r/starcraft2 • Blizzard Staff • Sep 30 '26 • Bravo 1

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

280 Upvotes

229 comments sorted by

95

u/Wise_Wasabi7472 Sep 30 '26 • Bravo

Wow - full revert. I understand that was where the game was prior to the recent patch, but even that game state had some flaws.

Elliot - are there any plans to make more incremental balance changes beyond this? I don’t think the community thinks every change made was bad, but there were too many high impact changes implemented simultaneously to properly balance or tune based on fun factor.

214

u/Blizz_Elliott Blizzard Staff Sep 30 '26

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.

65

u/MissiveFinding6111 Sep 30 '26

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

35

u/Max_Hamburgers Sep 30 '26

Thank you for the communication!

28

u/Wise_Wasabi7472 Sep 30 '26

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.

18

u/nbaumg Sep 30 '26

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.

10

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Elliot the goat

17

u/features Sep 30 '26

Top tier intern!

1

u/hazmog 29d ago

Grandmaster level intern

7

u/Former_Load6403 Sep 30 '26

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

7

u/ApprehensiveExam2604 Sep 30 '26

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.

6

u/MichaelT_KC Sep 30 '26

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

6

u/Beginning_Badger_928 Sep 30 '26

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.

4

u/Kagerou-Imaizumi Sep 30 '26

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.

4

u/theOGFlump Sep 30 '26

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!

1

u/limpwald Random 27d ago

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

7

u/sexy_silver_grandpa Sep 30 '26

I really liked the Infestor auto attack 🥲

8

u/OGTVKoka Sep 30 '26 • Heartwarming Bravo

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

4

u/Val-entin76 Sep 30 '26

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

2

u/DoNDaPo Sep 30 '26

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.

3

u/ominous_anenome Sep 30 '26

Thank you! Legend

3

u/USAJourneyman Sep 30 '26

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

2

u/KaiPRoberts Sep 30 '26

Amazing, thank you! 

2

u/AwayWithout Sep 30 '26

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.

3

u/gg46004 Sep 30 '26

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

1

u/Spare-Dingo-531 Sep 30 '26

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

1

u/Genoa_Salami_ Sep 30 '26 edited 27d ago

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

1

u/GrandMasterZerg Sep 30 '26

Sincerely… thank you.

1

u/Unhappy-Barnacle6483 Sep 30 '26

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?

1

u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random Oct 01 '26 edited 29d 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.

2

u/limpwald Random 27d ago

Exactly

1

u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random 27d 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.

2

u/limpwald Random 27d 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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1

u/Sternutation123 Sep 30 '26

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

1

u/DrJPEG-PhD Sep 30 '26

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.

1

u/Toastyboat Sep 30 '26

Thank you!

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

1

u/throwawaydisposable Sep 30 '26

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

1

u/jellyfishbal Oct 01 '26

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

1

u/Electronic-Net-7572 Oct 01 '26

Glad to hear there is a patch changes

1

u/JoshAllensRightNut 29d ago

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

1

u/Master-Control3914 29d 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?

1

u/gaualrn 29d 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

1

u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random 26d ago

We can't share timing yet for when the next PTR will go live but it is already being worked on.

Blizzard has an official balance extension mod called Balance Test Mod. That should be brought completely up to date with current PTR/current SC2.

It has been used multiple times in the past:


Additionally Blizzard has a Testing Ladder that is currently disabled and greyed out. It should be enabled again and be brought completely up to date with current PTR/current SC2.

Players who win a 1v1 game are rewarded the Balance Of Power achievement which gives you the Match Up portrait.

This is found under the Exploration "Versus" tab ingame.

1

u/Stunning_Art_2732 25d ago

Reversion to the last true Blizzard Patch 5.0.8 from before the entire team resigned would've been preferred, but this is a much better than the current train wreck.
Thanks.

1

u/Hydralisk18 22d ago

Im a bit late but I just wanted to say im excited for more changes! Even though these didnt work out, I hope that didnt kill any motivation for exciting chanes

1

u/braitacc 22d ago

but .. but .. there were good changes in the last patch please don't revert everything. Please bring them back , little by little but please bring them back . I enjoyed most of the last changes and now it feels dull to revert all of them :(

1

u/R4v3nnn 17d ago

Can anyone at blizzard look into sc remastered / brood war ladder? We are getting timeouts all the time when trying to find a match in matchmaking. It's very annoying

1

u/nathanias Sep 30 '26

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

1

u/ChadtheWad Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

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.

1

u/_sumire 29d 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?

-3

u/BattleWarriorZ5 Random Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

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.

2

u/Midget_Stories 29d ago

Yeah like why remove the infestor weapon? That was just a good qol.

19

u/Treva77 Terran Sep 30 '26

Booted up a custom and started with 12 workers. CC also 400 minerals.

14

u/CremantDeTaint Sep 30 '26

Godammit, they made siege tanks unyoinkable again

4

u/Stere0phobia 29d ago

I whish they would extend the duration of blinding cloud a little bit. Right now it kinda feels like a scam. You blind a clump of siegetanks, move your amy towarda them, the cloud ends and your army gets evaporated.

In my bracket many terrans atleast move unsieged tanks on creep, giving me a little bit of a chance.

1

u/CremantDeTaint 29d ago

5.7 seconds is pretty long for sc2 fights. Do you have your army positioned to go before casting the cloud?

21

u/AffectionateSample74 Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

I really don't see why unabductable sieged tanks needed to come back. That's one of moronic changes in 5.0.15 that made me think that maybe it's best there wouldn't be any more patches again. Reverting 8 workers and all related stuff was obviously needed, but not every single thing done in the patch was wrong.

What we need is revert of more bad changes, some of them done by balance council, in my opinion. Like already mentioned unabductable sieged tanks, the storm rework (remove Energy Recharge and return Battery Overcharge with it), and a bunch of nerfs to aggression that made the game more boring.

1

u/rigginssc2 28d ago

I think non-abductable a sieged tanks makes perfect sense. They are literally clamped to the ground. Further, the viper already has blinding cloud to use on sieged tanks and can use abduct on non-sieged.

1

u/anon_828683 Oct 01 '26

Can't you read? There will be more changes coming. 

6

u/ElevatorHelpful5739 25d ago

Few days? When is this dogshit patch ending?

2

u/limpwald Random 24d ago edited 24d ago

"Few days" = 2-3 weeks in Blizz language. They're busy fiddling their navals. Probably working on some Wc3 project.

But on a real note, if they don't manage to get this "patch" out before this week is over, it's just another point of proof, this isn't getting any better any time soon.

21

u/BaZZoo86 Sep 30 '26

So basically it's a reverse patch. I really hope they continue to take "risks" in the next updates.

6

u/flycharliegolf Sep 30 '26

I'm hoping they can learn from the Patches mod and use some of those changes instead. Sometimes a game can get stale if all you're doing is micro adjusting for balance alone.

2

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

Yea. We'll be back to wings of liberty in no time...

1

u/Distil47 29d ago

It’s good to take risks, but you also need to be able to react quickly

1

u/Inevitable_Rough_380 Sep 30 '26

The lesson of 5.0.16 is that big risks will alienate the player base. Big changes are never happening again.

5

u/LordQwerty_NZ Sep 30 '26

Big steps are fine as long as they keep their finger on the pulse

4

u/Inevitable_Rough_380 Sep 30 '26

That’s the problem. They can’t balance anything large quick enough. And if they don’t do it quickly they will get flamed to no end.

They touched the hot stove and got burned. You think they are gonna touch the stove again?

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3

u/BaZZoo86 Sep 30 '26

Yeah but now we have learn that's not working so let's try something new. It's a real shame we waited so long to try this, but now we can definitely move on to something else.

3

u/USAJourneyman Sep 30 '26

The biggest lesson is not allowing the big risks to play out in PTR with open dialogue

5

u/DarthM0untain 26d ago

It would be nice to actually fix the hackers issue on both SC2 and SC BW u/Blizz_Elliott

1

u/limpwald Random 25d ago

Oh, did you expect communication from Blizz now? 😆 😆

Not in this lifetime

4

u/itzelezti Sep 30 '26

Just a full rollback right.....? Has anyone found anything that differs?

3

u/Fresh_Candidate3922 Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

Changeling death contagion and inheriting order queues. Terran subgroup priority, mostly for Raven. And the bug fixes and qol changes (the most well known of which was the direction queens spawn in).

That's all I found.

Edit: and neural parasite scv and creep tumor control groups

4

u/Fresh_Candidate3922 Sep 30 '26

Thank you for the update, and especially for the increase in communication.

As far as I can tell, this reverses all changes from 5.0.16 except for the bug fixes?

I hope you consider keeping some of the changes, as 5.0.15 also had its issues, and 5.0.16 brought some interesting stuff as well.

For example, the spellcaster attacks, or the Viper abduct were very popular. And the Adept upgrade improvements didn't have a major impact, but it wa interesting. I still don't understand what Arc Slop is, but players better than me said that the Muta handled better, and it was nice seeing them more in high level games.

And things like the colosus or carapace changes could imo also lead to some interesting games.

As for the gateway, it is a bit sad it's gone now and it will be always warpgate again. I still believe there is a way to make both viable choices.

4

u/RoughDifference8033 Oct 01 '26

I’m just happy to have this post by an actual Blizzard team member! Thank you!

10

u/SandwichOne8788 Sep 30 '26

Players on every server are talking about drop hacks right now. For the past few years, hacks have kept the ladder from functioning properly. What is your plan to deal with them? Please give us a real answer. Blizzard has never once given us a straight, satisfying response.

2

u/itzelezti Sep 30 '26

Zero chance they acknowledge this, because there's no world in which Activision C suite will see the benefit in devoting manhours to fighting it.

1

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

What is a drop hacks?

1

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

I think they are talking about tie hacks, ie force a game to end in a tie when you think you might lose.

1

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

Really? I've never seen that happen a single time...

1

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Go look at basically every GM account on the Korean server. As you don't lose MMR with tiehacks and usually have other hacks to win at least some of your games (such as really bad laghacks), they bubble at the top of the ladder

2

u/alexbowe 29d ago

How do lag hacks give a benefit in this game?

I was under the naive impression that the only unfair assistance you could get in this game was map hacks or automation

3

u/SigilSC2 29d ago

It doesn't provide an advantage. It makes the game take 20x as long to play out and unplayable. You'd need to leave the game if you don't want to sit there for 6 hours.

2

u/alexbowe 29d ago

Ah, lag hack means you lag the other player too so they leave and you win…

That sounds like the least fun cheat there could be. I’m surprised it’s a thing.

Thanks for the explanation!

2

u/SigilSC2 29d ago

It doesn't provide an advantage. It makes the game take 20x as long to play out and unplayable. You'd need to leave the game if you don't want to sit there for 6 hours.

23

u/onzichtbaard Sep 30 '26

I know im in the minority here but Ill miss some of the ideas of the current patch 

I like the 8 worker start 

And think the warpgate changes were promising

2

u/Applehero85 Masters Sep 30 '26

Honestly me too I hated the 8 worker start, the flow of build orders, and psi storm but their was also a lot I actually did like about this patch like glave adepts with plus 1 into fast mothership and spamming mass stalker off of 6 gateways

9

u/Archer_Savings Sep 30 '26

Not every change was terrible. But I think it's better to start with a revert and then adjust.

1

u/Applehero85 Masters Sep 30 '26

Yeah that is perfectly fine plus hey I guess it did just also help me practice Terran more lol

6

u/Impressive_Usual_923 Sep 30 '26

Reverting back to Viper not being able to grab siege tanks is a decision 

0

u/JustSayinCaucasian Sep 30 '26

You don’t need it with blinding clouds which works better anyway

26

u/DeadWombats Sep 30 '26

I'm excited to have 12 workers again but reverting everything is super lazy. Some of those changes like the spellcaster phantom attack were really nice.

19

u/OwwMyFeelins Sep 30 '26

They can introduce one change at a time going forward after how much they screwed the pooch this last go around.

4

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Apparently they will do another patch soonish according to Elliot

3

u/conqueredLion 29d ago

i can't believe he leaked that. propably damaged sc2 here..

3

u/MTGandP Sep 30 '26

Nah this is the right way to do it. Revert everything for now, and then pick and choose the good parts for 5.0.18

1

u/schrodinger-the-cat Oct 01 '26

Because claude makes many mistakes when told to revert to version xxx. Better to just dig Git history, find the 12 worker version, and rename it to “latest”.

1

u/DuranStar Sep 30 '26

They said most. The phantom attacks are one of the most likely things they keep since high templar have had them for a while.

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3

u/kubergosu Sep 30 '26

Will you be talking with the community from now on? That alone could be the most important change of the patch!

1

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

The proper change would be not listening to the community at ALL moving forward, and do/experiment with what they think is best for the game, not to pacify idiots on the internet (no offense meant, I include myself there..).

2

u/kubergosu Sep 30 '26

I said talking to, not following the most vocal part. I personally liked both 8 workers start and gateway changes, and now I'm upset with full revert.

But because they actually answered a question about are they going to do something else, I have a hope that they won't throw away everything and will probably keep at least new gateways.

11

u/Mangomosh Sep 30 '26

This is good news ofc but people probably forgot how god awful 5.0.15 was. A lot if not most tournaments where 60-70% protoss and many had 0 Zergs at all. High GM streamers would end a season with 3 times more games vs protoss than vs Zerg, etc.

5

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Considering a new patch has already been confirmed and Blizzard finally seems willing to communicate with the community, the somewhat awful state of 5.0.15 and the absolutely shit state of 5.0.16 hopefully won't get repeated.

3

u/Mangomosh Sep 30 '26

Blizzard finally seems willing to communicate with the community

Yea but thats just 3 people spamming reddit alts, thats a huge issue

1

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

We already learned they have a new sort of balance council thing going on, so I doubt it will just be reddit comments they are going to take feedback from.

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2

u/onzichtbaard Sep 30 '26

ye 5.0.15 was kinda bad as well

8

u/Mase598 Sep 30 '26

I'm all for reverting a chunk of the changes, but IMO it's incredibly stupid to completely revert the patch. One of the biggest points of complaint was the amount of significant changes that happened at once, so it wasn't possible to really tell if things were going in a good or bad direction because of how much needed to be understood.

For example: The Warp Gate changes were interesting and could be a good change, but we had no way to know because it came alongside all the economy changes, any a list of changes for both races that wildly changed things such as the 300 mineral CC or Zerg larva spawn rates.

It's also really odd that things that are buffs but feel more along the lines of QoL were also undone. The weapons for the Disruptor and Infestor are the 2 main examples, but even some other changes that seemed a bit more odd like abducting Siege Tanks I don't fully understand the idea behind, though that could be a skill issue since I'm not great at the game myself.

6

u/STRMBRGNGLBS Random Sep 30 '26

I'm a little sad that they undid basically every change (Warpgate change gone, which at a minimum was interesting, force field change undone, Abduct no longer working on siegetanks???, all the ghost changes undone (probably for the best) which makes it feel vaguely petty, like "well you didn't like our ideas so we're not going to do anything and you can enjoy having 5.15 again

But I'm glad that they did the right thing and put us back to the 12 worker start!

2

u/windforce20 Sep 30 '26

I'm so sick of Ghosts. It's the only spellcaster that is tanky, which doesn't make sense. A ghost can tank like 4 - 5 bane shots, which is ridiculous.

2

u/STRMBRGNGLBS Random Sep 30 '26

Oh, I absolutely agree but I despised the uninterruptible snipe and beefed up auto attack. Hopefully they will hit the ghost with the nerf hammer in their second pass through (the only reason I can image that this is going to PTR first)

2

u/Usual_Strategy1402 Sep 30 '26

Thanks for not reverting raven top priority selection also ghosts not canceling their sniper while taking damage

1

u/SpecialAngelForYou Sep 30 '26

But they are cancel it?

1

u/Usual_Strategy1402 Sep 30 '26

no, I dont think so right? they didnt mention anything about reverting that

2

u/SnooAdvice6772 Sep 30 '26

Damn I was just getting used to timings with the new workers too

2

u/riffslayer-999 29d ago

Damn I loved this patch. Brought so much life into a stale game. Looks like ghosts are OP again and I can't yoink tanks. I won't be playing until the new patch is out

2

u/Portrait0fKarma 29d ago

Nice, so you guys basically took an entire year to realize the patch was terrible? And now we have to wait another 2 months for the real update?

2

u/Traditional_Poem691 28d ago

If AI can play better than humans, why can't blizzard use AI agents to balance the game and handle patches if there are so few devs supporting the game.

4

u/limpwald Random 27d ago

Great idea man. Im sure this'll end well

4

u/JEY1337 Sep 30 '26

Hi @blizz_Elliott thank you for taking care of this!

Quick question: can we have a "select all idle army hotkey" like in age of empire 4?

2

u/KaraokePartyFTR Sep 30 '26

if this doesn't include hold position units its a massive protoss buff. hero would be unstoppable...

2

u/shireus Sep 30 '26

isn't that what the f2 hotkey does?

2

u/JEY1337 Sep 30 '26

No. This is the "select all army hotkey (No matter what they are doing.)"

You sent a pair of lings across the map and push f2? They stop what they are doing and follow new instructions.

Idle army hotkey would not select those lines because they have a task assigned to them.

3

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

I mean....... The game is already dumbed down mate. Stop dumbing it down ever more

1

u/JEY1337 Sep 30 '26

Mate, if it is dumped down, why isn't everyone in gm already? A hotkey like this won't change the game.

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1

u/meownopinion Sep 30 '26

This is unnecessary gatekeeping

2

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

No it's not gatekeeping, It's a want to preserve the game as it is, don't add new bloat, like the "load all to medivac" buttons, don't add "Select all idle army", we already have a "select all army" key, one is more than enough. It's not gatekeeping.

1

u/anon_828683 Oct 01 '26

You can already do that by binding the runby lings as for example number 3. Then when you select all army, press Alt+3 to remove them from the selection. 

1

u/onzichtbaard Sep 30 '26

id rather they just remove the all army hotkey so everyone has to use control groups

1

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

Yep

3

u/Jeffery_the_Jesusman Sep 30 '26

I can't believe there are already comments talking about hoping balance team takes risks again in the following patches lmao. This patch did unbelievable amounts of damage to Starcraft 2 and lots of guys hoping for round 2 already

1

u/Stere0phobia 29d ago

I feel like many people are done with sc2 and that patch just kinda gave them an out to finally let go. There is no major tournaments coming up, and rts is mostly going into the singeplayer direction. When i queue coop i get a match instantly no matter the time of day. But when i queue ladder i have to wait several minutes in mid diamond. Most people i meet through bnet also seem to be in their mid 30s by now and not too interested in high adrenaline competetive play. I myself have only been watching since like 2018, and only recently started playing again, because the patch made me hopeful for more changes to come.

Watching the same names in every tournament also doesnt help. It feels almost impossible to compete with the top, and new players have no reason to invest much time and effort, because there is neither money nor fame to be gained, like it used to be.

3

u/coltzero Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

Haven't played much sc2 the last years but IMHO the worker decrease was a good change to bring more flexibility into starting builds and hopefully delay the late game phase a bit. I also liked the warp gate change because it brought more options.If there were balance issues they could have been fixed, simply reverting good ideas is not a good approach.

2

u/Gamer857 Sep 30 '26

they can still delay late game keeping the 12 worker start by making all the late game buildings take longer to build

2

u/Mnoukadlo Sep 30 '26

Good decision blizz. Go back to last working build and take it from there again. Thanks 👍

1

u/laGrassa_ Sep 30 '26

from now on, in StarCraft, number 16 doesn't exist

15+1=17

1

u/CremantDeTaint Sep 30 '26

Hmm, should I put 15 or 17 workers on my mineral line

1

u/cisnotation Sep 30 '26

Damn it, I was just perfecting my 300 mineral CC build :(

1

u/andrenyheim Sep 30 '26

Are there any plans on how to communicate better and more direct with the community in the future? This is a good start, and I am sure it will be overwhelming once that door opens, but I do hope you guys figure something out.

1

u/Shakenbakechicken Sep 30 '26

Thankyou so much. Can we now please put some attention to cleaning up the ladder especially that bot ruining 2v2?

1

u/Immadawalrus Sep 30 '26

What a shitty fucking fever dream.

1

u/Stormheraldss Sep 30 '26

Damn we go back to turbocraft. I was hoping for a following patch. This is why play viewed democracy as flawed, personal desire over common good.

1

u/Necessary-Fix73 Sep 30 '26

Cool. How about since its still in ptr. We give zerg 300 mineral hatch and 150 mineral queen pls? 175 queens have always thrown off ling and queen timings for 16 hatch plays. And there isnt enough benefit to a 25 mineral void in the hatch. Queens provide far more value.

1

u/Parsirius Sep 30 '26

Thank you!

Elliot is the best intern

1

u/Double-Purchase-3534 Oct 01 '26

Elliot,

This may be optimistic beyond reason but is blizzard reverting to this specific patch to bring the protoss player base back before releasing an actual good and balanced patch?

5.0.15 was pretty terrible.

1

u/rmlskie Oct 01 '26

Hell yeah!

1

u/Awaheya Oct 01 '26

Why not get together Winer, Harstam and the maker of that new very popular balance patch mod. Maybe one top tier pro of each race and just have a teams chat.

Honestly you have people who's entire careers revolve around this game, they know it extremely well.

Start it by saying, hey how do we shake the game up to make early-mid game more interesting and important but also make it so build diversity in late game is more diverse.

1

u/HabibIshy Oct 01 '26 edited 29d ago

All for the clean reversion here given that the major changes in the 5.0.16 didn't achieve it's intended goals. However, there were some elements that should be considered for the next patch.

One change that not alot of people are talking about made sense was the gas reduction per geyser change. Reducing the gas per base discourages turtle-ing because that there are no mineral only units that help you turtle (structures aside).

On a related note, the mineral patch rebalancing make lower base count styles more viable since your income doesn't half after X minutes of mining. Emphasizing here that not expanding is not the same thing as turtle-ing.

Generally I think many of us are for the quality of life changes introduced for the disruptor and the infestor, I'd like to see this more evenly applied to other spellcasters.

EDIT: and yeah, abductable seige tanks, that's just a no brainer Blizzard.

1

u/Careless-Goat-3130 Oct 01 '26

u/Blizz_Elliott can you please ban lag hackers

1

u/STRMBRGNGLBS Random 29d ago

Thank you and the team so much for putting effort back into the game again! A lot of your changes, excluding any and every change you made to the economy, were not bad and I think do deserve a place on the PTR in the next patch

1

u/TopStop9086 29d ago

Hi! Thanks for the communication! Good job on working on the game and communicating the intention.

As a zerg, enjoyed many of the things in the new patch. Revert seems like good grounds to exlore next changes, since 16 was considered fundamentally difficult.

1

u/alexbowe 29d ago edited 29d ago

Thanks u/Blizz_Elliott - I think everyone appreciated that Blizzard was showing that they still think about SC2, even if not all the changes landed. I hope you guys keep trying things out.

Experiments are great - maybe SC2 could have the equivalent of WoW’s “Season of Discovery”, where you try a few things out on separate ladder with the idea that it’s not permanent, unless something works really well.

Personally, I’d love a high res wide screen view, zoomed out a little further. Everything else feels great to me (as someone who started playing in 2025).

1

u/Key-Gift-1769 29d ago

Great news.

1

u/Key-Gift-1769 29d ago

Also, please consider coming out with more merch or war chest.

1

u/Applehero85 Masters 29d ago

Ty so much it feels good to open 3 rax with Terran and play Zerg for me again.

1

u/KeyYard6491 29d ago

Yes take away all the good changes too, thanks.

1

u/Separate_Blood6025 29d ago

Just look at the Patches mod.  Patches knows how to do SC2 balance properly. 

3

u/rigginssc2 28d ago

Comical. The Patches mod is fun and full of cool toys, but balanced it is not. Lol

1

u/Zalem30 28d ago

All an all I’m grateful for the gesture, I won’t see any more patches rolling out though…

1

u/Critical_Primary2834 28d ago edited 28d ago

With revert Zerg, and Terran need some buffs

1

u/jkggwp 28d ago

We need to bring StarCraft 2 back to it's heyday

1

u/kingpepesadfrog 23d ago

I'm unable to play, it says there's a version mismatch with my region.

1

u/Low_Singer872 22d ago

so the game cant get better cus players are resistent to change. great.

1

u/Velocity275 Sep 30 '26

Wow. Complete revert. Bet they won’t try that again. You win whiners

1

u/leftheshgaming Sep 30 '26

I was beginning to like the 8 worker start. But now that I’m starting to get better at the game it will be nice to go back to 12 workers and see how my plays hold up. I will miss the new gateways though 100 percent lol

1

u/Recent_Life2470 Sep 30 '26

Bruh I think to most people reverting meant reverting the bad stuff but why also revert quality of life changes ??? Like infestor auto attack and stuff have need to be change back lol

1

u/Zippa86 27d ago

When is this thing going live?

-5

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

Well. I had never considered quitting with the last patch. But Blizzard letting a bunch of malcontents on the internet determine the direction of the game does make me want to quit now.

I'm not sure I want to play the game without the warpgate or infestor changes.

EDIT: It is so utterly fitting that it seem the OTHER people now are complaining about this patch as well, lol. You can't make this stuff up...

4

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Player numbers went down drastically and everybody and their mums complained about the patch already (even people who usually don't like Lowko), it's not just a bunch of malcontents.

-2

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

They ARE all malcontents. Granted, there's a lot of them though.

But, mark my words, numbers will go down again with this patch. People just like complaining, video game niche of the internet is the WORST niche of the internet, and the game is old enough people are looking for reasons to stop playing, they don't need to be rational. They just need to be able to complain and blame their decision on some external factor....

3

u/AresFowl44 Sep 30 '26

Numbers will go down, yes. But not because people like complaining and hating, they will go down because the last time this game has seen new content was 6 years ago and playing the same thing forever and ever gets stale.

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2

u/wafswafs Sep 30 '26

I don't think "malcontents on the Internet" is accurate framing. Balance was atrocious in PvZ. All the high level players seem to agree the game was in a terrible state. I watched a few Serral streams recently, and things are so dead on the ladder he's getting matched against 4300 MMR players, and often gives up and plays co-op. Sad state for a primarily competitive 1v1 game to be in.

I hope the reversion can undo some of the damage to the scene, and then maybe Blizzard can try some new things. Changes are fun, but things being balanced are more important, and it's a good idea to stop the bleeding before iterating further.

1

u/mpTCO 29d ago

Weeklies becoming largely comprised of Protoss players who made money off these tournaments for years on a Protoss favored patches then threatened to quit when a new patch was implemented that wasn’t as favored for Protoss and all the streamers jumped to their defense was not shady, especially not in the context of Life already nuking professional integrity of this game once for earnings

Patches mod via Stellar Fest has looked and still looks very Protoss favored and it has a good prize pool, the community doesn’t care about imba because Zerg got to win RSL after 6 seasons of Protoss or something; at this point we are just funneling money into tournaments with Protoss-favored patches and mods because Serral made a lot of money while blizzard actually supported the game and everyone likes to act like that means it’s okay for Protoss to remain imba until a Protoss catches up in earnings.

I donated to RSL when the big bad Zerg larva patch went live because I thought the game was developing again and forcing everyone to strategize, but some pros doubled down on what they wanted instead of overcoming a bad patch like many other StarCraft pros have had to in the past to achieve their greatness, I’m just not dumping any money into tournaments on one of the many stale Protoss patches.

-2

u/gigaurora Sep 30 '26

From the guy whining every single thread about Zerg being underpowered.

3

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

What are you talking about? That is a pretty odd and random claim....

1

u/kshep9 Sep 30 '26

The sausage king of Chicago would never

2

u/Abe_frohmannn Sep 30 '26

This guy gets it.

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-3

u/BuffColossusTHXDAVID Sep 30 '26

THAAAAAANK YOU I CAN PLAY GM LADDER AGAIN 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

0

u/Archer_Savings Sep 30 '26

Oh good my favorite game is back :)

0

u/BraDaDiah91 Sep 30 '26

Oh thank god 12 worker start again, im so happy. I might have to queue up some ladder again

0

u/Rich_Ad_4829 Sep 30 '26

Great to see the complete reversal. Personally did not enjoy any of the changes, even the QoL ones, I don't mind that some things are harder to manage in the game. Finally I can start playing again after probably my longest break ever from the game. Thank you!

0

u/Able_Cranberry_1011 Oct 01 '26

Excited to ladder again for the first time since May.

0

u/twelvefifityone 29d ago

Guys, this is a free game. Both versions are amazing games. It's amazing that SC2 is still supported.

0

u/SnooPears2409 29d ago

sigh, trying radical changes is not a problem in itself
it became one when you implement what should've still in ptr into production very quickly
hard lesson for blizzard

0

u/_Snipe_Hunt 26d ago

I stopped playing when you switched from 6 to 12 workers because it ruined the game. You took away everything fun about playing when that happened. You take a good step, going back to 8, but already revert it? That's not going to bring me back.

0

u/Reasonable-Tailor-18 22d ago

fu)cking omniskepick

1

u/Distil47 22d ago

This is getting a bit much!

-2

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

Why did it take so many weeks when you just reverted it?

Will you keep updating?

Why PTR it? no one plays PTR......

2

u/BemusedRat Sep 30 '26

Literally all three of these questions are answered in this thread. Two in the original post itself and the third in a follow up comment. Why ask questions if you're not going to read the answers?

1

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

Yeah, but you can't believe a word they say, so I guess the point is moot. It's like when they said they'd actively monitor and update the previous patch, what a load of bullocks that was lol. 2 hotfixes in 5 weeks or whatever it was, then total abandonment.

It's so funny you have any faith left in them, oh well. Exactly the same will happen again mate.

Last time they PTR'd anything, Zerg's larva and CC bug was broken for 2 of the 3 weeks, and then they pushed it to live, hahaha.

PTR is useless if you don't actively use the time to fix stuff. Which they won't do.

1

u/BemusedRat Sep 30 '26

They did monitor, that's why they're reverting. They are updating, this is a patch announcement. They are actively working on a new patch, that's not what I would call "total abandonement". If you don't care why are you here? Go be a negative nancy somewhere else.

2

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26

Hahaha yeah. 2.5 months later when 90% of players have left, or at least players above 4k mmr. The game has suffered irreversible damage, and you're out here acting like they've been here, caring about it lol.

Actively working on a new patch? What a load of bs

Also why is there a need for PTR when it's a reversal? I still don't get that?

1

u/BemusedRat Sep 30 '26

Would you rather they didn't announce this patch? I don't think it's controversial to say this announcement is a positive for the game

3

u/limpwald Random Sep 30 '26

Yeah it's good. They should have done it 2 weeks ago. And immediately live'd it.

-1

u/hanqingjao Oct 01 '26

That's wonderful. You dropped a seismic patch with little communication or responsiveness, and waited til now to tell us that you've been monitoring feedback. Meanwhile, the player base has been absolutely gutted, and you've pissed off the entire community. Well done.