If you could design the next PvZ shooter...

Business model: I’m starting here as one of the pillars of a successful game. One of the key failings of BfN is its poor business model. This is especially evident back in December 2019 when they released the Feastivus pack while the game was still having serious problems for so many players. I myself did get that pack but I fully agree with those that did not and were angered by its existence when so much was still wrong.

The new game would either be free to play with ways to spend money to show support for the game without having players feel forced or exploit the infamous ‘FOMO’, or it’d have a sticker price and ways to spend additional money if you liked, but again would never try to force players into feeling like they must buy more to compete or enjoy the game.

While I normally don’t like free to play games much, as they often end up costing more than normal priced games, it may help get people back to play that have left and may be leery of spending more money without seeing how the game plays, and would encourage a lot of people to at least try it as they’d not have to spend money on an initial investment. So, while I’d be open to a price to get the game like all 3 current PvZ shooters, making it F2P could really help bring back, retain, and expand the playerbase.

Crossplay across all platforms is almost mandatory in this day and age. Obviously they have to make sure to deal with hackers, cheaters, and glitch exploiters which has cursed the games, especially GW2 on PC, but it works in Paladins, Rocket Arena, and other games, and it would be a huge help to keeping modes other than TT with full lobbies. I consider this part of the business model as it affects how people will perceive its value and long-term viability.

Assuming a free to play model, I’d say we’d have a return of something like the prize map but with a free and paid track similar to Paladins and Rocket Arena so that free players don’t feel completely left out, but players can spend on the paid track to get more rewards. The tracks need items that are not perceived as useless as the punchers and victory slabs are in BfN (note: I always championed the idea that if we could use more than 1 slab and a max of 2 punchers total, these would be much more rewarding). These prize maps would last a few months, likely 3, instead of a single one too, so the devs have time to set them up, folks would have more time to unlock things, and it would match the seasons in other games that use a similar model.

So where does this leave sticker packs/capsules? I have a couple ideas for that. One-remove the sticker packs/capsules entirely and have everything unlocked via the prize map/battle pass, with older items available for coins from Rux, along with whatever special items he may sell (more on coins in my in-game economy post later), you would still have a sticker book to track items, a key thing that BfN lacked that the two GW games had. Two-sticker packs remain similar to GW1 and 2 but some of them are available in the prize map as well as for coins. The packs would be ‘regenerated’ with each new prize map; adding new items every 3 months or so along with the new prize maps. In this second case, Rux would sell specific items for coins from the packs as well as his own unique stock.

There would be just coins for the main currency here, special currencies like stars and rainbow stars will still exist just like in all 3 current games in some form or other, but I’ll cover that in the in-game economy post I’m making later.

My goal here is to make it so we don’t have the serious problems BfN’s economy has suffered from; resentment (of FOMO, and other things), the prize map being full of fluff and only a few desired items, and coins and regional currencies becoming largely useless after a point.

Regardless of what business model the game uses, it MUST never be pay to win and players must feel like they want to spend money instead of feeling forced to do so.

Edit: As coins will be the main currency in the new game, it will largely be earned by playing the game as in all 3 games now, but can also be purchased in 'coin packs' like in both GW games.

In-game economy: While related to my earlier post about the game’s business model, that post was already long enough and there’s plenty to talk about to warrant this separate post. Another one of BfN’s biggest problems has been on this front and a new game has to handle this better.

The idea of different currencies isn’t actually bad, even if BfN was flooded with a plethora of different kinds. In BfN we have; coins, rainbow stars, prize bulbs, tacos, marshmallows, sheriff badges, and had Ops phase 3 reached fruition, blue stars: GW2 has; coins, rainbow stars, and stars and: GW1 has; coins and challenge stars (challenge stars aren’t quite the same as regular currencies, but I count them as they do matter and are spent to bypass challenges). I’m trying to keep things more basic in the ideas I present here.

While BfN does have an overabundance of currency types, it isn’t the variety of currencies that are the culprit here, it’s how it all panned out. Coins are fairly quickly obsolete, barring using them to power-level, which for anyone that has played any other PvZ games finds bizarre and the regional currencies also become borderline useless once you are 100% done with the free roam zones. The idea that earning currencies specific to certain free roam zones makes sense; both from a theme perspective and so that you can’t just buy things in a new zone without being involved in it first, but the fact that they run out eventually makes them less than satisfying.

To attempt to resolve all this, I’m going to break things down based on my prior post about the business model, and things I actually haven’t posted about yet (consumables, XP, levels, etc.).

Note: In the examples below, I will assume that sticker packs/capsules are no longer part of the game. A sticker book of some kind (scrap book?) will return to the game so people can keep track of what they have, don’t have, and want. All customizations will be either purchases from Rux, earned on the prize map, or purchased from free roam zones directly with no randomness involved.

Coins:  Coins will always be viable and the main currency of the game. They will be earned in all game modes just like in all 3 current shooters. They will be used at the main hub (the game’s version of Giddy Park or the Backyard Battleground), to buy items from Rux, to unlock rewards from the prize map, and for other possible purchases. Coins can also be purchased in packs just like in GW1 and 2 for real money for those that want to accelerate certain aspects of the game and to use the more beneficial prize map track that must be purchased.

Rux: Rux will be similar to Rux in GW2, and with other changes will make Wingding unnecessary. Using coins at his store, players will be able to;

• Purchase special Rux only items-these will have to be legendary items or special event items to be separate from the prize map; stuff like the Eternal Crown from GW2 as an example.
• To move from the free track of the current prize map to the paid track. The free track will have items and the paid track will have the free track stuff as well as its own items unavailable on the free path.
• Advance their prize map by spending their coins. Note that you can advance the maps just by earning XP normally, much like in Paladins, but can accelerate this process by spending coins.
• To purchase items they missed from prior prize maps and especially new characters and variants, but all missed prize map entries will be for sale here.
• Purchase additional save slots for your characters, much like the 3 slots available in BfN, but in the new game it will go beyond 3, I’m thinking starting at 3 each and going to 10 each. You buy slots per character/variant so can focus as you see fit.
• To purchase self-revives and team retries for Ops and other similar modes like Boss hunts if they exist. Note: this is to prevent the insane amount of these you end up with in GW1 and 2. In this game, you instead decide how many you feel you need and can buy exactly as many as you want for coins directly and can always buy more if you wish.
• When the game launches, several new characters/variants as well as neighborhood items will be directly purchasable and always available from Rux for coins. Instead of buying packs, you can just go to Rux and buy any of these at any time.

Rux will also be where you go to get free items, promotions, and other special stuff. Rux will always stock things that are special and in game so you never feel like you can’t catch something you may have missed and get discouraged.

Prize Map: This assumes a free to play model for the game as one of my 2 earlier suggestions in the previous post. Every 90 days a brand-new prize map will be available automatically for all players. There will be a default free track and in addition to that, an advanced track (not sure what to name it), that you can purchase for coins from Rux. This advanced track (Big Brainz? Flower Power? Something that reflects both sides?) will include all the free rewards as you level it up and also extra rewards only available to those that spend the coins on this paid tier. For example, if you reach level 10 on the free tier you gain a hat for the sunflower and variants but if you are on the paid tier, you get that hat and a weapon skin for the basic foot soldier as well. Some of the rewards will be coins so again much like Paladins, you can earn some of this currency back via leveling the prize map, the rest will be much like the prize map in BfN, but with a few changes;

• The more toxic emotes like the poop emote will be removed, but emotes will be on the map.
• Victory slabs and punchers will return but as you can customize this for each character/variant slot, they will always be useful.
• Coins will be a reward on the tracks in places.
• Character customizations will dominate the items available.
• Gestures will also return to the prize maps.
• New variants/characters
• Customizations for your personal neighborhood-including scenery like we had for our backyards in GW2 and also special items like battle objectives and selectable minions that spawn for personalized battles.
• New minions
• Other possible items

This allows them to vary the items for each map greatly and with the 3 month time frame means that although there will be a lot of levels of items to earn, more will of course be on the map than a single month of the BfN prize maps, it will still give people and the devs time to work on and earn things. This new system also eliminates the issue where you reach the prize bulb cap and any XP towards bulbs feels wasted like in BfN; XP will directly advance the prize map instead of needing bulbs. I’ll go over the XP system in more detail in a later post but you will still have character levels per character/variant just like now, but without a max level, although you will rank up and get a fancier name plate on your victory slab and coins. More details on this later, but XP will never be wasted in this game.

Regional currencies: The idea here is to have free roam regions be more universally rewarding so the massive amount of work and care that go into these will bear more fruit for the devs and players will want to come back to them.

Each of the zones will reward coins and their own regional currencies just like in BfN but the currencies will be more generally useful as coins will always be rewarding and the regional currencies can be used to purchase region only items much like in BfN, but with more options while retaining the ability to swap regional currency to coins and maybe the reverse as well?

I’ll go into more depth about how I’d make the zones more viable long term than they are in BfN but as far as the economy, players will spend regional currency to buy much of the same stuff as we do in BfN but also neighborhood customizations and minions that can only be attained via playing the free roam zones. This is a different idea from my old economic idea thread, as I’ll be completely removing consumables barring the direct purchase of revives (self and team) that Rux will always sell directly. Minions will always be available once unlocked, but will use timers much like BfN did.

For example, let’s say the first plant free roam zone has you earning tacos again, like town center in BfN, and you can buy a couple costumes, some special items for your neighborhood and 2 minions (ex: a porcelain vase weed and the fire pea pot). As you gain more tacos here you can unlock those items, which may or may not be gated by how far you are along in the free roam zone.  

It’s key to me that like coins, there shouldn’t be a time where the regional currencies feel useless. Once you’ve bought everything in a zone, you will be able to convert them to coins, used to spawn certain enemies, and other uses. I know we can convert them to coins in BfN but coins aren’t very useful later on so it doesn’t help much. More detail on this when I post about free roam regions later!

Special event rewards: While not directly part of the economy per se, having special events beyond the prize maps like Sir Crustworthy in BfN or the bat in GW2 would have special quests/challenges you can do while they’re around to earn special rewards. This may include some kind of special currency players can use for unique purposes but I’ve been trying to keep the currencies down to just coins and the regional currencies to keep things simple.

Costs: This is the most difficult part. I want costs to be cheap enough to keep people from feeling like they have to grind to get anything but expensive enough so the other end of the spectrum isn’t crying about being bored 2 days after a prize map drops. This will have to be dialed in precisely so every match, every minute of exploring a free roam zone, and every real penny spent feel like they’re worth it. Not an easy task!

Obviously, there are other ideas that could work but I’m pondering ideas that I feel are fair to the playerbase, keep the community interested and playing without being frustrating, and of course turn a profit so the game will be supported and getting new content for a long time. I’d prefer to just have a one time price than some of the things I suggest, but I also know that if we want a game with constant content updates for a long time, it will have to make money on a continuous basis so tried to make a fair system that makes money for the devs but doesn’t make players feel forced to spend money to keep up. Just like GW1 and 2, I want to encourage people to spend because they want to, not because they feel compelled to do so.

@TheSprinter85more is coming, but I'm breaking it down into chunks so I don't make one post the size of a an encyclopedia!

Back at it!

Business model additions: Assuming we keep the F2P business models, there would likely be a few different packages players could get:

• Free Package: This is simply playing with no initial money invested. A free player would have the basic characters, 1 save slot per character (remember you can buy more with coins, up to 10 per character), the basic minions (heal flower, peashooter pot, repeater pot, bonk choy pot, weed, pumpkin head weed, Doctor heals, rocket bot, Gatling bot, boxer bot, browncoat zombie, road cone browncoat zombie). They would make coins at the base rate and have access to all PvP modes and maps, the open battlefield, their personal neighborhood, and the starting 2 free roam zones (1 per side). 
• Basic Package: This costs a small amount, like 20-30 dollars and gives the free package with the following extras: 2 save slots per character/variant, extra minions (buckethead zombie, terracotta weed, mister electro, and lightning reed) unlocked at the start, 5 XP boosters (of whatever type works), a stipend of coins (I'm thinking 500k but it depends on how much things end up costing and how fast you earn them in game), and possibly some other rewards for paying players, as long as it isn't unfair advantages or PvP maps/modes.
• Deluxe Package: This costs a full price, around 60 dollars or so. This package includes everything from the lower packages but also adds: 3 slots per character, additional minions (flag zombie, heal flag zombie, flag weed, heal flag weed). 20 XP boosters, more coins (1 million?), and again, other possible rewards for paying players as long as it doesn't end up pay to win, stuff like unique rank plate flair and other items.

The idea of the packages is not to give paying players unfair advantages over free players but instead to give them a head start on getting stuff unlocked and more options so free players can compete on an even playing field, but that paying players are rewarded for investing in the game.

Rux and consumables: Besides the self-revives and team retries for Ops, Rux would also sell XP booster packs for coins (again, coins can be purchased with real money but can also be earned in game), allowing you to level up your characters faster and to unlock the 90 day prize map faster as well. How much XP they boost and if there are several different versions would be determined but I'm thinking of them lasting for a few hours or days each, won't use time when your not actually playing, and would be at least 25% XP, but having versions of various duration and bonus XP percentage could easily be a thing.

*Important* Rux will always sell some basic unlockables (pots and bots, rank plate customizations, variants/characters, weeds and browncoats, neighborhood customizations, and so on), and will always stock items from past prize maps so new folks can always get items they may have missed, and those that can't play as much can still get the things they want eventually. I'd like people to think more positively of the game, the business model, and visiting the Rux shop and never want players feel like they can never keep up or are getting gouged by the game. As stated before, Rux will sell coin packs for real money, let you spend coins to unlock the elit- paid track of the 90 day battle passes, character slots (so you can save costume and upgrade setups for each character, up to 10 each), rank plate flair, custom punchers and victory slabs (which will be customizable on each save slot so they're worth getting), and so on.

Notes:  I added the melee pot and bot (Bonk Choy and Boxer Bot) as I felt most people don't like them all that much and would only buy them if they have OCD like I do. Having them be free to all players in the free package and up made the most sense.

All players will have access to all minions, but the higher ranked player packages will give players some of them as part of their package. Lower level packages can buy them from Rux for coins. It's so important I feel I have to mention it more than once so people don't get the wrong impression: paying players must NEVER have an unfair advantage over free players, they merely get rewards faster or get unique customizations for their money instead.

Edit: players can upgrade their package at any time by paying the difference between their current package and the package above as well as just buy coins for cash at any time at Rux. They get all the rewards they are entitled too when they do, but if you were, say a free player and unlocked the buckethead browncoat from Rux and then buy a package later, that part of the package wouldn't do anything for you.

Maps and Zones

For the purpose of this discussion, maps are for PvP matches and Ops, zones are for your personal neighborhoods, free roam zones, and the special open battlefield.

Maps: I want to include all the maps from GW1 and 2 with any needed tweaks for larger characters. If we include BfN maps, the TT maps need to be adjusted so we have more exciting battles that aren't always on the points and allow for teleporters to come back as I enjoyed making them, using them, and fighting over them (even if there were times, especially in GW1, where defending them was a major pain if your team didn't help). 

That's a lot of maps; GW1 has 4 G&G (TT) maps and 8 mixed/Ops maps and GW 2 has 5 TT maps and 10 mixed/Ops maps (and that's without night time versions), while BfN has 6 TT maps and 8 mixed/Ops maps and it'd be a good idea to add more PvP/Ops maps so the game has its own character as well, but one common theme I've seen since GW2 launched is to include the old maps! Even with some changes to them, there's a lot of fondness for these maps and would help bring back a lot of the veterans. New maps could really help bring new ideas to the series on top of bringing back the favorites!

Joining matches would use either a portal like in GW2 and BfN or maybe your neighborhood transports. Either way, you won't just sit in the portal doing nothing till a match pops, you'll be able to still play around in your neighborhood or the open battlefield.

Zones: My idea is to have several of these:

Personal Neighborhood: When you log into the game, you end up here. It's the new game's version of the Backyard Battleground/Giddy Park with its own ideas. It will be larger than GW2's backyard although split into a plant section, zombie section, and in between will be a more neutral section much like the backyard. In fact if you're used to the backyard, it won't seem all that different at first.

Rux will be either somewhere in the middle like he used to be in GW2 or in both bases like later in that game or BfN now, I'm 100% open to either idea. If you're a basic or deluxe player, when you first login you'll go see him to get your bonus items. New players of any level will be able to jump in and play in their own neighborhood where both bases also have the multiplayer portal, transport to the free roam zones and the open battlefield in each base, special backyard quests and hidden stuff to find, customization booth, the stickerbook, a possible puncher/victory slab customization NPC (this may be in the booth instead as you can customize this per character and per slot), the minion NPC (since the game will have a ton of minions, to make things easier, you can select some as your favorites so they're always at the top of your interface window, making them easier to access in battle. More on this in a later post, but there may have to be some restrictions on this so you can't  just slot all heavy armored walkers for example), and the most fun part, various spots where you can add customizations.

The neighborhood will have a lot of 'under construction' spots where players can make their personal neighborhood their own using those customizations you can unlock via buying them from Rux and the free roam zones. Even without adding anything to your neighborhood, you will have battles much like in GW2, where friends can join in, bots spawn more and more as you fight and visit the opposing base, and you can just play around in your own private place while still earning XP and coins (the rare of which is up to how they want things to play out).

These neighborhood customizations will be more robust than they are in GW2. Not only will there be more spots to customize your neighborhood, but you can focus on one side more than the other and these customizations will change your neighborhood in various ways and add minigame objectives to spice up the experience. You can only place plant specific items in the plant section and the same for the zombies but either can go into the middle ground areas and this will change the appearance of that middle ground, allowing you to focus on one side of the other, or to mix and match. 

Examples of personal neighborhood customizations:

• Spawners that add specific or random AI
• Boss portals that spawn bosses
• Objectives for you, your friends, and AI to fight over
• Revisiting classic places like the boat from Port Scallywag.
• Minigame kiosks and areas (think like the boat blast and target range in GW2)
• Others-like changing your free roam/battlefield transports skins

Essentially as you play, you will have more and more options for your neighborhood and as more things are added to the game, players' own versions will vary greatly between each other. You can change these more or less at will, although not during using one for something, such as changing a target range while using it won't be possible. A lot of these may just be decorations, but the amount of variation will be huge! I'll post about more of these ideas in depth in a separate post.

Free Roam Zones: These will be similar to BfN's  but with a few changes that I think will help them be more appealing over a longer term. We'll start with at least one per side for all players that you will visit via the transports in your neighborhood. As the game goes on, more of these will be added and will provide themed customizations that can only be earned via these zones.

The free roam zones will allow you to unlock costumes and other items just like BfN, but also certain minions as well. For example, a port themed zombie area would let you unlock barrel pirates, map pirates, swabbie zombies, and ship's wheel zombies you can spawn in TT matches, possibly other matches, and at the open battlefield. A lot of these spawnables you can unlock via free roam zones largely be reskins of other basic spawnables, but some will be completely unique.

To add to this idea, and to help entice people to the free roam regions even more, we should build on what we had in BfN's zones, which were excellent but limited. I still go back to them today, but largely to get XP as I work on maxxing my level. We want these zones to be alluring for any/all players from newbies to those that are much higher rank! Besides the XP for for the prize map and leveling up your characters/account. To do this we'll have the following occur in the zones:

• Random events that pop up, like special boss attacks, locations to defend and so on. Possibly with unique rewards. The skirmishes in BfN helped but were too limited. I'd have these be more impressive and detailed.
• Holiday themed events. Like Sir Crustworthy in BfN or the bat and other such quests in GW2. These would have unique seasonal rewards based on the current holiday(s) involved.
• The ability to replay quest lines completely whenever you like. We can kind of do this in BfN, but not the initial parts. I'd have it so you can play the entire quest lines as much as you want.
• More quests in the zones. The main quests for the BfN zones were fun but very short. I'd expand them to make them far more interesting and have more time invested to complete.
• As part of the prize map, there would be free roam zone quests you could do for bonus XP, similar to Paladins battle pass challenges. Since the prize maps would be 3 months, you could complete them in a timely but not super tight schedule. Daily quests are largely irritating, and having 15 quests every 46 hours in GW2 was a bit much too.

Obviously, these free roam zones would take a lot of work, but they must already have done so in BfN but lacked replayability. I'd like to see all that work the team that make the game rewarded and also more rewarding for the players.

The game would launch with at least 1 zone per side and preferably 2. Later zones would be added and accessed via a drop down menu in the transports in your neighborhood. Extra zones would have to be bought with coins as they take so much effort and would be optional (they aren't PvP maps, PvP maps must always be accessible to all players). I'd prefer to have a ton of them and all be free but this is one way they could make money without harming PvP.

Open Battlefield: This would be accessed via your transports in your neighborhood, and you can go here automatically when waiting for a match to pop (no more sitting in the portal doing nothing). This would be a large open public zone where players can battle at any time with other players, kind of like a public Giddy Park but without stores, or other 'menu items', which are in your own neighborhood, or needing to jump into the action via those pads. There will be a plant and zombie base and some smaller points you can fight over, summon bots/pots/weeds/browncoats, and just fight for fun while waiting for a match or just whenever you like. You'd get XP and coins of course and there could be achievements for fighting here as well as special events. 

I don't want this to become a toxic space where one team mauls the other so some balance factors have to be added (spawn camping can't be a thing for example, but too, no sniping from your protected span area either), NPC bosses and such can spawn to balance stuff out if one side is doing badly and so on. Since it will be full crossplay across all platforms, I really want this to be a fun place to fight with each other and have the community become closer, rather than constant vendettas or other nastiness. It can't be 100% balanced as people leave and join at any time, but it could be a lot of fun and the appearance could reflect the current holiday/prize map or other factors. It can even change its layout over time so no one can memorize the layout!