Starcraft 2 news » Situation Report: August 31, 2012

A few weeks ago, we asked you to join us in testing a few proposed balance tweaks for StarCraft II. At the time, we felt like terran performance versus zerg (at the pro level) needed some attention. You responded with a lot of testing and good feedback.

Since we began this testing, we’ve also been paying very close attention to the major tournaments around the world, and we’ve noticed that terran performance in the TvZ matchup has improved. In analyzing tournaments such as Global StarCraft II Team League, Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming, we’re no longer seeing the same balance shifts that caused us to propose changes in the first place. The most interesting tournament in this context was the IEM at gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, where we saw players such as Kas and MVP make use of Ravens in ways that held a lot of potential.

We feel that at this time, we should give players more opportunities to fully explore the slowly-shifting meta-game before we change the balance of the game. We’re seeing a lot more players starting to explore Ravens, and we’d like to see exactly how that goes before making any decisions on balance. The TvZ win ratio has somewhat shifted toward terran, calling a nerf to creep tumor into question.

This is the first time that we’ve planned for an adjustment, and then observed a change in the meta-game that could impact our decision. That doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing that needs to be adjusted, but rather, it’s a chance for us to carefully consider other things. When we see that balance is changing on its own, we prefer to continue monitoring the situation and see where the performance of the different matchups settles before we step in. Overall, the balance we’re seeing at the tournament level looks pretty good right now, and we will continue to watch the meta-game closely, and read your suggestions.