final nail in the coffin

@spIash_damagePvZ is how I got my wife into gaming. She was always intimidated by most games. Especially competitive shooters. Now she loves to play PvZ and I'd call her relatively avid gamer over all. Almost as enthusiastic as me. She's even into Apex and can be pretty good competition. All because PvZ is built to be an inclusive game series that still manages to be competitively skill based.

I liked variants, but mostly for the variety in appearance more than anything else. GW1 and even more in GW2 had the issue where variants were either much better than the base class, much worse than the base class, or too good at their role that was intended for a different character and eclipsed that other character too much. Plus getting entirely new characters is actually better than simply making variants. Another key factor is that many variants were overplayed or underplayed, you can't go into a match in GW2 without seeing detonation characters and frost characters all over the place, but hardly ever see many of the others.

When I first saw the lack of variants I was dubious about BfN but everything looked so good I'm glad I bought it.

My wife loves watching me but has never joined in.... I’m talking back in the early days of Unreal Tournament 3 (played capture the flag), she used to love watching me flag run.... 

13 years later, she finally picks up the sticks!!!

😊💚🤓😍

I agree that lack of variants is for the best. More characters with their own new abilities will lead to greater variety and prevent the game from getting stale.

I still say they might slowly reintegrate some of variant abilities back into the characters through the character upgrade system. It would make sense as a reason why they have 3 sets of each character where you can set up the upgrades individually for them. After some internal testing to see if something like a variant upgrade can be used without throwing the balance way off again. They just add a level beyond master for each character with 2 variants as a reward. I could see that happening in the future. But not yet. 

@newbebopBrilliant! I got my gf to get GW2 and I think we've played twice since she always wants to play Star Wars Battlefront 2 where she absolutely sucks 😂

Agree though, I've always loved PvZ for the fact it caters to all age groups from adults to young children, who can play with their parents being in the safe knowledge that they aren't exposed to blood, gore or extreme violence.

OP I get your points but for me the lack of variants just streamlines gameplay and I now  don't have to worry about leveling/perfecting every variant.
But do I think that there should be further weapon customisation such as type of weapon (e.g. rifle/sniper for soldier) and elements? Yes yes yes! 
Give it time, it's early days and devs seem committed to improvements and feedback. Just look at how they've said they'll address various issues in next patch - I could quote many games still have game breaking bugs and issues in since launch. Hope you come back in the future 👍🏼

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@spIash_damage wrote:

I’ve been married over a decade and my wife doesn’t game... at all... EVER, period.

Guess who’s been giggling when she Fung Fus bots lately?!

She LOVES being NC and it cracks me up.  As I watched her play NC, I realized the power she has to draw in new people.

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@spIash_damageNC stands for Nü clöser which is German for Togetherness!*

*Results may vary when searching for this combination of words but non will lead to a satisfactory answer. Neither should you listen to a German native :P

lol. 🙂))