have everyone speaking/writing perfect English, it's way easier for the natives in English to expand their cognition just a little bit in order to understand all the variations that non-natives create.
Also, it would be interesting for team liquid to open a new forum: "English Class". We do have enough non-native English speakers here to make it a very interesting forum and we would all have this bounding with gaming/SC2, so I think it could lead to an interesting environment for learning English =D
Anyway, there is no point in telling someone that his English isn't good enough. Instead you should bring whatever is problematic for you and ask for clarification. I am 100% sure I must have made mistakes or abnormal/weird English in this text I just wrote, but I really have no idea where are these mistakes, so there's no point telling me they exist, bring me to them, then I can start learning ok.
Native English speakers should be more pro-active while interacting with non-natives, you already have it easier.
---------------------- BTW, I don't mind the bonus pool, I do mind not knowing my division tier and offset. I should be able to do the math to reach to my MMR if I wanted to, in a similar way that I can use sc2gears to have my win/loss ratio and the people that don't care enough to use sc2gears or other method don't get the numbers, that's fine! It's stupid for Blizzard to say that only the top 4% best players are harcore enough to take the "reality". I am hardcore in my own way and I want to have information, otherwise I might just give up completely this game, it's not fun to just be a random platinum for 2 years, then if I play enough I get a star <3 (top8...)
hey i believe this happened for the PTRs as well, but there is a tab when you log in, it says
SCII-1 and SCII-2
I tried it and I can create a 2nd character for SCII-2.
Why is this? Did Blizz say anything about this? Are they looking at possibly allowing more than 1 character per account? Or is it only if you bought 2 SC2s or something? Why do they have this function in the beta?
On June 05 2012 09:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: hey i believe this happened for the PTRs as well, but there is a tab when you log in, it says
SCII-1 and SCII-2
I tried it and I can create a 2nd character for SCII-2.
Why is this? Did Blizz say anything about this? Are they looking at possibly allowing more than 1 character per account? Or is it only if you bought 2 SC2s or something? Why do they have this function in the beta?
As you mentioned it's happened on every single PTR, I think it's just a weird artifact of how they do the licenses I wouldn't look too deep into it.
On June 05 2012 02:13 Adeeler wrote: So can we find ladder map custom games with titles in it yet i.e. zvp mapname? So that we can practice a certain race matchup?
On June 05 2012 02:13 Adeeler wrote: So can we find ladder map custom games with titles in it yet i.e. zvp mapname? So that we can practice a certain race matchup?
can anyone answer this.
Nope, sorry, but im sure you can use chat channels for that instead...
Is there a full installer that you can download (the whole 10GB I mean)?
I think the Arcade installer doesn't work for me because my Internet is not fast enough (I downloaded it twice, yet still "please check internet connection"). I tried rebooting my PC, modem and router twice now and still the same error.
On June 05 2012 13:50 trips wrote: So you can ladder using a different name and it doesn't affect your mmr and theres an unranked ladder.Gonna download and check it out.
There isn't an unranked ladder, it's just the same as now only you get a fresh account because it's a beta, so it doesn't affect your live account.
On June 05 2012 15:40 trips wrote: Wow defiantly looks better on low graphics and seems to run better.
The custom melee games are listed the same as before which is annoying.
The open games are just nexus wars,marine arena etc no melee games at the moment and there's like 5 of them lol.
Worth downloading just for the graphics and getting to play on a different name.
If this is true... then hurray!
Actually now that you mention it, I don't recall the game randomly freezing anymore! Yay! Cus that didn't happen to me until i forget what patch, maybe 1.3 or 1.4. After that, suddenly SC2 was running slower. Whenever a new building/unit was about to finish, or just finished (especially if it was the first one in the game), I would suddenly lag for a second. Very annoying. Place my first Barracks? Game lags. Barracks at 95% and I'm about to make a Marine and OC? Game lags. Marine pops out? Game lags. Grrr.
I just noticed that this hasn't happened yet though! I wonder about if it actually runs better though, with the graphics on low, despite them being improved... if it does, then huge thanks and applause from me! Though I wonder why they don't allow you to make the graphics lower like they are in non-beta. Low graphics in the 1.4.3 version looks fine to me.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
You're wrong for 2 reasons:
1. What the ladder ranks is players who play it. If casual players stop playing, the scope of the ladder changes to... ranking players who play it. In other words, it's still ranking the same thing. Cutting out casual players has no effect on the scope of the ladder in relative terms, and the ladder is necessarily relative. Nor does it have any effect on the accuracy of the ladder, because all MMR is relative to the player pool.
2. So only the top 2% of players deserve to be on a ladder that is comparable. 98% of players are uncompetitive and do not want statistics, and don't want a global ladder, and are happy with a meaningless rank that is impossible to compare?
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
The bonus pool is disingenuous. Or at least Blizzard's reason is.
Here's what they say about the bonus pool:
Q. What is the Bonus Pool and how are bonus points acquired? A. The Bonus Pool is an accumulation of points that every player receives whether they're online and playing or not. They're essentially used as a means to help give a player a catch-up boost if they haven't played in a while. The pool does have a cap, but it increases slowly until the end of a season.
This is so wrong that it can almost be classed as a lie. The bonus pool doesn't help you catch-up with other players. The reason you even need to catch-up in the first place is because of the bonus pool. The bonus pool doesn't help close the divergence between points of 2 equally skilled players, it is the CAUSE of the divergence.
If there were no bonus pool, after playing ~30 games you'll hit your MMR and you'll only fluctuate around this point as you continue to play games. This is what happens when you've used up your bonus pool anyway. There would be no need to catch-up, other than to play enough games to avoid point decay (which is the correct way to implement bonus pool).
The bonus pool system causes endless inflation of points until the seasonal ladder reset. This also causes the ladder to never stabilize. E.g. Player 1 and 2 are ranked 10 and 15 respectively, and have used their bonus pool. Player 1 is better than player 2. The next day, player 1 doesn’t play, so he falls to rank 15 because others have used their bonus pool. Player 2 uses his bonus pool moving him to rank 12. Player 2 is now erroneously ranked higher than player 1, until player 1 and all the other players use their bonus pool, to increase their points, bumping player 2 down. Since the ladder never stabilizes, this again delegitimizes ladder ranks. In fact, ladder ranks are only correct when everyone has used up their bonus pool.
The intention of bonus pool is obviously the same idea as XP decay in the WC3 AMM, but disguised as a reward. Thus, the bonus pool is a psychological gimmick. But it’s not a reward, because every time you log in, your rank falls, since others have used their bonus pool. Hence, it is a failed psychological gimmick. Bonus pool should be redesigned so it is the extra points you get for playing in the WoW arena system that is used to move your displayed rating (points) to quickly converge to your MMR. Point decay should be implemented.
Another alternative is to freeze inactive players from the ladder. So if you haven't played a game for, say, 2 weeks and you're ranked 25. It will still be recorded on your profile that your last known rank was 25, until the ladder reset or until you become active again. But you won't be on the official ladder, until you've played a minimum of, say, 3 games. After these 3 games, you're put right back where you left off plus those 3 games played. This will make ladder ranks more accurate because the scope of the ladder is changed to ranking all active players. Currently, an active player can be ranked higher than inactive player, because of their activity. The ladder doesn't measure skill, it measures activity+skill. If we kick the inactive players off the ladder, we can make a ladder that measures skill only, while solving the problem of inactive players camping at high or untouchable ratings.
It's designed to make scores increase even if your MMR plateaus.
The ladder is designed to reward activity. The bonus pool lets them reward activity without rewarding mass gaming.
I don't think it qualifies as a lie at all. They could have had scores increase in a different way, such as giving 50 extra points for your first win every day. Just displaying MMR like WoW Arena would be a terrible idea for player retention, since the majority of players will sit in the middle of the bell curve with hardly any divergence. Ladder ranking is not a psychological trick, it's part of the ruleset of the game.
I don't think anyone ever thought that the bonus pool magically inflates their MMR and makes them better players.
It does have the added benefit of cushioning the relearning after a break bit, but again, only as far as ladder points go.
On June 05 2012 21:56 yeint wrote: It's designed to make scores increase even if your MMR plateaus.
And that's as much a punishment as it is a reward.
Everyday you're punished by seeing that your rank has fallen and that you must play games and face the stress of potentially losing just to keep up.
The ladder is designed to reward activity. The bonus pool lets them reward activity without rewarding mass gaming.
Point decay and kicking inactive players off the ladder (in the particular way I described) would be a better way to achieve this, as I've explained.
I don't think it qualifies as a lie at all. They could have had scores increase in a different way, such as giving 50 extra points for your first win every day.
If they did that and said that the 50 extra points are to help player's catch-up it would be the exact same lie. That 50 extra points caused the divergence in the first place. It does not help you catch-up. No catch-up would even be necessary if there was no bonus pool and no 50 extra points.
Just displaying MMR like WoW Arena would be a terrible idea for player retention, since the majority of players will sit in the middle of the bell curve with hardly any divergence. Ladder ranking is not a psychological trick, it's part of the ruleset of the game.
Again, you're assuming that the way WoW does it is a psychological punishment and the way SC2 does it is a psychological reward. But this is not true. The reward of increasing points is symmetric with the punishment of falling ranks.
There is no free lunch.
And I didn't call the ladder a psychological gimmick, I called the bonus pool a psychological gimmick, which it is. It's meant to be the "feel good" version of XP decay. But as I've shown, there's a punishment that mirrors the reward.
I don't think anyone ever thought that the bonus pool magically inflates their MMR and makes them better players.
It does have the added benefit of cushioning the relearning after a break bit, but again, only as far as ladder points go.
Personally, I really enjoy the way bonus pool works. Whether or not it's the *best* system, as mid level Platinum player, I find it very encouraging to try and keep my bonus pool at zero.
This might be an inaccurate comparison, but I've always felt that this is very similar to WoW's "Rested XP" system. It becomes obvious that the most "efficient" way to level your character, is to only play when you have rested XP - but, it's also important that you play frequently enough that you don't cap out your rested.
An interesting thought -- I wonder how leveling in WoW would feel if all Mob difficulty's were dynamically adjusted so that you would win as close to 50% of your engagements as possible, and dying caused you to lose the same XP you would have gained.... ( no wonder my other gamer friends won't play SC2)
On June 05 2012 22:14 paralleluniverse wrote: If they did that and said that the 50 extra points are to help player's catch-up it would be the exact same lie. That 50 extra points caused the divergence in the first place. It does not help you catch-up. No catch-up would even be necessary if there was no bonus pool and no 50 extra points.
You're arguing from a false premise, which is that the best ladder system would rank players based on static ELO points. This is not the design intent at all. Blizzard has never claimed that ladder points are intended to mirror ELO ranking.
Like you said, there are other ways to reward activity, such as rating decay. Rating decay WOULD put an inactive player behind without any method to catch up, and rating decay is a punishment that prevents you from not playing rather than a reward that entices you to play.
The SC2 ladder is designed to give every single player a constant avenue of ranking up. For two people of equal skill who play concurrently, their ladder rank will be indistinguishable. If Player A stops playing for a week, then Player B will rank up. The difference in ranking will increase as long as Player A is not playing and Player B is playing. When Player B comes back, he will catch up to Player A pretty quickly.
Please present an alternate method where two skill-plateaud players can be rewarded for activity both during active play and returning after a break.
If you don't want to receive "imaginary" rewards for non-improvement, then strive to get promoted. The vast majority of players are not going to make Grandmaster, and the ladder caters to those players.
There is no free lunch.
The lunch is not free. The lunch is earned by playing. Your ladder points would be at a static point if there was no bonus pool. You play until you hit 700, your skill plateaus, and you will forever hover around 700 points. Keep playing and the bonus pool increases your points score until the end of the season. Stop playing and your rank falls. Start playing again and collect all your bonus pool.
And I didn't call the ladder a psychological gimmick, I called the bonus pool a psychological gimmick, which it is. It's meant to be the "feel good" version of XP decay. But as I've shown, there's a punishment that mirrors the reward.
It is not meant to be the feel good version of XP decay because XP decay does nothing to affect your points score while you're actively playing. If I play for 3 months straight at the same MMR, XP decay doesn't kick in at all. If I play for 3 months straight at the same MMR, the bonus pool will increase my score. This is not a gimmick, this is a REWARD FOR ACTIVITY. Whereas XP decay is a PENALTY FOR NOT PLAYING.
Like I said earlier, they could have rewarded activity in another way. But since the bonus pool awards the same amount of points to everyone, it emphatically rewards every player the same, whether they take mid-season breaks or not. Same number of wins required to earn the same number of bonus points.
The only way to miss out on your bonus pool is to not return to play before the end of the season.
On June 05 2012 23:25 Shmu wrote: Personally, I really enjoy the way bonus pool works. Whether or not it's the *best* system, as mid level Platinum player, I find it very encouraging to try and keep my bonus pool at zero.
This might be an inaccurate comparison, but I've always felt that this is very similar to WoW's "Rested XP" system. It becomes obvious that the most "efficient" way to level your character, is to only play when you have rested XP - but, it's also important that you play frequently enough that you don't cap out your rested.
An interesting thought -- I wonder how leveling in WoW would feel if all Mob difficulty's were dynamically adjusted so that you would win as close to 50% of your engagements as possible, and dying caused you to lose the same XP you would have gained.... ( no wonder my other gamer friends won't play SC2)
Yes, it is like the WoW rested XP system. It's almost surely based off the same philosophy: instead of punishing you by reducing XP by 50% if you played too long, they doubled all XP and made rested XP a 100% bonus. This was back in WoW's beta.
But there are also major differences. WoW is a competitive game, but levelling up in WoW is not. So the punishment of seeing your rank fall every day you log in because of bonus pool is not felt in WoW. This is something that they failed to see. This punishment cancels out the reward of increased points. When you log in, you must play games to catch up to where you were before.
In WoW, eventually you graduate out of leveling. In SC2, ladder is the game. So this punishment is persistent. It's like running an endless race and whenever you catch-up to the pack, you're destined to fall behind again, and then you need to start the work of catching up all over again, ad infinitum.
On June 05 2012 23:57 paralleluniverse wrote: In WoW, eventually you graduate out of leveling. In SC2, ladder is the game. So this punishment is persistent. It's like running an endless race and whenever you catch-up to the pack, you're destined to fall behind again, and then you need to start the work of catching up all over again, ad infinitum.
But it's not a punishment at all!
Player A and B both play for a week, and get to 500 ladder points.
Player A keeps playing for another week, while player B takes a break.
Player A now has 584 ladder points, and he had to win 5 games to earn the 84 bonus pool points.
Player B still has 500 ladder points.
Week three, Player A keeps playing, and Player B returns to active play.
By the end of the third week week, Player A has 584+84, i.e. 668 ladder points. He had to win 5 games to earn another 84 bonus points.
Player B also has 668 ladder points. He had to win 10 games to earn his 168 bonus points.
The number of games they needed to win is exactly the same.
On June 05 2012 22:14 paralleluniverse wrote: If they did that and said that the 50 extra points are to help player's catch-up it would be the exact same lie. That 50 extra points caused the divergence in the first place. It does not help you catch-up. No catch-up would even be necessary if there was no bonus pool and no 50 extra points.
You're arguing from a false premise, which is that the best ladder system would rank players based on static ELO points. This is not the design intent at all. Blizzard has never claimed that ladder points are intended to mirror ELO ranking.
Like you said, there are other ways to reward activity, such as rating decay. Rating decay WOULD put an inactive player behind without any method to catch up, and rating decay is a punishment that prevents you from not playing rather than a reward that entices you to play.
The SC2 ladder is designed to give every single player a constant avenue of ranking up. For two people of equal skill who play concurrently, their ladder rank will be indistinguishable. If Player A stops playing for a week, then Player B will rank up. The difference in ranking will increase as long as Player A is not playing and Player B is playing. When Player B comes back, he will catch up to Player A pretty quickly.
Please present an alternate method where two skill-plateaud players can be rewarded for activity both during active play and returning after a break.
If you don't want to receive "imaginary" rewards for non-improvement, then strive to get promoted. The vast majority of players are not going to make Grandmaster, and the ladder caters to those players.
Yes, rating decay would put an inactive player behind, but rating decay only kicks in after a certain amount of inactivity (usually a week). So everyone that is active is essentially ranked correctly. And you're shifted down a bit if you're inactive. With the bonus pool system, as your own example points out, and as I've already said, no one is ranked correctly unless everyone has used up their bonus pool, which is impossible. Unspent bonus pool distorts correct ranks.
Being active is the catch-up mechanism for a rating decay system. Since displayed rating (or some simple function of it) always converges to MMR, it's not possible to permanently "stuff-up" your rating due to inactivity.
However, I do know that a bonus pool system where a chunk of bonus pool is rewarded each week for activity is equivalent to a rating decay system where a chunk of rating is lost for not playing.
The best system is the one I've described in a previous post (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=20#397) where inactive players are kicked out of the ladder ranks (although not on their profile page). The reward for skill plateaued players is not being kicked out.
Also please stop repeating the debunked argument that bonus pool is a psychological "feel good" reward. Any "reward" in terms of extra points for activity is self-defeating -- it cancels itself out. It doesn't take into account the punishment of your rank falling, and having to play catch up. The problem is that you don't understand that giving a reward for activity is NOT a reward. It's psychologically neutral, the reward is symmetric to the punishment. But it stuffs up the rankings which is why it's a bad idea.
Lastly, I don't mind if they always give you another type of point for playing (win or lose) which can only be spent on buying cosmetic items for units and UI art. I even suggested this in a previous post (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=18#342).
This way there really is a "feel good" boost to playing games, regardless of whether you won or lost.
On June 05 2012 23:57 paralleluniverse wrote: In WoW, eventually you graduate out of leveling. In SC2, ladder is the game. So this punishment is persistent. It's like running an endless race and whenever you catch-up to the pack, you're destined to fall behind again, and then you need to start the work of catching up all over again, ad infinitum.
But it's not a punishment at all!
Player A and B both play for a week, and get to 500 ladder points.
Player A keeps playing for another week, while player B takes a break.
Player A now has 584 ladder points, and he had to win 5 games to earn the 84 bonus pool points.
Player B still has 500 ladder points.
Week three, Player A keeps playing, and Player B returns to active play.
By the end of the third week week, Player A has 584+84, i.e. 668 ladder points. He had to win 5 games to earn another 84 bonus points.
Player B also has 668 ladder points. He had to win 10 games to earn his 168 bonus points.
The number of games they needed to win is exactly the same.
The problem is that it's never all used up for everyone. So the ladder is never correct. In your example, player A is erroneously ranked higher than player B for a week, even though both have equal skill.
You're mixing up 2 separate issues: 1) Being ranked correctly and how this is affected by bonus pool (above). 2) Reward and punishment, which is all psychological and it's about how good you feel (below).
In terms of reward and punishment. That's got nothing to do with the number of games or being ranked correctly. That's about the psychological reward of seeing your points increase vs the psychological punishment of seeing your rank fall. And how these 2 feelings cancel each other out.
The bonus pool is essentially a decay mechanism, that is true. However, there is a distinct psychological difference between losing your points for not playing and having free points available for you to collect just by playing games. The former can be seen as discouraging for less active players because it makes playing the game a necessity -- a chore. The bonus pool model is more flexible because every point that you "decay" can eventually be earned back, whereas in a traditional decay model, once you lose those points, they're gone.
The rankings may not be 100% accurate at any given time because not everyone is playing at the same time, but that's mostly okay as long as the amount of unspent bonus pool is low. The lower the unspent bonus pool for a player, the more accurate that player's ranking. There is therefore a direct correlation between the relevance of a player's rating and the amount of unspent bonus pool he has. If I have 500 points and 500 bonus pool, it's not a foregone conclusion that I will eventually have 1,000 points if I spent it all. I could have 1500 if I never lost a game, or I could lose it all if I'm over-rated.
On June 06 2012 01:35 Excalibur_Z wrote: The bonus pool is essentially a decay mechanism, that is true. However, there is a distinct psychological difference between losing your points for not playing and having free points available for you to collect just by playing games. The former can be seen as discouraging for less active players because it makes playing the game a necessity -- a chore. The bonus pool model is more flexible because every point that you "decay" can eventually be earned back, whereas in a traditional decay model, once you lose those points, they're gone.
The rankings may not be 100% accurate at any given time because not everyone is playing at the same time, but that's mostly okay as long as the amount of unspent bonus pool is low. The lower the unspent bonus pool for a player, the more accurate that player's ranking. There is therefore a direct correlation between the relevance of a player's rating and the amount of unspent bonus pool he has. If I have 500 points and 500 bonus pool, it's not a foregone conclusion that I will eventually have 1,000 points if I spent it all. I could have 1500 if I never lost a game, or I could lose it all if I'm over-rated.
Sometimes, I wonder if you even read what I write.
For your first paragraph, let me repost:
Also please stop repeating the debunked argument that bonus pool is a psychological "feel good" reward. Any "reward" in terms of extra points for activity is self-defeating -- it cancels itself out. It doesn't take into account the punishment of your rank falling, and having to play catch up. The problem is that you don't understand that giving a reward for activity is NOT a reward. It's psychologically neutral, the reward is symmetric to the punishment. But it stuffs up the rankings which is why it's a bad idea.
Being active is the catch-up mechanism for a rating decay system. Since displayed rating (or some simple function of it) always converges to MMR, it's not possible to permanently "stuff-up" your rating due to inactivity.
For your second paragraph: That's essentially saying that the ladder should account for activity so that the information that the system has about the skill of the players, reflected in the rank, is the most up to date.
I see it slightly differently. If we were psychic and simply knew what the skill of each player if he were to play a game at that moment without needing him to play a game, then we would just use this knowledge for ranking, i.e. in an ideal world ranking will be 100% skill based. But because we don't know someone's skill at a given moment unless they play, we must factor activity into the ladder, and I agree that activity should be a factor. But this is the only reason for activity to be factored into ranks: because we don't completely know current skill. To the extent that we have good knowledge of a player's current skill, activity should not matter for the purposes of ranking.
This means that ideally, we want to minimize the weight given to activity as a factor, subject to the constraint that the player is active enough to give a reasonably good estimate of his current skill. To this end, decay systems that penalize you after a week (or equivalently a bonus pool system that gives out bonus pool once weekly) or even better, a system that removes you from being ranked if you don't play any games for a week, are all superior to the current bonus pool system. This is because they reduce the weight given to activity, since activity doesn't matter as long as you play a bit each week. It also does not produce the distortions associated with the bonus pool system that we've discussed. The bonus pool system, however, requires that you be active always, everyday, so does not satisfy the above-mentioned criteria.
On June 05 2012 23:55 yeint wrote: Like you said, there are other ways to reward activity, such as rating decay. Rating decay WOULD put an inactive player behind without any method to catch up, and rating decay is a punishment that prevents you from not playing rather than a reward that entices you to play.
The SC2 ladder is designed to give every single player a constant avenue of ranking up. For two people of equal skill who play concurrently, their ladder rank will be indistinguishable. If Player A stops playing for a week, then Player B will rank up. The difference in ranking will increase as long as Player A is not playing and Player B is playing. When Player B comes back, he will catch up to Player A pretty quickly.
Please present an alternate method where two skill-plateaud players can be rewarded for activity both during active play and returning after a break.
Personally I've always wanted a system of decay removing a percentage of player's points per day|hour, with all decay going to a bonus pool so that they can regain any lost rating easily.
This way lower level players won't need to work as hard to keep their rating as the higher rated ones, who are in a much more competitive you-snooze-you-lose environment.
Inflation would not be as big of a problem with this sort of system since points aren't being generated without playing games.
I guess the biggest problem with removing free points is that late starters (new players) would have a harder time getting where they need to be since they can't gain bonus points. I personally don't consider it a huge issue though.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums:
The new B.net interface is a vast improvement over the current version, and now that the custom game system is good, it's time to fix the ladder system and make this a competitive game again.
The problem is the following: The whole division and ladder system does everything possible to hide your true rank and to make it impossible to compare the ranks of players in different divisions.
There are no win loss ratios, no global ladder rank, no way to compare the skill of any 2 players, no statistics, and now with patch 1.5 you can't even view the division ladder of other players.
Look at how empty the profile page is. There's just the number of games played, and a meaningless division rank that cannot be compared to anything. It literally has no meaning. If I tell you that you're 9th, what does that mean? 9th out of what? 9th compared to who? No one will ever know.
To fix this Blizzard needs to: Bring back statistics.
Bring back a global ladder or at the very least reveal division tiers so that player ranks are meaningful and comparable. Currently there's no way to tell how good you are, the 5 lowest leagues are meant to contain 20% of the players, but this band is too large and it's not true that it contains 20% of players. An alternative is a percentile, even if it's in multiples of 5.
Make ladder competitive and promote competition. Put it on the home page or link to it in the home page. It's the core Starcraft game.
Stop removing everything because of "ladder anxiety" and hurt feelings: The removal of win/loss ratios necessarily implies that useful statistics can never be revealed. Reverse this. Blizzard's resolve to appease players with ladder anxiety, to not hurt their feelings, is turning SC2 into a non-competitive game. This is the opposite of what an RTS game should be.
The unranked matchmaking that's in HotS will fix ladder anxiety. It's time to stop killing the competitive nature of this game and removing all the systems needed to support competition because of ladder anxiety and hurt feelings.
To appeal to casuals, they can even make a system where you always gain another type of point for playing, which can be spent to unlock cosmetic rewards to customize units and even the B.net UI, such as extra backgrounds.
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
What on earth are you talking about? The system is SUPPOSED to encourage players to be active, not climb to a particular position and sit on it. Every good ranking system will penalize your rank for inactivity.
Also, your English is very hard to read even if it isn't your first language, so I have no idea what you're arguing other than "the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." And that's flat out false.
If you can only speak one language then your brain gets too used to the same "correct" stuff and gets lazy. I can understand him just fine. I'd say the problem is mainly the English speakers thinking they don't need to learn any other language, ignoring the benefits for their cognition system. You can't have everyone speaking/writing perfect English, it's way easier for the natives in English to expand their cognition just a little bit in order to understand all the variations that non-natives create.
Also, it would be interesting for team liquid to open a new forum: "English Class". We do have enough non-native English speakers here to make it a very interesting forum and we would all have this bounding with gaming/SC2, so I think it could lead to an interesting environment for learning English =D
Anyway, there is no point in telling someone that his English isn't good enough. Instead you should bring whatever is problematic for you and ask for clarification. I am 100% sure I must have made mistakes or abnormal/weird English in this text I just wrote, but I really have no idea where are these mistakes, so there's no point telling me they exist, bring me to them, then I can start learning ok.
Native English speakers should be more pro-active while interacting with non-natives, you already have it easier.
---------------------- BTW, I don't mind the bonus pool, I do mind not knowing my division tier and offset. I should be able to do the math to reach to my MMR if I wanted to, in a similar way that I can use sc2gears to have my win/loss ratio and the people that don't care enough to use sc2gears or other method don't get the numbers, that's fine! It's stupid for Blizzard to say that only the top 4% best players are harcore enough to take the "reality". I am hardcore in my own way and I want to have information, otherwise I might just give up completely this game, it's not fun to just be a random platinum for 2 years, then if I play enough I get a star <3 (top8...)
I speak 3 languages and English isn't the language of my parents. Please, there's no good that can come from a sentence like:
Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
On June 04 2012 22:27 paralleluniverse wrote: The custom game system and UI is a vast improvement over what is currently in game. I still have some minor problems with it, but I think we should focus on getting ladder improved now. Specifically, win/loss ratios, statistics, and a global ladder (or at the least a ladder where it is possible to compare any 2 players).
Here's a post I wrote on the B.net forums: [quote]
I agree that those sort of features need to be implemented to make SC2 a more competitive game, but I also think that ladder anxiety is a real problem. I believe those features that you mentioned would be best implemented after the unranked ladder is, so you can have a truly competitive ladder and a "for fun" ladder (it still would have MMR, but still). I would wait until HotS for those type of features to be implemented (and, judging on these changes, Blizz is listening to the community, so they might just do that).
Don't be so sure. They've never signaled that they will ever change the ladder except by taking away more details. For example, in the beta you can't view the division ladder of other players anymore.
This should be a competitive game, to destroy systems that support this competition, just for some dubious and unproven relief to ladder anxiety, is contrary to the point of the game.
Blizzard seriously thinks their division system is the greatest thing ever. They've been talking about how fun it is to climb the ranks in your little group of 100 arbitrary and insignificant players since before the game was released, and the facelessness of being rank 14,933. They've missed the point about ranking, they've missed the point that the removal of win/loss means there can never be statistics, and they've missed the point of competition on the ladder. They've said they won't reveal MMR. Absolutely everything they do, every single design decision related to the ladder, is about hiding true ranks.
I think the idea is that there are so many casual ladder players out there who are fine with just earning points and climbing ranks in their division. It can't be overstated how important it is that lower-skilled players remain in the active player pool to keep the relative definitions of higher-skilled players accurate, because the more players the ladder has, the healthier the ladder is. Master and Grandmaster is where all of the obfuscating factors are removed: losses, division tiers, minimum MMR, everything. It's Master and Grandmaster that appeal to the more hardcore players who are truly looking to gauge their skill. Master and Grandmaster level players are far more active and more interested in improving than players of lower leagues, and that's where the skill gap becomes very pronounced.
Thats the reason why master dont have bonus pool and divisions and they show the mmr and not points for master and also publish the server ranking of all master/gm players on their webserver. Oh wait...
Blizzard thinks, showing the real skill will let the normal player stop playing. I think its the over way round. Lie to them and act like they are HIGH whatever and are close to get promoted all the time pressure them. Just play more and you raise, lets you think you are really good because everytime you try , you improve. However this clash with the reality where you dont improve at all. And this diffrence between reality and thought makes the ladder fear.
If you see your mmr and realise that if you loose many games its easy to get back to your old mmr, you are way more relaxed. It works on any sport ever invented. Why is sc2 so different, that you have to hide the information?
That's fairly disingenuous. The bonus pool is not an obfuscator. It's very relevant because it keeps rankings current. The bonus pool ensures that people can't rest at #1 without consequences. It could be that there's no harm in showing MMR to Master+ players, but that's neither here nor there as we're actively working to establish player MMRs anyway, especially for those skill levels.
As for player psychology, I think that's something we're not experienced enough in the subject to properly comment on.
1) Yes. You get points for playing more if you are better or not. Its just a different system, that dont rate the skill its rate the play amount. I prefer a skill system not a indicator how much you play, I can see this in the gamecount. Every other game and sport dont mix this too. Why does sc2 have to? If you think, it takes the playamount and skil in ratio into account than its just a bad designed system. Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
What on earth are you talking about? The system is SUPPOSED to encourage players to be active, not climb to a particular position and sit on it. Every good ranking system will penalize your rank for inactivity.
Also, your English is very hard to read even if it isn't your first language, so I have no idea what you're arguing other than "the system takes play amount and skill into account therefore it is badly designed." And that's flat out false.
If you can only speak one language then your brain gets too used to the same "correct" stuff and gets lazy. I can understand him just fine. I'd say the problem is mainly the English speakers thinking they don't need to learn any other language, ignoring the benefits for their cognition system. You can't have everyone speaking/writing perfect English, it's way easier for the natives in English to expand their cognition just a little bit in order to understand all the variations that non-natives create.
Also, it would be interesting for team liquid to open a new forum: "English Class". We do have enough non-native English speakers here to make it a very interesting forum and we would all have this bounding with gaming/SC2, so I think it could lead to an interesting environment for learning English =D
Anyway, there is no point in telling someone that his English isn't good enough. Instead you should bring whatever is problematic for you and ask for clarification. I am 100% sure I must have made mistakes or abnormal/weird English in this text I just wrote, but I really have no idea where are these mistakes, so there's no point telling me they exist, bring me to them, then I can start learning ok.
Native English speakers should be more pro-active while interacting with non-natives, you already have it easier.
---------------------- BTW, I don't mind the bonus pool, I do mind not knowing my division tier and offset. I should be able to do the math to reach to my MMR if I wanted to, in a similar way that I can use sc2gears to have my win/loss ratio and the people that don't care enough to use sc2gears or other method don't get the numbers, that's fine! It's stupid for Blizzard to say that only the top 4% best players are harcore enough to take the "reality". I am hardcore in my own way and I want to have information, otherwise I might just give up completely this game, it's not fun to just be a random platinum for 2 years, then if I play enough I get a star <3 (top8...)
I speak 3 languages and English isn't the language of my parents. Please, there's no good that can come from a sentence like:
Because you can not know how much each a player dropes over idle time and this guess would be terrible random.
But you seem to live in the states so at least you have some exposure to the language. Not everyone is good in learning languages but as long as people try they have my full support. There are so many native English speakers who don't speak any other language that you can only respect the effort in my opinion. In the end they are making communication with English persons easier by adapting to them and not the other way around, even though it is not flawless.
And tbh, I understand perfectly what this guy is saying even though it is not in perfect English. It is all about communication not who is the best speaker of us all. If MC speaks English everybody loves the effort but as soon as it is a forum poster he or she gets burned for his or her mistakes, while both are in the very least trying to speak English and need all the practice they can get.
Just curious: what 3 languages do you speak? I am also an avid language learner myself
I heard someone mention this 1.5 patch fixes the serious FPS problem affecting all Mac users. Is this true? Anyone stuck on a Mac like me who can confirm they are getting better FPS now?
I was wrong about the patch giving 9% extra performance. I wasn't spawning in the same starting position when I checked the framerate. It doesn't seem to give any performance benefit.
On June 06 2012 23:16 trips wrote: Takes AGES to get a 1v1 custom match going even the ones at the top of the list(been waiting 10 mins for xel naga cavens)
And your units walk in the fog of war like they are carrying a lantern(bright round light on them), like above.
Not impressed at all.. not worth the big download that's for sure.I keep going back to regular sc2.
Maybe its just the lack of players that haven't d/l it yet.
... Why on earth would you custom 1v1 in a beta? Nobody is doing that; they're either playing on the ladder for 1v1 or messing with the Arcade (which is what the beta is for in the first place).
On June 07 2012 00:24 FallDownMarigold wrote: I heard someone mention this 1.5 patch fixes the serious FPS problem affecting all Mac users. Is this true? Anyone stuck on a Mac like me who can confirm they are getting better FPS now?
I'm a Mac user and definitely getting better FPS. Patch 1.4.3, I would lag a bit on Daybreak; not getting any of that junk in the 1.5 beta, and the textures are far better on low settings to boot!
1. I'm getting terrible lag spikes (lag I don't get in regular SC2).
2. It takes 1-3 minutes to find even a 1v1 ladder match (as opposed to just seconds in regular SC2), but I assume that's just because there are far fewer people playing this version of the game.
3. I'm getting paired up with people of all levels, without any consistency (even after many, many games). My last few opponent's leagues were- according to the score screens: platinum, GM (wtf?), silver, platinum again, silver again, etc. I win most of them (even the won against the apparent GM player lol), so I assume it's just taking the system longer than usual to find me a place (they stupidly placed me in silver even though I kept winning), but I have no idea why every two or three games I play really really shitty players. The silver players actually player as if they're silver.
4. Other than these technical problems, I really like the layout and format. It looks a lot more colorful, organized, and all-around nicer. Still don't think I'll be using the Arcade/ Custom Game stuff, but it's surely appealing for those who do use it.
On June 14 2012 01:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: 1. I'm getting terrible lag spikes (lag I don't get in regular SC2).
2. It takes 1-3 minutes to find even a 1v1 ladder match (as opposed to just seconds in regular SC2), but I assume that's just because there are far fewer people playing this version of the game.
3. I'm getting paired up with people of all levels, without any consistency (even after many, many games). My last few opponent's leagues were- according to the score screens: platinum, GM (wtf?), silver, platinum again, silver again, etc. I win most of them (even the won against the apparent GM player lol), so I assume it's just taking the system longer than usual to find me a place (they stupidly placed me in silver even though I kept winning), but I have no idea why every two or three games I play really really shitty players. The silver players actually player as if they're silver.
4. Other than these technical problems, I really like the layout and format. It looks a lot more colorful, organized, and all-around nicer. Still don't think I'll be using the Arcade/ Custom Game stuff, but it's surely appealing for those who do use it.
But I think this beta isn't really about testing the ladder system, but more the custom game changes they made.
Well, like with Diablo 3 Auction, in SC2 Maps Market there will same things, but without gold, just for real moneys and with 15% of all costs going to Blizzard
On June 14 2012 01:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: 1. I'm getting terrible lag spikes (lag I don't get in regular SC2).
2. It takes 1-3 minutes to find even a 1v1 ladder match (as opposed to just seconds in regular SC2), but I assume that's just because there are far fewer people playing this version of the game.
3. I'm getting paired up with people of all levels, without any consistency (even after many, many games). My last few opponent's leagues were- according to the score screens: platinum, GM (wtf?), silver, platinum again, silver again, etc. I win most of them (even the won against the apparent GM player lol), so I assume it's just taking the system longer than usual to find me a place (they stupidly placed me in silver even though I kept winning), but I have no idea why every two or three games I play really really shitty players. The silver players actually player as if they're silver.
4. Other than these technical problems, I really like the layout and format. It looks a lot more colorful, organized, and all-around nicer. Still don't think I'll be using the Arcade/ Custom Game stuff, but it's surely appealing for those who do use it.
But I think this beta isn't really about testing the ladder system, but more the custom game changes they made.
Is the 1.5 beta available on EU right now? I'm getting the usual "Battle.net may be temporarily unavailable...". My regular SC2 works fine. Do I need to do some special thing other than download the game?
On June 15 2012 21:06 ZenithM wrote: Is the 1.5 beta available on EU right now? I'm getting the usual "Battle.net may be temporarily unavailable...". My regular SC2 works fine. Do I need to do some special thing other than download the game?
They announced that the Rate the Game HOTS Contest is over and it's possible they've taken it down to either tally the numbers or possibly end the 1.5 beta. It's down in US as well at the moment.
On June 15 2012 21:06 ZenithM wrote: Is the 1.5 beta available on EU right now? I'm getting the usual "Battle.net may be temporarily unavailable...". My regular SC2 works fine. Do I need to do some special thing other than download the game?
They announced that the Rate the Game HOTS Contest is over and it's possible they've taken it down to either tally the numbers or possibly end the 1.5 beta. It's down in US as well at the moment.
Okay :'( And I just downloaded it haha. Didn't care much for the HotS contest, but I thought they would leave the beta up a while longer.
Well, in case anyone is wondering, the beta is back up, but I don't think they're still using it for the HotS beta key contest. Had to download some content before launching, and now it seems they've changed a couple of things. The "Starcraft" and "Arcade" buttons on the top by making the fonts the same size. The 1v1 artwork has been changed. Terran is a ghost, Protoss still a zealot, and the Zerg is idk what. Looks very odd, but I don't recognize it. They've also made it so that the artwork you haven't selected is greyed out, which is a nice touch. Also, I don't know if it was just me, but the "Spotlight" section under Arcade wasn't working before, but now it seems to be fine.
Overall, it seems like they're just doing tiny little tweaks, which might mean they're close to shipping it out, which is good, because once they've got this up a running, hopefully they can divert more attention to getting the HotS beta out :D
On June 18 2012 06:04 Jackbo wrote: Well, in case anyone is wondering, the beta is back up, but I don't think they're still using it for the HotS beta key contest. Had to download some content before launching, and now it seems they've changed a couple of things. The "Starcraft" and "Arcade" buttons on the top by making the fonts the same size. The 1v1 artwork has been changed. Terran is a ghost, Protoss still a zealot, and the Zerg is idk what. Looks very odd, but I don't recognize it. They've also made it so that the artwork you haven't selected is greyed out, which is a nice touch. Also, I don't know if it was just me, but the "Spotlight" section under Arcade wasn't working before, but now it seems to be fine.
Overall, it seems like they're just doing tiny little tweaks, which might mean they're close to shipping it out, which is good, because once they've got this up a running, hopefully they can divert more attention to getting the HotS beta out :D
Amazing how people don't know what a Changeling looks like XD I don't like that they're using it for Zerg. It just isn't a core representation of the race at all. Also, it's weird that its the only one in color! Like what.
Can you blame him? Tassadar was badly written and I forgot about him after completing the SC2 camapaign. They really should have left him alone after his badass move to the overmind
I blizzard retarded? What is wrong with them? Marine, zealot and HYDRALISK should represent the 3 races, not some random thing thats not even in the game. Lets put the starcraft master portrait to represent zerg, I think that would be amazing -.-
On June 18 2012 06:48 CrtBalorda wrote: I blizzard retarded? What is wrong with them? Marine, zealot and HYDRALISK should represent the 3 races, not some random thing thats not even in the game. Lets put the starcraft master portrait to represent zerg, I think that would be amazing -.-
Edit: Also why is the terran symbol yellow now?
Why does Hydralisk need to represent Zerg? If I was Zerg I would rather be represented by a Roach or Queen or something, not a unit that is never used. Not that this affects the game at all so really I think you're just looking for things to complain about.
I haven't been on the Arcade beta, but from the pictures I've seen I'm looking forward to it, sometimes small changes like this can bring some 'fresh-ness' to the game. I wish they'd do some work to the ingame UI but we can't ask for it all I guess.
On June 18 2012 06:48 CrtBalorda wrote: I blizzard retarded? What is wrong with them? Marine, zealot and HYDRALISK should represent the 3 races, not some random thing thats not even in the game. Lets put the starcraft master portrait to represent zerg, I think that would be amazing -.-
Edit: Also why is the terran symbol yellow now?
Why does Hydralisk need to represent Zerg? If I was Zerg I would rather be represented by a Roach or Queen or something, not a unit that is never used. Not that this affects the game at all so really I think you're just looking for things to complain about.
I haven't been on the Arcade beta, but from the pictures I've seen I'm looking forward to it, sometimes small changes like this can bring some 'fresh-ness' to the game. I wish they'd do some work to the ingame UI but we can't ask for it all I guess.
It's preparing for the expansion when hydralisks will become overused (at least to begin with) because of the speed buff =P
And yeah, I have to agree that Hydralisk is an old concept. Zergs got a lot new stuff and for me, Swarm Hosts can be a new zegr icon or Queens (queen from art, where it holds zealot head)
On June 18 2012 06:04 Jackbo wrote: Well, in case anyone is wondering, the beta is back up, but I don't think they're still using it for the HotS beta key contest. Had to download some content before launching, and now it seems they've changed a couple of things. The "Starcraft" and "Arcade" buttons on the top by making the fonts the same size. The 1v1 artwork has been changed. Terran is a ghost, Protoss still a zealot, and the Zerg is idk what. Looks very odd, but I don't recognize it. They've also made it so that the artwork you haven't selected is greyed out, which is a nice touch. Also, I don't know if it was just me, but the "Spotlight" section under Arcade wasn't working before, but now it seems to be fine.
Overall, it seems like they're just doing tiny little tweaks, which might mean they're close to shipping it out, which is good, because once they've got this up a running, hopefully they can divert more attention to getting the HotS beta out :D
Amazing how people don't know what a Changeling looks like XD I don't like that they're using it for Zerg. It just isn't a core representation of the race at all. Also, it's weird that its the only one in color! Like what.
Oh it's a changeling, hehe, I guess I've never had a chance to click on one before it transforms and look at the portrait.
Also, I think the Swarm Host avatar is very similar to the Hydralisk, so much so that when its silhouette was released before Blizzcon people were predicting that it was going to be a Hydra morph like the lurker, so if they did have the Swarm Host, maybe that would satisfy the old and the new
Anyone else stuck at 10% on the installer? A lot of people on Bnet have been posting about it but I can't find a solution.
Actually, it just seems to be stuck there for a while, I think there's nothing wrong with it, you just have to sit and wait. I took a shit break, it jumped down to 9% and then climed back up. I'm at 13% and counting now
The following is just my opinion and I'm fully aware this is just beta. Even though the Arcade thing is an improvement, the 1.5 UI in other aspects is NOT an overall improvement.
I post 6 sets of screenshot comparisons below and show how 1.5 UI is still not better than 1.4.3. All upper pictures are from 1.5, and all bottom pictures are from 1.4.3.
The home screen has been criticized most for not utilizing the empty space. As you can see from the screenshots, the 1.4.3 utilizes more space than 1.5.
The pictures of the race selection are ridiculously bad at representing the race. The pictures of three races look somehow like from a single race. People not familiar with the races may not even think Terran is human.
Most importantly, the new button style is inconsistent with the old UI elements. In the 1.5 screenshot, in the upper-right, buttons are the old 1.4.3. light blue buttons, but all the other buttons are the new 1.5 dark blue buttons. Anyone with a basic aesthetics will think the UI style in bottom screenshot more mature and harmonious.
Look at the right side of the 1.5 screenshot, there is a scroll bar and no all the options can be shown. You need to scroll up and down to see all the options. While in the 1.4.3 screenshot, you can see all the options at one glance.
In the 1.5 screenshot, the elements inside the score window are all the old light blue style, but all other things outside the score window are dark blue.
In the 1.4.3 screenshot, everything is just highly consistent and harmonious.
Sorry but I have to say that dark blue buttons are just so ugly, especially in this screenshot.
----------------------------
People were not complaining about the UI style. The UI style was great. People were complaining about the layout of the UI and how the empty space is not utilized to provide some important information. I know aesthetics can be very subjective. People may not buy into what I said and I heard many people said the new UI style is better than the old one. However, everything I saw from the 1.5 beta is not great like they said.
Personally I don't like the new style. I like the old style but I agree it just needs more things to it, if they forced a chat it would make people want to create their own or join something so they don't have to be in the one with all the idiots. Doing that would start making people want to chat with people eventually... IMHO.
On June 21 2012 02:40 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Anyone else stuck at 10% on the installer? A lot of people on Bnet have been posting about it but I can't find a solution.
Actually, it just seems to be stuck there for a while, I think there's nothing wrong with it, you just have to sit and wait. I took a shit break, it jumped down to 9% and then climed back up. I'm at 13% and counting now
Yeah, I've been stuck at 10% every time I try. Turned off Firewall, 20%, and then it quit on me.
I like some of the changes that I see, but they need to change the order number. 1's should be first. Really annoying.
On June 21 2012 02:40 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Anyone else stuck at 10% on the installer? A lot of people on Bnet have been posting about it but I can't find a solution.
Actually, it just seems to be stuck there for a while, I think there's nothing wrong with it, you just have to sit and wait. I took a shit break, it jumped down to 9% and then climed back up. I'm at 13% and counting now
Yeah, I've been stuck at 10% every time I try. Turned off Firewall, 20%, and then it quit on me.
I like some of the changes that I see, but they need to change the order number. 1's should be first. Really annoying.
If you're talking about the Arcade Beta than ya. I was stuck at 10% for about 20 minutes. Came back and it started going through.
Sorry but I have to say that dark blue buttons are just so ugly, especially in this screenshot.
I like the dark buttons. It has better visual contrast with the text. Rather than white text on a light-colored background, it's white text on a dark background.
On June 18 2012 06:48 CrtBalorda wrote: I blizzard retarded? What is wrong with them? Marine, zealot and HYDRALISK should represent the 3 races, not some random thing thats not even in the game. Lets put the starcraft master portrait to represent zerg, I think that would be amazing -.-
Edit: Also why is the terran symbol yellow now?
does it really matter? if you want to be technical then raynor should represent terran, kerrigan should represisent zerg, and zaratul should represent protoss.
I wonder why this patch is taking so long to be released. For those who spend a lot of time in the PTR : do you think the patch is ready yet ? If there any big issue left ?
On June 18 2012 06:48 CrtBalorda wrote: I blizzard retarded? What is wrong with them? Marine, zealot and HYDRALISK should represent the 3 races, not some random thing thats not even in the game. Lets put the starcraft master portrait to represent zerg, I think that would be amazing -.-
EPT
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