StarCraft 2 released Patch 4.11.0, which officially introduces Arcturus Mengsk as the newest Co-op Commander and Announcer. New difficulties have been added to Co-op missions along with the usual balance changes. There's also a new map mechanic coming.
As a Co-op Commander, Mengsk controls the battle with an iron fist. He does this by feeding an endless stream of cheap troopers and softens opponents before letting the Royal Guard go in for the kill. You can learn more about Commander Mengsk here.
For Co-op Missions, the update adds Brutal+ difficulties. What this does is it createa random mutation challenges with increasing levels of difficulty. There is also the Retry Brutal+ setting which lets players to attempt a failed challenge on the same map and against the same enemy unit composition.
For this new difficulty, Brutal+1 can be queued with any level 15 commander through matchmaking. Brutal+2 through Brutal+6 however, as well as the Try Again setting, can only be played with a premade group.
Additionally, co-op players playing on Hard difficulty can now play at Faster game speed so that they can better match with Brutal players.
Going to the maps, a new mechanic has been introduced with Acceleration Zone Generators. These items generate a field that increases the movement speed of ground and air units within it by 35%. In order to identify the different zones, some changes have been made. The Acceleration Zone Generators, as well as the Generator minimap icons, are going to be colored green. This means that Inhibitor Zones, and their minimap icon, along with Time Warp bubbles, are now going to be colored red.
Other general changes arriving with the new update include:
- New Winter Announcer is now available.
- 16 Nation Wars 2019 team Portraits were added into the Nation Wars 2019 Complete Bundle available for purchase through Matcherino website.
- MMR is now revealed on the loading screen for Master and Grandmaster players in 1v1 ladder games.
- Account Management link has been added to the log in screen.
- Queue up with DeepMind feature is going to be shut down with this patch.
- Balance test tab is going to be disabled.
All of the changes, balances, and bug fixes, can be viewed here.
