GW1 and 2 did very well. GW1 in fact did so well to EA's apparent surprise, they decided to make GW2, which also did well. BfN probably still made money overall, but not as much, as is made plainly obvious by the fact that GW1 was supported for 2 years, GW2, for almost 4, and BfN for not quite one year.
I don't hate BfN, in fact, despite the issues that still linger to this day, I actually like the game, but barring some positive changes, it's overall not as successful as GW2 is. The issue is, my understanding of why they made a new shooter was the player retention they've been seeing of both GW games that really enjoy these games, and BfN has irritated a lot of the very playerbase they wanted to keep and expand on by making BfN more like its competitors. This has obviously not worked as well as expected.
A new game would likely go along the GW3 route. They may even drop the new BfN characters just to free the game of the stigma of BfN among a large swathe of the GW playerbase and the fact that it was the only PvZ shooter to lose support so quickly.
Looking at your list of problems @SundropDot ;
1- GW1 is still an unbalanced mess to be honest. One of the reasons I don't revisit it all that much is that if you jump into a game, half the zombie team is going to be Super Commandos, abusing the overpowered extra ammo upgrade they get. And GW1 has the least base characters and variants. I'm not excusing this, as I'd prefer the games to be more balanced, but because there are so many options, they tend to shake out fairly well in teams of 12. One of the reasons GW2 kept my interest so long was that it had so many variants to play.
2- I'm going to say that they will likely examine what worked and what didn't as far as abilities and other characteristics go and then use what they like the most and hopefully what plays best. For example, I'd vastly prefer a GW1 or 2 Engineer over the BfN version (ability-wise anyway), but they may hybridize him for the new game.
3- Sprinting is something I deal with but if it disappeared I'd not worry about it. They really can use different base speeds (and yes different sprinting speeds as well if they keep it), to balance characters and give them their own feel. As for team-ups, I love the idea but they would have to decide if they want to keep that or not. They'd have to balance Acorn/Oak to Cadet/Station at the very least.
They definitely need damage attenuation (dropoff) to come back!
@Iron_Guard8Ignore this it looked like my first post accidentaly was deleted bit that not the case apparently.
@stukapooka I disagree on the BFN Classes being left behind. Dude I get you hate BFN but honestly the BFN Classes were pretty Cool and were a good addition. It GW3 ever does Happen. They will most likely be in the next Shooter. It’s not like they were exclusive to BFN Anyway
And just as I say it, my Acorn Avatar has disappeared again. I have been told the are some general Avatar issues for EA staff and a very small amount of "normal" forum members. So don't wonder if my Avatar looks a bit weird sometimes, other times it correctly displays as an Acorn.
Edit: Now it's back again when I say it disappeared.
