Some reworks to the adventure to add incentive to playing

(copy and pasted from discord again)

I just realized a MASSIVE criticism which I think is why I refuse to return to pvz3e in its current state

There’s no rewards. In pvz 1 and 2 you unlock new plants constantly, but in pvz3e you just get all the tier 1s and you’re expected to use the system to unlock further tiers. However, playing levels just has nothing to do with unlocking plants (actually they fixed this a little with 3 stars providing seeds) but it doesn’t feel like you’re actually progressing towards anything- especially with the lousy story. It just feels like a chore but the chore is trying to clean up a LANDFILL. It’s just tedium after tedium and from what I’ve seen it’s just spam the one elemental t3 we have for each zone. It’s not only pointless and uninviting but also boring and brain dead.

Now with the whole unlocking evolutions model, I think it is unfair to lock certain plants to near the end of the game and still have to unlock their evolutions with resources you haven’t been receiving.

I’m not sure how to fix this, but I think letting players choose where to explore so they can choose what plants they want to unlock would be fun. It gives us back the unlocking of plants from beating levels and doesn’t block any particular plant to the end of the game’s lifespan. It would also discourage the game from just increasing the stats of zombies to force leveling since every area is accessible at any time. 

I guess it would make sense to have prerequisites to some areas to still keep the strategy aspect, to allow areas to have diverse and thought provoking threats without leaving players up a creek without a paddle. This would also make getting to those areas more inviting since it feels like you’re making progress and getting stronger (without forcing leveling)

I think this could be a healthy mix between what we saw in pvz1 and pvz2. You get 10 levels in a world, and every 4/5 or so levels you get a plant. These would be long levels like in pvz1, with looping and dynamic music. Completing an area lets you travel to another one, and completing enough areas unlocks the next tier of each area. This creates an interesting gameplay loop, grants players freedom, and limits frustration.