Graveyard Variety Pack - post patch feedback

*gets the Super Yeti Wave, normal boss music plays*

...T.T

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@AWMaxSterling wrote:

Haven't gotten a chance to play with the new patch, yet. Are zombies winning much easier now?

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Too easily.

I have 2 points of feedback, and I've been kind of sitting on one of them for a while.

1. Before I begin, my issue here is not with Rose in her current state of balance, but rather I have an issue with her current character design. Rose as a character seems to have a muddy design, and therefore she comes off as this strange, flawed character. Her basic form is this quick-casting spell weaver that doesn't quite fit the "supportive casting mage" motif that her design seems to seek out. I think her execution is poor, and the changes to her in this most recent patch deviate from the proposed design of "support" and just more to "close range CC if I can survive." Her balance changes which take power away from her utility support, rather than taking away from her offensive output, leave Rose feeling like less of a character, and on top of that, less clear of who she is and her place on the plant team. Rose has to be one of two things: DPS support, or utility support, and what the balance team is doing is trying to merge the two in unhappy unison. It just doesn't work, and again, it makes her character design less clear. From my understanding of Rose, she is a supportive mage class. She casts spells with her wand as a basic attack & she weaves spells in-between for her abilities. The closest that the team has gotten to good design is Fire & Ice Rose. They charge their attacks and cast spells that feel rewarding. So why do Rose & Druid Rose not do the same thing? Thematically it would make more sense for them to be like Fire & Ice, and it would also fix her DPS output - it addresses the issue that many people complained about in the boards here - HER DAMAGE WAS WAY TOO STRONG. So, then I ask, why in the sake of balance, when the playerbase says "nerf Rose," do you attack her utility and then call her a support?
   • My advice: clarify her identity within her role. Rose should be a slow-casting mage. Her homing thistles should be much slower. Her damage should be lowered when she uses quick, rapid-fire casts (like Fire & Ice), but in return, she should be able to charge attacks on her other variants (Rose, Druid, and Party) to fit the "mage" theme she has going on. Her Time Snare should have strong utility (maybe not with the aim removal), but the slow should be massive and the duration should be long enough to be useful (it seems as though the nerf to the duration works a bit more fairly, so I applaud that). Her Goatify ability is another thing that works well with the nerf. I would, however, like to see her Arcane Enigma do less damage to convince people to use it as a defensive ability, rather than to rush in and burst people for like 50-60 damage.
2. The zombie side has become overly strong with the most recent patch. It seemed a bit preemptive to give Zombies a compensation buff since the main issue was Rose, but now the zombies have a very strong offensive advantage and it seems a bit, dare I say it, UNBALANCED. I've played quite a few games on the new patch, and I feel as though zombies can just plow through all of the plants team without any sort of issue. The zombie side has so much working in their favor offensively - they have high burst, consistent damage, ranged damage and DoT's. On top of that, characters like Electro Brainz, who have been consistently abused in the later part of the first few weeks of launch, remains untouched despite his consistent high damage output on his aimed ranged attack. With some more tweaks to that, and a couple minor changes to other characters, I think balance will be a bit better. EDIT: I figured I would add this in as well - electricity damage across the board is WAY TOO STRONG.

Well after a few hours play, I feel the balance is much better. I haven't found myself being faced with swarms of Rose and their seems to be a better mix of characters playing. People are always going to moan about things because it doesn't suit their way of playing and how one character should be nerfed and another buffed but we needto accept it will be impossible to make each individual happy.

Credit to EA/Pop Cap for listening to the gamers and implementing fixes that were required.

Also I enjoyed the new map, I like the familiarity from GW1, wouldn't mind seeing a few more of these.

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@Empzurg99 wrote:

Well after a few hours play, I feel the balance is much better. I haven't found myself being faced with swarms of Rose and their seems to be a better mix of characters playing. People are always going to moan about things because it doesn't suit their way of playing and how one character should be nerfed and another buffed but we needto accept it will be impossible to make each individual happy.

Credit to EA/Pop Cap for listening to the gamers and implementing fixes that were required.

Also I enjoyed the new map, I like the familiarity from GW1, wouldn't mind seeing a few more of these.

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Isn't it a little ironic that you're rejoicing about the lack of Roses and then go on to belittle others concerns about how characters need to be nerfed?

Either way, I've learned in all my years of gaming that when you remove power from one thing, it shifts to another. Metas change, and that's exactly what is going to happen here. By the end of the week, there will be a new "Rose" that the community "moans" about. And if you knew anything about Rose's balance situation, you would know that the only reason she was so strong to begin with was because they "listened to the gamers" based on feedback from players that barely touched her in beta. So maybe if they stopped listening to the community about balance issues, they wouldn't have had the issue to begin with.

Game seems pretty balanced now, I'm a lot happier playing imp, the extra 25 health really makes a difference. And I'm no longer afraid to go 1 v 1 against the Rose.

Don't get me wrong, I still die a lot while playing imp but I'm not consistently getting wrecked by homing thistles. Well Done!