GeneralRegional Game ServersWith the introduction of Patch 3.0.3, new game servers have been added to StarCraft II for the Americas login region and for the Asia login region.
The matchmaker will now automatically try to find the best game server for you to play on based on your round-trip latency (a.k.a. “ping”) to all of the servers connected to the region you log into.
Your ping information is used in combination with your individual skill rating to find and match you with other players of similar skill who also connect to your server.
Along with this change, a Preferred Game Server selector is now available in Options > Language and Region. This setting will default to Best Match, but players may wish to change this if they notice connection issues when playing on a specific server. If you are not experiencing issues, it is highly recommended that you leave this set to Best Match.
Matchmaking ImprovementsPlayers should now experience shorter queue times when searching for a match.
It should now be less likely for players with large skill differences to be matched against each other in 1v1 matchmaking (eg. Grandmaster vs. Bronze).
The matchmaker should now favor parties of similar size when searching for team games.
Silence PenaltyPlayers who are frequently reported for Abusive Chat in StarCraft II will now be given a Silence Penalty.
When silenced, players may not send chat messages in the following areas:
In-Game All and Ally Chat
Direct whispers to non-Friends List players
Chat Channels: Public, Custom, or Group
Tournament Lobbies (upon the release of Legacy of the Void)
Public Custom Game Lobbies and Arcade Lobbies
Writing map reviews
A player’s first Silence Penalty will last for 24 hours.
Each Silence Penalty received after the first will double in duration, and there is no maximum amount of time that a player can be silenced.
Silenced players will be notified of the penalty’s remaining duration each time they log into StarCraft II.
A red speech bubble icon will appear on silenced players’ portraits in the game’s menus to indicate their silenced status to others.
For more information, see the overview we posted on this feature for Heroes of the Storm which follows similar functionality.
StarCraft II now better evaluates whether a player has completed certain meta-achievements for the Heart of the Swarm or the forthcoming Legacy of the Void campaigns, and may reward credit for those achievements retroactively if it finds errors.
Players who are temporarily disconnected from Battle.net during a game should no longer lose their achievement progress if they are automatically reconnected during the same game session. This should reduce the frequency of players who don’t receive credit for an achievement despite having fulfilled the achievement’s criteria.
In Options > Graphics, a warning message now displays if players who are running 2 GB of memory or lower attempt to set Texture Quality to Medium or higher.
Various optimizations have been made to the StarCraft II network code which should result in a reduction of packet loss during games.
User InterfaceIn the Arcade, right-clicking an Open Game entry will now bring up a context menu with the option to either Join Game or View Game Info.
New expository videos, titled “The Story So Far”, have been added to the Campaign sub-selection screens. These videos recap the events leading up to the start of each of the three StarCraft II campaigns.
Private Lobbies can now be linked in chat using the [Lobby] linking feature.
The Chat Panel has been slightly widened for users in 16x9 resolutions.
The 1v1 multiplayer loading screen has been refreshed to display race-specific art to match the race selection of each player.
GameplayAdvanced Ping has been added.
To use, hold down ALT and drag-click on either the ground or the minimap to choose from multiple visual indicators that will be sent to players on your team.
The indicators that can be used are: Attack, Defend, On My Way, or Retreat.
A new error cursor now displays to more clearly indicate whether or not abilities can be used through the fog of war.
StarCraft II EditorThe default server storage space for Arcade map creators has been doubled from 150 MB to 300 MB.
In the Data Module, the Hint Viewer now supports enum hints.
On October 28 2015 02:40 Chernobyl wrote:
As an a IT professional, I have to say that blizzard is working hard to improve the sc2 platform.
Thank you and keep with the good work.
+1
i make database software.