StarCraft 2 Just Made One of the Biggest Changes to Its Game in Over a Decade
Yup, the game's still alive and fun to watch.
StarCraft 2 just surprised everyone with a massive change to its core gameplay in over 11 years. While the game is definitely an iconic game from back in the day, it is extremely surprising that it is even getting a massive patch in over a decade.
As someone who used to play and watch consistently during the game’s peak and even jump into a few GSL tournament videos every now and then, the massive change gave a little hope that maybe there’s a little bit more to explore in this iconic RTS franchise.
A Massive Shake-Up to the Economy
Some of the massive changes play around the game’s economy, stretching out the early and mid-game experience to hopefully relieve pressure from expanding too much. Here are the economy changes:
- Starting workers reduced from 12 to 8.
- Default Large Mineral patch resource count reduced from 1,800 to 1,600.
- Default Small Mineral patch resource count increased from 900 to 1,200.
- Total Default Minerals per base increased from 10,800 to 11,200.
- Default Vespene Geysers’ resource count increased from 2,250 to 2,500.
- Total Default Gas per base increased from 4,500 to 5,000.
- Rich Vespene Gas Geyser harvest return value decreased from 8 to 6.
Now, the starting workers being reduced will surely slow down the game and could even strengthen some “cheese” opening strategies when left unchecked. The resources being buffed by increasing their resource count will help players macro even faster without being pressured to expand to a fourth or fifth base. It is a slight change because it is only 400 minerals and 500 gas per base, but it certainly adds up in the end, especially with multiple bases.
Along with the changes, the primary structures of each race (Hatchery, Command Center, and Nexus) provide fewer supplies, which is also a small change but still enough of a change to make the game a bit slower.
However, in my opinion, the biggest change in the patch is for the Protoss, moving the Warpgate Research from the Cybernetics Core to the Gateway, making it faster to warp-in units, even making possible “cheese” strats to warp-in zealots early in an unchecked Pylon on the enemy base.
Warp-in Time also got decreased to 3s from 3.6s, which might look small but is a massive change when trying to warp-in units mid-fight or trying to harass enemy mineral lines.
With Protoss being one of the least successful races by far in the game’s top tournaments, it is even more surprising that massive changes even happened, considering how it was always just some minor or steady buffs over the years.
There are also more changes with the patch, such as the Terran’s Ghost and even the Infestor getting an auto-attack. You can read the full patch notes here.
