BlizzCon 2010 Liveblog: StarCraft II Secrets of the Masters

This is the transcript of Heartboune’s liveblog coverage of the StarCraft II Secrets of the Masters panel at BlizzCon 2010.

1:26 Heartbourne here, ready to begin delivering the latest from the “Starcraft 2: Secrets of the Masters” panel.

1:32 panel is starting now. people are clapping

1:33 “if you are top tier diamond, this panel isn’t for you”. LEAVING NOW

1:33 ooo they are going to talk about how the ladder works

1:34 they are going to give us “exclusive tips” that haven’t been revealed for how matchmaking system. its an “adaptive learning system”

1:35 as i’ve said before, it only uses win/losses and relative difficulty of opponents

1:36 “there is an internal rating that we use… that is a rolling average… to determine how we matchmake you”

1:36 the rating persists across seasons. it never wipes. “its really good for the players”

1:37 “it is not to be confused with your ladder points”

1:37 all ladders are individual internal ratings. other ratings are used for initial data but are quickly wiped

1:38 “you aren’t going to screw yourself by playing with your n00b friend”

1:39 “we do distribute the population per league – 20% per”. hmm, this does not match with the data on sc2ranks…

1:40 internal rating is used for matchmaking. the divisions and rankings themselves have no effect on matchmaking

1:41 “bonus pool is like rested XP in WoW – it WILL be cut off at some point in the season”

1:42 “about league promotions – we will only promote you when you are ready”

1:43 “we balance leagues and ladders on a constant basis.”

1:43 preview of stuff coming in coming months!

1:44 improving league icons!

1:44 Starcraft 2 League “icons” improving to show ranking on user profiles

1:45 improving detail page to showcase top 8 and make the pages more interesting and flashy

1:45 moving to season 2 soon. They will announce it well it advance. Wiping rankings and data, but keeping season 1 data in profile

1:46 MASTER LEAGUE OFFICIAL

1:46 top 1-2% of players in region

1:46 adding grand master league as well

1:47 top 200 players in every region

1:47 season 2 placement matches requires 1 match if you played season 1

1:47 grand master league featured very prominently

1:48 featured replays will be built into starcraft 2

1:48 “this just the beginning”

1:48 massive applause about the new top tier leagues

1:50 they are going to go over how to improve your game

1:50 going over “how pros train”

1:51 “these guys work really hard – they play 12+ hours. they aren’t born, they are made”

1:51 “if you suck at starcraft 2, you can play and you can get better”

1:51 “when they aren’t playing, they are studying”

1:52 seleCT – “don’t stress over losses – no pain, no gain”

1:52 “psychology is a huuuuuuge part of starcraft”

1:53 huK – “be a fan of the game and enjoy it”

1:54 demuslim – “focus on your mistakes” watch your replays of close games and figure out how you could have changed 1 or 2 things to win

1:56 “learn what works at YOUR SKILL LEVEL”. if you can’t execute a hellion drop, don’t worry about it

1:56 “always build workers”

1:58 just some simple tips – macro, workers, etc

1:58 “let your units be retarded on the battlefield” – pro tip for improving your macro

2:00 things to consider for maps – rush distance and air time

2:02 “we call this situation a ‘terrible, terrible damage situation'” inside joke for sc2 battle report veterans

2:03 talking about terrain now – chokepoint, walls, high ground

2:04 showed a video of some zealots destroying some marines, then another with marines fighting at a chokepoint and winning

2:04 “along with terrain, we have flanking”

2:06 “units change drastically depending in army size”

2:07 talking about micro now.

2:08 microing your stalkers means you are a good player!

2:08 “there are ways to overcome hard counters”

2:09 showing the banshee shoot-n-scoot as an example of micro. burst damage, etc

2:11 showing proxy rush examples

2:11 cannon rush!

2:12 use your workers to block proxy rushes

2:12 showing all in rushes now

2:15 showing “multitasking” – medivac drop to distract other player to open up for another attack

2:16 “we got the basics down” – time for audience questions

2:16 “do you have plans to show the hidden MMR?”

2:16 the MMR is actually several different numbers – its too complicated for one.

2:17 its also not that interesting as a set of numbers – it doesnt change or mean anything to most players

2:17 every team you have has different MMRs – but not races

2:18 they are aware players are afraid to change races because of this – are considering solutions

2:18 “chat channels and clans coming?” yes.

2:18 before the end of the year. private and public chat channels.

2:18 they are done – they are in the QA department and will be out in 1-2 months

2:19 most of these questions are off topic and dumb

2:20 “why did i gain so many points this one time?” “are you adding reavers?”

2:21 reapers and speed zerglings were too dominant and TZ was too strong in 2v2 – they watch variety of strategy across all skill with a slant to e-sports

2:22 “back in the wc3 days, there were more statistics on battle.net. are they coming to sc2?” yeah, we liked it, its coming down the road. its a web team project, not us

2:23 “our goal is to provide a rich web feature set”

2:23 “we don’t want to split up the leagues too much” on why they don’t split up MMRs due to race

2:24 “zerg is too hard to play. queen and hatchery is hard to use. halp”

2:25 we know that queen’s macro ability is harder than chrono boost and MULE – solution: build more hatcheries to macro better and make more stuff.

2:26 part of zerg is you are playing “chicken” – make as little army as possible as start to get more drones when playing an econ driven game

2:28 “what is a good way to use siege drops?”

2:28 use high ground and other terrain – and use siege tanks to cover eachother – “rolling” tanks

2:29 “any plans to add replay sharing?” yes. absolutely. look for that “next year”

2:30 And that’s it for the Starcraft 2: Secrets of the Masters panel. First Starcraft II tournament match starting soon!

2:30 Heartbourne signing off for this panel – full write-up coming later today with highlights.