April 1, 2011

Patch 1.4.11 Notes

Ultimate Grandmaster League

A new league has been added! Ultimate Grandmaster represents the top one player in each region. Do you have what it takes?

General

  • Players who do not type "GG" before quitting a game will receive an automatic loss for bad manners.
  • Players who are winning a match and type “GG” on behalf of their opponent will automatically surrender.
  • Players with Battle.net accounts registered with the first and last name David Kim will now receive an automatic 20% reduction to all stats.
  • The Dance Studio has been added to the game! Teach your units new dances by purchasing them with your bonus pool. Show off to opponents, impress your friends!



  • Leagues & Ladders
    • In addition to losses, wins are now also no longer shown. Instead, players will see Jim Raynor giving them a thumbs-up after every match regardless if they win or lose.
    • To balance the issue of Zerg under-representation and Terran over-representation in the upper ladder brackets, the names of these two races have been switched. This should result in higher "Zerg" representation and lower “Terran” representation.
    • To keep queue times low, you can now face off against AI players when playing ladder games!
      • Bronze: Very Easy
      • Silver: Easy
      • Gold: Normal
      • Platinum: Hard
      • Diamond: Very Hard
      • Master/Grandmaster: Insane
      • Ultimate Grandmaster: You



  • Maps
    • Two new maps have been introduced to support macro-play! Both maps include 30 expansions, and it will take approximately 5 minutes for a scouting unit to reach an opponent's starting base.
    • Due to its extreme popularity, two additional versions of Delta Quadrant have been added to the 1v1 map pool to increase a player’s likelihood to queue for this map.
    • To better support community maps, destructible rocks, line of sight blockers, and high yield minerals will now automatically be added into maps that do not have them.
    • Destructible rocks have been added to all base and expansion locations in all maps, including starting base locations.
    • To help lesser known maps get more exposure, there is now a 1-hour cooldown before you can play the same custom map again.


Battle.net
  • To make Battle.net friendlier, all players will automatically be placed in the same Voice-Chat channel upon logging in to Battle.net. Voice-Chat is defaulted back to "On" and volume to maximum every time the game is started.


Balance
  • PROTOSS
    • Hallucinated units now deal damage equivalent to the unit they replicate.
    • Due to the effectiveness of Force Field, it is now a High Templar ability which must be researched from the Templar Archives.
    • Sentries now begin play with Psi Storm.
    • Colossi now have 5 legs. They just looked kinda weird with 4.
    • Whenever a Phoenix performs the barrel roll animation, it cannot be damaged by any attacks.
    • Carrier (new unit) is now available from the Stargate.
    • To better match their namesakes, Phoenixes will now always revive 5 seconds after being “destroyed”.
    • Protoss players that are matched against another Protoss player will automatically start the game with 4 Gateways and Warp Gate tech researched.
    • Due to lack of appreciation by players, the Mothership has been surgically altered to be sleeker and more visually appealing, and has been renamed to the Cougarship. The Cougarship will automatically gravitate toward enemy units that have been in play for 18-21 minutes and attempt to bring them back to the nearest friendly base.



  • TERRAN
    • The Thor has been reverted to its original pre-beta size. Ramp widths on all maps have been increased by 5x to accommodate this change.
    • Due to a recent popular all-in strategy, SCV health has been decreased from 45 to 15.
    • Marines and Marauders now attack while moving. We felt this functionality was a lot of fun on the Phoenix and wanted to add it to some of the less popular Terran units.
    • Battlecruiser movement speed increased from 1.875 to Ludicrous Speed.
    • The Ghost can no longer be produced. Once a Ghost's progress bar is partially complete it will be postponed indefinitely.
    • To better balance Terran defensive structure options we are adding the Drakken Laser Drill from the single player mission “The Dig” to the Terran tech tree. Its stats will remain the same and will cost 400 minerals and 200 Vespene gas with a 45 second build time.
    • Flying buildings now crush any non-massive units and Protoss Force Fields when landing. This effect can destroy friendly units.
    • Bunker
      • No change.
    • To encourage further tournament use, MULEs will now instantly destroy all units in their path when being called down.

  • ZERG
    • Zerg players have begun to spread creep regularly during gameplay. To counter this, the speed of Zerg units has been decreased by 50%.
    • Zerg eggs now reflect the size of the unit that is being produced.
    • Zergling
      • Now hatch in batches of 4 to help create more of a swarmy feeling.
      • Cost reduced to 25 minerals for each batch.
    • Infestor Neural Parasite ability is no longer channeled and has an unlimited duration.
    • To bring the Queen’s Spawn Larvae ability in line with MULEs and Chrono Boost, Spawn Larvae can now be set to auto-cast.
    • The Hatchery/Lair/Hive no longer auto-spawn Larvae. Each Larva must be individually queued and produced from this structure. Each Larva now also has a cost of 2 Supply.
    • Because the Protoss and Terran have mechanics to circumvent cliffs, we felt it was unfair for the zerg. As such, Banelings are now able to roll up and down cliffs. This upgrade is combined with Centrifugal Hooks, and build time on the upgrade has been increased by 10 seconds.
    • Banelings splash now inflicts damage on friendly units.
    • Banelings now automatically detonate when they touch any other unit or building, including friendly banelings.
    • Ultralisk Cavern tech requirement changed from Hive to Hatchery. For obvious balance reasons Ultralisks no longer crush forcefields.
    • Due to lack of use, the Lurker has been removed from the game.


Bug Fixes
  • Gameplay
    • Fixed a bug where Terran players were able to lose a game.
    • Fixed a bug preventing Planetary Fortresses from lifting off.

As taken from the Blizzard Forums http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2325614706

1 comment:

  1. I thought this was real for about 10 seconds. It was hilarious.

    ReplyDelete