Changelog for version 10.4

This time around, we have accessibility changes, balance changes and a few more fixes to reduce lag.

v10.4

Major Additions

-Persistent stat-tracking: the game will now keep track of how many games you play and win. Type -stats while in game to see your stats.
-Newbie mode: Any player who has less than 1 victory in his stats will be placed in "newbie mode". Players in newbie mode take 33% less damage from enemy units. This buff is only active in Normal mode and will stay until your first victory.

-Waves after the mutalisk wave were spawning far more units than intended. This has been fixed.
-There is now a soft cap on the number of attacking units. On Normal, the soft cap kicks in when 60 attacking zerg units are on the field. The spawn rate will slowly go down as the number increases and spawning will stop completely at 160 units. This only affects the zerg spawned at night and does not count zerg spawned from drops or other sources. This should make the game less laggy and help players make a comeback when things hit the fan.
-The soft cap kicks in at 125 on Brutal, capping at a maximum of 225.

-Destructible rocks will now drop mineral crystals on death. Each rock holds 300 minerals worth of crystal.
-Supply Depots now have the "Ammo Stockpile" ability. Any unit or structure built close to a supply depot will receive a 33% boost to its attack speed while the supply depot is alive. This ability becomes active as soon as you rescue the supply depot.
-When a player leaves, his supplies are now distributed evenly amongst all remaining players.

Balance Changes

-Missile batteries now start with full energy when built
-Missile batteries now regenerate 3 energy per second (was 1.5)
-Missile batteries now take 2 seconds to build (was 6)
-Sentries now take up 1 supply (was 0)
-Photon cannons now take up 2 supply (was 3)

Minor Improvements/Bugfixes

-Ravens and missile batteries will now be slightly better about aiming their seeker missiles at different targets
-Auto-cast restorers will not restore any units that have less than 50 max hp, like spider mines or swarmlings.
-The tooltip for mineral shards now indicates the proper amount of minerals gained (50)
-Perdition Turrets now have an "Unburrow Turret" button which can be activated manually if the turret bugs out. You can also turn off the auto-cast on it, but I don't recommend doing that.

Actually, giving the perdition turret a manual mode (so it can stay up) can be interesting, as it turns it into a gate of sorts.

<advertisement>My name is Starke, and I approve of this patch.</advertisement>


Seriously, this all looks awesome. The implementation of newbie mode is perfect, and I see that a couple of my/community ideas are in there.

Love the idea of making Supply Depots more dimensional. Two questions about it though. What is its radius of effect? It needs to be big enough to be meaningful and not force the exact placement of buildings. And does in stack? I have see 4 Depots in close proximity before, and a 132% DPS boost would be beast. And for that exact reason, it probably shouldn't stack.

Just offering my opinion: I really love this patch. Lag has been for the most part banhammered (in particular, the map loads in half the time, and the lag at the start has been greatly reduced), Zerg waves are balanced well, stat tracking is cool, Supply Depots are more handy instead of JUST find -> salvage, Destructible Rocks now weigh into your calculations on strategy instead of just... being there..., resource/supply redistribution adds polish to the game, and I'm sure legions of players appreciate the new newbie mode.

Before, the game looked good but was a work-in-progress. Now it seems... finished. I know you have eventual plans for other features, but you can rest now knowing that it is a complete product. Thanks for your hard work.

I like th way how the game is getting better and better (even better))

Nagnazul wrote:-Auto-cast restorers will not restore any units that have less than 50 max hp, like spider mines or swarmlings.

I expect for Mules and SCV in mode of autorepair not to repair those little things too: Mules that run out of the protected perimeter are subjected to the Zerg attack. They will eventually die, but after they drain all the Restorer's energy as well as Mines did.

My only minor criticism is the build speed and minor supply shortage. However, because these both came from the need for tons of turrets, which was caused be the spawning rate bug, the problem has largely solved itself. It still takes a bit too long to set up a new base imo, but I feel things are in a good place right now.

Has no one noticed yet that stat-tracking doesn't actually work?

I only got to play late last night, and after I won Brutal I considered starting again just to try the stat command, but as it was 11:00 I figured it wasn't worth the time. XD And I assume this also means that newbie mode isn't working either?

Starke wrote: I only got to play late last night, and after I won Brutal I considered starting again just to try the stat command, but as it was 11:00 I figured it wasn't worth the time. XD And I assume this also means that newbie mode isn't working either?

Newbie mode is 100% functional, although it will never go away since you can't actually ever accrue a win in your stats.

I'm working on a hotfix right now, it should go live about now-ish.

Nagnazul wrote:Newbie mode is 100% functional, although it will never go away since you can't actually ever accrue a win in your stats.

I see...

Nagnazul wrote:I'm working on a hotfix right now, it should go live about now-ish.

Now sounds good to me.

But my Brutal win won't count... ah well, there is more where that came from!

It's up now - your stats should be tracked, just type "s" while in-game.

Nagnazul wrote:It's up now - your stats should be tracked, just type "s" while in-game.

You mean -s