PvE discussion/ideas

With class discussions all posted, there’s still a ton to talk about. I wanted to move onto something that was only a small part of GW, a larger part of GW2, and some of my favorite (if limited) parts of BfN. I’m talking about PvE (player vs. environment) content; players fighting against the AI as opposed to PvP (player vs. player) content; where a lot of the focus for all 3 games is centered upon. I’ll cover what we have and what I’d like to see in GW3.

Ops: I’ll cover these first as all 3 games have them.

• Garden Warfare: Set the standard for these and they’re enjoyable, especially thanks to great maps like Chomp Town, Crash Course, and Suburban Flats. But they’re also limited as you can only play plants for Garden Ops as Graveyard Ops weren’t a thing yet, they were much harder than in in GW2, which means much, much more difficult than in BfN, pots got vanquished if the AI so much as sneezed on them, and the greed issue. The greed issue I refer to is that when coins drop for whatever reason, only the player that grabbed them gets them. This was counter to the spirit of working together as a team, and glad this changed in GW2. Some of the special wave requirements were a bit crazy too, like take no damage at all is doable but not all that often. The evacuations were often extremely difficult too. Satisfying and fun, but even on normal these could be rough.
• Garden Warfare 2: I wouldn’t call these perfect but they’re as close as we can get between the 3 games. Being able to play as zombies, coins are shared across the team, the pots/bots work very well, difficulty seems tuned extremely well (barring a few exceptions), the challenge waves are largely improved (not a fan of no damage at all to the grave/garden though, as a single stray bullet ruins that), and evacuations are still there but not as difficult as GW1. The few complaints I do have are mostly associated with quests; ‘Defeat a Super Boss wave’ is an epic quest that can be so random to get done and frustrating that we can’t spend stars or something to ensure we get one, I’ve had 3 in a row, and have had to play 7+ times to get one; for some reason both ‘Complete 10 waves in Ops’ and ‘Complete 10 perfect waves in Ops’ are regular quests, and let me tell you, 10 perfect waves can take time, whereas 10 waves is guaranteed if you finish an ops; and finally the quests are weird across sides-for plants it’s ‘4 challenge waves’, and zombies is ‘5 challenge waves’, it’s an odd discrepancy that we also see for the Cactus/Deadbeard drone difference where the Cactus needs 10 drone vanquishes while the Deadbeard one is 10 with the eggs-plosion ability specifically. Barring those issues, I don’t feel GW2 Ops need much changed; add in the GW maps and some new ones, allow us to force super boss waves, more variety in special waves, more bots/pots to summon, more varied AI, and we’d be golden.
• Battle for Neighborville: I’ll be blunt here; ops in BfN are mostly bad. The Wildflower and TV Head AI being so common ruin pots/bots, the lack of enchanted gardens/graveyards and options to place them reduce variety and interest, no evacuations removes tension, Ops phase 3 never being implemented was disappointing as it sounded like it would have brought much needed changes to the game’s Ops, not enough bots/pots to choose from, Super Beans not having spotting icons is a serious bug that can make some maps drag on as you hunt them down, spotting icons for spawning AI and yet there’s nothing there, lack of themes for special bosses and related AI, far too easy most of the time and no difficulty selection, unable to select which side you play (which for me isn’t that big of a deal as I like both sides, but it could be annoying for challenges for specific characters and you end up on the other side), and no actual coins or diamonds and so on spawning (automatic coins for the Treasure Yeti and Marigolds isn’t as engaging), all combine to make BfN Ops the worst of the lot. I do like the elite bosses as they’re like boss hunts from GW2 but you won’t fight them for 30+ minutes and still fail at times, and sometimes I don’t want a full 10 waves so 5 waves is a nice option, but that’s about it. BfN Ops are one of the game’s weakest aspects. So much is missing or not working here that no wonder I remember players who love Ops were some of the most aggressive detractors of BfN way back at launch. Like much of BfN, Ops feel incomplete, like the ideas were there but not fully acted on and I wish we could have gotten Ops phase 3 to at least add more options and ideas to the mode. One thing I do like in BfN Ops though; the ‘take no damage on your grave/garden’ is instead a threshold so one stray bullet doesn’t ruin it by bad luck.

Central Hub: GW just has a lobby/menu like most traditional online shooters so doesn’t have an entry here.

• Garden Warfare 2: The Backyard Battleground is without a doubt, one of the best things I have ever seen in a video game. When I first got GW2 and went through that little Sunflower intro sequence, and then arrived at the backyard, I was amazed. Here was a world that felt alive and organic, full of stuff to do, and my own private playground! I’ve played many MMOs that try to simulate their own worlds but all fall short of this battleground where you can have multiple bosses battle, find hidden Easter eggs and puzzles to solve, explore, quest, and just mess about. It’s part of why I have so many hours in the game as I can just login and live in my own PvZ world. I can’t give the backyard battleground enough praise, it’s just so great. The only real complaints I have are that it’s just not large enough, and there’s not enough places to place our decorations, especially only a single legendary spot! I had originally thought that seeing all the construction machinery outside the boundaries meant we were going to get more, and while we did get the door to the Gnomiverse later on, the backyard could have been even greater, and that’s why I suggested the extremely customizable Personal Neighborhood in the next game not too long ago. I absolutely love the Backyard Battleground and want to see a bigger, better version in the next game. I can’t praise this feature enough, it’s just that good.
• Battle for Neighborville: We have Giddy Park, which just doesn’t work as well as the Backyard Battleground and spawn camping is rampant in open instances. It’s not terrible, but after GW2’s similar area, it’s worse in almost every way and barring a few nice touches like the Gnome Puzzle and the Fishing buddy quests, it’s not as fun, interesting, or engaging as the Backyard Battleground. The AI are limited to the TV Heads and Wildflowers which are already my least favorite AI in any of the games and boring as the only AI; the lack of bosses, heroes, champions, and varied AI make the spawn camping worse. The way the bases are completely separate and you have to launch to the amusement park to even engage the AI and other players only makes it a less satisfying experience. I do like how it looks and the way it changes with the seasons, they made it looks especially nice in the night versions. Like a lot of BfN, the potential here is great, but it was never fully realized. To address the open PvP idea that Giddy Park brings, but to keep things far more interesting and to prevent spawn camping, I also posted my ‘Open Battlefield’ idea a couple months back. If we had both the personal neighborhood and the open battlefield it would give us the best of both worlds in GW3.

Story/Quests/Puzzles: GW has nothing here again as it’s PvE was limited, but the other 2 games have substantial entries here.

• Garden Warfare 2: The quest board is a mix of PvE and PvP, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but to this day I still do almost all the quests every time they pop up every 46 hours. In GW2’s case, I’m more interested here in the story quests, the side quests (like hot rod chicken), puzzles, and minigames. GW2 did a great job here with these, especially the story quests. Some of the more difficult delivery quests took many tries to get S rank on, and I wish we had more of these to do, but what we have is a nice bonus to a game that took the PvP focus of GW and added so much more. Getting the snow globes, finding the golden gnomes, opening all the chests (especially with the Everlasting Crown), and earning those badges all felt fun and worthwhile.
• Battle for Neighborville: BfN does have a couple things to do in Giddy Park, but once you solve that gnome puzzle, get the fishing buddy stuff done, and then help with the pies (which also involves the free roam regions), there’s not much to do; riding the rides for coins you don’t need as you can’t spend them on anything isn’t exactly engaging, the plant piano is fun but nothing amazing, and the zombie dance hall of obedience is similar but more rewarding. The Free Roam Regions though, are great fun and I loved exploring them, finishing the quests, solving the puzzles, fighting the gnome bosses (especially Biff, whose music and battle stage I love), and unlocking the costumes and other rewards were all great times. The only issue I really have with them, is that they all felt a bit too much alike; get 3 pieces together to open up special chests and the boss fight, fight the boss, and then just mess about. Had they made them more unique and had more reasons to go there beyond 100% completion and then move on, they could have been even better.

Other: Stuff that doesn’t neatly fit elsewhere goes here.

• Garden Warfare 2: Infinity Time. While not the best thing ever and it gets a bit dull after playing it several times, it gave us a nice extra mode to play when we finished story mode and a place to spend all those stars. They added the packs to get the Party Character pieces that way, but before that, the only way to get them was playing this mode. It could be fun at first, but I haven’t touched this in a while. It’s a far better mode with at least one friend rather than solo, but it is playable solo, and feels like an ‘end game’ of a sort for GW2.
• Garden Warfare 2: Boss Hunts. These are very disparate in difficulty, even before taking actual difficulty settings into account. The Brothers Gnomus is easy, then Sasquatch is much harder but also quite a bit easier than either Spooky Squash or the Yeti King, both of which can be extremely difficult to bring down. These really need to make a return in the portal so everyone who wants the hats and achievements can get them done, and they’re actually fun to a point, although spending half an hour on one only to fail after all that work is extremely frustrating.
• Garden Warfare 2: Trials of Gnomus. Once the keys were made to be automatic instead of random from the red chests, these were quite fun and while the blue and red trials were extremely difficult for me, the green one wasn’t easy, but not too difficult, and the yellow was easy once I switched to character without splash damage. It took time to finish these and get enough rainbow stars to open the locks, but getting Torchwood and Hovergoat, along with legendary hats and some backyard items was well worth it. Not a fan of them later being sold for real money, but it felt good and was a nice goal, to get them from the trials. Good stuff here, just wish the Gnomiverse had more to do after the trials were complete.
• Garden Warfare 2: Holiday quests. BfN has the prize maps that are holiday related but they barring the Thanksgiving pie hunts, and the Gnome stealing luck we had briefly, we never got things like the bat or snowman we used to get in GW2. Those were easy and short but a nice touch all the same.
• Garden Warfare 2: Backyard Items. A minor thing to be sure, but being able to place items we got from questing, the trials of Gnomus, and so on let us add a personal touch to our backyard and is a big part of why I want to expand on this idea to a large degree for GW3.

What I would like for GW3 PvE:

• Ops: Mostly GW2 ops with some tweaks. Let us get super boss waves and Elite boss waves via player input (spending a currency, voting, or what have you), so we can plan for it and not have someone who has no clue trying to deal with the elite boss mechanics. Add some new challenge/special waves. Bring back the AI for solo Ops. Have an option for shorter-5 wave Ops like in BfN (maybe solo only to not dilute the player pool among too many modes for matchmaking).
• Free roam regions: definitely bring these back but make them deeper and more of a long-term source of play. More quests for the storylines, add some random events, let us unlock AI to summon in other modes from playing in them, and make them more diverse as far as how they play out to make them all feel fresh and exciting. Done well, these could replace Infinity Time as the ‘end game’ PvE and be more enjoyable to boot.
• Central Hubs: Have the heavily customizable Personal Neighborhood as our main home and PvE (PvP with invites and visitors as an option of course), as it’s the Backyard Battleground but bigger and better. For the PvP hub; the Open Battlefield would cover that end.
• Other stuff:  Boss hunts should return separate of Ops, maybe Op elite boss waves are simplified/streamlined versions of these full-on boss hunts which could be part of the free roam regions. Have some kind of quest/challenge system, but doesn’t need to copy the quest board of GW2 or the challenges of BfN, but some kind of PvE objectives we can pursue at our own pace would be very welcome. More puzzles, holiday events and so on. Have gnomes attack us, special semi-co-op events where we fight the gnomes and each other (a kind of PvEvP thing), and so on. There is so much source material for the PvZ universe and we could use all of it and more for a new shooter!