If you could design the next PvZ shooter...

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.