Re: Is this the Plants vs Zombies we remember?

Hey, 

While I understand you need to include postive and negative points when discussing, however I feel there are few positives.  

Yes the soundtrack is good, graphics are good, colours are good, how they move it good but for me that is it. 

I get the neighbourhood feel and a very good point. I wasn't asking for random maps, I like it when a game takes the general play area and encourages in the maps. However, turf take over maps selection is poor and the games are way to short.  GW2 Gardens and graveyards was insane and canage all the time with the well designed maps which benefited both teams. They could of designed much more entertaining maps for me with much more going on for example the Dock map you could have ships moving around or cranes moving boxes making that environment more interactive like many of the maps on GW2 .

The last few days of playing turf take over has been hell, the same few maps which are so boring, team balancing is horrid and there is no character diversity. Every player is either a mushroom, snapdragon and pea shooter and you have very few of the others because they are not good enough and for the zombies well electric lady, superhero space cadet and again very few of the others. I loved the chomper in the last game however he is litterally pointless in this game, you can sprint as quick as he burrows. The whole idea of having to charge your ranged attacks with pirate and cactus doesnt make sence. The fact the cactus has radid fire when no aimed in is a joke. 

When I mentioned about variations of characters I don't think I was clear, it adds a different dynamic in how to play, do I go for commando pea who is has rapid fire or do I go for agent pea for extra critical damage. Those details made all the difference in some games and definitely added to a more positive and creative fight between the teams. 

I feel like we will always disagree on sprinting. I just feel rather than add sprinting just increase movement speed slightly so it doesn't feel slow. GW2 didn't have a sprint mode and the overall movement was fantastic, I never felt it took ages to get into battle and I could move around easy. Sprinting only adds to fast game play. You can achieve this by slightly increase basic movement speed. As previously said the chimper suffers so much because of this mechanic. You sprint pretty much the same speed as a burrow which means even hard to get kills. Also adding sprint removes any sort of risk when jumping in. Alao look at the maps in GW2 no sprint no problem could get back into the fight in 10 seconds in this game its 10 seconds plus with sprint theybhave increased map size again something that didn't need to be changed. Take call of duty for example they added exo suits for extra movement and that back fired, if you look at the game now its going back to what worked l, they learnt and its been much lore successful than previous games. 

The law suit with EA is being dealt with and as you can not going well as fifa every year manage to get away with it. While I get the pay to in previous games look at this game to get a new character you either have to grind out for ages  to afford them or buy them using actual cash. In GW2 they had sticker packs which cost 15k coins for like 8 cards in this game its 1 item for 30k how is that justified.

The one thing I will say look at the player base left on this game is basically empty. GW2 I was playing for 3 years plus and still had full games and no issues finding decent games. For the great looks and improvement to characters looks and graphics the game has really dropped off considering its not been around for two long. 

The upgrades and abilities never needed to be touched really and few minor adjustments definitely. I agree some characters needed a look at but overall GW2 was more balanced regardless of legendarys , I would go in as most characters and beat other players on this game no chance, the all star know for being a tank dies way to quick this is one example of how the game has changed. The wizard on this is broken, the snapdragon is broken, the mushroom is broken, the superhero is broken. The support characters used to some damage on this game doesn't feel like that and it seems they have to heal and support to do anything  yes I understand support means helping the team but there may be times when your alone and you want to have a chance this game takes that chance away. 

If we look at the pea shooter the hoover attack pointless would much rather the hyper mobile so I can love around jump high. It looks like every character now has range which defeats the points of some characters. Look at the chomper meant to be close and the same as the scientist, yes I will admit the astound was broken in the last game but this game every character has short and long range which is ridiculous and one major change to many. 

But we both agree it was rushed 

Hey,

Honestly get what your saying with the characters but I firmly believe they have made too many changes not only to characters but too the game.

I went back to GW2 and I did not regret it at all. Yes the graphics arnt as good but gameplay felt more involved. Always in battle as the spawning points are better thought out. The maps themselves are more engaging and challenging. The characters having different abilities made combat more intresting and you have to adapt to whats infront of you. I felt like it was warfare on each map. I really don't get that feeling in the new one I just feel as soon as I go in I die even as a tank straight away. If I stay back I am dead in a matter of shots. The best bit I was having fun and didn't feel like it was a chore to play. Yes the game requires a mega grind but you know what definitely worth it. A game should make it differcult to unlock stuff but also rewarding onlong the way and GW2 definitely does that. I have every character unlocked and most mastered or close to. The game give me direction to set myself targets to reach. I can spend my coins I earn from matches and feel like I anit getting ripped off. 

The neighbourhood game play feels like they have made it so everyone can play and skill doesnt even come into it anymore. 

Always a full game lobby aswell unlike this new one. I played for 5 hours and always had a full lobby. To me this says alot.

I have enjoyed this discussion and I feel we both got our opinions across and covered an awful lot. But for me the game lobbies speak for themselves if GW2 is still full and I am struggling to get full game in neighbourhood that says an awful lot. 

Yeah we have discussed this an awful lot, but I really enjoyed it as well 🙂.

The best thing to do now is to keep on playing the games we like (even if they are different) and hope the pvz shooters can make a return in the not so distant future.

I enjoyed reading that discussion!

BFN definitely did not live up to its potential, but I still really enjoyed it. Well, I really do now still. The character upgrades, the new characters, the free-roam regions, festivals, most weekly events and much more is what has kept me playing. I have never felt forced to jump onto BFN apart from when I am quickly trying to complete character challenges or buy an item before it expires. Even then though, I found that quite fun. 

I was always and have have always been excited to make guides for the community because of how much the game is to me - I really like it and I can show what I have learnt through them. Still, there are so many players who are much more skilled than me in the game but that does not stop me from enjoying the game. Sometimes, I get frustrated but generally it does not hinder me from actually enjoying the game.

When I knew about the game’s cancellation, or should I say, discontinuation, that really threw me off. I knew the game was not doing that great but many things were planned and I was hoping that those things could fix most of the issues in the game and more players would want to come to BFN, such as the Ice Lettuce, which I was really looking forward to and Ops Phase 3. I was also excited for some more Legendary Upgrades. 

That is why I no longer play almost daily like I used to - however when I get on to play I still really quite enjoy it. There is now less to do and to look forward to but I still play the game and will continue to do so for at least quite a while longer. I do not feel forced to play the game, but if I was to continue playing it daily, I feel like I would not be able to manage.

GW2 gave me many awesome memories, BFN did not give me as many as GW2 ever did but I still always enjoyed and had fun on BFN regardless. I do like that it does not take as long to level up, and there are always those funny and lucky moments I have had throughout my time in this game such as earning that Triple ZPG Vanquish. 

BFN did remove a lot of things that I loved in GW2, however. Such as Boss Hunts (my all-time GW2 favourite thing), Community Challenges, Infinity Time and the Backyard Battleground. Those were a lot of fun and they completely vanished in BFN without any sort of a trace. I got used to that relatively quickly, though.

However again, BFN did upgrade on a lot of aspects, such as the free-roam regions, character upgrades, and not to mention that GW2 did discontinue a lot of these things, such as the Community Challenges and I believe even Boss Hunts (which may be true but hopefully that is not the case). 

BFN seems to be full of microtransactions, but none of the items actually provides a competitive advantage so there is no loss for not buying any of the items. The Legendary Upgrades you purchase from Rux can also be obtained through the festivals, or collect enough Rainbow Stars through weekly challenges, so that is easy. However, GW2 is different. The only way to get the Z7 Imp in GW2 for permanent use is to buy the Deluxe Edition of the game, who is one of the best characters. Torchwood and Hovergoat 3000 became available for purchase, which was quite a weird choice, in my opinion. What about those players who earned them rightfully? Not to mention you can easily pick up Legendary Characters without much effort by simply forking out some money. 

I think that some players did not give the game a chance and just thought that it was not a true GW3 so they just turned their backs on the game. What about the players who loved the upgrade? If there was outcry for another GW but lots of players still played this game, then they definitely could have at least considered making a GW3. 

BFN expanded on a lot of things but it did not reach up to its true potential because of so many issues. I feel like they still should of given the game a bit of a chance, but alas, that is not the case.

If they make another shooter, in my opinion, they should make it quite a lot like BFN but definitely add a lot of GW aspects to the game that worked. The other way around also works.

@benn1nat0r Ya mean this video? 

I did watch this video a few months ago when it came out - I was really hoping that we would actually get them added into the game. 

I would not imagine that Zero would have faked this video, but that said, I had heard no other information about the implementation of Community Challenges so you could be correct in that aspect. I think this video was released at about the time you rumoured the cancellation actually happened, so possibly the developers were thinking of adding this, and then shortly after decided to scrap that idea and then cancel the game.

Note: I have absolutely no confirmation on this.

I think BfN could have been the best PvZ shooter ever had it been fully developed and supported. As it is, too many aspects of the game feel unfinished or outright broken so GW2 remains my favorite of the series right now. It's not perfect of course, but it has so much to do and even at cap it feels more fun than BfN or GW1.

I sincerely hope we get another shooter and it takes the best aspects of the 3 current games and learns from the mistakes to give us the best PvZ shooter ever.

@TheSprinter85 Thanks, that is indeed the video I was referring to! It does seem legit, as it happened live on stream. My guess is that they tried to get some of the player base back with the steam release, but that sadly failed and they scrapped the community challenges due to the lack of a community. And then EA pulled the plug. Sad. Can't say much more, really.

@Iron_Guard8 I don't think there is anything left that is outright broken (Maybe DirectX 12 support on PC - there is a (lying) message in-game that states they are still optimizing it. A notice that they cancelled that alongside with the game would have been nice). As I said before, the main difference is the marketing. GW2 also had many technical issues (not as many as BfN, but still). I played it everyday for the last week and only found myself enjoying it once while playing ops. The remaining time it felt like punishment playing it after BfN, to be honest. I do like the replayability factor, as unlocking a character as a reward feels extremely satisfying, but I prefer BfN's approach to replace them with more original characters more (even if that vision was reduced to only include Wizard). I have shared my opinion on this before (a lot), so I will just say that all shooters are good in their own regard and EA failed to provide any sort of marketing this time. There were like 5 EA game changer videos on it and all were extremely low quality. EA should have placed more guidelines. Most of these videos didn't even include the game's title in their title ... .The people making them seemed to either only care about the original pvz or compare it to standard shooters or ignore most of the content.

I've never had DX12 issues with BfN myself. I'm more referring to the aiming still being off, it's far worse in BfN than any other shooter I play and I'm talking about going back to even the original Doom via GZDoom, the random aim jump with snipers, and hit registration being a problem for melee characters more than anyone else (although it does still happen in GW2 too, although not quite as often, the next shooter has to have better netcode to get rid of this problem).

There are minor issues as well, but all 3 games have these to some degree.

@Iron_Guard8 To m, the aiming seems excellent, to be honest. I'll admit I haven't played any shooters except GW1, 2, BfN and Splatoon, though. The hit registration could be better, but I feel like it was improved enough in order not to annoy me.

@Shadowphinx101 Could be an explanation. I think it's really interesting they added a lot of skins and special Twitch items to the files back in march. Apparently, the selfie mode was also being worked on. They were working on so much stuff until June, it is such a shame it will never be released. I really like the Disco Pea costume and the talking Crown. It would have looked awesome on my Acorn, but oh well. I guess we'll get Skate 4 instead. Hooray.