EPTHow do you think the 5.0.15 balance patch (Oct 2025) for S…
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TL.net Bot
TL.net135 Posts
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MO7AMEDx63
1 Post
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CicadaSC
United States1897 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
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TeamMamba
201 Posts
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Antithesis
Germany1236 Posts
The state of zerg is, I think, well put by Reynor's comment at HSC that in ZvP, he throws anything at the wall and hopes something will stick. Both terran and protoss have clear end game compositions to work towards, terran with ghost plus liberator plus X (besides other viable compositions like battle mech) and protoss with virtually any deathball plus infinite storms on end, but Zerg seems reduced to having the exact right composition in the exact right timing window or having to dance around the opponent forever. It's also reflected in the results. Yes, occasionally Solar or Shin will have a good run in the weekly cups, but that's what, one out of ten or fifteen cups with otherwise terran and protoss domination? And yes, Serral and, sometimes, Reynor, can still outplay their opponents in larger tournaments, but even this has become rarer and rarer, probably not only but at least in part because of the patch. But I don't even think balance purely in terms of results is the issue. The overall winrates are not terribly skewed. Rather the playstyles into which zerg is forced seem restrictive, volatile, and unforgiving. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
On February 08 2026 06:11 Antithesis wrote: In my view, the impact has been mostly negative. Zerg feels unsatisfying to watch. The state of zerg is, I think, well put by Reynor's comment at HSC that in ZvP, he throws anything at the wall and hopes something will stick. Both terran and protoss have clear end game compositions to work towards, terran with ghost plus liberator plus X (besides other viable compositions like battle mech) and protoss with virtually any deathball plus infinite storms on end, but Zerg seems reduced to having the exact right composition in the exact right timing window or having to dance around the opponent forever. It's also reflected in the results. Yes, occasionally Solar or Shin will have a good run in the weekly cups, but that's what, one out of ten or fifteen cups with otherwise terran and protoss domination? And yes, Serral and, sometimes, Reynor, can still outplay their opponents in larger tournaments, but even this has become rarer and rarer, probably not only but at least in part because of the patch. But I don't even think balance purely in terms of results is the issue. The overall winrates are not terribly skewed. Rather the playstyles into which zerg is forced seem restrictive, volatile, and unforgiving. That's not due to the last patch though. The last patch was the one that buffed Spire and Banes while nerfing Protoss. Maybe Zerg still isn't in a perfect place but when talking about the impact of specifically the last patch I don't think there's anything to complain about from a Zerg perspective. | ||
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Antithesis
Germany1236 Posts
On February 08 2026 06:25 Charoisaur wrote: That's not due to the last patch though. The last patch was the one that buffed Spire and Banes while nerfing Protoss. Maybe Zerg still isn't in a perfect place but when talking about the impact of specifically the last patch I don't think there's anything to complain about from a Zerg perspective. Oh, that's right. Then my post is to be read as a comment on the state of zerg. But I do feel it got worse since the last patch though I cannot put my finger on why. | ||
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TeamMamba
201 Posts
On February 08 2026 06:11 Antithesis wrote: In my view, the impact has been mostly negative. Zerg feels unsatisfying to watch. The state of zerg is, I think, well put by Reynor's comment at HSC that in ZvP, he throws anything at the wall and hopes something will stick. Both terran and protoss have clear end game compositions to work towards, terran with ghost plus liberator plus X (besides other viable compositions like battle mech) and protoss with virtually any deathball plus infinite storms on end, but Zerg seems reduced to having the exact right composition in the exact right timing window or having to dance around the opponent forever. It's also reflected in the results. Yes, occasionally Solar or Shin will have a good run in the weekly cups, but that's what, one out of ten or fifteen cups with otherwise terran and protoss domination? And yes, Serral and, sometimes, Reynor, can still outplay their opponents in larger tournaments, but even this has become rarer and rarer, probably not only but at least in part because of the patch. But I don't even think balance purely in terms of results is the issue. The overall winrates are not terribly skewed. Rather the playstyles into which zerg is forced seem restrictive, volatile, and unforgiving. This is spot on Currently it’s painful to watch Zerg late game since they have no composition. Even if they have 5k bank advantage it usually doesn’t matter since they are unable to break the terran or toss. Zerg either has to win straight up with a huge timing attack or they really need to deal crippling damage mid game But overall ghost lib composition is a joke to watch in all matchup | ||
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Ciaus237
South Africa287 Posts
Some thoughts on the problem: 1) Lurkers. I think this unit should never have been added to SC2 - the entire direction it brings zerg mid-lategame is distinctly... not zergy. They also create this painful situation where skytoss "needs" to be strong. They are expensive, powerful, slow, long ranged and useful against all ground armies - which is completely antithetical to the classic zerg playstyles that either involve throwing waves of bodies in the right places until the opponent breaks (like roach max, ling bane) or fast tech switches (can't really afford that after making a dozen lurkers). 2) The systematic removal of every single bit of early game threat zerg has ever had. This one is honestly pretty weird to me. Removes a lot of the mind games (but only from Zerg for some reason, other races can have them). It also means that at pro level, P and T can pretty much always get into the midgame on solid footing in a consistent way. Zerg has no such luxuries, so it is incredibly difficult for an aggressive underdog zerg to make real progress in a tournament with something different (Protoss however...). 3) No lategame win condition on most maps. Protoss and Terran have their god-comps that can handle anything with minor adjustments and slowly, tediously for the victim, grind their way to a win. On maps where Zerg can force a lead of a few extra bases they can still be favored late, but on more splittable maps (which is most 2p maps) watching ghost lib / tempest HT vs Zerg is just depression-fuel. | ||
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MJG
United Kingdom1443 Posts
Progamers should've never been allowed to design changes to the game. Visual representation of progamers attempting to patch the game: | ||
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jack_less
78 Posts
Overall, it didn't change much. Maybe that's healthier. I thought it was a shame that there were a few trolls in the patch. Like the Ghost changes, which is now just a Ghost buff. on the other hand Microbial Shroud was nerfed too much before we even got to see it in a real game. The tank/Thor got push priority as QoL. Ultra got a compensation nerf. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3486 Posts
But in a more active game where the lvl is higher, if the 4 horsemen of terran (badly forced nickname) were around and at full capacity, I don't think protoss would be the strongest performer at the gsl, were it still around. Libs are weaker though. i think we can say we see less of them now. Cyclone mech vs protoss was removed. Sentry drop allin is gone, oracle mass stasis is gone, these are results of bad changes. Zerg got a bit of power back which is evidently now needed with a now weakened serral. Immortal allins are at their worst, I think, though I do think there's a counter. I don't mind things like anti-micro cloud being more powerful, though it should be said that if you wanted to do an allin vs. sky toss using this, the allin is now weaker. The libs are also just awkward, like most terran units, designed to have OP stats, but janky to control designed to ruin your wrists, like the reaper, cyclone and other mosquito units. Requiring to scan is super tedious, and should be a reserved change for teleporting BCs. If anything the liberator should by its super focus inside the ring, have reduced vision on the unit itself outside of the circle. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3486 Posts
On February 08 2026 00:59 CicadaSC wrote: i saw serral lose which should pretty much never happen so terran a bit too strong after the patch. This is the mindset that made zerg OP in 2019 | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7139 Posts
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MJG
United Kingdom1443 Posts
I would like the WoL and HotS ladders back though. I paid for them after all... | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1897 Posts
On February 12 2026 16:35 MJG wrote: I sometimes think we'd be better off if the game reverted to the final HotS patch, but with the Swarm Host being replaced by the Lurker. Unfortunately, that's never going to happen. I would like the WoL and HotS ladders back though. I paid for them after all... The raven at the end of hots scares me... I will never forget what innovation and his mech turned terran into vs Zerg. | ||
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kajtarp
Hungary487 Posts
On February 12 2026 01:20 Harris1st wrote: I think it's fair having Zerg getting fucked for a few patches after Zerg beeing OP for so long The problem is this might be the last patch and this could be the state SC2 is left forever. | ||
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MJG
United Kingdom1443 Posts
On February 12 2026 18:46 kajtarp wrote: The problem is this might be the last patch and this could be the state SC2 is left forever. The final full-time Blizzard patch should've been the state that the game was left in forever. But people complained and complained and complained because god forbid the Void Ray have a niche in a match-up; the game being in the most consistently balanced state since release (see Liquipedia stats) meant nothing to the community back then. Now we have neither a balanced game nor a varied one. The community has reaped what it sowed. If this is the state that the game is left in, it's the state that the community deserves. | ||
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Vision_
875 Posts
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
On February 12 2026 19:50 Vision_ wrote: you can t balance this kind of game effectively if you didn t reduce the speed for testing it internally That is definetly one of the sentences of all time. If I had to rate it, I would | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3486 Posts
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Think13
Canada1 Post
Ghost +25 hp feels appropriate as it now has "Light" put on it. Other than that it feels good. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26489 Posts
On February 12 2026 19:50 Vision_ wrote: you can t balance this kind of game effectively if you didn t reduce the speed for testing it internally What do you mean by ‘speed for testing it internally’? | ||
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Vision_
875 Posts
On February 15 2026 08:51 WombaT wrote: What do you mean by ‘speed for testing it internally’? Reduce speed game for people who are in charge of the balance during the patch creation. There s no competition between these guys, all they have to do is understand what proffesionnals are questionning. Now if there s no name behing this balance team, then i would say that the game will be more and more partial. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3486 Posts
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SC-Shield
Bulgaria837 Posts
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
On February 15 2026 23:10 Vision_ wrote: Reduce speed game for people who are in charge of the balance during the patch creation. There s no competition between these guys, all they have to do is understand what proffesionnals are questionning. Now if there s no name behing this balance team, then i would say that the game will be more and more partial. Okay, I gotta ask: How is that going to help? | ||
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Vision_
875 Posts
World lacks of volunteers, do you ignore it ? It s not a huge work to modify all the time value in cooldowns and building construction, which would only slow the game during fights (mod would be played in "fast" instead of "very fast") The second advantage of this type of mod is the ability to transform the game in the very long term into something more macro oriented, with more strategy and richer buids order (like SC:BW) Then if nobody else answer to this kind of idea, i guess the game won t evolve anymore | ||
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Vision_
875 Posts
Then how many questions behind this ? One, If you reverse the number of workers also (let s say 9), why don t add base with half number of basic nodes ? let s say 4 or 5.. Because they added minerals per nodes with the "12 workers patch" but couldn't the reverse work? What if smaller bases could work ? Then from this question i found that prices base (400 minerals) could be divided by 2, 200 minerals for a base able to only harvest minerals, and other 200 minerals for upgrade the base to build workers and have spells. Then the image comparaison that can be understood by everyone is chess. Chess like SC2 have Openings, middle part and finale. If you only plays popular openings, then you won t be a GM and for the middle game, it s oftenly more demanding if you haven t enought practice this chicky opening. For the finale, then it s when the minerals are gone, when you should be able to guess which chance you have against the ennemy to win. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
On February 18 2026 17:58 Vision_ wrote: Why should i help ? World lacks of volunteers, do you ignore it ? ...does your comprehension of the english language really stop at the word "how"? Really no offense, but you might want to consider using a translator... The second advantage of this type of mod is the ability to transform the game in the very long term into something more macro oriented, with more strategy and richer buids order (like SC:BW) Why stop there? Why not introduce heroes to get the more strategic and richer builds like in WC3? Or we could add like 20 new races, so we get the novelty of AoE 2. Banger idea: If we make the game first person and include more silly dances we could easily get all the young blood from Fortnite! | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26489 Posts
On February 19 2026 06:16 Balnazza wrote: ...does your comprehension of the english language really stop at the word "how"? Really no offense, but you might want to consider using a translator... Why stop there? Why not introduce heroes to get the more strategic and richer builds like in WC3? Or we could add like 20 new races, so we get the novelty of AoE 2. Banger idea: If we make the game first person and include more silly dances we could easily get all the young blood from Fortnite! I too think it’s desirable and realistic to completely redesign the game, especially when almost nobody is actively working on it. I mean I’ve done plenty of spitballing about things I perceive as mistakes or what I’d like to see in the next big RTS, but it’s all Vision does, and he isn’t even that active in the threads that such stuff actually fits into | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3486 Posts
There also were cheeses they just got patched out, void ray, battery, ravager egg, depot heal, spore without evo, overlord speed increase, adept and oracle dmg nerf, queen transfuse, bunker salvage, roach moveburrow, the list just goes on and on. So I would say get back 4 player maps and see if the cheese game increases or if it's even possible, this will slow the game in itself. Spread out the bases more, so you can't camp on the same area of the map until maxed. Possibly change mineral income from 5->4 and mule from 25->20. Increase the minerals on the big patches, I think 1k on the small ones and 2k on the big, and use 6 nodes, and the game will play out totally different. | ||
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BlackEyed
15 Posts
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ProTech
United States443 Posts
On February 18 2026 18:38 Vision_ wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0fF8Vs2C0 Then how many questions behind this ? One, If you reverse the number of workers also (let s say 9), why don t add base with half number of basic nodes ? let s say 4 or 5.. Because they added minerals per nodes with the "12 workers patch" but couldn't the reverse work? What if smaller bases could work ? Then from this question i found that prices base (400 minerals) could be divided by 2, 200 minerals for a base able to only harvest minerals, and other 200 minerals for upgrade the base to build workers and have spells. Then the image comparaison that can be understood by everyone is chess. Chess like SC2 have Openings, middle part and finale. If you only plays popular openings, then you won t be a GM and for the middle game, it s oftenly more demanding if you haven t enought practice this chicky opening. For the finale, then it s when the minerals are gone, when you should be able to guess which chance you have against the ennemy to win. Worker change from 6 to 12 single handedly destroyed the strategy from the game. It was by far one of the worst changes that they could have possibly made to RTS. If you revert this, the game becomes popular again especially for the casual crowd, if you don't do this the game will continue to all-time lows, with zero possibility of a come back. You can track the player numbers over time through https://nonapa.com/teams this link. LoTV has done nothing but perform poorly in terms of overall player base aside from a very short period of time, and in my opnion one of the main reasons for this, is that the balance team has stripped the strategy from the game, and made defenders advantage way too strong, which is resulting in the stale play that we're seeing on a casual bases, but also in the pro scene. So yes, immediately changing the workers back to 6 will give SC a bit of its identity back, but the truth is whoever we have working on the game doesn't really have much of a clue as to what they're doing w/ the balance, based on the last few patches that we've had. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26489 Posts
On February 24 2026 01:04 ProTech wrote: Worker change from 6 to 12 single handedly destroyed the strategy from the game. It was by far one of the worst changes that they could have possibly made to RTS. If you revert this, the game becomes popular again especially for the casual crowd, if you don't do this the game will continue to all-time lows, with zero possibility of a come back. You can track the player numbers over time through https://nonapa.com/teams this link. LoTV has done nothing but perform poorly in terms of overall player base aside from a very short period of time, and in my opnion one of the main reasons for this, is that the balance team has stripped the strategy from the game, and made defenders advantage way too strong, which is resulting in the stale play that we're seeing on a casual bases, but also in the pro scene. So yes, immediately changing the workers back to 6 will give SC a bit of its identity back, but the truth is whoever we have working on the game doesn't really have much of a clue as to what they're doing w/ the balance, based on the last few patches that we've had. I dunno if that’s true really, WoL was a few years old when HoTS cane out, the HoTS iteration added another few to that. By Legacy’s launch and especially now you’re simply talking about a pretty old game. Rare is the game that’s on its third expansion, it’s 15th year or w/e and not dropping player count. I mean personally I prefer the WoL/HoTS economic pacing, many do, but they had plenty of problems too. Maps initially in WoL absolutely sucked for one. There were matchup metas in both that were absolutely awful. Additionally, the tastes of the player base and those who primarily view quite frequently diverge, but it doesn’t stop the latter being very vocal about the state of the game. Coinflips, crazy cheeses are great fun to watch, but for many infuriating to play against. I do agree that Legacy has maybe stripped a bit too much away in terms of strategic divergence and options, and has gone a bit too far in that direction. But there are plenty of players who enjoy the relative stability and forcing of macro games too | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
If you revert this, the game becomes popular again especially for the casual crowd, if you don't do this the game will continue to all-time lows, with zero possibility of a come back. In what universe do some of you live where one singular change magically makes a game "popular again"? If they would reverse the worker-change tomorrow (which on its own is a terrible idea anyway), that would literally do nothing. It's not like a million players anxiously check the SC2 patchnotes every day to look how the current status of the game is. The only people who care about that stuff are the people that are already playing or atleast engaging with the game/scene anyway. I think the only time I can remember an ingame change actually made a game much more popular again was in Diablo 3, when they introduced the Loottable 2.0 that finally fixed Diablos horrifyingly bad Loot System, but if I recall, that change was either introduced with Reaper of Souls or came shortly afterwards. But beyond that: You cannot make a game popular again by changing a purely gameplay-related thing. You can make a game popular again with a lot of patches and exciting announcements, not with very specific changes. Legacy of the Void got released at the end of 2015. If someone disliked the worker change so much he quit the game shortly after, that guy hasn't cared about SC2 in 10 years now. How can anyone think someone like that would read the news "worker-change reverted" and go "oh wow, I will totally play SC2 ladder again now!". That guy is currently teaching his kid math ffs and hasn't time for SC2 anymore. And it is even more ludicrous to believe that there are kids out there who would totally pick up SC2 instead of Fortnite if they would just half the amount of starting workers. Like...seriously? SC2 is in decline because it is a fucking old game. And don't give me the shit about "uhhhhhh, look at BW! Look at WC3! Look at AoE 2!" They all do sooooo great!" Yes, they do...relatively speaking. But are we all pretending like each of these games didn't go through a fucking long drought before they returned? I know BW never went fully away in Korea, but no one else ever cared about it until SC:R got released. And even thought Reforged was a shitshow, it had massive impact on the revitalisation of WC3. And AoE 2 is effectively still an "active" game with new DLCs every year, so that is hardly a fair comparison. SC2 might just have the unfortunate problem that it is the pinnacle of RTS developement and not much else has happened since it release, so we might never get a SC2:R, because there isn't much to remaster about the game in the first place. I would say everything about it is pretty much still state of the art. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26489 Posts
On February 24 2026 04:46 Balnazza wrote: In what universe do some of you live where one singular change magically makes a game "popular again"? If they would reverse the worker-change tomorrow (which on its own is a terrible idea anyway), that would literally do nothing. It's not like a million players anxiously check the SC2 patchnotes every day to look how the current status of the game is. The only people who care about that stuff are the people that are already playing or atleast engaging with the game/scene anyway. I think the only time I can remember an ingame change actually made a game much more popular again was in Diablo 3, when they introduced the Loottable 2.0 that finally fixed Diablos horrifyingly bad Loot System, but if I recall, that change was either introduced with Reaper of Souls or came shortly afterwards. But beyond that: You cannot make a game popular again by changing a purely gameplay-related thing. You can make a game popular again with a lot of patches and exciting announcements, not with very specific changes. Legacy of the Void got released at the end of 2015. If someone disliked the worker change so much he quit the game shortly after, that guy hasn't cared about SC2 in 10 years now. How can anyone think someone like that would read the news "worker-change reverted" and go "oh wow, I will totally play SC2 ladder again now!". That guy is currently teaching his kid math ffs and hasn't time for SC2 anymore. And it is even more ludicrous to believe that there are kids out there who would totally pick up SC2 instead of Fortnite if they would just half the amount of starting workers. Like...seriously? SC2 is in decline because it is a fucking old game. And don't give me the shit about "uhhhhhh, look at BW! Look at WC3! Look at AoE 2!" They all do sooooo great!" Yes, they do...relatively speaking. But are we all pretending like each of these games didn't go through a fucking long drought before they returned? I know BW never went fully away in Korea, but no one else ever cared about it until SC:R got released. And even thought Reforged was a shitshow, it had massive impact on the revitalisation of WC3. And AoE 2 is effectively still an "active" game with new DLCs every year, so that is hardly a fair comparison. SC2 might just have the unfortunate problem that it is the pinnacle of RTS developement and not much else has happened since it release, so we might never get a SC2:R, because there isn't much to remaster about the game in the first place. I would say everything about it is pretty much still state of the art. Well-said sir | ||
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DR
54 Posts
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Antithesis
Germany1236 Posts
On February 24 2026 04:46 Balnazza wrote: In what universe do some of you live where one singular change magically makes a game "popular again"? If they would reverse the worker-change tomorrow (which on its own is a terrible idea anyway), that would literally do nothing. It's not like a million players anxiously check the SC2 patchnotes every day to look how the current status of the game is. The only people who care about that stuff are the people that are already playing or atleast engaging with the game/scene anyway. Yes; and all this even ignores the most important fact, which is that it is highly doubtful if not plain wrong that most casuals would prefer a lower number of starting workers. I am positive the reaction of the vast majority of causal players to starting with 12 workers rather than 6 or 9 is simply, "Oh, neat, the game is faster and action begins sooner." Virtually nobody who is not already invested in SC dwells on the economic and strategic ramifications of a slightly higher or lower number of starting workers. It is sort of like saying, "If only the 5. d4 variation of the Berlin Defense was not so drawish, many more casuals would play Chess." | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7139 Posts
On February 25 2026 04:51 DR wrote: PvT just has become broken around midmasters. Terran got no harassoptions anymore. Toss can expand freely while also pressuring harcore with mass gateways...chargelots and prism...unplayable on this level. Just sucks that Terrans are still winning tourneys have been winning for decades....... Terran has literally hundreds of harass options. Sounds like you hit your personal ceiling there is all. | ||
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BlackEyed
15 Posts
The arguments that the game has lost elements of strategy are partly true, but that’s not because of the number of starting workers — it’s because of terrible unit design. The most obvious example is the Oracle, which in PvZ can practically do everything at once. It harasses, scouts, and defends. That level of versatility is unacceptable for healthy gameplay. One poorly designed unit has nearly killed the strategic depth of an entire matchup. Add to that the bad design of Zerg — namely that they have only one ground unit that can shoot air, and overly versatile Queens — and you get a very sad situation. Terran has the same problem with diminished strategic depth, just for a different reason. Yes, they have many openings, but essentially they all boil down to Factory → Starport. And that’s because there simply aren’t other tech buildings. Terran doesn’t really need to think about which tech path to take, since those two buildings concentrate the entire technological potential of the race. Terran always builds a Factory and a Starport by default and, if necessary, just adds units from them. What strategy are we even talking about? In the end, to make the game feel alive, we shouldn’t invent abstract, ephemeral concepts — we should simply work on it and develop it. Release bold patches, regularly shift the meta, add and remove units if necessary, give each race at least one additional building and move part of their tech potential there. No other measures will revive SC2 or change anything. Everyone brings up SC1 as an example, saying it hasn’t been updated for decades and everything is fine. But in reality, nothing is fine — the game was simply lucky to freeze in a more successful meta than SC2. That doesn’t make it alive. So only Blizzard can revive the game, but since SC2 is not economically viable as a project, that’s unlikely to happen. | ||
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ProTech
United States443 Posts
On February 24 2026 04:46 Balnazza wrote: In what universe do some of you live where one singular change magically makes a game "popular again"? If they would reverse the worker-change tomorrow (which on its own is a terrible idea anyway), that would literally do nothing. It's not like a million players anxiously check the SC2 patchnotes every day to look how the current status of the game is. The only people who care about that stuff are the people that are already playing or atleast engaging with the game/scene anyway. I think the only time I can remember an ingame change actually made a game much more popular again was in Diablo 3, when they introduced the Loottable 2.0 that finally fixed Diablos horrifyingly bad Loot System, but if I recall, that change was either introduced with Reaper of Souls or came shortly afterwards. But beyond that: You cannot make a game popular again by changing a purely gameplay-related thing. You can make a game popular again with a lot of patches and exciting announcements, not with very specific changes. Legacy of the Void got released at the end of 2015. If someone disliked the worker change so much he quit the game shortly after, that guy hasn't cared about SC2 in 10 years now. How can anyone think someone like that would read the news "worker-change reverted" and go "oh wow, I will totally play SC2 ladder again now!". That guy is currently teaching his kid math ffs and hasn't time for SC2 anymore. And it is even more ludicrous to believe that there are kids out there who would totally pick up SC2 instead of Fortnite if they would just half the amount of starting workers. Like...seriously? SC2 is in decline because it is a fucking old game. And don't give me the shit about "uhhhhhh, look at BW! Look at WC3! Look at AoE 2!" They all do sooooo great!" Yes, they do...relatively speaking. But are we all pretending like each of these games didn't go through a fucking long drought before they returned? I know BW never went fully away in Korea, but no one else ever cared about it until SC:R got released. And even thought Reforged was a shitshow, it had massive impact on the revitalisation of WC3. And AoE 2 is effectively still an "active" game with new DLCs every year, so that is hardly a fair comparison. SC2 might just have the unfortunate problem that it is the pinnacle of RTS developement and not much else has happened since it release, so we might never get a SC2:R, because there isn't much to remaster about the game in the first place. I would say everything about it is pretty much still state of the art. I gave you a link to look at the player numbers. People clearly did NOT like the game upon LoTV launch. It was more of a matter of " well this is what they did so let's stomach it until they fix it " which they never did, thus resulted in the players numbers we have today, which by the way are still performing on a much better level than the other games you mentioned. The universe we live in, is one that says we're tired of the game not having stratgey and defenders advantage being too strong to make anything other than having 4 expos by the 4 minute mark or you simply can't play the game. This is terrible design for a casual experience, and it's annoying for a high level experience because it creates a stale game, were if you are not copy/pasting pro builds you simply can't perform. Which by the way this only scrapes the surface with things that are wrong about the game, it's only a small portion of things that need to change to get players truly back into it. From the interface bugs, terrible ladder system, and abysmal match making system that's been ruined by alt accounts, just to name a few. | ||
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Vision_
875 Posts
Looking clearly at these statistics, if you take account the covid pandemic, then the season 42, 46,47 and 49 are representative of the loss of players. So 2020 and 2021 (despite the work done during covid for keep sc2 healthy) have been the nail in the coffin of SC2. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
On March 03 2026 10:47 ProTech wrote: I gave you a link to look at the player numbers. People clearly did NOT like the game upon LoTV launch. It was more of a matter of " well this is what they did so let's stomach it until they fix it " which they never did, thus resulted in the players numbers we have today, which by the way are still performing on a much better level than the other games you mentioned. The universe we live in, is one that says we're tired of the game not having stratgey and defenders advantage being too strong to make anything other than having 4 expos by the 4 minute mark or you simply can't play the game. This is terrible design for a casual experience, and it's annoying for a high level experience because it creates a stale game, were if you are not copy/pasting pro builds you simply can't perform. Which by the way this only scrapes the surface with things that are wrong about the game, it's only a small portion of things that need to change to get players truly back into it. From the interface bugs, terrible ladder system, and abysmal match making system that's been ruined by alt accounts, just to name a few. You are missing the point. It's not about what is popular or what isn't. It is also not about what is working or fun and what isn't. You are not getting "players truly back into it". You will not get 2019 or whatever back. Period. | ||
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ProTech
United States443 Posts
On March 03 2026 22:55 Balnazza wrote: You are missing the point. It's not about what is popular or what isn't. It is also not about what is working or fun and what isn't. You are not getting "players truly back into it". You will not get 2019 or whatever back. Period. I'm fully aware that the game won't get 2019 numbers, the OP is asking a specific question which ties into what we are talking about. If you want a popular RTS you'll need to change the core of the game from 1v1 to team-game based, since the environment of E-Sports and casual play in general, has moved heavily to team-game based games. This is the part that SG missed, and pretty much every future RTS development team will miss as far as I can see. Trying to re-create Seoul South Korea Broodwar isn't going to work with the trajectory of how gaming in evolving in general so we'll need an innovative dev team to understand this, and capitalize on it. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
1v1 for RTS being the Gold-Standard is fine. As other games have proven, if you can't have a full-team experience (4v4 and upwards), it is better to stick with 1v1. I'm not even sure if there is a popular Esports that is mainly 2v2? I will always agree that Clanwars are more exciting than Solo Tournaments (so essentially, Proleague > GSL), but that's not something you fix with game-design. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7139 Posts
On March 04 2026 01:45 Balnazza wrote: So the Team-Game Player advocates for team-based gameplay...shocker? 1v1 for RTS being the Gold-Standard is fine. As other games have proven, if you can't have a full-team experience (4v4 and upwards), it is better to stick with 1v1. I'm not even sure if there is a popular Esports that is mainly 2v2? I will always agree that Clanwars are more exciting than Solo Tournaments (so essentially, Proleague > GSL), but that's not something you fix with game-design. I disagree. Tournaments are always more engaging than leagues. More to lose. Now if there were a team tournament than I agree. Team > Solo 1v1 has the highest "pressure" and "ladder anxiety levels" therefore I think if you like to or need to attract a lot of (casual) players, team-based games are the way to go. To topic: Balance at the top seems fine: Hero is winning stuff, Maru/ Clem are winning stuff, Serral is winning stuff. For the level just below it seems T>P>Z just ever so slightly and mainly cause late game Terran is a bit busted (Ghost/ Lib and Mules) | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1276 Posts
On March 06 2026 01:13 Harris1st wrote: I disagree. Tournaments are always more engaging than leagues. More to lose. Now if there were a team tournament than I agree. Team > Solo 1v1 has the highest "pressure" and "ladder anxiety levels" therefore I think if you like to or need to attract a lot of (casual) players, team-based games are the way to go. To topic: Balance at the top seems fine: Hero is winning stuff, Maru/ Clem are winning stuff, Serral is winning stuff. For the level just below it seems T>P>Z just ever so slightly and mainly cause late game Terran is a bit busted (Ghost/ Lib and Mules) Team-games are naturally more appealing, because you have less anxiety, can play better with friends, the Esports generates more hype and what not. But that doesn't mean it is the solution for RTS. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7139 Posts
On March 06 2026 04:54 Balnazza wrote: Team-games are naturally more appealing, because you have less anxiety, can play better with friends, the Esports generates more hype and what not. But that doesn't mean it is the solution for RTS. This is not mutually exclusive. Take Tennis for example: The pinnacle is obviously 1v1. Mano e mano! Casual fun is playing 2v2 though. Ever been to a tennis court facility on a sunny sunday? | ||
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Phattyasmo
United States69 Posts
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7mentor
1 Post
User was banned for this post. | ||
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THERIDDLER
Canada127 Posts
On March 07 2026 13:34 Phattyasmo wrote: Less SC2 viewers. Huh, weird. It's like people don't wanna see Protoss all the time in games...shout out to the balance council. Yea can't believe they cancelled EWC just when the game has became more balanced than it has ever been! Do saudis not like endless PvPs or something? | ||
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