[Feedback] Need More Modifications When Copying the Scapes
I’ve passed all the 150 levels currently available without spending a penny. The process was torturous, but I persevered, just to make my points more credible.
Considering they’ve completely reimagined the game once, and the current version is highly polished; I assume they wouldn’t redesign it again. Here are my thoughts based on the current design, comparing it to Homescapes, which is the success they are trying to copy.
The current version of PvZ 3, besides level design, seems to lack a bit of SATISFACTION for me.
The reason why Homescapes dares to do what it does is because its match-3 gameplay is inherently addictive, with various explosive interactions combined with visual and vibration effects that feel satisfying. It keeps players coming back to click that prominently placed main button in the bottom right corner. Nobody could resist the combo of a Rainbow Ball + Bomb/Plane. When faced with a Very Difficult level, you either use Boosters to get through it or lose repeatedly until the dynamic difficulty helps you pass, and then you’re rewarded with more satisfying levels.
Speaking of Boosters, Homescapes has various passive ones, like giving you half an hour of unlimited pre-match Boosters when you log in, activated passively; there’s also Flint’s Adventure which rewards win-streaks (PvZ 3 added something similar two days later after launch, but it only lasted for 2 days). Players are kinda forced to start a level with a bunch of Boosters, preserving them from trying to save Boosters instead of having fun and get addicted. Just when you think about closing the game, you find out that you can claim half an hour of unlimited Rainbow Balls, and you give up. Moreover, in match-3, bombs and such can be synthesized in the game, leading to all kinds of explosive, satisfying gameplay.
In PvZ, you just plant, then you either watch plants hitting zombies, which is hardly satisfying, and the currently provided plants are mostly single-targeting, one zombie is killed and three more appear, with no end in sight (the only fast-group-clearing plant, Squash, has a long cooldown, not keeping up with the fast pace. How dare you make players wait so long in a fast paced game); or you watch zombies eating plants(which makes the player feel bad), a horde of zombies could take down a Wall-nut within ten seconds, way faster than its cooldown, and it happens in all 5 lanes. The most important thing for modern games - explosions, are all in-game Boosters, which is way too expensive(50 bucks for 30 Cherry Bombs), and doesn’t ensure whether you can win, 3x3 is too weak for the current difficulty, when you have to use it, you probably have to use 2 because all 5 lanes are filled with zombies - you can’t be satisfied even with Boosters. As you progress, the difficulty wouldn’t be low, the pace is fast, it’s hectic and tiring, and you have no time for economy and building up your defenses, leaving no sense of accomplishment. 900 coins for a revival is so limited - if your defenses have already compromised, especially in night levels, what’s the point of blowing zombies off the screen? Do you have the time, the Sun, even the Sunflowers to rebuild? And there’s also a lack of persistent Boosters. I propose changing the Sun Booster to making suns worth 2 points, lasting for the entire level, similar to the Double Plane and PvZ 2. And make Cherry Bombs normal plants, replace its Booster position with some sort of Ultimate Cherry Bomb with 5x5 area.
Homescapes literally let me finish five levels after another before sleeping. That’s because of the satisfaction it provides me, not because it’s challenging, while our game is just the opposite. That makes people press Uninstall, instead of Purchase.
Furthermore, the reason why ‘Very Hard’ levels work in Homescapes is that modern match-3 games are essentially wrapped in the excuse of ‘bad luck’. Randomness hides the designers’ greed and the wish of not letting you pass a level to spend money, but when you’re lucky, or the dynamic difficulty gets easier, you can pass. And once that happens, you attribute it to good luck or skill. It creates a positive feedback loop of ‘I lost, better luck next time; I won, I’m skilled and lucky, it was satisfying, I want to play more!’
But in PvZ, it’s a bit different. There’s two core factors of PvZ in my opinion, attributes/values and strategy. The latter has been weakened a lot by the removal of the Choose Your Plants, and they try to compensate with more map mechanics, which remains to be seen; and I think in PvZ 3, they also want to abstract plants into mechanisms: Sunflower is THE producer, Wall-nut is THE defender, Bonk Choy is THE melee, etc. Abstracting the multiple plants of each type into one mechanism (of course I’m not the designer, I can’t be sure. But that’s the only explanation of so few plants and zombies). The scarcity of zombie and plant types also makes the only way to pile up difficulty is by the quantity of zombie spawns and limited plant choices.
While attributes are rooted in the core of PvZ gameplay. How much sun a Sunflower produces per minute, how much damage a pea does, how much health a zombie has, are all quantifiable. In Very Hard levels, when the zombie side’s attributes are too high (total health per lane/whole lawn), and the plant side is limited by sun production or zombie entry quantity and timing, resulting in poor defenses, then the level seems impossible (there’s only that much of sun, which can only afford that much of plants, it’s impossible to fight five times the zombie amount it can handle. When this happens, it’s impossible to defense. Zombie health won’t get lower if the dynamic difficulty gets easier. While in match-3 games, you can just wait for the luck to happen). This forces you to use Boosters or spend money, and the designers’ malice is so obvious(especially when the game has only one AOE option(the Lightening Reed), while those hard levels which spawns tons of zombies wouldn’t let you use them, only provide you with two single-targeting shooters + Wall-nut and Squash(horribly long CDs, they’re impossible to handle waves of zombies in all 5 lanes), impossible selection. Want area damage plants? Check out the Booster bar). The frustration is intense, like 'Spend money to continue. Or your free trial ends now'.
The difference is like, Homescapes: “You seem to be kind of unlucky. Purchasing these Boosters can probably help you.”. PvZ 3: “We designed so you can never pass it. Now spend money to buy some extremely expensive Boosters to increase your possibilities to pass the impossible levels that we designed.”
Besides, after level 110, the difficulty noticeably increases. This kind of game updates levels continuously, like Homescapes, which now has over ten thousand levels. If the difficulty keeps increasing with higher levels, imagine how hard level 1000 would be. Therefore, difficulty should maintain a balance, with normal levels at a fixed difficulty; hard levels at a fixed difficulty. Think of it like a continuously updating endless mode.
This prototype, I say, definitely has high potential within their team, but many decisions fail to recognize the differences between PvZ and match-3 games. The idea is workable, but needs further evaluation.
