PTR and the Wolf

Like a surprise wild animal attack, Blizzard has shot forth with the release of the new Public Test Region, along with a trial of the big new patch that will be applied to the regular servers at the end of the month. I only won two of my placement matches and got placed into Bronze, so it will be funny to see how quickly I can get promoted to Diamond. I'm SallyBoBally.331.

Overall I love the new patch, but there are a couple things that make me frown. Here's what hit me the most:

Features

•  Battle.net Chat Channels have been added

Cool. Finally, we have the first step in making the new Battle.net feel connected. Now you can hit a button and actually see other people. But they've got a ways to go. They need to integrate the chat with the custom game finder to make it easy to look for a game you want to join. I played Diablo 2 quite a bit back in the day, and that system worked well. You got randomly placed in a room with a certain max number of people, and all the games going on in that room were listed so that you could see a description along with the name, class and level of everyone in it. As has been said many times, it's truly bizarre that the new Battle.net doesn't even include the basic features that have been in many Blizzard games before.

On a related note, I wish they would improve the social experience at the end of each game. You shouldn't get kicked out of the game's chat when you quit to the score screen. It's strange to suddenly get left out in the cold after the game, unable to talk to your opponent(s) unless you send them a PM. They could even make it so that when you surrender a game, you just become a spectator. There's really no reason why "resign" and "leave" need to be married as they are.

• The game will end in a tie for all remaining players if no players have income, production, or destroyed any structures for three consecutive minutes.

Yay! I approve. This does cut down on some of the rare, hilarious lateral-thinking endgame scenarios that can occur (such as this one, which I originally watched via the replay file, which will always be one of my most memorable Starcraft experiences), but at least people will no longer have to be screwed over by Terrans who float away after a base trade, for which I constantly see QQ threads on r/starcraft and tl.net. And on the plus side, we may get to see a new breed of hilarious endgame replays where people just manage to build or destroy something before the three minutes are up.

• In-game help is now available in Battle.net.

Lolz, I always wondered why this wasn't there before. Maybe I'll actually use it occasionally, instead of always alt-tabbing to Liquipedia.

• When selecting a Vespene Geyser, the number of current harvesters will be displayed in the info panel.

Awww, they really care about us.

• Customizable Hotkey Support has been added.

Haaaaaalelujah! Finally. No more scrambling for the right side of the keyboard (Immortals, anyone?), and no more useless keys like F2-F4, ` and CapsLock. And they save your hotkey settings on their servers, so it will always be there when you log into your account from any computer. The only tiny little worry I have is what if one day in the future I go to a tournament, and I have to play on a special official account instead of my own? Will there be some way for me to use my hotkey setup? Maybe not, but for now I think I'm just going to change everything as I please, and if that day looks to become a reality, I'll just have to change back and get re-adjusted. One step at a time here. I'm not winning any GSLs yet.

• A new Master League has been added.

Huzzah. This will be fun to try to get into. Once I do, it will be nice to be able to just say "I'm in Master League" instead of having to say "mid-high Diamond" or "2200 Diamond" or what have you. That said, there will still certainly be a large spread of skill just in the Master League, even if it only has a few thousand people. I wonder how long it will take for people to start saying how Master Leaguers suck.

Balance

• -- Hallucination research time decreased from 110 to 80.
  -- Observer cost decreased from 50/100 to 25/75.
  -- Phoenix build time decreased from 45 to 35.

Heyoooo. Thank you, sir! Lickety lick, mmm delicious. These all speak to what I consider to be the main flaw in the design of Protoss, their scouting/detection abilities. Protoss is the only race that doesn't automatically get detection. Zerg automatically has access to Overseers after Lair, and Terran automatically has access to scans, but if Protoss wants an Observer, they have to go down a specific tech path (Robotics Facility). Now I am a serious proponent of races having particular deficiencies that make them feel different and lend a specific challenge. But it's not worth it to sacrifice variety of play. Currently it's usually awkward for Protosses to open with Stargate tech instead of Robo. What if a cloaked Banshee suddenly comes coasting into your mineral line? Etc. So I'm glad they're making it quicker to scout with either hallucinated or real Phoenixes. Making the Observer cheaper doesn't really solve anything (but I'll take it!), because as I said, the problem arises when you don't have the Robo Facility in the first place. Maybe it will become more standard to scout with early fake Phoenixes if you're not planning on going Robo, thus allowing you to get an early scout on any Starports with Tech Labs, etc. On that note, why not just make Hallucination cost 50/50 or even 25/25? The 100 Sentry energy is a steep enough cost as is. Alternatively, I like what I've seen many suggest, which is to make Observers be built from the Nexus or the Cybernetics Core, unlocked by any tier-2 tech (Robo, Stargate or Twilight). For now I'll have to try hallucinating Phoenixes more often, which I've never done.

• Void Ray now deals 20% more damage to massive targets. Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.

Ah ha. I smell yet another plea for Stargates. A new Colossus counter, perhaps? We'll see. As for Flux Vanes... uh... I don't get what the problem was, but whatever. Fleet Beacon is now officially the Carrier Den.

• Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.

This patch loves me. Repair-Thors are going to be dramatically worse now. The old way never really made any sense anyway.

• Fungal Growth no longer affects air units.

Whaaaat? My initial reaction is this is the biggest balance change in the patch. I really feel bad for Zergs and their poor little Infestors. As if Zerg wasn't linear enough, now it's going to be even more impossible to forego Mutalisks for any length of time. I sincerely hope this change doesn't make it through.

Pure Comedy

• Protoss structures can no longer be powered without a power source if constructed while powered by a Warp Prism under the effects of Neural Parasite.
• Mass Recall can no longer target larva or eggs.
• Fixed an issue where a Medivac would be able to continue healing a unit that was stuck in a Graviton Beam if the Medivac had started healing the unit before it was picked up by the Graviton Beam.
• Fixed an issue with the Ultralisk being unable to attack a row of sensor towers.

Phew!

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Games played: 920
League/points: Diamond/2153 (+31 bonus pool)