StarCraft 2 to see substantial multiplayer redesign

If you’re playing StarCraft 2 in multiplayer, you’ll be interested to discover that Blizzard is making a major redesign to multiplayer in the tradition of patch 3.8. There are quite a few changes here to be looked at — already Reddit and the official forums are buzzing at the news.

One change that’s interesting is the game’s economy. There’s a desire to make it more likely that you can recover from a bad start without losing the emphasis on exploration that last year brought. These changes are to Vespene Geysers and Large mineral nodes — you’ll get xmore resources from Large mineral nodes (up to 1800) and Vespene Geysers (2250 per geyser).

Unit redesigns

Terrans are seeing changes to MULEs to better work with last year’s mech redesign, and Terran caster units will be looked at as well. So far changes to Ravens,  Widow Mines, Liberators, Ghosts, Cyclones, and Smart Servo are all planned for this redesign.

Protoss are seeing big changes with the removal of the Mothership Core unit (a change Blizzard admits will need careful monitoring) and the Nexus and other Protoss units getting changes to compensate for the loss of the Core. A great many units will see changes, including Stalker, Disruptor, Colossus, Carrier, High Templar, Mothership, and Observer.

The Zerg redesign is intended to get players interested in creep units and sees a redesign of the Infestor (which no longer hits air units with Fungal Growth) and changes to Lurkers, Vipers, Overseers, and Swarm Hosts.

Player reaction to the patch is mixed — many are unhappy that Mothership Core is going away for example, even though some argue it dominated Protoss strategies too much and had to go. There’s a lot of debate, which is to be expected for such a major balance change. If you want the details, check out the post on the official site which goes into each unit that’s being changed and how.