Game Mode Suggestion - Last Stand: On Tour
With the recent changes to Adventure Mode and the removal of shards from it, I thought I'd first give a breakdown of how many of each currency can be obtained in the game (it's relevant to the suggestion)
Coins: 4,200 per Lawn Patrol cycle from Top Scores, 3,600 per LP cycle from Neighbourville Watch (unreliable in my opinion, but being counted for the sake of maths), 39,000 from the Sprout Master achievements (finite), 4,000 from Avant Gardener's achievements (finite), 16,700 coins from Bounty Hunter (finite), 16,500 coins from Feature Creeper (finite), 10,625 coins from 3 stars on every Adventure level up to level 125 (excluding one-time rewards, repeatable), 3,000 for Hard Lawn Patrol (not fully accessible to everyone, included for maths sake), 3,500 on the free Plant Pass (this assumes that the ongoing Snow Conifer pass is going to be the same format going forward and all pass reruns are retroactively changed to follow suit), 10,000 on the Paid Plant Pass (ditto) and 985 per five Expeditions (finite) for a total of 85,065 finite coins and 17,125 infinite coins (27,125 for the Paid Pass).
Meteorite Shards: 490 per Lawn Patrol cycle from Top Scores, 300 per LP cycle from Watch (again, unreliable), 975 from Sprout Master (finite), 275 from Bounty Hunter (finite), 1,725 from Feature Creeper (finite), 760 from Hard Lawn Patrol (not fully accessible to all), 310 on the free Plant Pass (assuming Conifer is the norm and all prior passes are changed retroactively) and 625 on the paid pass (ditto) for a total of 2,975 finite shards and 1,860 infinite shards (2,485 with the Paid Pass).
Meteorite Chunks: 14 per Lawn Patrol cycle from Top Scores, 20 per LP cycle from Watch (not saying the line), 195 from Sprout Master (finite), 15 on the Free Plant Pass (Conifer assumed to be the norm, retroactive changes for reruns), 120 for Paid Pass for a total of 195 finite chunks and 49 infinite chunks (169 with the paid pass)
Wild Seeds (excludes plant specific seeds for maths sake): 40 per LP cycle from Watch (you know the line), 600 from Sprout Master (because Lime-Bomb doesn't have Wild Seeds in its Mastery line, also finite), 475 from Avant Gardener, 625 from Adventure (finite, 125 per issue) and 100 on the Paid Plant Pass (assuming Conifer is the fir-real standard) for a total of 1,700 finite Seeds and 40 infinite Seeds (140 with the Paid Pass)
Thus, I propose an Endless Mode concept: Last Stand: On Tour. The general premise is that every month, two biomes (not necessarily the same biomes that will be featured in the two Lawn Patrols for that month) will be featured in an endless mode in the same vain as the Endless Modes in the previous games. Progressing through the levels will give you an increasing amount of rewards, ranging right up to Meteorite Chunks. I don't quite know what the level scaling would be, but it wouldn't be fast enough to make the mode an endgame option (invalidating the whole purpose of giving currencies), but it wouldn't be slow enough to breeze through it either. The general mechanics would be that you would set up your defences like any Last Stand level, but sun production would be disabled (in Last Stand fashion), meaning your primary source of sun is sun that falls from the sky (the exception for this could be when Sewers levels are in rotation, but the production would be lowered).
Why consider the idea? As it stands (from when Bamboo Shoots was added to the game), you need 40,350 shards, 39,440 chunks, 3,542,100 coins and 52,150 (Wild) seeds to fully max out the plants. I don't know whether the intention is to make levelling end-game, but the income for some currencies is scarce, with no repeatable methods for anything except coins. Excluding paid and finite methods, players may gain .48% of the coins, 4.61% of the shards, .12% of the chunks and .08% of the Wild Seeds needed to max out their plants. Although Wild Seeds aren't as important due to the existence of plant specific seeds, players are arguably "punished" for not choosing the "right" plant to upgrade beyond Level 5 - as it may take them weeks, if not months to regain the spent shards. The given rewards don't have to be substantial, just enough to make the grind a little less miserable for a Free-to-Play player (especially when Chunks can be brought down to a measly 29 per fortnight if the player is in a community that can't finish the Watch each week).