Two recent posts explain some important expectations regarding the future patches in StarCraft II. The first from Bashiok explains how patches will be different after release and why it needs to be that way.
(Hopefully this doesn't read too harsh, it's been a tough Monday. ;) <3 <3 <3)
Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn't.
Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don't feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.
We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that's one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.
That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of 'we think this may help' type fixes. With a live environment we're not going to throw stuff out there unless we're pretty sure. We've played. We've looked at data. We've looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn't to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it's a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.
Recently in the South East Asia (SEA) Region, Blizzard announced that due to an overwhelming amount of people being severed from the friendships they've previously made in World of Warcraft, they will be providing them a free option to connect to both the local SEA servers and the familiar North American (NA) servers. The community responded to this in relief but some brought up concerns regarding their download structure. Typically SEA regions have download or bandwidth caps that can change based on a fees or subscription models and having to download a second client could be rather frustrating and costly.
A front page response announced a feature is intended to be implemented in game to allow region swapping easily without a new client, alleviating the concerns of everyone who posted.
With the announcement that North American regional access will be provided to those who purchased a Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand standard or collector’s edition of StarCraft II, some of you have expressed concerns regarding your ISP download caps. We wanted to let you know that it will not be necessary to download a new StarCraft II client to play in the NA region.
Instead, we are currently planning for an in-game region selector to be added via a patch at the same time or before NA client access is provided to SEA/ANZ players. Using the in-game region selector would enable you to choose which region you will play in afteropening your existing copy of StarCraft II. If an in-game solution can’t be implemented right away, then alternatives will be provided, such as offering a small file download that would duplicate the intended functionality and allow your existing client to access the NA region.
Our goal is to ensure that you have the best experience with StarCraft II possible, and for that reason, we encourage players in the SEA/ANZ region to connect to the local Battle.net servers for a lower latency, better gameplay experience. That said, we’re working to provide the additional access described above as soon as possible. If you have further questions about North American regional access, please refer to the FAQ.
Sources: Battle.net - Blizz Refuses Major Balance Fix Till Expansion Battle.net (SEA) - NA Access - No New Client
