How to make Plants vs. Zombies 3 good, and save my childhood.
To start off: I'm ZombieRadio1355 (my Xbox username). I'm 13, nearing eighth grade, and a big fan of video games, and Plants vs. Zombies is one of them. I adore the first game, like the second game, and cannot get enough of the Garden Warfare series. 😄
However, while I haven't played it, I have seen more than enough of it to confirm: Plants vs. Zombies 3 is a MESS, likely messier than my brother's room. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but 90% of players have hated every single beta this game has had since 2021.
I'm here to tell you improvements for the sole purpose of that I want this franchise to help me through my teen years. Most games I have been playing recently lose my interest very quickly, but PVZ1 has a formula that has kept me hooked since the first grade, and you can very easily apply that formula to the third game if you just listen to me and other fans.
So please hear what I have to say, because if you do and take even a little of my advice, you will not only save a kid's childhood. You will likely regain the trust of the entire fanbase.
Now that we're done with my introduction, let's get into saving the franchise, shall we?
TABLE OF CONTENTS (The topics I'll discuss about the game that make it flawed)
Now, this is gonna be LONG, and no way in heck am I gonna finish this in one go; however, in case you need a short recap of the topics I'ma discuss, here they are:
- The Merge Mechanic
- The Leveling System
- The Fact that it's a Mobile Game
- The Spawn Rates
- The Soundtrack
- The Art Style
- The Stage Layouts
- The "Bite-Sized Battles"
- The "kid-friendly" feel of the Game
- The Fact that you are doing this alone
Now that that's done, it's time for the renovation of the lawn.
THE MERGING MECHANIC (And why it takes the unique feel of each plant.)
This is the marketed mechanic of PVZ3; Evolved. It allows you to fuse two plants into one stronger plant with boosted stats and a potential new ability. However, while it did make way for some cool new plants, such as Slaw Slinger, it makes the evolved plants look like horrid mutations and makes the tier I plants look like filler slots.
To start, Repeater is the result of two Peashooters fusing together. It sounds simple and reasonable, but many people, including me, agree that this plant was better off as its own species rather than a fusion. Back in PVZ1, it felt like an entirely different plant because it was presented as something distinct from Peashooter. Now, even though they are still different species, because of the merging mechanic, you made Repeater feel like "Peashooter 2."
Also, there are some bizarre fusions that make the result of the combination look like a freak of nature; these are, but are not limited to:
- Peashooter and Potato Mine making Bamboo Shoot
- Peashooter and Sun Shroom making Puff Shroom
- Peashooter and Spikeweed making Pine Needler
And another thing: There are some VERY unnecessary plants in here that feel like filler to complete the fusion lines that we did not need, and unlike the fusions, I will list them ALL so you know which ones to cut from the final game:
- Zaptail
- Bop Choy
- Lychee
- Lime Bomb
- Cano-Pea
- Wrangle Kelp
- Jumbrella Leaf
- Winter Greens
- Sawgrass
- Sunflower Seed
- Golden Yukon
- Chucknut
- Water Chestnut
- Cold Slaw
- Umbrella Mine
- Blast Choy
- Buzz Choy
- Nippy Cabbage
- Ice Weed
- Tangle Pult
- Sun Tower
- Mashed Destruction
- Mangle Kelp
- Freezer Salad
- Blockwood
- Beat Choy
- Chainsaw Grass
- Mega Sun Shroom
- Expl-OJ
- Three-Nut
- Tazel-Nut
- Tingling-Pult
- Snow-Bellista
- Cab-Barrage
- Numbing Cabbage
Now, for the fusion plants I DIDN'T mention that are OK in my opinion to stay in the game, they become their own plants with the total sun cost you needed to fuse them as their new cost (except Puff Shroom, he is brought down to zero).
This fix will give every plant its own identity, make the game feel unique, and give real purpose to adding back choose-your-seeds (which is not on my list of fixes because it's been complained about enough).
THE LEVELING SYSTEM (Why it messes up PVZ's core gameplay)
The leveling system is what allows you to level up your plants to make them stronger, and in this game, it also scales up the toughness and damage outputs of the zombies as you go on. However, this sole feature is what ruins the fun and experience of PVZ3 the most.
At its core, PVZ has been, and needs to be a Strategy game. When you lose a level, the solution shouldn't be "Level up your plants"; it should be "Reconfigure the plants you bring in and how you arrange them." Because of leveling, the game is either way too easy or way too hard, and throws all the strategy out the window. In the early levels, you could steamroll the Zombies with a leveled-up Peashooter, but once you hit the late game, that same Peashooter now has to shoot a basic zombie 30 times to kill it. A basic zombie should NOT be tanking 30 hits from a Peashooter.
Instead, the stats should remain the same and not change throughout the entire game, bringing every last ounce of strategy back while also preventing the game from being too difficult or too easy.
If you need a baseline for stats, here are some examples from me:
- It should take 10 shots from a Peashooter to kill a basic Zombie
- Sunflower should produce 25 sun (going back to the PVZ1 counter style) every 24 seconds
- Standard Insta Kill plants (such as Potato Mine or Cherry Bomb) should always be able to OHKO (one hit knock out) anything that is weaker than a Gargantuar, and since we're keeping Devestater, he should be able to OHKO Gargs
THE MOBILE DILEMMA (Why this format choice is the worst for PVZ)
Currently, you guys at EA like to make the PVZ series into Freemium mobile games, where the cost to buy the game is 0, but you make money through in-game purchases and Advertisements. And this is a key cause of player loss because almost all Freemium mobile games have three things:
ADS
This is the biggest one; these 30 to 60-second-long, non-skippable videos make the game undesirable and make players quit the game because of constant interruptions
MICROTRANSACTIONS
This is how you get money from players: locking in-game currencies or appealing Q.O.L features behind paywalls to get the players to open their wallets is a major annoyance
SLOW PROGRESSION
This is a major negative side effect of Microtransactions, because most Freemium games (such as PVZ3; Evolved) use currencies locked behind paywalls to progress. You slow the natural gain of those currencies, which creates sluggish gameplay that makes players lose the will to play very quickly.
Now, if you ask me, I think you should change the format to a Premium PC/Console game you actually have to buy to play, but take away allllll the Ads and in-game purchases while also speeding up progression. This not only gets more people to play, but also opens up a larger audience, as major gaming is heavily done on these two platforms.
(Also if you were to ask me about a "fair price" for the game, I'd say $4.99 to $12.99 works).
THE SPAWN RATES (Why it makes the zombies feel unnatural and ruins gameplay)
Now, we all know that Zombies are depicted not only in PVZ but in every franchise they're in as horde-dwelling monsters. However, in PVZ3: Evolved, the zombies spawn one at a time, not in large groups. This is what makes the gameplay feel way too different from the other games, and it takes away the sense that the zombies are actually coming at you in hordes.
To fix this, you can bring back the 50% rule: When the health of the total wave of zombies drops to below 50%, the next wave of zombies spawns in. The number of zombies per wave and what zombies spawn in these waves slowly ramp up in power and difficulty until the final wave appears, giving you the toughest zombies and the maximum amount of them.
(This one was shorter cuz it was a lesser topic, but STILL important to the soul of the franchise.)
THE SOUNDTRACK (Why it lost the charm of the first two games)
Now, we all remember PVZ1 for its dynamic, catchy soundtrack, where the more zombies were on the field, the more instruments would join in on the song. This ALSO went the other way around, which made simply controlling the amount of zombies feel super rewarding.
PVZ3; Evolved, however? Almost all of the tracks are flat and forgettable. There is no dynamic scaling for the music: all instruments are at the same level at the start. And 90% of the tracks feel as if they don't belong in the game because they lack the catchy rhythm and local feel of the first game's soundtrack.
To get new tracks while staying true to the franchise, take inspiration from the older songs, look and listen to what made Grasswalk so fun to listen to, and tune that soul into a new song. And not just Grasswalk! Take a look at the entire PVZ1, PVZGW, and PVZGW2 OSTS, and you'll get miles of inspiration to create the next banging soundtrack.
THE ART STYLE (Why it makes the plants and zombies look too innocent)
Now, the current art style captures a Saturday-Cartoon vibe (as one of you at EA said in a blog post), and while I love the fact you're keeping it friendly... the problem is you're keeping it TOO friendly.
We all know this game has a kid audience, but most of the people who play this game are teens and adults, and they want the zombies to look like zombies, not like dolls, and the plants also currently look like plastic, which is keeping the game from looking as action-packed as it should.
To fix this, the best option is to pivot into the Pink Style.
This keeps the game clean enough to stay at E10, but it now gives it a lot more life and soul to the original art style and genre of the game.
But I'm not done; I have a major complaint about Zomboss's design: he is VERY hard to take seriously now. Back in PV1 and the GW era, you could see his brain veins coming out of his head, which made him look GROTESQUE and made you treat him like a dangerous villain. But nowadays the veins just look like... stripes, and his head is a balloon. This needs to be the game where you revert back to his menacing, gross style.
THE STAGE LAYOUTS (Why the random, hard-to-follow layouts kill the strategy)
When you think of a stage layout in PVZ, you think of a consistent stage that is similar to all others in the world it takes place in, and only has minor changes as the levels of the world progress; however, stage layouts in PVZ3; Evolved are now RANDOMIZED, and have huge, uneasy obstacles that can ruin playthroughs instantly.
For example, in what I'm sure is your campground world, the stages have a lot of water tiles where you can't plant without Lily Pads. This would be fine if these were either small or symmetrical, as they were in PVZ1's pool world. But they are large and can be all over the place, which causes a lot of grinding for sun and can very easily mess up a game.
You have to dial down the stage hazards and make them consistent with the level and world they're tailored to. This makes the game more replayable while also making first playthroughs smoother.
THE "BITE-SIZED BATTLES" (Why they ruin the strategy and kill the slow buildup that made the first game so fun)
To make this game feel like a mobile game, y'all at EA made more levels, but compressed them down into something you can clear in a minute each. However, this single little decision killed off the ENTIRE purpose of strategizing and setup in the game.
In the first game, the reason you stick around and play through the long levels is that it allows you to set up stronger defenses against the tougher zombies that likely start spawning midway through. This makes the what should be slogs suddenly feel like a long, rewarding dogfight, as it feels incredible to have stronger units down that start making up for your early units' lack of firepower.
But now, since the fights in PVZ3 reach the final wave in a blur, it makes the game WAY too hectic to get stronger units, and zombies overwhelm the player while they still have weaker units.
This is an easy fix: Simply copy the first game's level progression formula and apply it to the third game, which gives players much more strategic breathing room and brings back the feel of setting up a defense.
THE "KID-FRIENDLY" FEEL OF THE GAME (Why the innocence of the game makes the franchise lose its charm)
Currently, the game feels too innocent, not just in art style, as I told you earlier, but in dialogue and story direction as well.
The first games are known for their wacky, slightly unhinged humor, and the Zombies' goal was always to eat the player's brain. However, now it feels as if the Zombies are trying to stop you, and the humor is now too diluted to find funny.
This is where mindset comes in handy: When making the game, don't just think Plants vs. Zombies; think: An army of Zombies is trying to eat the brains of a crazy man, his fearless niece, and her food-obsessed friend, who are fighting back with weird plants. This story should have slightly dark themes, but be covered by crazy humor.
THE FACT THAT YOU ARE DOING THIS ALONE (Why simply EA and Popcap on this project won't work)
All of these improvements cannot be done alone; however, you guys at EA and Popcap don't wanna risk getting this franchise even more messed up. But you need to know: It's okay to take risks and let others test their idea.
If you wanna make this game the best, you gotta get in the big guns. For starters, the PVZ What Could Have Been fangame was shut down by Y'all; however, if you adopt a Sega mindset, you would stop seeing "IP stealers" and start seeing "Potential franchise saver." If you recruit the WCHB team, they might give you what the FANS want for the game, as they are fans themselves.
Now, as much as they don't wanna do it, you HAVE to give the developers of the original PVZ game a chance at redeeming this franchise. Get whoever you need from the OG team to work on certain things, but I swear that they can make this game 100, no, 200% better than it is now.
CONCLUSION:
If you want to save this franchise, you HAVE to start listening to these fan forums. Even if you don't wanna take all the ideas at once, simply a fix or two at a time you got from a fan forum will progressively make this game better little by little.
So there you have it, this is how to fix PVZ3 from the mind of a 13-year-old. Please consider what you have seen here today. As it can revolutionize the future of PVZ.
*If this writing looks too hectic or rushed, I am terribly sorry, I'm not a grammar master.
**Huh, I actually DID finish all of that in one go.
