Battle for Neighborville: A reflection on it's death.

I've seen a lot of GW2 players wonder when/if GW3 will ever come out.
Fake leaks, speculations, desperation.
Nothing proven, nothing revealed.
Doesn't seem like we'll ever be getting one.
...
But maybe we weren't supposed to get a Garden Warfare 3.
Maybe we were supposed to get something different.
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Battle for Neighborville.
What wasted potential.
It's been almost 3 years since the death of the game.
And I'm writing this now as a reflection on it.

When i first heard that EA was releasing the final update LESS THAN A YEAR after the game's release, i was OUTRAGED.
I thought that it was a case of "oh no, new game isn't earning us enough money, stop working on it!".
But it wasn't.
I'm not a fan of EA. I'm really not. I think they're greedy and scummy.
And yet I'm sitting here admitting that BFN could have been something incredible.

My reaction to the beginning of BFN was pretty much exactly the same as everyone else's.
I couldn't wrap my head around why on earth the devs would make the game so different?
Why?? It completely goes against what the previous games did!
I looked at BFN with hate.
...
But I gave it a try anyway. Not a 30-minute try. Not a 1-day try. A 3-month try.
I KNEW that the game's launch was incredibly rough. But the game wouldn't improve if we all refused to touch it.
I bit the bullet, and stuck with it.
And during the game's single-year lifespan, i learned a lot.

BFN was supposed to be a re-imagining of the Garden Warfare formula.
Taking the core concepts and making them even wackier and sillier.
It wasn't the GW3 everyone hoped for. It was BETTER.

BFN did so many things right.
It has massive explorable areas filled to the brim with missions, secrets, easter eggs, and even the ability to start skirmishes that can evolve into full-on battles.
The artstyle is much closer to the classic PVZ style.
Sillier, more cartoony, less gritty.
No variants? No problem. Not only is there a more robust upgrade system that lets you tune your favourite plants and zombies to your liking, but the idea was to add MORE playable characters over time.
Don't have a mic but want to communicate with your team? How about a pseudo-chat system where you can send pre-set messages to convey simple phrases? It's not much, but it's better than what we had in the previous 2 games!

So what happened?
Simply put: The playerbase happened.
The blame for BFN's death lies mostly with the playerbase of GW and GW2.
Sure, there were stupid decisions made by the devs.
Sprint mechanics and map design that caused most combat to only occur directly around the objective instead of all over the place.
Lack of damage falloff causing many characters to be a bit too powerful at range. *cough cough ALL-STAR cough cough*
Bad optimization causing a moderate amount of lag.
Lack of a real closed testing phase causing the launch to have a lot of bugs.
More grind for cosmetics due to lack of sticker packs.
Sub-optimal marketing and advertising.

Busted hit detection.
Zomboss being a complete and utter **** to the zombies with no explanation, absolutely unnecessarily rude behavior (Actually fairly out-of-character for him. Sure, he's not the nicest guy, but in most of his appearances he at least acknowledges his minions' successes and understands they can't be expected to win every situation).

BFN is far from flawless.
It was buggy, it was broken, it was weird, but it was FIXABLE.

All of those issues could have been addressed over time.

"Pfff, yea right, as if the devs would LISTEN to us", i hear you say.
Here's the thing: YES, THEY WOULD HAVE.

BFN had something that none of the previous games had.
ACTUAL FEEDBACK RECOGNITION FROM THE DEVS.
There (was) an entire category on EA answers for BFN feedback.
People reported bugs, gave feedback, and while the devs rarely ever actually responded, they certainly heard.
How do i know that they actually heard and cared?

What proof did I have that the devs actually noticed what was said?
Because they heard what I said regarding Z-Mech.
Z-Mech in BFN was laughably bad at release.
No armor and a lack of sprint. 
It was very easy to take down, and could accomplish little as it slowly trudged along the ground while everyone else ran ahead.
So I submitted feedback.
I made a detailed outline about the Z-Mech.
I analyzed what it's purpose was supposed to be.
A wildcard of chaos? A bunker buster? A tank?
All of those were talked about and addressed.
I outlined the issues with the mech.
I explained why things NEEDED to change.
I suggested giving it back it's armor from GW2.

And guess what?
THE DEVS LISTENED.
They gave the mech armor (a 15% damage reduction) AND gave it the ability to sprint so it could keep up with the fight.
As far as i can tell, NOBODY had ever really talked about this issue before I did.
I had a voice on a critical problem with one of the playable characters, and the devs listened.
This proves the devs CARED about feedback.
They LISTENED to things that people said.
I saw MANY changes happen because people suggested them.

All it took was REAL feedback.

GW players complained and moaned about things in BFN, not realizing THEY COULD TRY TO ACTUALLY INFLUENCE THINGS.
THEY HAD THE POWER TO SUBMIT REAL FEEDBACK THAT THE DEVS WOULD GENUINELY CONSIDER.
They didn't give BFN a CHANCE to improve.
They didn't want to GIVE it a chance.
They didn't wanted to HAVE a chance.
It started off rough, but BFN had massive potential to grow and improve with feedback.
But GW players refused to let it.

They saw something different.
Something unique.
Something that put a twist on the classic GW style.
And they hated it.
They didn't want a new game, they just wanted GW2 again!
That's right.
The players didn't want something new.
They wanted the same game, but with more stuff.
They wanted the exact same formula, the exact same gameplay, the exact same artstyle, the exact same systems, the exact same stuff. But with more of it.

BFN wasn't SUPPOSED to be GW3.
It was an attempt to make something new.
Something BETTER than the previous 2 games.
Something more in line with the classic PVZ style, while retaining the aspects of the shooters.
But change is hard to accept.
And the playerbase looked upon BFN with disgust.
Rather than trying it out for more than 30 minutes and giving feedback, they just defaulted to hating it or giving unhelpful "feedback" that basically consisted of complaining and saying how bad of a game it is.

That's right, going "bro Snapdragon needs a nerf, his attack is too powerful it kills zombies way too fast" is not helpful feedback.

You wanna know what IS helpful? Saying something like "Snapdragon's primary attack needs a nerf, it's range is far too long and does too much damage. Snapdragon is supposed to be about crowd control and forcing zombies to disperse, right? He needs to get in close to cause zombies to scatter away from the flames. But at the moment, Snapdragon is able to outright KILL most zombies at even a moderate range with ease. I think his damage output needs to be reduced to reinforce his role as crowd control."

THAT'S what the devs were looking for. 

But basically nobody did that. They just complained and gave unhelpful, generic "feedback"

Nothing but complaints and ignorance of the already good parts of BFN.

Massive explorable environments? Ignored.
A much more faithful artstyle? Ignored.
A robust upgrade system? Ignored.
More characters with completely different playstyles (not just the same character with a different attack)? Ignored.
A feedback system that the DEVS ACTUALLY LISTENED TO? Ignored.
A solution for mic-less players to communicate with their team? Ignored.

Each and every good thing was tossed aside because the game wasn't exactly like Garden Warfare 2.
The players didn't want something new, they wanted Garden Warfare 2. But bigger.
They wanted the same game but again.  But bigger.

So congratulations, Garden Warfare fans.
You successfully killed off the game that could have been so much better.
You refused to give it a chance.
You took it all at face-value, throwing it in the garbage because it played and looked a bit differently from Garden Warfare.
You couldn't accept that MANY of the issues COULD be fixed with feedback.
You didn't want to see it anymore.
You attacked it.
You hated it.
You tried it for 2 seconds and then dropped it.

This was meant to be your "constantly updated PVZ shooter" to surpass GW and GW2 that you were all begging for.
And you killed it by refusing to accept change.
You killed it by refusing to accept that your feedback could help it be better.
You killed it by refusing to accept that it's artstyle was much more faithful to the franchise.
You killed it. Not the devs.

Yell at me.
Hate me.
Call me a shill or paid actor or whatever else you want.
I had genuine hopes in BFN.
It could have been the best.
But change is scary. And God forbid the GW2 players try anything different.
And so, 3 years later, I STILL mourn the loss of BFN.
The chances of another PVZ shooter are slim to none.
The team that worked on BFN has split up.

The team that cared.
The team that listened.
The team that wanted to try something new.
The team that worked hard to make giant explorable environments.
The team that redesigned everything to make it sillier and wackier and more faithful to the classic PVZ style.
The team that did their damn best to make everything work.

They wanted our inputs.
They heard our inputs.
They wanted our questions.
They answered our questions.

But most players did nothing but ignore it all.
So EA pulled the plug. They really didn't have much of a choice at that point.
The game is discontinued.
It wilted before it even got a chance to bloom.
And I have very serious doubts that anything is going to rise from it's grave.

Rest in peace, Battle for Neighborville.
You WILL be missed.