I didn't care about the game not having variants, but...

-People just picking annoying/op variants
-People not playing some variants at all, making the existence of those pointless

That's exactly what I thought of. And whenever I think about something, I try to see it from the developer's point of view. They have access to all player data and they know that most people pick certain variants only. So, why waste time making new variants if people will just play certain ones... After all, they are right... The ones they pick are the most effective ones...

So, PopCap sees things we don't see... And based on that they decided to remove variants altogether. They produce more issues/burden to the developers than others can imagine. Having to balance each variant case-by-case... And who knows, maybe when they decide to balance one variant, something crumbles elsewhere. 

I think that the only good thing that came out of variants is "the excitement and joy of obtaining one and then trying it out to level it up." People don't get that joy anymore in BFN because they're not there. You basically grind for a 30k capsules that could give you phrases like "Beef Wellington" or "Brainz!"... Yeah "Brainz?" and "Brainz!" are different lol... Enjoy your sweet hard earned 30k on things you will rarely use!

I'm fine with the new system... I like it... I'm one of the minority probably. And that's all because, just like most people, I only used few variants and the others were just shelved in GW1/GW2. The new system is "better" for me because I can try different variations and play styles.

But my issues with the upgrades are (A topic rarely discussed... I assume that's because there aren't many players who reached max rank yet):

• That some upgrades are straight up "meh". There are heroes that get "insanely OP" upgrades while others get "meh" upgrades that might cost a lot for an ability that has a pretty long cool down.
• There are also heroes that are "OP" straight out of the box, with no upgrades at all, and there are others who are generally weak, struggle to survive without proper upgrades...
• You have to use upgrades on certain heroes to make them function like their counterparts while that OP hero gets upgrades to become even more OP (e.g. Peashooter is super powerful even without any upgrades... Giving him upgrades makes him an extremely good choice compared to other heroes like Kernel Corn.. Why would someone play Kernel Corn when they can perform better as a Peashooter...)
• Certain abilities are conditional (you can't always meet the conditions when others vanquish targets before you, you can't revive others if others will keep pressing the respawn button) or have RNG elements (Reloading causes a random explosion around Electric Slide. Critical Vanquish causes random explosion.). <-- Not a big fan of random abilities, they aren't always reliable and would waste a slot that could be used on other things

I don't mind having no variants. I just wish they'd tune balance heroes and make their upgrades more meaningful. Because at the end of the day, people will end up using certain heroes and not the others, exactly like the variants in GW1/GW2. 

I'm not giving up or anything here. I know that there will be new heroes introduced to the game... I know that the developers would try to balance the game over time. I just worry that they'd over listen to the community without considering the overall balance of things. (e.g. The buffed Snapdragon's Blue Blazes is an annoying OHKO ability that comes out of nowhere with no audible sound while blending in very very well with all the fire he spits.) I also worry that certain balance changes might over-buff players with different skills.

For example, people ask for a Rose buff. But players who can easily be at top 5 in most games using her... What would happen to them? I don't mind her getting buffed, but I worry that her buff would make me more powerful that I'd ruin it for other players...

I don't understand what my stance should be about balance in general because I have no access to all player data. And I don't think that all players are the same. Some players are really good at certain heroes, others position themselves poorly putting themselves at risk using a hero not designed for that position and complain that their heroes are weak.

For example, a flanking Sunflower or a Sunflower that positions herself at the front.. Well, duh.. it's not your role to be tanky! You don't have escaping abilities and you have a huge head hitbox... I see many Sunflowers doing that... And I hate to break it to you, your position makes you an easy target that would get you killed so often. I'm saying this because I know that there are players who complain about her being weak. When she can be top 5 easily if played well (getting high vanquishes while also getting good amount of healing and reviving.)

Thank you for reading...