Is HotS worth it?

I'd like to keep balance talk out of here, but knowing that it's inevitable, just please don't side track the thread with pure balance talk and your suggestions on what stats these units have or what units should be invented.
I just want to know what everyone else's opinion is on the current development of the game, if the game is worth the money, and what changes need to be made to the game, both inside and outside of the actual gameplay ( and hopefully the brunt of all that balance talk won't show up here).
I realize there was an old "is hots worth it" thread, but that was made over 2 years ago and none of them knew of the problems that WoL has ran into, let alone HotS.

After watching some of the more high-profile HotS games, I'm seeing some recurring themes and problems, as well as some new ones.

Balance issues aside, the first issue I see as someone who followed the game since the beta of WoL is that it still just looks like WoL...all I see is just a really lazy remake. Maybe it was because WoL isn't the perfect template to base a game off of, but it's still just deathballs, dead shit, and more deathballs. I still can't tell what the hell is in it half the time, and it just seems like the only way to kill it off is to build a bigger ball. Yea, I can tell theres some new fancy stuff in the mix that shoot glowy lazer pew pew beams, but am I really going to pay $30 for that? I'm certainly not paying $60 for 2 expansions that just give me more flashy lights...WoL already has enough of that.
We're all guilty of just building deathballs and not trying to develop the game in a different direction, but its the only effective solution .. to counter a bigger army, you just have to build "more." Yea, so BW took a macro-oriented turn in it's latter part of its life, but it took some serious skill (and an entirely different skill-set at that) to use such a large army effectively because of the dumb AI. Now that SC2 has Sun Tzu as an AI, all the player has to do is expand, build, kill, repeat. There is no real skill involved in any of that; it's like having a national knitting competition and trying to monetize that.
I thought they would've introduced some kind of mechanic that would make controlling large armies difficult as compared to a smaller group of units. The only reason WoL is pure deathball is because it's too easy and there aren't enough drawbacks to using that "tactic." It seems to me that Blizzard's idea of balancing is to invent a new unit/bring out the nerf gun as some kind of a band-aid and say "it's fixed now; go play." That was evident in WoL Beta and you can still see it in the current patches. We're still using deathballs Blizzard, even after you nerfed everything.
If that's how they're going to go about this game, I'm just going to steal it from my friends who will get bored of this game in a month.
Summary-They need to stop introducing new units and gimmicks in HotS and start addressing the old ones in WoL that they can't do in a normal patch with some AI changes, terrain changes, and, if necessary, some extreme changes to the fundamental core of each race (i.e, queen mechanics, mules, chrono, production buildings, things of that nature).

The second issue I'm seeing is that as of now, many SC2 players are switching to the MOBA games because it's easier and fun, whereas WoL has lost that fun/rewarding edge. In order to lure them back to SC2, the game has to take one of two directions:
1) Further simplify the game so it's easier to do what the pros are doing
or
2) Make the game rewarding to play by separating ladders from the "fun" games (i.e, BGH and Fastest map possible), creating a novice mode where they can just direct units and ignore macro, or some new idea that doesn't involve screwing over the professionals of SC2.
And so far, I don't really see any effort towards luring the fanbase back to SC2.

Blizzard has taken the lazy road out of the first two by simply bringing out the nerf gun and saying "go create your own maps."
If they want to bring out the nerf gun every time someone cries "OP," they're going to be bringing out the nerf gun til we're all rolling in our graves when our grandkids are complaining about infestors (provided that they would still play this game..). If they continue to balance HotS like they did with WoL, this game isn't going to be very fun or rewarding when we try and completely rework our build orders and army compostions. Balancing SC2 like a MOBA game is not the right way to do things...they need to take advantage of HotS to make all the major changes, because even the slightest things can make a gigantic difference in this RTS.

If they want us to make our own custom maps, then the user experience has to be way better. Right now, they're just making Bnet into a popularity contest where the best maps are the ones that people play the most and the new ones get no exposure. And then they're adding a clan system, a market place, and leveling? People don't play LoL to level up; they play to get baron steals, pentakills, and epic ganks. Why are they taking this direction with the game amyways?
I'm almost certain they'll change the interface and make new, individual game modes along side the ladder, but in the case that they do not and still use their shitty Bnet 2.0 map searching system, HotS won't last half as long as WoL did.
And I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but the I don't know if Blizzard even has an imagination or a vision for this game. They're copy and pasting what previous RTS have done, refining the AI and changing the gameplay, tweaking things here and there, and expecting their contraption to actually work? It's one thing to create new units; it's an entirely different matter if you're just putting things in there just because it sounds cool.

Summary-I don't know what kind of politics are going on in the development of this game, but the end result is showing us they don't really have a direction for this game other than "money money money". If this game is going to follow in the footsteps of D3...then god be with us all.

I hoped that Blizzard would try and fix WoL with HotS rather than trying to expand on this dying game. This might be my "elitist" opinion of things, but I just don't want to throw away more money towards empty Blizzard games. Already did it for D3 and SC2, and I'm not about to do it again.

Poll: Are you happy with the direction that HotS is going in?

No (512)

53%

Yes (457)

47%

969 total votes

Your vote: Are you happy with the direction that HotS is going in?

(Vote): Yes
(Vote): No

Poll: Are you buying HotS?

Yes, no matter what (716)

66%

No, if they don't change it enough to make it worth it (274)

25%

Yes, but only if its worth it (63)

6%

No, I'm broke (29)

3%

1082 total votes

Your vote: Are you buying HotS?

(Vote): Yes, no matter what
(Vote): Yes, but only if its worth it
(Vote): No, if they don't change it enough to make it worth it
(Vote): No, I'm broke

EDIT: sorry about poll; fixed
EDIT2: wow i'm dyslexic. just vote for the "no, im not going to buy it if its not worth it option." Sry

Last edit: 2013-01-02 18:10:46

im deaf

DJFaqU January 02 2013 17:54. Posts 432