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We’ve arrived at a point where we want to work with you guys to lock down changes regarding the ladder revamp and begin work on the implementation side. We have been discussing more based on you previous feedback in a similar post, and have been making improvements as we started implementing the feature little by little. Now we’re at the stage where the overall design looks very solid, and we want to focus on doing the implementation. So we’ll review where we are at now, collect your feedback, and finalize our direction.
GM League
Currently, we’re thinking that the best way to go is to update Grandmaster League with new players, promotions, and demotions each day at a specified time—all based strictly on skill. We see two main advantages to this approach. First, we can have an accurate, skill-based representation of the best 200 players on the server on any given day. Second, it also makes things clearer on the esports side, especially if tournaments pull from this list. As an added bonus, we also like that this could promote more intense competition during this period of the day (though mostly for just this specific group of top players).
Showing MMR
This is something we’ve received the most feedback on and we’ve been exploring the concept heavily internally. Currently, we’re leaning towards clearly displaying your MMR in the UI. The more we dug into the topic of making the ranks, divisions, and leagues as accurate as possible, the more we realized that there were other potential problems that we could have introduced. Since we have the MMR available already, we think it might be best to just show it as the most accurate measurement of a player’s skill.
League & Tier
In developing the new League & Tier system, the main concern was that achieving a high-degree of accuracy required that we enable mid-season demotions. Although we know that there are many players out there who want to see demotions enabled, we believe this feedback mostly stems from the fact that there currently isn’t a reliable way to tell your skill right now. The downside of enabling demotions is that we could potentially take away from a players’ biggest accomplishment that season; this downside is magnified if it’s their first time getting to a specific league, which may make the person not want to play the game anymore due to the risk of losing this reward.
Because we will be showing MMR, we wonder if it’s best to have the ranking system display the highest League & Tier achieved during the current season. There’s really no need to show the same number two different ways, and we can show two cool numbers instead. This way, if I were to tell my friends that I’m in Master Tier 1, but my MMR is a solid Master Tier 2 (naming is not final), it clearly shows 1) the highest I’ve achieved this season and 2) where my skill is at the moment.
For the number of tiers, we’ve spent time analyzing and evaluating how the Heroes of the Storm system works because their 50 ranks would be very similar to our originally announced 10 tiers per league (we would have 60 tiers if we strip out the leagues). For StarCraft II, due to the amount of movement that would occur with having this many tiers, this system doesn’t look to be the way to go. So we debated on going with 5 tiers or 3 tiers, and we’re currently leaning towards 3 for a couple reasons.
First, talking about leagues in StarCraft II has naturally tended towards using 3 tiers. When players talk about where they are at within a league, perhaps the most common way to refer to the tiers currently is to say that he or she is in “High Diamond,” “Mid Diamond,” or “Low Diamond.” So colloquially, this fits well with how players already discuss the ladder. The second reason is that we can always increase the number of tiers available in the future if 3 is not enough. Going from 3 to 5 or 3 to 10 would be easier than doing the reverse, which means we don’t need to remove functionality from the system.
This is where we’re at currently, and as you can see we’ve narrowed in on the most critical components of Ladder Revamp. If you have thoughts on these areas, we’d ask that we get discussions going so that we can lock down the design. We’re currently aiming to finalize the design of this feature within the next couple weeks, and are potentially aiming for a mid- to late-summer release in order to have enough time to fully work through the implementation.
Separate MMR Per Race
We hear your feedback regarding this feature. We had originally set the priority for this to come after ladder revamp, but we’re currently exploring ways to potentially get started on this feature even sooner. Although we haven’t set an exact timeline, we just wanted to let you know that we agree that this feature is important to the game and we’re discussing ways to release it more quickly. We’ll be sure to keep everyone updated!
Balance
Moving onto balance in Legacy of the Void, we’ve been discussing and testing various topics and we want to get a Balance Test Map out as soon as possible after hearing your opinions on our proposed changes for testing. We’re currently aiming to release the Balance Test Map next week, so let’s start discussing the following changes more aggressively this weekend.
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
We definitely hear the pros and cons you’ve discussed that nerfing Overlord drops instead could bring. The reason why we’re more interested in the Ravager nerf being tested is because it is the more impactful, bigger nerf. The main concern many of our community members point out (especially on the KR side) is that this change is a nerf against both Terran and Protoss, whereas nerfing Overlord drops is targeted more as a nerf vs. Protoss. This is true. To be clear—we’re not saying that we have to be going the Ravager nerf route—we just want to test this one first.
Therefore, before we make a decision on what unit to nerf, we wanted to test this concept out fully to know the effects of this change in both matchups. The Overlord drop nerf doesn’t require as much testing because it’s a very safe nerf that can’t really break another area of the game.
Banshee speed upgrade requirement changed to Armory and cost reduced to 100/100
Due to the current state of the Banshees, we wanted to try going more aggressive with this change, so that we can potentially bring various Banshee-based strategies back into the mix. We know from testing before the release of the game that the speed upgrade at a much earlier tier is a huge buff to Terran, and we wanted to make sure to combo this with a nerf in a similar area so that we make sure to not just buff Terran.
Liberator ability radius reduction from 5 to 4
After going through the details of reducing the range of the ability and hearing your feedback on the current strength of Liberators, we thought it might be better to go a bit harder on this nerf so that we can also go heavier on the Banshee buff, so that we can potentially get situations where going one or the other unit can be viable instead of it being Liberators all the time. With this change, the total range of Liberators will be nerfed, as well as the damaging area. We hope this change feels more fitting, and once we get the Balance Test Map online we’d love your opinions on how these changes feel.
Thor AA damage changed to flat and single target
We’re still looking at numbers for this, but we’re thinking something similar to the idea of the Thor’s damage against the ground: High damage per shot with a low rate of fire. With this change, we wonder if we can separate out the Thor’s AA role from units such as the Widow Mine or the Liberator. We considered whether this could overlap with the Viking, and although there will be more overlap than before, there are still many differences between the two units. Between the many obvious differences, the Thor’s resistance to splash damage, and their different flat damage values, the two units will still be in unique places.
Cyclone
We’ve also been testing different numbers for the Cyclone, but we feel that a change to this unit isn’t as critical right now compared to the other unit changes mentioned above, so it might be better to hold off on exploring this route for now. The main goal here is still to eventually get the unit to a place where it has a solid role in the early/mid stages of the game, but not be effective en masse in the late game.
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Remember that all of the following is still to be tested and can change. This is just to get an initial impression.
Poll: GM League change?Good. (253) 89% Neutral. (27) 10% Bad. (3) 1% 283 total votes Your vote: GM League change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Poll: Showing MMR change?Good. (286) 92% Neutral. (17) 5% Bad. (7) 2% 310 total votes Your vote: Showing MMR change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Poll: League and Tier changes?Good. (239) 93% Neutral. (15) 6% Bad. (4) 2% 258 total votes Your vote: League and Tier changes? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Poll: How many Tiers per League do you want?3 (202) 78% 5 (36) 14% 10 (22) 8% 260 total votes Your vote: How many Tiers per League do you want? (Vote): 3
(Vote): 5
(Vote): 10
Poll: Corrosive Bile change?Good. (205) 62% Bad. (73) 22% Neutral. (51) 16% 329 total votes Your vote: Corrosive Bile change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Remember the Banshee buff and Liberator nerf go hand in hand.
Poll: Banshee speed upgrade change?Bad. (167) 47% Good. (123) 34% Neutral. (68) 19% 358 total votes Your vote: Banshee speed upgrade change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Poll: Freedom Zone radius change?Good. (234) 65% Bad. (89) 25% Neutral. (36) 10% 359 total votes Your vote: Freedom Zone radius change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
Poll: Thor AA damage change?Neutral. (151) 47% Good. (102) 32% Bad. (66) 21% 319 total votes Your vote: Thor AA damage change? (Vote): Good.
(Vote): Neutral.
(Vote): Bad.
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GM league changes sound good!
The top 200 MMR players should be put into GM every 24h or so.That way we don't have people "parking" there.
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Give the cyclone 30 more HP and it will be fine. 120 armored-health with no armor on a 150m/150g 3 supply unit is preposterous.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
We definitely hear the pros and cons you’ve discussed that nerfing Overlord drops instead could bring. The reason why we’re more interested in the Ravager nerf being tested is because it is the more impactful, bigger nerf. The main concern many of our community members point out (especially on the KR side) is that this change is a nerf against both Terran and Protoss, whereas nerfing Overlord drops is targeted more as a nerf vs. Protoss.
Terrible idea IMO. Corrosive Bile cooldown seems - to me - to be much more important in ZvT than in ZvP.
Corrosive bile is not relevant at the time where protoss struggles the most - before having time to stabilize with warpgate research done and multiple photon overcharges available.
Ravagers are central in ZvT armies to deal with siege tanks and liberators while also controlling space and zerg is not ahead in that matchup.
Because of this it feels like this change is going out of your way to nerf a core unit because of an imbalance in another matchup where it's used less and is less important. This has the potential to break ZvT while not having the desired effects on ZvP.
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I'm very worried about what quicker/cheaper to get, faster banshees will do to the ZvT match up and whether that will pin zerg to going spire every game or risk never killing banshees. Four second increase in corrosive bile cooldown isn't nearly as bad as I thought they'd do so that's good.
Absolutely love the ladder changes
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They should really work on protoss, design and balance wise. Why do they keep ignoring protoss? Especially PvZ. Changing zerg is not the solution, changing drops will just make zvz and zvt worse. Increasing the cooldown on bile a bit will not help. Change protoss.Give them more options.
One or more of these things: Make warpgate come sooner, buff zealots, buff stalkers (global, or only their AA). Make sentries useful again, like giving them shield battery option maybe? At least some reason to build them again that synergizes well with (gateway) units. Anything.
The cyclone could fit the AA role just right with a redesign. The thor will never be a reliable good unit because it's so big, clunky, slow and expensive. Nor is the widow mine reliable for obvious reasons.
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That liberator change is what I was hoping for. Now, to prepare a hellbat/speed banshee all-in BO. Honestly the banshee buff doesn't sound like a good idea, but the liberator nerf sounds like a really good plan (I already talked about reducing the radius in a previous update thread).
Would like a word on liberator AA though, it's scary good.
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compensating the liberator nerf with a banshee buff reminds me of their attempt of compensating the wm nerf with a tank buff.
Banshees will never be used with bio play outside of the early game because you need reactored starports for medivacs (no techlabs) and because banshees don't add anything to your army. They are useless in army vs army fights if the opponent has AA and for harassment you already have liberators and bio drops which are equally effective.
Really doesn't sound like a well thought out change.
I also don't like the thor change because it will make it useless vs mutas.
Ladder changes are nice.
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Oh yeah, and I would like them to finally address the point that Protoss has to go phoenix against Zerg every game without deviation if they want to play a macro game.
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Wow i am really positive surprised by the communication from blizzard, they stepped it up for sure
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Ladder changes seem good (:
My beef is that Banshee are just too fast with the banshee speed. It's like mutalisk with cloack with 6 range... OP as hell if you ask me. They were a complete nightmare to deal with in the beta until they were promptly struck with the nerf bat.
How about if your buffing Banshees to force Zerg into Spire every game you lower Liberator AA splash so they don't totally rofl stomp Mutalisks, Queens will do little to nothing against speed Banshees so Spire is going to once again be the go to build vs. Terran.
Buffing air units in this game just kind of seems like a bad move anyways, it always leads into turtling.
The Cyclone news sucks as well, seems the balance team is lost on the unit and doesn't really give a shit if it's viable or not, same with the Swarm Host for that matter, 2 new units that see borderline no usage and David's response is, "Not a critical issue" just doesn't strike me as very appropriate.
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I'm a little bit disturbed by the lack of Protoss' direct stuff like Disruptor's dmg change and mass Muta threat/dynamic in PvZ . Overall this is a massive update with a lot of super cool changes!
The ladder revamp is a new quality that this game really needed imo.
---- EDIT:
Dear Blizzard,
- if you're addressing such an important thing as laddering system and you try to pressure players to play more and be better gamers, PLEASE do consider allowing us to pick an opponent's race under UNRANKED to enable an easy way to practice certain matchup.
- a "favoured opponent" checkbox could be nice too (unranked).
- why race's level is limited? would you consider unlocking it (infinite) and make the next level require, lets say, 50% of all points gained?
- thank you for finally fixing the Battle.net profile page! Please, make it more customizable though (Dota 2 has a nice approach to it)
- BUG REPORT: please make hotkeys locking system - i have my keys completely revamped and some arcade games can change those settings without any warning. A lot of stuff become unset which is terribly annoying.
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The Thor needs more range too if it's to have an effect on BLs and Tempests.
Flying Tanks and crappy mech are still the main problems for me, so blah.. 
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I'm a bit disappointed there's nothing about the tank by the way. I think buffing the tank (and maybe looking into removing/changing the pickup) is a better compensatory change for the liberator nerf they intend to do. I'm all for the change, as I'd like the game to be less air centric and believe the liberator is a bit too good at what it does.
However, especially against Protoss, the only thing you could speed banshees for is harass. You can't use them to zone out Protoss units, which is one of the most important things liberators do. A buffed siege tank, meanwhile, could absolutely help zone out ground units if the liberator got nerfed.
And maybe TvT gets a bit better in the process.
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Ravagers needed a nerf, not sure if this is the best way about it. At least they synchronized it with a liberator nerf.
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are u going to buff siege tank damage or what? u didnt mention anything about siege tank.
and the disruptor damage vs shields?
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The liberator nerf is huge, -1 radius means -20% of radius, but -36% in area!
It looks wayyy too much to me.
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so you plan to test 3 different balance options for Terran at a time. I feel that this would be to much to reliably judge on the results.
First, Banshee Speed is a huge buff, but in the current Meta Banshees dont do much especially vs. Zerg because many opt for going Hydras and Lurkers.
Second, Speed banshees aer really hard to control and are very useless in the core army, they need to fill a roll to smothen a mech transition better. Maybe if they get cloak by default and not as an upgrade they would ft this role better.
The liberator nerf on radius will nerf also its range so its not necessary to reduce also the range, but if it comes only with the speed buff for banshees than it feels overall more like a nerv than a buff for terran, as Liberators can be reactored. I feel that Liberators are vital vs. Zerg to counter Muta play and to have at least something against Ultras.
With the Thor change (i refuse to call it nerf or buff because it's both) I feel anxious, because Mutas are so good, that the AOE from the Thor seems vital in many situations while going mech to buy time. One can say Mines and Marines fill that role also, but both are really bad vs. a transition to ultralisks. Mines still do random damage, you can kill a pack of mutas, or Baneling but you can also get many marines with medivacs put in deep red or get them killed. The thor change will be a very potent buff in ZvT as a reliably safe counter play to mutas eliminated from the game.
As terran you are forced then to play Mines and Marines or Liberators which feels counter intuitive to the banshee speed. as the starport is then occupied with building either Medivacs or Liberators.
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On March 25 2016 03:37 Charoisaur wrote:
compensating the liberator nerf with a banshee buff reminds me of their attempt of compensating the wm nerf with a tank buff.
Banshees will never be used with bio play outside of the early game because you need reactored starports for medivacs (no techlabs) and because banshees don't add anything to your army. They are useless in army vs army fights if the opponent has AA and for harassment you already have liberators and bio drops which are equally effective.
Really doesn't sound like a well thought out change.
I also don't like the thor change because it will make it useless vs mutas.
Ladder changes are nice.
The terran changes are mostly to buff mech and banshees have been a big part of mech since WoL
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
