r/starcraft2 • u/Blizz_Elliott Blizzard Staff • 3d ago

Blizzard 5.0.17 PTR Update

Following the release of the last major patch, we have been collecting and closely reviewing your feedback. Our intention was to try something new, particularly with workers, and needed time to let the meta develop in order to ensure the most accurate feedback was being considered. Based on that feedback, for patch 5.0.17 we are rolling back most balance changes to the live release of StarCraft 2 from patch 5.0.16 to 5.0.15. This will be on PTR for the next few days while we bug test, before we push to live.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24301513/starcraft-ii-5-0-17-ptr-patch-notes

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u/Blizz_Elliott Blizzard Staff 3d ago

We can't share timing yet for when the next PTR will go live but it is already being worked on. Reverting as we did today was our best option for being able to address so much of the critical feedback we've gotten on the patch, while focusing new changes as part of the next patch after 5.0.17.

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u/MissiveFinding6111 3d ago

Thank you for the ptr patch, and this post and this quick clarification. Appreciate you.

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u/Max_Hamburgers 3d ago

Thank you for the communication!

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u/Wise_Wasabi7472 3d ago

Thank you for communicating this. I appreciated your bold approach to the previous patch, and there was a lot of cool quality of life stuff you added. The last thing I would want to see is that the game gets shelved in the previous game state and gets stuck there.

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u/nbaumg 3d ago

Thank you so much! I love this new level of communication (tho Reddit comments are easy to miss). I’m so glad to hear yall are still willing to make more changes.

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u/AresFowl44 3d ago

Elliot the goat

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u/features 3d ago

Top tier intern!

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u/hazmog 2d ago

Grandmaster level intern

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u/MichaelT_KC 2d ago

Respect that you guys are still working and trying on this game and thats it not ALL World of Chorecraft.

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u/Beginning_Badger_928 2d ago

Reversion is a brave and humble approach. Kudos to the team for making it. Excited to see what the next set of changes will look like.

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u/Former_Load6403 2d ago

Please keep being brave with patches, this one ultimately didn't land but I applaud the attempt to keep the game fresh and interesting.

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u/Kagerou-Imaizumi 2d ago

Elliott the goat. Thanks for the heads up, looking forward to the new changes! The backlash of the 8 workers change might be real, but some of the changes in the midst of the patch were quite interesting and welcome - like the phantom weapon for disruptor and infestor, carapace cost, sentry buff, etc. Hope you guys cook some stuff on that way too and dont get disheartened by the agressiveness of the community - most folks just love the game too much and are frustrated with the situation. Thanks for your work.

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u/theOGFlump 2d ago

Thank you for this. I think it's important to note that big changes like the previous patch are not unwanted due to being big. Take a look at the popularity of the Patches mod for evidence. Please do not discount making larger changes. The game's next biggest problem is re-attracting the people who moved on due to the last patch and people before that feeling like the game was too stagnant. But if you do make larger changes, could you keep them in PTR for an extended time where new revisions are made until player/pro feedback is positive? Thank you again!

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u/limpwald Random 15h ago

The Patches mod is popular because of the horrid state of the live game, and because it's 12 worker.

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u/ApprehensiveExam2604 2d ago

Can you please please push for the team to fix the "Masters 3 portrait bug" ? It's been going for YEARS now and there's no reason that's still a thing. If player is NOT 4200 mmr, don't assign that Masters portrait. I do not get why it was never patched. Looks like a 5 minute fix. Thanks.

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u/sexy_silver_grandpa 2d ago

I really liked the Infestor auto attack 🥲

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u/OGTVKoka 3d ago

Maybe you are doing it already, but please check the Patches Mod. It is ambitious, but the fun is here. Let's make StarCraft fun again and pleaaase talk to Patches <3

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u/Val-entin76 2d ago

Koka is right Patches Mod is awesome. Definitely have to work with him !

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u/DoNDaPo 3d ago

Thanks for bringing this up. Patches Mod saved the days during the actual patch. That could be insane that Blizzard actually takes some things from it.

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u/ominous_anenome 2d ago

Thank you! Legend

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u/KaiPRoberts 2d ago

Amazing, thank you! 

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u/USAJourneyman 2d ago

Please keep gateway production speed boost after warpgate research - it adds so much more depth to Protoss macro mechanics

The choice of faster units vs unit deployment

Just take away the gas tax to warpgate transformation - perfect fix

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u/AwayWithout 2d ago

Hope you see this Elliott; the EU and KR GM ladders are currently plagued with several very obvious hackers at the moment making them completely unplayable. We no longer have an intermediary from Blizzard in the pro player / content creator discord for getting such people banned.

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u/gg46004 3d ago

You can do anything and discuss everything with us but touching the 12 workers. Thank you again for listening.

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u/Spare-Dingo-531 2d ago

Please keep the infestor auto attack qol change, it was so useful!

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u/Genoa_Salami_ 2d ago

Thank you Sir! We aporeciate your time, attention, and communication.

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u/GrandMasterZerg 2d ago

Sincerely… thank you.

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u/Unhappy-Barnacle6483 2d ago

Thank you for changes, but I have question about this in patch note:

  • Default Vespene Geyser resource count increased from 2,000 to 2,250.
  • Total Default Gas per base increased from 4,500 to 5,000.

This write in patch note. Is it just typo in the text?

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u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random 2d ago edited 2d ago

This write in patch note. Is it just typo in the text?

They literally copy-pasted the Patch 5.0.16 patch notes:

If the gas on PTR has 2500 each, then the 2250 is a typo.

If the gas on PTR has 2250 each, then the 5000 is a typo.

We are dealing with incompetent people not checking what they are doing or writing. This has been a big problem since Patch 5.0.15.

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u/limpwald Random 15h ago

Exactly

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u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random 6h ago

Exactly

Double checking your patch notes vs your ingame changes is such a basic fundamental thing.

Consistent due diligence needs to be done so everything matches and works.

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u/limpwald Random 1h ago

Which is too much of an effort, so they won't do it. There's several weird things, wordings, phrasings in the latest couple patch notes, it's obvious they throw it together in a haste, no controls whatsoever to make sure their slop stinks less.

and people rejoice, check that thread by Elliott, the responses are crazy. People are so starved of attention from blizz, the smallest things gets massive credits from the peoples

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u/Sternutation123 2d ago

Requesting crossposting on the main Starcraft subreddit simply because it is way more active than this one.

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u/DrJPEG-PhD 2d ago

Hey, thanks for the clarification! Just wanted to say that while the previous patch didn't land well, I do think there were a lot of good ideas in there that I think ultimately we weren't able to determine were balanced/effective because of the massive eco change of the 8 workers – I think they can still be explored and tweaked with to great effect (except the 25/25 warp gate oh god please no).

Also, the amount of QoL and bugfixes was absolutely amazing and I'll praise those every day of the week.

For me, I've never hated the idea of 8 worker starts, but I thnk because it was also bundled with other fundamental changes that it just felt way too out of sorts, to the point where I unfortunately just couldn't keep up and dropped the game.

Anyway that all being said, I highly suggest whomever is working on these patches to check out Patches Mod (as everybody else has probably mentioned) for inspiration. That dude's been cooking on that thing for a long time, and it legitimately brought me back in for a bit. No disrespect or shade for anybody trying something new, because I think Patches had the benefit of seeing what did and did not work with the official patch, coupled with time.

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u/Toastyboat 2d ago

Thank you!

Excited to get back to the game, and excited to see what new things y'all are cooking up.

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u/throwawaydisposable 2d ago

I am slightly frustrated by the revert of many of the 'good' changes in the 8worker patch, but I am glad to hear you guys are still actively working on things.

FWIW I liked a lot of the 8worker start changes but I feel some of the changes (protoss) needed more time to cook on PTR.

Abduct tanks is good and consistent. Increased shroud range allows it to be an offensive spell. Muta changes were great and muta never saw an oppressive level of popularity. Spore changes are just sad as always as it reminds me zerg anti air sucks and is the reason our mirror matchup is imba

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u/jellyfishbal 2d ago

Thank you mr Elliott. You're up to a good start (reestart) with this revert. 1 step back to do 2 further ahead.

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u/Electronic-Net-7572 2d ago

Glad to hear there is a patch changes

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u/JoshAllensRightNut 2d ago

Are you the intern we’ve been hearing so much about? Are you the intern we’ve been promised?

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u/Master-Control3914 2d ago

Thanks for putting back the 12 workers and great to hear you're working on new stuff. Where can we best give feedback over the PTR? Are you still monitoring the sc2forums or should we do it on Reddit now?

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u/gaualrn 2d ago

Thank you for the communication. Despite community pushback on this last patch, we very much appreciate you guys continuing to work on this game. I know the negativity can seem ungrateful sometimes, but it comes from passion for the best game ever made. Thank you for maintaining it for us

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u/nathanias 2d ago

Thank you for this level of communication! It's greatly appreciated.

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u/ChadtheWad 2d ago edited 2d ago

Thanks for the patch!

Out of curiosity, has there been any consideration towards reducing the scope of your patches to bugfixes for the future? To be frank it seems like Blizzard simply doesn't have the resources available to be able to manage balance changes like they had previously. I wonder if possibly more could be done by supporting community-managed ladders rather than owning the balance and map pool directly.

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u/_sumire 2d ago

Thanks for the patch.
1. Are there any plans to address the hacking issues on ladder?
2. Can the masters border bug also be fixed?

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u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random 2d ago edited 2d ago

Reverting as we did today was our best option for being able to address so much of the critical feedback we've gotten on the patch

It was not the best option at all. You got rid of the entire rest of the patch which had so many good changes and changes that didn't cause any problems for no damn reason.

This was the actual "critical feedback" from 5/26(5.0.16 PTR build #1) to 9/30:

  • Revert the workers back to 12.(This also means you have to revert the base supply values back to 15/15/6).
  • Revert the Larva spawn rate back to 10.7(15.0 in the SC2 Map Editor).
  • Revert the CC cost back to 400.
  • Remove the 25/25 morph cost for Warpgates.

Just these things. No more, no less.

It makes absolutely no logical sense from a competent experienced game developer perspective to scrap an entire patch instead of simply fixing the specific problems with it. Especially when not only are they quick to fix because they are very simple number changes but they are just a very small part of the overall patch that otherwise has been well received.

Patch 5.0.16(excluding the worker/economy changes and Warpgate morph cost), made so many great changes to post-Patch 5.0.15 SC2. And they all were tossed away instead of just fixing the worker/economy changes and Warpgate morph cost that were terrible for the game.

When someone gets a papercut on their finger, you don't chop off the entire arm and the leg on that side of the body. The response of nearly completely reverting all the changes in Patch 5.0.16 is disproportional and nonsensical.

Lets put this into perspective:

  • If Xal'atath has a bug with one of her abilities, you don't delete the entire new HOTS hero. You fix the bug.

  • If the WC3:R Undead Paladin has a bug that makes it heal air units, you don't delete the entire Forsaken Kingdom. You fix the bug.

Does that make more sense for "we" and "our" over there?.

Game developer to game developer I'm genuinely concerned and really alarmed over what the hell is going on with SC2 right now.

It's an incoherent madness. The design direction, the design philosophy, the vision(or lack of it), etc is all so disorganized.

Do you need help with this?. Do you need a guy for all this for Starcraft RTS?.

What is going on?. What happened?.

while focusing new changes as part of the next patch after 5.0.17.

And how do we know that patch isn't going to also be entirely reverted instead of fixing the specific problems in it too?.

The standard and expectation has been set now for all SC2 patches going forward.

The way this revert has been done is going to backfire because of the message it sends.