Grandmaster leagues, faster Battlecruisers, Bunkers that take longer to build and tweaked Infestors are just some of the many changes coming in the 1.3 patch for StarCraft 2, now live on the game’s test servers (thanks, Bigdownload!). The Grandmaster league (currently only available for 1v1 matches) is more than a little demanding, accepting as it does the top 200 players in each region, making it more exclusive than becoming, say, a real-life judge. Full patch notes after the jump.



Deep breath! Here I go-

*inhales deeply*

General

* Leagues & Ladders

o A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.

+ Players are automatically drafted into Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster league until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.

+ The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster tab

o The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.

o Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.

+ This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.

+ Players can still utilize any points they previously accumulated.

o Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season tab.

o New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.

o Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.

* Join Custom Game

o Several improvements have been made to the Join Custom Game section:

+ The Details panel has been removed from this page. Map details are now shown inside a tooltip for each game.

+ Players can now bookmark their favorite custom games! The number of times a game has been bookmarked will be shown in that game’s tooltip.

+ Games are now organized into several pages to make finding your desired game type easier:

# Featured: Our team is always on the lookout for new games that are lots of fun. Our latest favorites are shown on this page.

# Most Popular: Shows all game types, with the most played games sorted to the top.

# By Category: This page allows you to browse through Custom Games based on Category.

# Up & Coming: This page highlights games that other players are recommending, but haven’t yet become popular.

# Fun or Not: From this page you can automatically join a random new Custom Game. After the game, players using Fun or Not are asked to recommend the map (or not). Recommending maps helps get them onto the Up & Coming page.

# Recently Played: The last several games you’ve played are shown here. Use this to quickly get back into games you play often, or to easily bookmark a game you enjoyed playing.

# Bookmarks: Use this page to view your Bookmarked maps.

o A search option has been added to the Join Custom Game interface.

* Observer and Replay UI

o New panels are now available when observing or viewing a replay of 1v1 games. These panels can be toggled via hotkeys which are shown under the Leader Panel drop-down.

+ Player Name Panel: Displays the players’ name, team color, race, and supply count.

+ Stat Comparison Panels: Shows a head-to-head comparison of players’ Resources, Army Supply, Units Killed, or APM.

o In 1v1 observed games, both players’ resource rows are shown in the upper right at the same time.

o You can now toggle between player unit colors and team unit colors when watching a replay or observing.

* Achievements

o All achievements in the “Wings Of Liberty: Hard” and “Wings Of Liberty: Brutal” series now show a checklist of what missions you have completed and no longer display a progress bar.

o “Liberty Completionist Hard” and “Liberty Completionist Brutal” achievements are now the final achievements in the “Wings Of Liberty: Hard” and “Wings Of Liberty: Brutal” series.

* Game Options

o A new Control tab is available from the Options Menu. You’ll find Mouse, Keyboard and Scrolling options within this new menu.

o A new menu option is available in the Gameplay tab to change the behavior of Control Group Buttons. These can now be set to ignore mouse clicks or be hidden completely.

o The existing menu option under the Gameplay tab for Menu Bar Clickable now also supports hiding the Menu Bar.

Balance

* GENERAL

o Players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol (Viking flower).



* PROTOSS

o Mothership

+ Units leaving the Mothership’s Vortex are now un-targetable and immune to damage for 1.5 seconds.

o High Templar

+ Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.

o Zealot

+ Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.



* TERRAN

o Battlecruiser

+ Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.

o Bunker

+ Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.

o Tech Lab

+ Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

* ZERG

o Infestor

+ Health increased from 90 to 110.

+ Fungal Growth

# Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.

# Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.

# Now fires a missile instead of being instant cast.

StarCraft II Editor Improvements



* Improved loading times for some custom maps with complex tech restrictions.

* The compiled script memory has been split into a separate block from the global/local stack block. Additional improvements will be made to provide more memory space in the future.

* Command card editor and actor event editor will now be less vulnerable to data errors from changes made in future patches.

* The game cursor now remains visible while loading maps.

* Additional options can now be configured using the command card editor.

* Additional cheats are now available in-game when using Test Document.

* Additional data is now saved out by the data editor to overrides made in arrays of structures to try to prevent unintended changes made to the original data from breaking it.

* Debug outputs are now displayed in the editor and in-game when using Test Document.

* Reworked Game Variants dialog to be more user-friendly:

o General tab has been removed. This text did not appear anywhere in game.

o Attributes tab has been split into Game Attributes and Player Attributes.

o Attribute UI now more closely reflects the game lobby.

o Default values are now enforced as necessary based on Player Properties.

* New trigger actions have been added:

o Set Camera Data: Changes the active camera data settings, as defined in the Data module.

o Show/Hide Resource: Shows or hides the specified resource in the UI.

o Lock/Unlock Status Bar: Forces or resets all status bars for a player to a specified state.

o Set Random Seed: Sets the random game seed to the requested value.

o Enable/Disable Selection Type: A new UI Editor action to disable the various ways that players can change their selected unit.

* New trigger functions have been added:

o Convert Game Hotkey: Looks up hotkey as text.

o Convert Game Asset: Looks up asset path as text.

o Add On Child: Returns the child unit attached to the specified parent.

o Add On Parent: Returns the parent unit attached to the specified child.

o Catalog Entry Is Default: Returns if the specified entry is a default.

o Catalog Field Value Get As Integer: Converts the requested field data into an integer, if possible.

* Test Document preferences can now configure an explicit random seed value.

* Automatic backup feature (Preferences > Documents) now includes a User Folder location option, which corresponds to a folder named EditorBackup within your StarCraft II documents folder.

* Units can now specify a revive cost that will override an ability specific cost. Revive cooldowns & charges located on the unit will now be attached to the unit being revived.

* Instant larva-style training will now charge resources properly.

* Upgrades modifying units produced by Arm Magazine, Build, Merge, Morph, Train, and Warp Train abilities are now fully supported.

* The Chance field in effects is now upgradeable.

* Support for browsing Battle.net “Featured” and “Up And Coming” maps in the Open Document window has been added.

* Added a text preview pane to the text editing controls.

* Added additional states to behaviors, Set Unit State, and Unit Classification Check triggers to determine if a unit is detectable or shown by a radar.

* Added armor to the Unit Property and Unit Type Property triggers.

* Added Weapon Damage and Weapon Speed Multiplier triggers.

* Added support to refresh all buffs of the same type when adding a new instance by using the new “Refresh Stack” flag.

* Added a “Wait to Spend” flag, which is enabled by default, to effect abilities so configure whether orders wait until a cooldown or charge becomes available before they create their effect.

* Added an “Offset Area by Angle” flag to search effects to adjust the angle of the search based on the locations involved.

* Added an Idle Command to unit data to configure what order the unit performs when idle.

* Added an actor message to allow models to change their hit-testable status.

* The Player Property and Modify Player Property triggers can now disable the cost for each resource type.

Bug Fixes

* Battle.net

o Fixed a bug where some Bronze players weren’t gaining enough points for wins and were losing too many points for losses.

* Gameplay

o StarCraft II will continue running if corrupt textures/models/sounds are encountered.

o Conversation skipping and trigger skipping now share the same hotkey.

o The notification that a player left the game during a paused game is no longer delayed until the game is unpaused.

o Cheat codes now only accept official names.

o Unit response sounds are now updated immediately when the selection changes.

o Unit death will no longer show units on the other side of line of sight blockers that weren’t already visible.

o Units now follow a transport if the transport fills up and they have no other orders.

o Units inside a bunker no longer disappear if the bunker is destroyed and surrounded by force fields.

o Units can now be revived multiple times.

o Hero buttons are now displayed while a hero is dead if they are revivable. Clicking on the button while a hero is dead will either select the building reviving it or cycle between buildings that can.

o Revivable abilities now show revivable units all the time. If they cannot currently be revived, the buttons are shown disabled.

o The revive ability now works with multiple dead units.

o Revived units now properly dispatch a trigger event when killed again.

o Added additional information to unit tooltips in the tech trees.

o An alert has been added when MULEs expire.

o An alert has been added when the Chrono Boost buff expires.

o An alert has been added when the Spawn Larva buff expires.

o Fixed an issue with not being able to land where you just lifted off if there was a nearby unit.

o Fixed an issue where you could push hold position units by move/hold position spamming.

o Fixed an issue to prevent force fields from pushing units during construction.

o Fixed an issue with Creep destroying more foliage than it should, and made foliage destruction by creep faster.

o Fixed an issue with custom global hotkeys in grid profiles overlapping with unit command buttons.

o Fixed an issue placing Terran add-on buildings when multiple buildings were selected.

o The stalemate timer will now reset when any player gathers resources, researches an upgrade, produces a unit, constructs a building, or destroys an enemy building.

o Additional stalemate warnings are no longer displayed when the game ends in a stalemate.

o Flying cloaked units are no longer revealed as detected when shown through the fog of war.

o Vespene Geysers that are taken by your opponent and are under the fog of war no longer randomly flash on and off on the mini-map.

o Enemy buildings completed while being revealed due to friendly unit death will now properly create snapshots in the fog of war.

o Casting Neural Parasite on a Zerg Egg will not cancel the spell until after the egg completes its transformation.

o Changes made to autocast abilities while a unit is under the affects of Neural Parasite are now reset to their default state when Neural Parasite ends.

o Queuing multiple targets with 250mm Strike Cannons will no longer result in the Thor being stuck until the cooldown ends.

o SCVs can no longer resume construction on buildings while inside bunkers.

o Workers gathering minerals can no longer continue to harvest minerals if they are pushed away by a force field.

o Orders issued to unload units from a Medivac onto itself can now be canceled if the Medivac is scanning for units to heal.

o The Harvester count in the income leader panel now updates correctly.

o Bi-directional transformations (i.e. those used by Vikings, Siege Tanks, and burrowing units) are no longer shown in the production leader panel.

o The resources from salvaged bunkers are no longer counted towards the resources lost in the units lost leader panel.

o The Mute OS Microphone button has been removed from the voice options page.

o Tech trees now show icons for units that are produced by a building and display the names for units that are unlocked by a building.

o Using Edit Box Trigger Dialogs should no longer generate trigger errors.

o Media keys can no longer be bound to a custom hotkey.

o Hotkeys configured in a mod are now loaded properly without having to open the Hotkeys menu.

o Mouse-based hotkeys are now handled properly when the cursor is over the mini-map.

o Mouse-based hotkeys bound with modifiers are now displayed correctly in the Hotkeys page.

o The hotkey for the Cancel button is now displayed when targeting with an ability if the Command Hotkey Text option is enabled.

* StarCraft II Editor

o Fixed an issue where editor control files could not be loaded in all languages.

o Fixed an issue with pasting text values in the editor.

o Fixed an issue where certain data fields would not list all possible values.

o Fixed an issue where the editor would crash after pasting a placed unit.

o Fixed a crash using the Unit Weapon Firing validator.

o Player Properties will no longer allow all 16 players to be User/Computer, which is not supported.

o Animations in the previewer will now display using localized text.

o Game and player versions of the cooldown & charge triggers now interpret time values correctly.

o Sounds played simultaneously for multiple players via the Play Sound trigger can now be heard properly.

o Increasing the maximum number of charges with an upgrade no longer increases the current number of charges.

o Setting a unit’s training progress to 100% will no longer cancel the training.