Hello, I am writing this feedback because I believe the points I’m about to present are relevant to the game.

First of all, my suggestion addresses issues regarding the base stat increases in the leveling system, but my proposed solution is NOT based on removing that system. Even if the solution itself isn't aproved, I believe what I’ve shared is relevant and deserves the attention of the balancing team.

I spent a good amount of time writing this feedback, and I hope it reaches the game team!

What's the problem?

The level system hinders/doesn't work for the design of certain plants.

Solar Production Plants

These plants end up not following a logic; Unlike attack/defense plants that track zombie health and damage, the same doesn't happen for solar production. In fact, the opposite occurs: the higher the level of your plants overall, the fewer of them you will plant in the Phase, even more so if it's a Tier 3.

How impactful is this?

Well, my point initially arose regarding the Sunflower fusions (Solar Pea, Sunflower Seed, and Golden Yukon). I currently have Sunflower at level 10, Twin Sunflower and Solar Tower at level 5, and I ask you, why would I level up Solar Pea and other mixed Sunflower fusions and use them? With the primary Sunflower evolutionary line, I have more sun than I need in the stages.

Plants need to be attractive to level up, and I have no reason to do that with it, not because it's bad, but because its function is no longer necessary when I level up the main Sunflower line.

In my POV, Solar Pea and the other solar plants help generate more sun/save at the beginning of the level, while they deal with the zombies at the start. And they work well in a scenario where all your plants are at level 1. But from the moment you upgrade the main Sunflower line, they become irrelevant, you will already produce more sun than you need by having your Sun Tower at level 5, and if you can't generate for some reason, they at level one Solar Pea will suffice.

One funny thing about Solar Pea is that it's great when there's an obstacle in the level, even more so if the obstacle is high level, since the biggest drawback of Solar Pea is that it's not attacking anything, so with a level 5 obstacle, it will take a long time to kill while producing sun for a long time, doing its job in the level in the best way. Now, if you upgrade its level, it will kill the obstacle faster, thus producing less sun.

Besides that, producing sun in the game becomes very easy; you'll have much more sun than you can spend. Not to mention the Sun Shroom, which produces much more sun than Sunflower, thus eliminating concerns about nighttime levels (Sewer).

Trap Plants

Unlike solar plants, leveling them up is "too mandatory," it's a status check. If the Potato Mine is at a high enough level to kill a high-level Zombie, great; if not, terrible. The idea of the Potato Mine is to be a low-cost plant that eliminates the initial Zombie. If it doesn't fulfill that role and I have to plant something else to deal with the Zombie, it has failed. And this kind of unbalances trap plants with the others, since you'll be able to efficiently use an attack plant even with a 5-level gap.

Technically, it's working for the current leveling system, since you need to raise its stats, but they are already plants hampered by the way the game works (scoring system and elemental system). So my point about them doesn't blame the current leveling system entirely, but I believe it contributes to this.

Gimmicks Plants

Another thing the level system affects are plants whose gimmick is their main point. For example, some plants will have to function differently, since the level system only increases base stats like health and damage, because if you change something else, the plant might become level-dependent or the level might not be attractive enough. Example we already have in the game: Iceberg Lettuce and its main evolutionary line, its main point is to freeze and slow, and since it also needs to deal damage, it ends up being stronger than other trap plants, since even if it doesn't eliminate the zombie, it will fulfill its main purpose.

Possible plants could also be affected, such as Hypno Shroom, how would it work in the level system? Would it increase the stats of the hypnotized zombie? Witch Hazel? Chomper? Chomper falls into the same problem as trap plants.

6 Slot

I don't know the team's perspective, but I see many people, including myself, asking for this.

I believe that the leveling system that increases stats also makes the arrival of the sixth slot more difficult. I'll try to elaborate. Currently, the game's balancing revolves around a Key and Lock system, using the Umbrella Leaf for example. It functions as a Wall-Nut, since it necessarily needs health to make leveling up worthwhile. So, for this to be beneficial, you need to create a situation where you'll use it as a Wall-Nut. This situation is the Volcano map. You are "forced" to use Iceberg Lettuce and Umbrella Leaf, besides the Sun Producer, so you have 2 attacker slots left. For example, there will be a Nacho-naut Imp that forces Cabbage-Pult and a Magma Zombie that forces Spikeweed or Bop Choy, thus leaving no space to use a Nut. Basically, it's taken out of the equation on this map. With the 6th slot, there would be space for a Wall-Nut, making the Umbrella Leaf leveling unviable. Of course, you could follow the same logic as the attackers and introduce another specific Zombie that requires a different third attacker, but the game wouldn't solve its problem, which is having a Lock and Key balancing system.

What do I suggest to solve this?

Well, my idea is to change the focus; instead of the leveling system being about stats, why don't we make it about skills?

Firstly, I see that what I'm going to suggest now might be very complicated and perhaps not interesting at this point in the game due to the large number of plants we have, but I also think that the points I presented shouldn't be ignored.

Remember that the idea of the system isn't to make progression easier or anything like that; everything would be rebalanced proportionally.

The system would work as follows for the Plants: there would be 5 levels for each plant in the game; For Tier 1 and 2 plants, there will be generic abilities that make sense with the plant itself, but not so specific that a mixed fusion couldn't use them.

I will present concepts for the abilities that Umbrella Leaf and Peashooter would have following this logic of mine; most already exist in the game, I've also included some ability concepts that I created:

Umbrella Leaf

Lvl 2 - Knockback 1

Lvl 3 - Inspiring 1

Lvl 4 - Cheerlander 1

LvL 5 - Staggering 1

Peashooter

Lvl 2 - Rapid Fire 1

Lvl 3 - Power Attack 1

Lvl 4 - Bunched 1

Lvl 5 - Critical Chance 1

Critical Chance: Gains a small chance of critical hit

These perks would be rebalanced or even reworked to be more impactful.

In Tier 2, the idea is that when you level up a plant, it improves its inherited ability from previous plants, but now we have a problem. Mixed plants would have more abilities than neutral ones, and since the idea is to center the leveling system on abilities, they would end up being stronger. So I thought of two possibilities;

First possibility

If both plants used in the recipe have the same unlocked perk, that perk will already be leveled up. For example, the Umbrella Leaf has the Inspiring ability, and the Jumbrella Leaf, being the combination of two Umbrella Leaf, would naturally have the perk at level 2 without leveling anything up. If it levels up, the perk will go to level 3. The same applies to Mixed plants if their T1 plants have some ability in common;

Second possibility

Mixed plants in Tier 2 could gain a slot at each level and select 5 perks from the two plants used to create them, being able to change them at any time in the almanac. This way, mixed plants would have the same number of perks in the game, but with the power of choice. In the case of Tier 3 mixed plants, they would necessarily have the perks that were selected or unlocked in Tier 2.

Using the first possibility as an example, and also using as an example a plant from the previous beta that is not currently in the game;

Jumbrella Leaf

Lvl 2 - Knockback 3

Lvl 3 - Inspiring 3

Lvl 4 - Cheerlander 3

LvL 5 - Staggering 3

Repeater

Lvl 2 - Rapid Fire 3

Lvl 3 - Power Attack 3

Lvl 4 - Bunched 3

Lvl 5 - Critical chance 3

Cano-Pea

Lvl 2 - Rapid Fire 2

Lvl 3 - Inspiring 2

Lvl 4 - Power Attack 2

Lvl 5 - Bunched 2

- Knockback, Cheerlander, Staggering and Critical Chance in Lvl 1

In Tier 3, since they no longer perform fusions, something with more identity can be done, I'll call it a Signature Ability;

Blockwood

Lvl 2 - Knockback 5

Lvl 3 - Leafy

Lvl 4 - Inspiring 5

Lvl 5 - Expulsion

Gatling Pea

Lvl 2 - Rapid Fire 5

Lvl 3 - Senior Shooter

Lvl 4 - Bunched 5

Lvl 5 - Giant Pea


Leafy: No longer loses its leaves

Expulsion: Uses its ability to push every 10 seconds

Senior Shooter: Increases the damage of nearby Shooter plants (excluding Gatling Pea)

Giant Pea: Finishes off its targets with a Giant Pea (referencing the Peashooter fertilizer effect, works like Bonk Choy Uppercut)

Regarding Perks for trap plants, I think it would be cool if they had abilities that buff their own element/type and that of allied plants that use them in the "recipe," thus making T3 plants valuable even if they aren't activated (which already happens currently, but with all of them having Cheerlander and Inspiring).

The abilities aren't intended to make similar gimmicks from other plants obsolete; if that happens and makes another plant's function obsolete, it needs to be changed.

I'll mention another benefits I can see in this system:

T3 plants wouldn't need to have such high stats compared to T2 and T1, making them still stronger, but not by an absurd margin;

It would be simpler to introduce older plants into the game, since they wouldn't need to be balanced for a level system that increases stats.

About Zombies

To balance the Zombies, I think the alternative is modifiers. I know many players don't like them, but I believe it's because of the trauma from the past, where you mixed the level system, a level 10 Zombie, and added a life increase to them; this way it scaled too much.

Although some people say that the modifier system "is no good" because we already have zombie gimmicks, in my view, modifiers don't exist to replace gimmicks, they can even complement and help in creating different designs for the levels.

Basically, modifiers for life, speed, damage, something more different like zombies exploding when they die, multiplying, etc.

I believe it fits the game's theme as well.

This is my suggestion. I spent a good amount of time writing and developing it, and I hope it's completely understandable!