It's been a while since I've heard the community discuss Brood War balancing. I think the issue has been debated for decades and at this point is a dead horse beaten, buried, revived and beaten again. I think most Brood War fans/players/enthusiasts have very strong feelings about this topic, and we've heard and know the positions already:

1. Terran turrets should deal normal (not explosive) damage.
2. Zealots are too tanky and strong for an early-game first tier unit.
3. Dark Swarm is busted.
4. The game remains balanced through the ever-changing map pool.
5. The game is perfectly balanced and needs no change.

etc. etc. etc.

Here's my take:

If there is one thing that prevents Brood War from being flawless, it is the rigid fragility of ZvZ. This matchup is often described as a 'knife fight in a phone booth' and is arguably the most unforgiving matchup in all of RTS due to razor-thin margins and extremely low econ. The matchup almost never sees Hive tech, Defilers, or Ultralisks because the game ends on 1-2 base (max) and is always the same thing in 99.9% of matches: zerglings & mutas. As a zerg main I never thought this was right. No matchup (even if it is a mirror matchup) should be reduced to only 2 units. That's just silly.

I've given extensive thought over the years as to how the ZvZ matchup could be modified in such a way that game balance will remain intact, yet the option for many different strategies & build orders can be opened up (much like TvT -- how a real mirror matchup should be) and here's what I think could work💯

Slightly reduce the mutation time or mineral cost of spore colonies. Spores take forever to build (25 seconds) not to mention you have to morph the creep colony and then morph the spore which requires the player to pan the camera to said location 3 separate/total times over 25 seconds -- I don't need to remind you guys that Brood War is extremely mechanically / APM intensive and having to go back and issue a command 3 times just to get one defensive air structure (to me) is worse than the total 175 mineral cost (which is also way too high)

The Result: This would allow a Zerg player who is slightly behind to safely defend their base from mutas, thus breaking the binary "whoever has 2 more Mutas wins" meta. It would force ZvZ into longer, strategic macro games where players could actually tech up to Lurkers, Plagues, and Hive units, matching the epic scale of the other matchups and making for much more interesting & competitive games.

I know what you protoss/terran mains are thinking. "a zerg player complaining about spores needing a buff when zerg is already the most OP race with the 3 most OP units (ling/defiler/muta)" please understand that I'm not making a case that zerg needs a buff to be balanced, I do believe there is some merit to the 'zerg op' argument.

I'm simply trying to entertain a hypothetical of how zerg could be patched in such a way that the ZvZ matchup will be completely revolutionized while simultaneously ensuring the other 2 matchups remain unaffected and this is the best thing I can come up with.

• Here's an illustration to help provide you guys with a full understanding of the current game state's air defensive structures (the turret, cannon, spore):

What do you guys think? Is Brood War the most balanced RTS & best esport of all time or is the game in need of a balance patch??

If there's one thing that's always bugged you about BW that you feel could easily be fixed (about any of the 3 races) while maintaining the integrity of equal balance or perhaps even make the game more balanced than it already is what do you think it is?

Looking forward to your responses. I always love this debate!!

Is it normal to have people in F rank with like 700-800 MMR and 300 APM with good vultures micro etc.? 😅 Or those people just like destroying noobs?

I suck but sometimes it feels more fair to play vs E or D rank but some people from really low ELO were like..

impossible

Hey guys, a few things:

1. Last Chance Qualifiers are this weekend

BSL23 Last Chance Qualifier #1 - SIGN UP HERE
BSL23 Last Chance Qualifier #2 - SIGN UP HERE

Start 21:00 CEST | 15:00 EST | 12:00 PST

2. Sorry for my ADHD observing

When I'm casting, producing and observing at the same time, I use my mouse as a pointer to show what I'm talking about – and since English isn't my first language, I end up clicking random units while searching for words... I've watched some of the VODs and I can see how bad it looks, so I'll focus on not doing it. Apologizes and thank you for pointing that out. Fortunately, I'm only casting during the qualifying phase, which ends this weekend. After that I'll focus on producing and observing, which should improve the broadcast quality.

3. Weekly Report #3

ret & UltrA book Pro seats, Teutonica & Kik0 go into Jungsu, Nesh pulls off a 253-point upset on Azhi_Dahaki, and JDConan climbs +224 on the ladder.
For more exciting stats, check the new portal: https://bsl.baldogru.com/seasons/100bc3e7-adee-4917-b438-db5eb540c055?tab=weekly

P.S. Confirm your participation in BSL23
Please confirm your participation in the main season, even if you haven't met the min required number of games yet. https://bsl.baldogru.com/faq/confirm-seat

https://ibb.co/NdQk0zBD

As I type this, I accelerate for five, six minutes

Easily point out the weak links in this village

If you cannot exceed the speed limit

Then hop inside a public transit

Running this current with 208 voltage

Fantastic addicts can’t let go of their habits

Snap into magic, like a Terran Medic’s passive

When your infantry units are damaged

Statistics display madness, wrecked in havoc/

Twisted mine like lemon lime, I haven’t had the time

To plant these spider mines, I come out like surprise/

Blood type Alkaline, Hydralisks attack with Needle Spines

Welcome to Broodwar, this is finally Part 5!

No need for a crooked bar, grab a knife

Paralyze, with the pair of dice, hope you dyed like fried rice

Never liked sui*ide but a Scourge flies twice

Until it gets hijacked and changes course midflight

Now I ride until I die so I decide to collide

Right into the CC, closed caption writes

Seeing red like Negan walking amongst the dead

Proceed to bless this event with the infested

Sometimes I ponder why my words spark controver,

Sy would run out of supplies, increase the Psi

Even a rocket launcher makes a rapper cross genres

Go bonkers, like a monster conquering Yonkers and onwards

No sponsor, just filled a page like a lil’ kid with his homework

Twisted a verb like a twist bra on her

Act your age, I saturate this magistrate with the pastry I ate

Controversy, I wear it like a sports jersey with a bar of Hershey’s

A bully technically truly pulled up in this race, just to fulfill the Terran race

Who’s to blame? Whose username is in this game?

I hate you Protoss guys I hate you I hate you I hate you

They can run their tournament how they want, but 2 weeks seems like a crazy long time to wait, considering that semifinals consist of two whopping sets. It's like, after so much starcraft, it kind of ends on a whimper rather than a bang, density wise at least.

Can we start a list of really horrible players that are ruining us west, especially by the manner

- death_yell
-wixxkorea
-legacy

There are many more.

Terrible manners and awful builds like 4 pool every game.

How to confirm participation in BSL23?

1. Create account on BSL Portal - https://bsl.baldogru.com/faq/create-account
   
2. Go to players list, find yourself and link to your account - how to link profile
   
3. Link your Discord account - how to link discord
   
4. Link your Battle.net account - how to link bnet account
   
5. Confirm participation in BSL Portal here
   
6. BSL DISCORD -> #👉confirm-participation - if you confirmed correctly, it will notify you here.
   FAQ: https://bsl.baldogru.com/faq

In your account you can also:
- Add you picture (if you want a profile to show on stream)
- Answer questions for the profiles (if you want a profile to show on stream)
- Attach your stream channels (twitch, yt, kick etc) - it will show when you are live + we will add those in the profiles

What's next?

Ladder stage ends in 2 days, but you can confirm already and keep grinding the ladder and try to qualify to ProLeague in LCQ #1 & #2 this weekend.

Saturday 21:00 CEST - Last Chance Qualifier #1 SIGN UP HERE
Sunday 21:00 CEST - Last Chance Qualifier #2 SIGN UP HERE - Ro24 Group draw after

P.S. If you have any problems confirming - let us know on discord, webpage is still under development.

Much love,
0

Say I have 6 hatcheries and there’s a fight that’s gonna go on for a while so I want units to continuously stream in with low effort.

But it’s a lot of clicking and time to set all 6 hatches to do that. I know I can click on the minimap but is there some obscure trick to this?

I am low apm noob

Rush will win ASL 22

Soulkey will be the 1st 5x ASL champion

I remember an old Melee map I used to play a long time ago that I want to see if I can dig back up again. I thought it was called "Bigger X marks the spot" but, I might be misremembering details, as I have not been able to find it. It was similar to "TheFastest$$MapEver" in that the start locations were surrounded by minerals and gas but instead of space for 2 CC/Nexus/hatchery, the map had space for 3. It used the same jungle tileset. I believe the map was rectangular instead of square, giving players starting on the corners less of an advantage than other similar maps. And finally, it had minerals forming a bottleneck funnel at the entrance to each base that were not intended to be mined. (I think they the map was somehow saved with the deposits containing zero minerals) Any Idea what the map is?

I'd guess this map was from 1998, as I remember playing it before I got broodwar, but I don't think I got broodwar on release though, so it may have been later.

Ultimate StarCraft: Age of Darkness makes the game more readable by including more detailed tooltips, adds build/work graphics for Protoss and Zerg structures, restores some 17-direction unit graphics from the Starcraft BETA instead of the released 8-facing ones, punishes glitch strategies via ingame mechanics (such as workers having splash damage, making worker stacking undesirable), increases customization, adds team colors to critters and powerups, Aldaris has a proper Judicator ingame representation (instead of an unfinished placeholder), wireframe fixes, visible indicator for heroic units, and much more.

Download: https://www.moddb.com/mods/ultimate-starcraft-age-of-darkness/downloads/ultimate-starcraft-age-of-darkness-10-with-hd-system#downloadsform

Lore and information: https://yourcreatures.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:Ultimate_Starcraft_-_Age_of_Darkness

Use numpad "+" and "-" to change ingame resolution and ResSettings.ini to set your ten resolutions. Directly zooming with mouse wheel is not yet implemented in the mod (I guess rich AI people are doing this with a billion tokens or something, I only refactor and improve on existing code - plus I'm so poor I can't even activate windows, ha há hán't). The native resolution changer is based on re-adapting and fixing the old Insect Loader injector, and making it more native.

It was pretty weird that you normally could not play in teams with+against the computer in SC1 unless you made a clunky "multiplayer" game, now you can play it from single player mode.

Due to BW 1.16.1 being freeware and abandonware, the mod was made stand-alone, portable, and doesn't require installation or CD.

As of now the project is incompatible with Remastered (which has DRM, is online-service-based, and has un-free-as-in-beer assets)

Note: I am not the author of these custom campaigns, these are campaigns that were only currently distributed by the community and would not normally run in modern systems since they would be detected as viruses (which I fixed by separating the executable from the data and adding the QoL features). The campaigns also have crash-guarding corrections and some map changes for errors in mods.

To play a modded campaign: Launch its executable and go to Brood War mode, then if it does not have Play Custom.

You ARE authorized to modify and redistribute the modifications. Its original content such as new/altered graphics and original binary code is to be considered released on a Creative Commons 4.0 NC-BY-SA license.

Also: If you find any bug with the game, please do tell me! I want to fix anything found, my limitation is testing time since I am just one person and the changes/combinations endless.

1 week update

The cheaters are nearly in a queue of their own now, adoption has been quite massive.

1680 matches against cheaters have been cancelled so far through Sagi.gg launcher

Unlike the barcode who just repeats one line after another, this arrogant kid thinks he's so witty with his 50 cent rhymes, no pun intended. It's just so dumb and played out. They've literally been at this for almost a week now.

Ban both of these spammers forever to restore the old glory back into Broodwar En-1 and En-2 channels.

Hi im coming from Warcraft 3 and really want to get into broodwar. I'm not super good at managing large armies and struggle juggling multiple expansions so im wondering which race if any could consistently win early to mid game with relatively smaller army sizes and peaks around 2 bases.

Hey guys. I am going to return to the game casually, and may play some ladder too. Im going to get both sc1 and 2 but I really want to get back into 1.

I played 2 games in used map settings consistently on battle net, Ww2 Death In Europe (DIE), AND AEON of Strife. I was wondering, are these games still played, even somewhat? There was a special channel we would all hang out in for Die, I think it was HY but im not sure. So long ago.

Regardless ill have fun. Just have to source a new computer.

Zerg Translation Discord: https://discord.gg/wP836F7C3E

Hey everyone, I wanted to finally post that zerg translations are back in full swing! Myself and Dada have taken over making them happen, and we've been getting out 1-2 translations a month with the help of our incredible translator, Cava.

Currently we have over 100 premium guides, all available for one monthly fee of $10 on the Kofi (https://ko-fi.com/thespawningschool). This allows us to continue buying the guides from the Koreans, supporting their hard work in making the guides, and making sure we can pay our translator a fair amount as well. On top of this, we also have about 50 free resources for people who aren't subscribed, so there's something for everyone in the discord.

Make sure you hop in, and if you're interested, consider supporting the project so we can translate even more content!

Thank you all for being such an awesome community, I love you guys.
~Airn

BSL23 THIRD WEEKEND:

On Saturday we have $100 Ladder Tour - https://challonge.com/BSL23_Ladder_3

On Sunday we have two qualifier tournaments

a) upper - top2 proleague, top3-4 gosuleague - https://challonge.com/BSL23_Upper_3

b) lower - top2 jungsuleague, top3-4 hasuleague - https://challonge.com/BSL23_Lower_3

21:00 CEST

Qualified so far: