A part 2 on my 5 years of bfn post.
. The state of modern PVZ
So after bfn we got pvz 3 in development and it's going anything but smooth: bizarre balancing, mediocre level design, and a shift in style and character not everyone is in line with. Many are just seeing how it's going to turn out but not many are hopeful.
October edit: So apparently pvz 3 is being reworked again. This makes it what? 3 or 4 times the game has been reworked?
This games concepts apparently go back to 2016 and since we're near 2025 this means this game has been worked on for NINE years. That's more than pvz 1 and 2 combined. Development purgatory is an understatement. Are we trying to give duke nukem forever a run for its money?
The reception just hasn't been good. Many view popcap as sadly stuck to just churning out mobile slop and even now we aren't getting even that. A lot of former love for pvz is just gone from a lot of people. By the time I drop this it will be over FIVE YEARS since bfn and really any pvz game officially released. What a waste this series has seen.
However strange events did happen while writing this:
Even now before August gw2 broke another record of 9,000 pc players after a sale. Gw2 still gets more players than it ever had when it released on steam but even as the fans tried to make last ditch pleas for change they were time and time again cut down. Even bfn finally shot above 2,000 players for the first time.
Bfn for all it did wrong still brought the frostbite engine to switch, yet sadly it seems no other pvz game will make it even though the first pvz game would be an easy port and gw1 aswell requires less gigabytes.
Gw1's steam and epic games port seems to have been banished to the void.
This series is so badly mismanaged its insulting really. Keep cancelling projects than be shocked when the series doesn't just print money.
They canned hot tub but they also canned the RPG game before even a single level was done apparently.
How in the world did both those projects get canned but match was approved and through most development?
I guess hot tub got canned because it's hard to introduce a live service microtransaction system in a single player adventure game. Heck why do you guys think the market is oversaturated with bland live service multiplayer shooters.
Danerade made an excellent video on why the popcap of today is nothing like the old popcap. Even getting some former devs thoughts on the matter: https://youtu.be/V7j835caKiA?si=8aKTx476At7DNVKl
He also had a bfn review a while back: https://youtu.be/U_IO3IISphQ?si=X3Jxkbnc7-_XO4mj
I remember players who have altogether seemed to leave the series after bfn. Shame to never see then again.
17. Random thoughts and gripes.
Hey remember how in gw2 solo play the AI were given unique names like happy flopsy and last zombie hero yet in bfn it's just sunflower<foot soldier.
I wonder how much of bfn's very small likely one year development time was eaten up by redesigning the artstyle. Could the game have focused more on other parts if they left the artstyle unchanged?
Overall bfn failed in the grand scheme of things for many reasons.
It was a rushed hackjob project from cancelled games, was too different from gw for returning players while at the same moment not different enough to entice newer players, meaningful content rolled out far too slowly to keep the playerbase, and the balancing and gameplay design decisions were greatly mishandled.
Sure it had potential but nobodies gonna stick around for months on the sole idea that it "could" get better. Results matter. Especially when there are so many options gamers can choose to play instead these days.
Quote from an old reddit post for bfn's cancellation shortly after it was made that I think summarizes the situation rather well for the time:
"They made a game with poor balancing despite having a smaller roster, poorly designed maps with numerous choke points and little variation, no drop off, insolent hit detection, copy-pasted assets, poorly thought and executed features (super boss waves come to mind), a horrible testing team, a horrible coding team, lack of new content outside of free roam areas, removal of variants for an upgrade system which is unnoticeable most of the time, worse versions of variants, constant bugs and poorly maintained servers, a terribly implemented ranked mode, a terrible launch state, failure to recognize and fix pre-existing issues despite numerous mentions by the community, making things worse in general, an inability to reach out to the community, and six new classes that offer nothing new other than teamplay which was also poorly executed".
"Looking back it didn’t have a chance from the start. The dev team did not give a crap. It’s some of the worst handling I’ve ever seen. They were understaffed and overworked. I understand that they probably couldn’t do much if they tried but it doesn’t excuse the fact that they fd up to the point where it’s outstanding. Even Peter McConnell’s ost in this game is legitimately less interesting and notable than GW1 and even GW2".
Im just quoting this isn't how I feel. I know some here prefer bfn and that's fine but I'm just trying to cover the areas of why I think the game was doomed.
Also WHY IS DOOM SHROOM PURPLE!
Frankly given how much is changed I really dont know how a gw3 will turn out even if we got one.
