SC2Mapster

Crossfire Frenzy ARCHIVED changelog.

v0.2.1a

Notes

The main purpose of this release is to provide a quick fix for the item revival bug. Various minor balance changes and bug fixes have been bundled with this release as well. The most notable are the nerf to Banelings and the change in functionality of the Insidious Parasite ability line.

Banelings have been nerfed to deal 200 (+50% vs. Biological, -25% vs. Structure, -50% vs. Hero) damage. This ensures that a single Baneling cannot kill any tier 0 or tier 1 units (unless the damage has been upgraded), which will hopefully force players to use Banelings more tactically instead of simply attack-moving and hoping to take out some SCVs, Marines, or Broodlings. The cost of Banelings has been decreased to 150 minerals and the cooldown has been decreased as well to compensate for the reduced damage.

The Queen of Blade's Insidious Parasite ability line has been changed to give the caster energy when the affected unit attacks rather than when it is attacked. The delay between successive energy gains has also been removed, and the cooldown reduced. To adjust for these changes, the energy gain per attack has been changed to be 4 for all levels instead of increasing with level. This should make these abilities more interesting to use, especially against heroes since it now punishes attack-oriented heroes with fast attack speeds such as Zeratul.

Gameplay Changes

General

• Increased the cost of Blades of Zeratul to 3500 minerals/1000 vespene [was 3000 minerals/1000 vespene].
• Increased the cost of Tassadar's Amulet to 4000 minerals/1500 vespene [was 3500 minerals/1200 vespene].

Heroes

• Decreased the base attack period of Zeratul to 1.1 [was 1.2].
• Changes to Insidious Parasite, Detritivorous Parasite, and Resistant Parasite:
  • Changed functionality to give the caster energy when the affected unit attacks and removed the delay between consecutive energy gains per parasite.
  • Parasites now give 4 energy per attack at all levels [was 5/6/7/8/9/10].
  • Decreased the cooldown to 10 seconds [was 20 seconds].

Mercs

• Banelings' Volatile Burst ability damage decreased to 200 (150 vs. Structure) [was 300 (200 vs. Structure)].
• Damage Upgrade now increases Volatile Burst damage by +20 (+15 vs. Structure) per level [was +15 (+10 vs. Structure].
• Baneling cost reduced to 150 minerals [was 250 minerals] and hire cooldown time decreased to 15 seconds [was 30 seconds].

UI Changes

• Changed hotkey for Void Walk, Shadow Walk, and Assassin Walk to (V) to avoid hotkey conflicts.
• Floating text now appears when Zeratul does critical damage from being cloaked, and when heroes evade attacks.
• Reverted some buttons back to their original versions after Battle.net patch 1.1.0 changed their icons.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed item behaviors not applying correctly when reviving heroes.
• Blades of Zeratul now correctly reduce damage to 0 when the evasion is triggered.
• Fixed Damage Upgrade applying damage upgrade twice per level to Siege Tanks.
• Medivac now correctly costs 2 supply instead of giving 2 supply.

v0.2.1

Notes

Several main balance issues are the focus of this release, along with some important bug fixes.

The most pressing issue was Sacrifice, which was too effective at decreasing damage, rendering high-damage, slow-attacking units essentially useless when used against them. Therefore, its functionality has been changed to decrease damage by a factor dependent on level instead of imposing a hard cap on the damage. Also, the amount of shields drained when damage is reduced has been changed to a constant value over all levels instead of decreasing with level.

Thors, and to a lesser extent, Hellions, were also overpowered, mainly due to their large area of effect damage. So accordingly, the areas of effect on both's attacks have been reduced. In addition, the armor of Thor Wreckages has been fixed at 0 and their maximum health has been reduced to make them easier to kill.

The last main balance change was to the Snipe ability. The ability, with its relatively short cooldown, low mana cost and no aftercast delay, could too easily be used to simply augment Nova's DPS instead of as a damage spike ability as it was intended to be used. So, an aftercast delay of 1 second has been added, during which Nova will not be able to move or attack. Players will now have to use the ability more tactically instead of simply casting it on recharge, since the aftercast delay will (1) make Nova vulnerable to a counterattack or surround and (2) make it harder for Nova to chase the target if it survives the shot. Additionally, a laser beam and a tracking dot has been added as special effects while the ability is casting to make it easier for players being targeted by Snipe to recognize they are in danger and to take any defensive actions they feel is necessary.

The final major change this release brings is not strictly a balance change, but more of general gameplay tweak. In the past, Archons did not fit in well with the rest of their tech branch. While the rest of the branch focused on high-damage attacks effective at taking out fewer numbers of high-armor targets, Archons were effective against larger numbers of weaker enemies as well due to their AoE attack. To address this, the Archon's attack has been changed to hit a maximum of three targets, but it will do full attack damage to all three targets. The cap on the number of targets it can hit with one attack keeps it in line with the idea that it is to be used against less numerous, more individually powerful targets. Still allowing the Archon to do some area of effect damage ensures that it isn't underpowered as a melee unit. The Extended Shockwave upgrade has also been changed to increase the maximum number of targets the Archon's attack can hit to five instead of increasing the Archon's range. Psionic Leech and its associated upgrade have also been tweaked to balance them with the changes to the Archon's attack.

Gameplay Changes

General

• Removed the vespene cost for Void Crystal and Psi Crystal. The mineral costs remain unchanged.

Heroes

• Void Assault, Unyielding Assault, and Treacherous Assault no longer continue to attack if the target dies or becomes invisible.
• Changes to Snipe, Hawkeye Snipe, and Penetrator Snipe:
  • Now have a cast finish time of 1 second, during which Nova cannot move or attack.
  • Now cause a targeting beam to appear as well as a red laser dot on the target's head while the ability is casting.
  • Now receive a +4 damage bonus from the Marksman attribute [was +3].
• Snipe and Hawkeye Snipe now have 0% armor penetration [was 50%].
• Changed the functionality of Sacrifice, Guardian's Sacrifice, and Champion's Sacrifice to:
  • Creates a protective shield around Tassadar. Reduces all damage done to friendly units within the shield. Cannot reduce damage below 15. Every time damage is reduced in this way, Tassadar loses 5 shield strength. The shield has no effect if Tassadar's shield strength drops below 5.

Mercs

• Armor upgrade now increases the armor of Predators.
• Restorative Nanoswarm now restores shields as well (it will prioritize restoring health over shields).

Terran

• Increased movement speed of Firebats to 2.5 [was 2.25].
• Decreased range of Hellions to 3 [was 5].
• Decreased movement speed of Hellions to 2.5 [was 2.8].
• Reapers and Marauders now do 75% damage vs. Heroes [was 100%].
• Marauders now do 75% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Decreased AoE of the Thor's primary attack.
• Decreased base armor of Thor Wreckage to 0 [was 2], and maximum health to 250 [was 525]. Armor upgrades now no longer affect Thor Wreckages.
• Ghosts now do 60% damage vs. Heroes [was 100%] and 50% vs. Structures [was 30%].

Protoss

• High Templars now do 75% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Immortals now do 100% damage vs. Armored [was 75%].
• Archons now do 75% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Changed the Archon's attack to hit up to three targets simultaneously. The attack no longer does area of effect damage. Also changed Psionic Leech to leech 8% of attack damage (the leech takes effect on all three targets).
• Changed the Improved Leech upgrade to increase the Archon's shield leech to 12% and increased the cost to 2500 minerals/1250 vespene [was 1750/750].

Zerg

• Changed Spawn Burst to decrease spawn periods by 50/55/60/65/70/75% [was 25/30/35/40/45/50%].
• Increased Broodlings' maximum health to 380 [was 260].
• Increased Zerglings' base armor to 1 [was 0].

UI Changes

• Added special effects for Void Dance on Zeratul and Void Assault on the target.
• Added range indicators for the Baneling's Volatile Burst and the Observer's detection range.

Bug Fixes

• Void Crystal and Psi Crystal now correctly only restore health/shields from attack damage, and not from ability damage.
• Fixed bug where Flourished Dance could only be learned to level 1.
• Fixed bug where the special effects for Spiteful Block and Perpetual Block were not showing up on the target.
• Unbreaking Wave is now correctly no longer available once you have learned Swelling Wave.

v0.2.0

Notes

This new release comes with the addition of mercenaries. These may be bought at any time from the new Mercenary Fortress structure located in each base area. Mercenaries take up supply, which is provided by your main base (higher tiers provide more supply). Damage and armor upgrades will affect certain mercenaries. More mercenaries will be added in future releases.

Other than the addition of mercenaries, four new high-level items have been added, as well as some balance changes and bug fixes.

New Features

• Added Mercenary Fortress.
• Added hireable mercenaries:
  • Observer
  • MULE
  • Baneling
  • Sentry
  • Infestor
  • Medic
  • Medivac
  • Predator
  • Siege Tank
• Added new items:
  • Blades of Zeratul
  • Tassadar's Amulet
  • Multi-Phasic Shielding
  • TEK Dampening Gel

Gameplay Changes

Heroes

• Base energy regeneration rates of all heroes were decreased by 50%.
• Nova now does 50% damage vs. Structures [was 100%].

Terran

• Reapers can now attack air.

Protoss

• Feedback is now only 25% effective at draining energy when targeting heroes (this means it will drain energy equal to 12.5% of damage done instead of 50%).
• Decreased the range of Archons' unupgraded attack to 1 [was 1.5].

UI Changes

• Standardized health bar sizes for all bases.

Bug Fixes

• The Willpower attribute now gives the correct intended amount of bonus energy regeneration.
• The Ultralisk's attack info card now correctly reports that it deals 75% damage vs. Structures.

v0.1.6

Notes

This release is a standard balance tweak. The main issues were leveling the playing field when it comes to movement speed. In general, ranged units have had their movement speeds reduced while melee units have had theirs increased. This is to make it harder for ranged units to completely kite melee, which has caused some balance issues in previous versions. Another major change was the change of Dark Templars' and Stalkers' damage mechanics. Essentially, the two had their damage mechanics swapped to put the two respective units in line with the rest of their tech branch.

Gameplay Changes

General

• Decreased collision radius of Xel-Naga Obelisk.
• Reduced the AoE of base attacks.

Heroes

• Increased the model size and collision radius of all heroes.

Terran

• Increased attack period of Reapers to 1.7 [was 1.5].
• Reapers now do 75% damage to Structures [was 50%].
• Decreased movement speed of Reapers to 2.5 [was 2.75].
• Decreased movement speed of Ghosts to 2.25 [was 2.5].

Protoss

• Increased attack damage of Zealots to 2x8 [was 2x7].
• Changed Dark Templar's attack to only hit once. Changed damage to 24 [was 2x10].
• Dark Templars now do 75% damage to Structures [was 50%].
• Increased movement speed of Dark Templars to 3 [was 2.8].
• Increased movement speed of High Templars to 2.25 [was 2.15].
• Changed Stalker's attack to hit twice. Changed damage to 2x12 [was 24].
• Stalkers now do 100% damage to Structures [was 50%].
• Decreased movement speed of Stalkers to 2.5 [was 2.9].
• Increased movement speed of Immortals to 2.5 [was 2.25].
• Hardened Shields now increases Archons' shield armor by 1.25 [was 1].

Zerg

• Increased movement speed of Broodlings to 3.5 [was 3].
• Zerglings now do 100% damage to Structures [was 75%].
• Increased movement speed of Zerglings to 3.25 [was 2.75].
• Decreased movement speed of Infested Marines to 2.25 [was 2.5].
• Increased movement speed of Aberrations to 2.5 [was 2.25].

UI Changes

• Changed model of Support Center and changed name to Market.
• Increased minimap radius of heroes.

Bug Fixes

• Damage upgrade now increases SCV's damage by the correct amount.

v0.1.5a

• HOTFIX*
• Fixed player starting resources.

v0.1.5

Notes

Version 0.1.5 focuses mainly on balance changes and some bug fixes, and doesn't introduce many new features to the map. The first main balance issue that this release hopes to address is the extremely high survivability of heroes with a combination of high armor and fast movement speed. These heroes took very little damage from units without a great number of damage upgrades and could easily kite away from enemies even at relatively low levels. To address this, the armor and movement speed bonus of all relevant attributes have been decreased. To compensate for the increased difficulty in increasing the movement speed of heroes, the base movement speed of most heroes were also increased.

The second issue is the relative ease with which players could attain tier 2 if they chose to tech at the beginning of the game instead of getting a hero. The 2000 starting mineral meant that players could tech to tier 1 and only need to obtain 500 more minerals to be able to tech to tier 2, something that could often be done within the first 5 or 10 minutes of the game. This left players that chose to recruit a hero at a significant disadvantage, since tier 0 units were never meant to be able to effectively compete with tier 2 units when backed by relatively low-level heroes like you would find such a short time into the game. Therefore, the starting minerals players receive have been reduced to 1500 while the cost of all heroes have been reduced to 1400 minerals.

The final balance issue was the fact that the Terran ranged units Marines, Reapers, Marauders, and Ghosts were overpowered due to their ability to execute hit and run attacks where they pause for a split second to fire their weapons, retreat away from any units that were chasing them, pause again to fire, and repeat until the enemy is dead or crippled. To prevent this from happening, the time it takes for the aforementioned units to fire their weapons has been significantly increased, forcing them to pause for longer periods of time in order to fire, giving enemy units the chance to catch up to them.

Gameplay Changes

General

• Decreased the starting minerals of all players to 1500 [was 2000].
• Decreased the mineral cost of Emergency Transporter to 100 [was 250].
• Increased the range of base attacks to 10 [was 8].
• Improved base attacks to have AoE splash damage.
• Added vespene resource costs to Damage, Armor, and racial upgrades at higher levels.

Heroes

• Decreased the cost of all heroes to 1400 minerals [was 1750].
• Decreased the energy regeneration bonus of Clarity, Focus, Intellect, Vigor, and Willpower by 50%.
• Decreased the armor bonus of Clarity, Discipline, Endurance, Fortitude, Strength, and Willpower.
• Decreased the movement speed bonus of Dexterity and Endurance.
• Increased the base movement speed of:
  • Raynor to 2.5 [was 2.25]
  • Tosh to 2.8 [was 2.5]
  • Nova to 2.5 [was 2.25]
  • Karass to 2.5 [was 2.25]
  • Queen of Blades to 2.5 [was 2.25]
• Increased total damage output of Psi Storm, Storm of Centuries, and Storm of Reckoning to:
  • Psi Storm: 100/160/220 [was 100/140/180]
  • Storm of Centuries: 420/510/630 [was 330/390/480]
  • Storm of Reckoning: 280/340/420 [was 220/260/320]
• Increased cast time of Snipe, Hawkeye Snipe, and Penetrator Snipe to 1 second [was 0.50 seconds].

Terran

• Increased movement speed of SCVs to 2.5 [was 2.25].
• Increased the amount of time it takes for Marines, Reapers, Marauders, and Ghosts to fire their weapons.

UI Changes

• Standardized minimap radius of bases.
• Increased minimap radius of heroes to make it easier to distinguish between heroes and units on the minimap.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that broke the Spawn Burst ability when the Spawn Burst upgrade was researched.
• Fixed Void Crystal and Psi Crystal to restore health/shields based on actual damage dealt instead of the hero's base damage.
• Fixed the descriptions of tier upgrades.

v0.1.4

Notes

This release addresses some serious balance issues with the map in the early game. First and foremost, going early tech instead of hero was simply too powerful; tier 0 units could not reasonably compete with tier 1 units even if backed up by heroes. To address this, the tier 0 unit SCV has been buffed, while all tier 1 units (Marines, Zealots, and Broodlings) have been nerfed slightly and heroes in general have been buffed by increasing their survivability.

The second pressing issue was that Psi Storm was too powerful in the early game. The large AoE and short time period over which the damage was dealt basically meant you could deal massive guaranteed damage to a very large number of units almost instantly. To address this, the damage of Psi Storm has been decreased at low levels (but increased at higher levels to keep it on par with some other abilities), the AoE has been significantly decreased, and the time period over which the damage is dealt has been increased to give players a chance to reposition their army to avoid some of the ability's damage.

New Features

• Added a new hero: Queen of Blades.
• Bases now have an attack.

Gameplay Changes

General

• Changed the way starting locations are allotted to players so that if there are only two teams in the game, they are guaranteed to be diagonally across from each other.
• Changed Regeneration Kit to heal 2000 health over 80 seconds [was 2000 health over 40 seconds].
• Experience bounties of all units and heroes were doubled.

Heroes

• Changed attributes:
  • Clarity: increases maximum shields by 15 [was 10].
  • Discipline: increases maximum health by 20 [was 15].
  • Endurance: increases maximum health by 30 [was 20].
  • Fortitude: increases maximum health by 30 [was 20].
  • Strength: increases maximum health by 20 [was 15].
  • Vigor: increases maximum health by 10 [was 5].
  • Willpower: increases maximum shields by 15 [was 10].
• Increased Karass' base maximum health to 250 [was 200].
• Increased the duration of Psi Storm, Storm of Centuries, and Storm of Reckoning to 4, 4, and 6.5 seconds [was 2, 2, 3], and changed total damage to:
  • Psi Storm: 100/140/180 [was 120/150/180]
  • Storm of Centuries: 330/390/480 [was 280/320/400]
  • Storm of Reckoning: 220/260/320 [was 210/240/300]
• Increased cooldown of Psi Storm, Storm of Centuries, and Storm of Reckoning to 5, 5, and 7.5
• Decreased AoE of Psi Storm and Storm of Centuries to 2.5 [was 3].
• Increased energy cost of Psi Storm, Storm of Centuries, and Storm of Reckoning to 135 [was 125].
• Increased Nova's base maximum health to 450 [was 400].
• Decreased AoE of Razor Swarm and Razor Scourge to 2.5 [was 3] and Razor Cloud to 3.5 [was 5].
• Heros will now give vespene bounty when killed if level 7 or above. The vespene bounty equals 50 + 10 * ([hero level] - 7).

Terran

• Increased SCVs' maximum health to 450 [was 400] and decreased attack period to 1.3 [was 1.4].
• Decreased Marines' maximum health to 420 [was 440] and base armor to 0 [was 1].

Protoss

• Decreased Zealots' spawn period to 10 [was 12], decreased maximum shields to 200 [was 300], base armor to 2 [was 3], maximum health to 450 [was 500], and attack damage to 7 [was 9]. Also decreased mineral bounty to 28 [was 30].

Zerg

• Decreased Broodlings' maximum health to 360 [was 400] and increased attack period to 0.9 [was 0.8].
• Decreased Zerglins' maximum health to 500 [was 525].
• Aberrations now do 75% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Ultralisks now do 75% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Adrenal Frenzy now costs 5% maximum health on activation.

UI Changes

• Changed unit and structure tooltips to appropriate descriptions.
• Changed description of Spawn Burst to better reflect its actual function.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where buff models attached to invisible units would still be visible, thereby giving away the positions of invisible units to opponents.
• Fixed bug where if a hero increased in level by more than one in a single experience gain, the game would still think the hero only increased in level by one.
• WORKAROUND: There was a bug in previous versions where reviving heroes with charged items in their inventories would restore the item to full charge. This is due to the nature of the workaround for a Blizzard bug involving items always dropping on death. To address this, all charged items have been changed to have a maximum of one charge. This affects:
  • Regeneration Kit
  • Nanodetector Swarm
  • Portable Scanner
• To compensate for the decreased charge per item (and to address balance issues), the cost of Portable Scanner was decreased to 100 [was 250] - the other two items were free to begin with so the change should only affect how much inventory space they take up. When Blizzard fixes the item bug, these items may be reverted back to their original forms.

v0.1.3

Gameplay Changes

• Locked game speed to Normal [was Faster].
• Added new items
  • Nanodetector Swarm (reveals cloaked/buried units for a short duration)
  • Integrated Recharger (increases energy regeneration rate)
  • Void Crystal (attacks replenish life)
  • Psi Crystal (attacks replenish shields)
• Changed functionality of Portable Scanner item: it now reveals the map in addition to cloaked/buried units, in addition it has infinite range. Also increased cost to 250 minerals [was 100].
• Heroes now have 4 Accessory item slots [was 5].
• Changed attack target priorities so that all units and heroes have the same priority, and bases have reduced priority.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed starting location bug (for real this time).
• Fixed another bug with win/loss conditions.
• Player units will now correcty be killed when they are defeated.
• Tosh, Nova, Zeratul, and Karass now correctly have the Use Emergency Transporter ability when carrying Emergency Transporter items. -Starting camera locations now centered on player bases instead of the bottom right corner of the map.

v0.1.2

Gameplay Changes

• Zerg's racial ability changed from Swarm to Spawn Burst.
• Doubled the base damage of all heroes.
• Added the Emergency Transporter ability to heroes to make it easier to use the Emergency Transporter item on demand.
• Accuracy now provides +1.5 damage/point [was +1]
• Marksman now provides +3 damage/point [was +2]
• Strength now provides +1.5 damage/point [was +1]
• Zealots now do 100% damage vs. Structures [was 50%].
• Broodlings now do 100% damage vs. Structures [was 75%].
• Bounty for all units reduced.
• Reworked base layout.

Bug Fixes

• Tier 4 special upgrades now correctly take 60 seconds to research.
• Fixed starting location bug.
• Fixed upgrade queue exploit.
• Fixed win/loss conditions.

v0.1.1

• Increased all spawn times by 50%.
• Increased Nova's and Tosh's collision and selection radius to 0.5 [was 0.375].
• Decreased Resupply Center's energy regeneration bonus to 5 [was 10].
• Fixed subgroup priorities.
• Changed terrain.

v0.1.0

• Initial alpha release.