A long review of BFN's broken mechanics.

The gameplay mechanics do not blend well together.

Movement: All the characters practically move the same. Walking speeds are hardly different. It is nearly impossible to dodge by strafing. All classes moving the same speed is counterproductive to their being different Health pools.

Good Movement is heavily reliant on Jumping. Jumping has a very high jump height and actually increases speed. This is most noticeable when sprint jumping (or other techs), and using Double Time or Arcane Enigma. Unlike Walking, jumping is a better form of dodging and faster mobility. This makes jumping essential to the general movement.

What makes strafing a better form of dodging is that the player has to predict where the enemy will shoot in order to dodge it. But when jumping is the ONLY way to dodge, the thought process boils down to jumping up and down and hoping you don’t get shot. There is a lack of skill and thinking when moving, and it makes fights feel boring and limited.

Bad Mobility nerfs: They make the movement worse and even more inconsistent. Punishing players and slowing their movement for taking damage is a terrible way to balance sprinting and jumping, and it just makes the movement feel slower.

In Arcane Enigma’s case, the nerf is useless. The time used to shoot a target that is invincible only to prevent Rose from escaping could be better used to shoot someone that can be killed. So it’s hardly a nerf at all.

Moving and Shooting is not fun. Movement is inconsistent overall. Walking and shooting is too slow, but jumping while shooting offers better movement. Why make walking so slow, but then give jumping a high jump height and reward players for spamming jumps with faster movement?  Again, the movement is relying on repeatedly tapping the jump button. That’s not fun.

This kind of gameplay where players have to constantly jump isn’t very fun. Because there is a higher TTK, players will have to repeatedly press the jump button for longer periods of time in order to win. This isn’t comfortable, and it would be much smoother if movement relied more on the WASD or the Controller stick, but that is not the case.

Many shooters like CSGO or even Fortnite solve the problem of slower movement by giving the players ways to consistently do good damage to make fights quicker. For most classes in BFN, good damage will only come from abilities.

Camera: Many times, I would lose track of the enemy because my own character was blocking my vision. An FOV slider would help a lot.

No Damage Fall-off and only relying on Bullet Drag: This has resulted in many characters, mostly those with automatic fire, to deal mediocre and similar damage. Corn does 5-6, All-star does 7-8, Foot Soldier does 6-7, Imp does 5-6, Acorn does 7-8 etc.

By only relying on Bullet drag, the damage had to be kept low so these classes weren’t too strong at range. Unfortunately, Bullet drag is not stopping anyone from sniping, and for most characters that aren’t snipers, it IS better to snipe. This is because there is NO incentive for most classes to close the distance. Damage does not increase the closer you are to your target, so why close the gap when you can do the same damage at any range?

Broken class designs: Overtime, many class designs have been adapted poorly to the movement and shooting mechanics. All of these classes are good at similar ranges.

All-Star does too little damage for being such a big target. He is terrible at close range, due to Football cannon and Imp punt dealing low damage. At this point, he is heavily reliant on upgrades to do well.

Imp and Z-mech also does too little damage. Imp barely does enough damage to work, and on top of that he moves too slow. Same as All-star, Z-mech is a giant target that does very little damage outside Missile madness and Explosive Escape. Imp’s best strategy is to spawn Z-mech in a group of enemies and immediately activate Explosive escape.

Acorn is still good at sniping, and plays better that way. He also moves too slow.

Nightcap is better to snipe with and moves too slow. To be fair, a stealth class shouldn’t be good at head-to-head combat, but she is very easy to hit considering her HP.

Soldier is better at sniping than at close range.

Corn is also bad at close range, despite being said to be good “at all ranges.” He relies heavily on Butter Beacon and abilities to get anything done.

Chomper is still good at long range. Not the most op, but it’s pretty ridiculous that a close range attacker can do 34 - 41 damage at any range pretty easily, despite bullet drag.

Broken Supports: Zombie supports have too much survivability and mobility, and Rose also has this problem to a lesser extent. Sunflower is the only exception because she does not have as much mobility or survivability as the others.

There is nothing wrong with giving supports means of defending themselves, but when it is made this easy, they become too difficult to kill, it takes away the strategy of taking out the supports first. In many cases, these supports are better on the flank than supporting their teams. Scientist and Engineer are the biggest offenders.

Scientist: Having him Warp instantly and giving him 1 more Warp has broken his design. He becomes better as a flanker, being able to warp in and out of danger very easily. This also makes it difficult to give Scientist strong damage capabilities, like Steam Blaster, because Scientist can be easily played as a hit and run character.

Engineer: The ability to instantly use the effects of Turret and Double Time makes Engineer too strong on the flank, and too easy to survive with. Engineer is already hard to approach due to his damage and stuns, and the on-demand speed boost allows Engineer to bring those strengths to the enemy more easily. Instant Turret buffs allow the Engineer to more easily react to plants with spam, which works very well with his stun. The mobility and on-demand speed of Double Time allows the Engineer to easily escape danger as well as making him one of the most mobile characters in the game.

Jumping increasing speeds makes Double Time very abusable, and allows that Engineer to cover more ground.

Wizard: To a much lesser extent, Wizard is also a flanker. Wizard can flank with Spell Disaster, and with Co-star he can safely teleport over long distances to other zombies. He also plays better as a sniper. 18 - 22 damage at any range.

From there being no Damage Fall-off, and the movement being inconsistent and generally slow while shooting, this is the result: a game where any character can snipe, and are encouraged to do so due to there being no incentive of closing the distance, as well as movement being too slow for close combat situations.

Many classes suffer from a lack of Fall-off and slow movement, and have been adapted poorly to the shooting and movement mechanics.

It doesn’t seem like BFN has tried to improve or capitalize on the strengths of Garden Warfare. Instead it tried to be its own thing, but it’s still very similar to Garden Warfare, just worse. It seems unnecessary that BFN would try separate itself from the Garden Warfare formula which still had so much potential. The gameplay just doesn’t blend well together, and that is a shame. I want to like this game, and I still believe that this could be a proper sequel. It needs gameplay changes, because I don’t see this game competing with other shooters right now.