Patch 16 notes

[IskatuMesk]

Love the look of the hero units I've seen so far.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

So battle.net is now actually loggable. However, it might require 2-4 tries (despite the "down for maintenance"e error) before you can actually log in anyway.

However, I tried to play with Archonwing right now and b.net just can't host any game we try (which we tried 2v2 then 2 vs AIs cooperative mode and just a custom game on a melee map). It usually end up in a "hosting loop" where you can't even cancel it, requiring to log out and back in.

EDIT : Our theory is that everyone is trying to download Patch 16 at once thus killing Battle.net's bandwidth for anything (although we might be wrong if I can see my achievements and so on just fine)

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Also, they actually changed something for the better :

Attack speeds and move speeds are actually in numbers now (instead of "Fastest, "Fast", etc.).

So I guess Blizzard actually listened to something.

[IskatuMesk]

So I played a 4v4 and then an FFA with the Insane AI (recorded/commentated them) and here's my observations.

- Blizzard basically took the Easy AI and gave it money/higher APM.

It's terrible.

Mechanically, the AI has had a few notable improvements over before.

- It's transport AI seems fixed.
- Attack groups handle reasonably and are far better than wc3.
- They can destroy destructible cocks and seem to adapt reasonably well to terrain.
- I didn't see them wall off any units yet.

However, everything build-order related is totally terrible.

From what I've been told (by a Dev) the AI is totally dynamic and this is a massive weakness for the reasons I've always talked about.

- The AI does not counter units well at all. It built roaches to fight my pile of carriers/mothership.
- The AI gets a massive initial boost of money but does not expand to keep up with the production demand of its buildings, runs out of money, and then does nothing.
- The AI does not build any evolution chambers much less acquire basic fundamental upgrades like Hydra Range.
- The AI did not build extractors on its expansion until its main was totally mined out and it was completely out of gas.

The AI should be aggressively expanding and actually using build orders. The Protoss went dual robo factory without even getting warpgates until afterwards, then sat on 2 robo facts and 2 gateways. wat


The AI relentlessly spams APM well into the thousands when nothing is going on. Admirably this doesn't seem to effect performance much if at all, unlike wc3, but I think in situations like mods/campaigns with large unit counts this could be a very bad thing. It's needless overhead in a game where you'll be grabbing for every bit of performance in a big project.

Ultimately I am impressed mechanically by the AI, but I believe that players will have to step in to make a real opponent yet again. The AI will not provide a challenge to a D- player. I lost the 4v4 because of watching and because of mass early aggression, while in the FFA I was fairly confident throughout the match of at least holding out until I realized the AI wasn't nearly as productive as I thought it was being. I played fucking terribly and the AI played even worse.

I highly doubt this is release-state AI, since it doesn't even upgrade, but it wasn't ready to be added to the game anyway.

[Frozty]

Blizzard should add "Non-functioning gameplay" to their patch notes.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Blizzard should add "Non-functioning gameplay" to their patch notes.

I did manage to receive the error "There is no available servers" when trying to host custom games so somehow it feels like they just let the main server for patch download + logging in to add up friends and such for the night but nothing more.

Anyway, we will see tomorrow.

[Frozty]

It's a dirty trick Blizzard is playing on its loyal, yet wayward, fanbase.

I bid thee find the grace in your cold, blackened hearts to allow us to actually drink from the holy grail that is Starcraft II.









Or not, I just want to get my placement matches over with.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Saw some custom games up so I guess it's now possible to play any sort of games.

However, it's late for me and getting sleepy so ill go play/record videos tomorrow.

[IskatuMesk]

Stupid censorship continues!

[RazorclawX]

There are no longer Placeholder Sound Files. The announcer voices are apparently in.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Stupid censorship continues!

After some quick tests, it seems to only consider the censoring for the  map name and extended descriptions for prevent publishing again. Although obviously due to the current issues on B.net 2.0, I can't test in multiplayer if "censored" words in other aspects of the map somehow get censored in mid-game and such.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

So now it seems they finally fixed the servers to make them very playable. Currently playing right now.

[Frozty]

I was playing as well. I encountered two occasions where when I went to the options menu while in-game, the whole game crashed.... And someone I was playing dropped early game. Oh well, I just wish I didn't suck so badly.

[IskatuMesk]

HKS and I "Stress tested" the new AI and surely enough it absolutely annihilates performance in numbers, even worse than wc3 did. Also, its transport pathing, while better than before, still cannot handle islands.

[Thalraxal]

HKS and I "Stress tested" the new AI and surely enough it absolutely annihilates performance in numbers, even worse than wc3 did. Also, its transport pathing, while better than before, still cannot handle islands.

Yikes, I'm really hoping that's not going to be the final in-game AI.  Otherwise, I think it's time for me to start thinking about learning AI scripting