I'll toss in my thoughts, but in a slightly different format.
What GW1 did right:
- It feels like PvZ. Crazy Dave is defending homes and cities from Zombie invasions. It is a bright and colorful world to play in and makes for a cheery game.
- Coins were valuable. GW1 was created and balanced before the inclusion of micro transactions. This meant that earning coins was worth something because the game was balanced for players to earn things without ever having the ability to buy coins.
- Leveling was reasonable. There were 313 levels total, each level pasted 10 requiring 15 challenges be met or stars used.
What GW1 did wrong:
- Leveling challenges. This doesn't apply to all of them but there are a few that stand out as terrible. Within a match challenges are the worst offenders. Failure to complete these challenges would result in all work being reset. This lead to hyper focusing on a singular task and not the greater game goal. Worse still it made your allies your competition. If I want to destroy All-Star dummies I have to find them before my teammates do. All the while not paying attention to the point but rather searching the battlefield for dummies. There are other frustrating challenges but they escape me right now.
- Abundance of Skip Stars. Speaking of challenges, the plentiful skip stars completely undermined the value of rank. While I'm sure everyone with Unicorn Chomper in GW2 is thankful, it made being 313 a lot less meaningful. Anyone could reach max rank skilled or otherwise, it could be done without completing even a single challenge manually. I fully understand the need for them to exist but, not even close to the quantities they came in.
- Lack of Graveyard Ops. While it could be argued that Herbal Assault was also missing, I wouldn't be upset if it wasn't. However, the fact that Zombies could only be leveled in PvP settings rather than a PvE setting like Ops put them at a sore disadvantage. In fact, for awhile the community was raging over team switchers, who they thought were only after coins. Not true, I was one of those switchers for a very long time. Not because I wanted coins (I had long collected everything) but because it needed to catch up my zombies to the plants who could clear several challenges in a single Garden Ops. Sure Herbal Assault would help balance the coin unbalance in G&G but for challenges sake only Graveyard Ops is required.
- Lack of "Single Player". If there were one thing I would add to a remake of GW1 it would be solo play like what is in GW2. Many Challenges were frustrating due to being in a single match or difficult to do against live players. Consider that plants could do many challenges against AI while zombies didn't get the chance. But,, more importantly, now in the twilight of the game's life it can be hard to find matches for specific game modes or at all. Solo play would eliminate all of that. Graveyard Ops would help with leveling zombies but, Solo Play would solve that and more. Again it would be the one thing that determines if I bought a remake or not. The rest can be worked around.
Things GW2 did right:
- An experience based leveling system. This means that the player is rewarded for playing the game as normal. No more hyper focusing on sub tasks (well, not including the challenge board). It also means that players are rewarded as they play, no stars to artificially speed up the process. While there are faster ways to level, everyone is on the same level. Rank is a testament to the player skill/play time.
- Solo play. Not only can players play alone with AI, they can also alter team formations, crazy settings, difficulty and more. This option allows even the best PvP players a chance to relax and have a bit of fun. It also means that in the future as the game's popularity wanes there is always a way to play the game.
- Weekly events. Unlike Solo which constricts experience and coins with crazy settings players can play match ups customized by Pop Cap. It also grants the bonus of sometimes being able to play variants not yet unlocked. It makes the player feel like part of a team rather than a random group of players. Chomper vs. Scientists, All-Stars vs. Sunflowers, in matches like these you might be a sunflower among sunflowers and you have access to all variants. It also provides several interesting match ups to break up the every day grind.
Things GW2 did wrong;
- Time gates and grinding. RUX and Community Portal stickers are limited to a specific amount each week or month. Infinity Time requires building up coins or stars. Infinity Time takes 15-40 minutes for a sticker and there are 122. There are 5455 levels to get, which even at the fastest is around 10 levels every 15 minutes. Coin inflation is worse now too, so grinding coins is more of a job than a past time. This is GW2's worst quality. I personally blame it on a mobile game mentality which restricts game play in exchange for real money. If I were to buy a remake of GW2 it would require a faster more stable way to earn many of these stickers.
- Coin inflation. Now for some more detail on coins. In GW1 it took 40k to unlock one variant but in GW2 it takes 75k, Infinity Time packs cost 200k and there is millions and millions of coins worth of standard stickers. Unlike GW1 this game had micro transactions built in from the beginning and was balanced to match. This means coins are worth less in order to make real money transactions seem more valuable.
- Variant leveling. Rather than class based leveling there is variant based leveling. This causes two issues. First, to reach max rank players must play as variants they may not like for extended periods of time. Sure, they should try each class but it shouldn't be mandatory. This is another case of work over past time. The second issue is in order to justify separate levels per variant each variant needs a significant number of levels. This leads to 5455 levels in the game, a truly massive undertaking.
- Unicorn Chomper. Its simple giving a select group of people a bonus for an unreasonable task was a bad idea. There are dozens of ways this could have been handled better, but it wasn't.
- Dark worlds. While I am indifferent to the lack of PvZ feeling in GW2, I do get bothered by the overall darker cosmetics. For a game being played for extended periods of time the darker feel gives a more depressing less enjoyable feeling while being played. It took awhile to place this feeling but after playing GW1 again I found it much easier to play for long periods of time without feeling decreasing enjoyment. (Maybe Nintendo is on to something.)
So, for GW3 what should be fixed or improved.
- Class based levels. Like GW1 levels and therefore rank should be class based, not requiring that all variants be played. However, I also think that the challenge board or something similar could offer exp bonuses for certain variants. For example, get 20 vanquishes as Fire Cactus and get a XXX exp bonus for the cactus class. It is encouraged optional experience rather than a mandatory requirement. This also means a more reasonable rank could be created. Instead of 5455 maybe 1400. Keep in mind that doesn't mean the leveling is required to be faster, in exchange for less levels each could require more work.
- Omega sticker pack. RUX, IT, CP, Legendary, Holiday and many others are a pain to collect. I think a great fix would be a single pack that has the entire known sticker pool in it. (And I do mean everything. The only exclusions should be Deluxe edition exclusives and only if it is handled the way GW2 was.) Make it expensive, make it only have a few stickers per pack, whatever, just make it exist. The focus of this pack should be for players who are finishing up their sticker collections, those last few elusive stickers. (It would be wildly wasteful to buy these packs with a near empty stickerbook.) These players put in their dues, possibly tens of millions of coins. Stop punishing players close to completion, give them a way to finish the sticker book. They shouldn't have to wait week after week for 6 stickers, month after month for RUX to bring nothing. Don't get me wrong, I still want certain stickers to be special but waiting an entire year for a few stickers missed at Halloween or from RUX is unreasonable. Again, this pack only becomes beneficial near the very end of collecting stickers.
- Frequent small updates. After the major DLC packs there should be a few small updates every couple months or even sooner. This could be a new chunk of cosmetics (just 10-20 or so). It could be a new map (TT or Ops style). The key here is to just have something. I will add that in the case of cosmetics I think they should be randomly bought one at a time from a shop of some sort. They would stay in that shop until the next update at which point they go into the omega packs. Make them 20k a piece if necessary. Overall, it gives new goal for players who otherwise have everything else.
- Solo play 2.0. Overall, GW2 solo play leaves little to be desired but, there is a bit. First, an option to customize teams of 12 players. This means class and variant for both teams. If human players choose to switch team they will replace the top AI. So player one would replace AI #1, if there is two players it would take #2 and so on. the last feature should be difficulty setting. This way players can simulate differing levels of player skill. So to recap, in addition to the settings found in GW2, players get a custom option. (think of it as just another option like cosmic brains, imps only, pirates only and so on) Here they can set the class, variant and difficulty or each player on the team. Finally, they can turn custom setup on or off. On makes the AI a clone of the player's variant (Just like Ops in GW2), off is base settings. Overall, I think this gives a nice variety for players of all skill levels to play the game the added customization also gives more realistic control of what a PvP match is like.
- Bring back the cheery levels. This is both from a classic PvZ feel and as a player stand point. Obviously the more like PvZ is feels the more nostalgic the game will be and the more it will appeal to PvZ fans. But, it is also based on the observation I made about the feelings while playing. Dark and moody causes players to feel dark and moody, while cheery makes the game feel more fun and allows for longer play sessions. When work sucks I want to play a fun game to relax not continue sitting in the feelings from work.
Took two hours to put my thoughts together so I may have missed something. But, I have thought about each of these things for awhile. (And a long while for that matter, plenty of time to think while I endlessly grind away in GW2) I'll edit this if I think of anything else.
