General

- APM values displayed on the Leader Board are now calculated by counting every click and command that has been issued by the player.
- EPM values displayed on the Leader Board are calculated by counting only actual commands issued by the player (Effective Actions Per Minute).
- Zerg Larvae are now displayed in the unit panel of the Leader Board.

Balance

PROTOSS
Phoenix
- A new upgrade has been added to the Fleet Beacon: Anion Pulse-Crystals. This upgrade increases Phoenix weapon range by +2.

TERRAN
Ghost
- Snipe damage changed from 45 to 25 (+25 vs Psionic).
Orbital Command Center
- MULE now always returns 30 minerals per trip, regardless of mineral type.

Bug Fixes

- The “Try the Next Patch” button now properly launches the PTR client when a PTR is available.
- Unread chat notifications no longer reset when entering or leaving a game.
- Map information now loads immediately in the Match History screen after logging onto Battle.net.
- In the Korean version, the Reduced Violence option now remains checked when restoring gameplay defaults.
- Fixed a display issue that could occur when binding certain keys on a French keyboard.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting StarCraft II on systems with Geforce FX 5700 graphics cards.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when saving and loading games between High and Low video settings.
- Fixed an issue that could cause some players to be dropped from custom games after spending an extended time in the lobby.
- Fixed an issue which was causing some players with a full version of SC2 to be stuck in Starter Edition.
- Fixed an issue that could cause ladder matches to sometimes start three seconds late.
- Fixed an issue where overlapping units could sometimes traverse cliff levels.
- Fixed an issue which prevented some players from receiving credit for Top X achievements after Season 3.
- Fixed an issue which caused FFA games to reset the progress of the Team Hot Streak achievement.
- Fixed an issue where the Restart button was incorrectly showing up when loading Vs. AI saved games from previous versions of StarCraft II.

Mac Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue where the cursor would disappear when using the middle mouse button.
- Fixed an issue which caused performance to drop significantly during large battles.
- Fixed an issue that was causing certain mod maps to crash after loading.
- The Reduce Mouse Lag option now works properly on Macs.

Beginning with Season 4, we’ve been experimenting with prioritizing tournament-style maps on the StarCraft II ladder. Now, in Season 6, we’re giving player-created maps the spotlight!

TeamLiquid.net recently hosted the TeamLiquid map contest to offer enthusiasts from the StarCraft II community a chance to show off their map making skills. The competitors in that contest were also tempted with the tantalizing possibility of seeing their creations featured on the official StarCraft II ladder. The contest was a smashing success and we had the opportunity to see the map contest finalists in action during the TL Open. The contest also gave you, the player community, a chance to share your opinions and shape StarCraft history by voting on your favorite maps in the wake of the tournament. The votes were tallied, the final winners were chosen, and the time has come! In Season 6, you can finally meet your fellow players in furious battle on top TeamLiquid map contest maps: Cloud Kingdom and Korhal Compound. We’re truly excited to give such high quality community created maps a place on the official ladder.

Season 6, which begins the week of February 14, brings with it the following changes to the existing map pool:


Maps being removed:

(2) Xel’naga Caverns
Players have been enjoying Xel’naga Caverns since the StarCraft II beta. However, as this map is no longer preferred in a tournament setting, we’ve opted to pull it from the pool for this season.

(2) Arid Plateau
In the spirit of making every ladder map tournament viable, we added two new maps last season that would be true to that goal. We pushed some new features on Arid Plateau such as unusual natural expansions, and a lot of open areas around the map. Arid Plateau wasn’t as widely accepted as a tournament friendly map, so we’ve decided to retire it from the rotation for Season 6.


Maps being added:

(2) Cloud Kingdom


By SUPEROUMAN and the other members of the ESV Mapmaking Team


(2) Korhal Compound


By monitor and the other members of the ESV Mapmaking Team


We would also like to recognize IronmanSC and the members of ESV and The Planetary Workshop (TPW) for their amazing work on Ohana, which took second place in the TeamLiquid map contest. We’re currently working with IronmanSC to help fix a few bugs while ensuring we retain the intent of the map, and once those are done we’ll be adding it to the pool for a future ladder season.

We will continue to change the map lineup on the StarCraft II ladder over time, and we’ll also maintain our focus on tournament-viable maps to ensure the fiercest competition. Maps that don’t make the cut will be replaced by maps that meet the standards set by major tournaments all around the globe.

We’re pleased to bring you the latest StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty situation report. In this edition, we'll be discussing some of the most notable changes in patch 1.4.3 and shed some light on the design philosophy behind this update.

MULEs now harvest the same amount of minerals on both high yield minerals and normal minerals.

We’ve been looking into the effects that high yield expansions have on gameplay, in particular how the added efficiency of MULEs on these mineral patches can affect matchups. This is also a common piece of feedback we’ve received from both pro players and the community.
We’ve been closely monitoring several sources of information: GSL tournaments which feature maps that do not have high yield mineral patches at all, major tournaments that still use high yield expansions, and our own ladder maps data now that our 1v1 ladder features a tournament-like map pool.
Based on these observations, we’ve made the decision to keep MULE resource generation the same regardless of mineral type, while allowing high yield mineral patches to remain on our ladder maps. This change helps keep the risk vs. reward the same for all three races when acquiring expansions that feature high yield minerals.

Snipe damage changed from 45 to 25 +25 Psionic
We felt the Snipe ability was countering zerg broodlords and ultralisks slightly too well. Especially at the pro level, we were seeing a lot of games where terran players were playing very defensive games while massing ghosts to counter most of the options zerg players had at their disposal.
While we like to see creative and innovative use of units, we felt that in this case Snipe was becoming too effective against zerg’s most expensive units. When adjusting the ability, we tried to settle on a number that would allow using Snipe to remain a viable tactic, though not as powerful as it is now. With this change, brood lords will fall in ten casts of Snipe rather than six (taking into account health regeneration), while an ultralisk will die in 19 casts, up from 11. This also significantly increases the number of ghosts and stockpiled energy needed to pull this tactic off, which we feel confident about because, previously, terran players rarely needed to consider the energy on their ghosts units.

Phoenix now has a range upgrade at the Fleet Beacon
In the past, we’ve discussed whether protoss needed a more immediate change to give them additional ways of dealing with mutalisks in PvZ, or whether it was more appropriate to make changes to that matchup in Heart of the Swarm. After investigating, testing, and reviewing both community and pro feedback, we’ve decided to include a change in this patch.
The phoenix will now have 6 attack range after purchasing an upgrade, which should allow them to more easily deal with a large number of mutalisks. In the previous patch, when protoss players attempted to move their armies out across the map, their bases became extremely vulnerable. Existing options to cope with massed mutalisks were costly and not always effective. This range upgrade should help even the odds by giving protoss players the option to reactively build phoenixes in smaller numbers, and with some micro, allow them to more efficiently defend against mutalisk swarms. Upgraded phoenixes should also offer protoss players the potential for better map control in the PvZ match up.
Still, we also wanted to make sure that producing mutalisks in PvZ remains a viable strategy, and believe that it is. While it might not be a good idea to brute force a protoss opponent with a ton of mutalisks, pairing them with units such as infestors and/or corruptors will help counter the advantage the new range upgrade provides.

APM / CPM changes
There was a lot of concern and debate regarding whether APM should be an accurate number or it should be a fun, play style distinguishing factor like it has been traditionally. After hearing a lot of feedback from both sides, we decided to bring back classic APM, and change our current APM (that doesn’t count spam clicks) to be called Commands Per Minute, or CPM.
This way, pro players who want to show off how fast their hands move can do so, while at the same time players who really just want to know how accurate and efficient their actions are can look at CPM.

************
As always, we will continue to follow player discussions on our forums as well as fan sites and beyond, and we look forward to your constructive feedback regarding these changes. As with all balance-related changes, we've made these decisions with great care and consideration to ensure a great playing experience for players of all skill levels.

* David Kim is a game designer for StarCraft II and he’s a big fan of community map contest maps.

• Mass Mutalisks vs. Protoss
• Protoss Win Rate is Too Low in Tournaments
• Carrier Removal in Heart of the Swarm
• Terran Can’t Beat Protoss
• Ghost EMP is Too Weak
• Forge Fast Expand is Difficult to Stop as Zerg
• Nydus Worm is Too Inconsistent -- Make It More Like the Overlord Transport

• Low level explanation of PIPA and SOPA
• Information on H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act
• Information on S.968 – PROTECT IP Act

Beginning with Season 4, we experimented with prioritizing tournament-style maps on the StarCraft II ladder. This has been working out very well not only because it’s allowed pro players better opportunities to practice on the ladder, but also because players across all skill levels can now experience the tournament feel when playing on Battle.net. Given the success of these changes, we’re removing the last two maps in the current map pool that aren’t tournament-viable, and will be replacing them with new, tournament-ready maps.

Season 5 brings with it the following changes to the existing map pool, which begins the week of December 19:

These maps will be removed:

(4)Abyssal Caverns
(4)Nerazim Crypt
These maps will be added in their place:

(2)Arid Plateau


The rush distance on this map is comparable to Shakuras Plateau or the longest distance on Metalopolis. We tried to go for a slightly more exposed natural expansion, followed up by a greater choice of which third expansion to take. The high-yield expansion offers better resource acquisition, but is also the most difficult to defend, while the corner expansion is similar to expansions found on Metalopolis or Shattered Temple. The base closest to your main is open, but remains easy to defend because of short travel time from the natural expansion. We wanted to go for a more open center with very powerful Watch Tower placements.

(4)Entombed Valley


We’ve seen that rotationally symmetric four-player tournament maps can provide an advantage depending on where you start compared to your opponent and which races are involved in the match-up. This is feedback that we received from the community as well.

Our goal with this map was to address that issue. Whether you start horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, the game should be almost completely symmetric for both players. Also, no matter where you start, we were focused on minimizing features which tend to favor a specific race such as certain races experiencing challenges expanding beyond two bases, air-to-air distances which are too short between starting locations, the center path being the only viable attack route, or too many choke points.

TL Open

On the subject of new maps, TeamLiquid.net recently hosted a map contest to offer map makers a chance to show off their skills. This past weekend, the top contenders in the TL Open battled it out on the top maps that emerged from that contest. The TL Open tournament has now concluded, but you can still see these new maps in action by checking out the replays and VoDs. We’re carefully reviewing the maps that were featured in the tournament, and those which meet our standards have a chance to be included in future ladder seasons.


We’re very much looking forward to your feedback, so please let us know what you think about Arid Plateau and Entombed Valley, as well as the maps that were featured in the TL Open!

Need more gold! "Zug, Zug."

I’m oddly fascinated by the Battle.net Balance program.  First, here’s a quick official statement describing the Battle.net Balance system:

Battle.net Balance is a new Battle.net feature that will allow players to store value in their Battle.net account, which can be used to buy Blizzard Entertainment products such as World of Warcraft game time, paid services, digital versions of games, and in-game pets and mounts.

With the upcoming launch of Diablo III, players in certain regions will also be able to use their Battle.net Balance to acquire items from the game’s currency-based auction house. Diablo III players will also have the option to store earnings from items they sell on the auction house in their Battle.net Balance, to be used on future auction house purchases or to buy Blizzard products.

Players will be able to add value to their Balance by paying with their own money, but what I’m interested in is how this program can work for me.  I’m going to buy Diablo 3.  I’m going to play Diablo 3 and I am inevitably going to find rare items as I have in all past installments of the franchise.  Instead of trading these items for other items, or hording them all for myself, I’m going to put them up on Diablo 3′s auction house.  Players will buy my items with their Battle.net Balance and I will have increased the value of my Balance.

I will then use that Balance to buy Blizzard products — products I would have bought anyway with my own real money.  So, in a way, other players will be buying future Blizzard games or any Blizzard products for me.  Who knows?  A few lucky drops might buy me the next StarCraft expansion or I may even turn around and buy a rare item that I want.

The only people losing on this deal are those who buy into the Battle.net Balance system with their real money.  I have no plans to dissuade those people.  Actually, forget you even read this post.