EPTHow would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches…
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TL.net Bot
TL.net137 Posts
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TelecoM
United States10794 Posts
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bela.mervado
Hungary413 Posts
could work or should i say, would like to see with one, two at most, small changes. i can imagine pairing this with monthly ~5k events. after each event the intern would take a hard unforgiving look at the results, and do some random shit with the aim of changing the balance for the better. i hope the intern can arrange the funding for these events. but first, please, revert this 8 worker bullshit (i think most of the other changes should stay for a while, we do not have anything better to do, we can as well test these ideas). | ||
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Slydie
1990 Posts
Strive to make all matchups (including mirrors) s fair and enjoyable as possible, then let the map pool do the rest. Unfortunately, it seems like the game is quite far away from that goal right now, and might not hit it for at least a year. | ||
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jameswiilliamms00
1 Post
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victorkhalachi
1 Post
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19371 Posts
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TequilaMockingbird
Germany67 Posts
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Creager
Germany1951 Posts
What I think they should've done with the current situation is making sure to iron out issues with the starting worker change first and foremost by internally checking the change history of the game and which adjustments happened in correlation to the 12 worker start and THEN proceed with more profound "meta shake up" changes. Constant balance patches are just a way to ensure that whatever is left of the pro scene will collapse in the shortest amount of time. Blizzard from the ground up designed SC2 to be an esport, you don't change the environment of any (e)sport that constantly, but they clearly don't really give a flying f**k at this point and don't really seem to have any concept of what to do with this game. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27227 Posts
I’m always banging on about more varied maps and I think you could rotate at least a few more experimental maps in/out of the pool at that kind of pace But the game is hard enough to play as it is without having to constantly relearn things | ||
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SC-Shield
Bulgaria871 Posts
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ejozl
Denmark3520 Posts
I lost interest in dota as an off-game, I used to know all of the item costs and facts, the same with wc3. This dota-esque patching is a way to keep the nerds engaged, while destroying it for everyone else. Change for change's sake means, you welcome bad changes, just because. So it's a supposed short-term gain, but a long term loss. I hate to see what sc2 will be like in 5 years of this. Dkim used to say, the smallest change with the biggest output. | ||
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Glorfindelio
228 Posts
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Fleetfeet
Canada2797 Posts
On July 21 2026 02:31 ejozl wrote: I was still finding ways to do builds with 12 worker start, thinking on how it differs from 6 worker start, and this was 10 years after the fact. I don't believe in changes, mass shake up is a crutch for games that lack depth, yet we have one of the deepest games out there. I lost interest in dota as an off-game, I used to know all of the item costs and facts, the same with wc3. This dota-esque patching is a way to keep the nerds engaged, while destroying it for everyone else. Change for change's sake means, you welcome bad changes, just because. So it's a supposed short-term gain, but a long term loss. I hate to see what sc2 will be like in 5 years of this. Dkim used to say, the smallest change with the biggest output. I think I agree generally that it doesn't/shouldn't work for SC2 in large part because the game is about refined builds and execution per-map, then strategy per-series. You kind of put that structure in the blender with monthly patches, because how your strategy interacts with other strategies, at least intuitively, would change patch-per-patch. Consider how tight BW TvP Terran holding a bunker against goons is, if you do much of anything to mess with those timings it ripples throughout the whole matchup. Then compare Dota where they do wild shit like invent entirely new mechanics for the game some patches, make the map 20% bigger other patches, decide to just fully obsolete parts of the meta (trilanes and jungles, looking at you) and are fully content to just 100% backtrack on their choices and undo any of them in later patches. I think both the game is better suited for it, AND dota has had 20 years or whatever of us all culturally accepting that Dota is kind of a shit game (its also the best) and Dota patches are made by the chemically enhanced. Fundamentally if a dev was to come and ask me "We're thinking about doing monthly patches to SC2. What do you think about that idea?" I'd respond with "What do you hope to achieve?" and unless the answer to my question is refining balance towards a specific game design and game state, I'd be deeply skeptical. I think "patches to shake things up" is antithetical to the design of 'blizzard RTS', at least in the context of competitive 1v1. I'd tell them to put their design energy into coop commander, as its a better fit for patches to shake things up, and would probably meet a more receptive audience. | ||
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baldgye
United Kingdom1109 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7324 Posts
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BlackEyed
33 Posts
And to the conservative old-timers who DON'T WANT TO LEARN NEW STRATEGIES IN A GAME WHOSE ENTIRE GENRE IS STRATEGY, I'd like to say this: it's not 2003 anymore, when there were only a handful of games and people could play the same one for years without any changes.Today, players have far more choice and variety. If the developers keep releasing five lines of balance changes every couple of years, the game will be left with only a few hundred a couple hundred smoothbrains. Everyone else - the people WHO ARE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF ADAPTING TO CHANGE - will move on to games like Dota, LoL, and others where patches are released regularly and the meta changes at least a couple of times a year. The most important thing for any game to have a long life is a regular shake-up of the meta. For some reason, the StarCraft II developers decided that reaching some kind of mystical balance was all that mattered. No, it is not enough. And if that was not obvious before, then by now any sane person really should have no doubts left. So patches need to be not just frequent, but also bold, with major changes. Like replacing Medivacs with Medics, for example *winks*. | ||
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Moonerz
United States466 Posts
The other thing is you have to know your player base. The people playing sc2 for the most part at this point have been playing it forever and we enjoy the game we left. I don't mind balance changes etc but to change the starting worker count when the build order resources at this stage of sc2 are so minimal seems so out of touch. There's a reason even when blizz had people working on this game they waited for a full expansion to make a worker count change, not just in a random patch. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On July 23 2026 03:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't know if this will save the game or if it's already too late, but frequent patches are absolutely necessary. The lack of them is exactly why the game is in such a terrible state. And to the conservative old-timers who DON'T WANT TO LEARN NEW STRATEGIES IN A GAME WHOSE ENTIRE GENRE IS STRATEGY, I'd like to say this: it's not 2003 anymore, when there were only a handful of games and people could play the same one for years without any changes.Today, players have far more choice and variety. If the developers keep releasing five lines of balance changes every couple of years, the game will be left with only a few hundred a couple hundred smoothbrains. Everyone else - the people WHO ARE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF ADAPTING TO CHANGE - will move on to games like Dota, LoL, and others where patches are released regularly and the meta changes at least a couple of times a year. The most important thing for any game to have a long life is a regular shake-up of the meta. For some reason, the StarCraft II developers decided that reaching some kind of mystical balance was all that mattered. No, it is not enough. And if that was not obvious before, then by now any sane person really should have no doubts left. So patches need to be not just frequent, but also bold, with major changes. Like replacing Medivacs with Medics, for example *winks*. Brood War. I’d wager a lot of SC2’s playerbase are people in their 30s+ who simply don’t have the time to keep relearning a game on the regular Sure shake it up sometimes, but it has to be at a reasonable cadence | ||
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BlackEyed
33 Posts
On July 23 2026 03:40 Moonerz wrote: The people playing sc2 for the most part at this point have been playing it forever and we enjoy the game we left. Most players have already left SC2. The game has seen a massive drop-off over the last few years. So let us not pretend this is about “what people like.” Look at Dota 2: everyone’s happy there, and it still has 700k players online every day. So what is better — catering to 500 old-timers who are perfectly content while the game slowly dies, or actually trying to keep the game alive? | ||
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BlackEyed
33 Posts
On July 23 2026 03:55 WombaT wrote: Brood War. Brood War. What is Brood War? Did you decide to remind people about the existence of a dead game that has no new players and never will? Yeah, I remember. Or do you want StarCraft 2 to turn into another Brood War? Isn’t one enough? Let there be two empty games for a couple hundred old-timers? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On July 23 2026 05:38 BlackEyed wrote: Brood War. What is Brood War? Did you decide to remind people about the existence of a dead game that has no new players and never will? Yeah, I remember. Or do you want StarCraft 2 to turn into another Brood War? Isn’t one enough? Let there be two empty games for a couple hundred old-timers? Brood War is an example of a game that hasn’t been changed constantly, and still has a healthy player base. Other games change all the time and that works too, it’s really a matter of the game itself and the player base. Stop being an arse | ||
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BlackEyed
33 Posts
On July 23 2026 05:45 WombaT wrote: Brood War is an example of a game that hasn’t been changed constantly, and still has a healthy player base. Other games change all the time and that works too, it’s really a matter of the game itself and the player base. Stop being an arse No one was evaluating the quality of the game. It can be wonderful three times over, but that will not make it any more alive, and new players will not come to it. If a game does not change, it dies. And I do not want that fate for StarCraft 2, at least until StarCraft 3 comes out. And you can keep frothing at the mouth in your ignorance; it will not change the objective reality that the lack of patches has had a bad effect on the game. | ||
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doktordingerdonger
130 Posts
It is after all objective reality that a lack of change has a bad effect on a game. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27227 Posts
On July 23 2026 05:59 BlackEyed wrote: No one was evaluating the quality of the game. It can be wonderful three times over, but that will not make it any more alive, and new players will not come to it. If a game does not change, it dies. And I do not want that fate for StarCraft 2, at least until StarCraft 3 comes out. And you can keep frothing at the mouth in your ignorance; it will not change the objective reality that the lack of patches has had a bad effect on the game. What ignorance, having a different opinion on a patch cadence than you? Fuck off with that nonsense | ||
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Turbovolver
Australia2431 Posts
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19371 Posts
On July 23 2026 08:21 doktordingerdonger wrote: damn dude, better beg the intern that works for the creator of chess to better come up with a patch that revives the scene, or else it will die! Last patch was 1880 with the addition of en passant. It is after all objective reality that a lack of change has a bad effect on a game. What if the intern is just an AI agent making routine changes? | ||
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lestye
United States4227 Posts
Monthly seems waaaaay too much for a strategy game. Part of the coolness of a strategy game is how the meta changes over time in response to trends. And even then, if we need to shake up the meta, the remedy we have to change things up is the map pool. | ||
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BlackEyed
33 Posts
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