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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
10 years ago

Is PVZGW2 dying?

It all started with the "Trouble in Zombopolis: Part One" update, infamous for the character tuning that came with it.

Among the changes, increased Citron and Frozen Citron's damage, and increasing the time it took for them to overheat...

Increased ammo/damage among most Corns...

Decreased Imp Mech cooldown time and increased mech life time...

Killing Turbo Twister...

Decreasing Captain Sharkbite's explosion damage, which would later be added onto by decreasing his ammo...

And decreasing Chemist's damage, which would later be nerfed further and decreased in rate of fire.

Then came "Trouble in Zombopolis: Part Two" and with it, more bad character tuning.

Increasing various Corn's ammo capacity and/or damage...

Killing a handful of Cactus variants...

Increasing Rose's ammo supply...

Decreasing the effectiveness of most All-Star's and Superhero's overheat upgrades (while at the same time, NOT handling the out of control Citrons)...

Increasing Super Brainz punch damage...

Unnecessarily decreasing the damage multiplier of Computer Scientist's Crunch Mode...

And decreasing Camo Ranger's ammo.

Granted, they did make some bad characters (like Chomp Thing) better and finally nerfed Toxic Pea, but that doesn't make up for all the other things they broke.

Thankfully, the changes made on 7-27-16 mostly fixed the disaster of "Trouble in Zombopolis: Part Two."

But some characters like Captain Sharkbite weren't so lucky. They're still in the "not so good" state of the game we have today.

And some other characters like BBQ Corn and Frozen Citron got around this update nearly unscathed.

"Trials of Gnomus" here has been probably the best update yet. It had some changes I actually liked.

Nerfed Fire Chomper's damage.

Increased Chomp Thing's regen rate and max health.

Decreased heat generated by Hockey Star and decreased his overheat duration.

Finally brought down Pylon Imp's splash damage.

Despite this, many characters remain unbalanced or too terrible to use.

And here we are now. Still dealing with the same nonsense of "Nerf this, Buff that" and it is quite unsettling.

Just look at some of the insanity we have.

Corn has 45 ammo and a rather odd hitbox (Yes, he is tall, but his body is very slender, making it hard to hit).

BBQ Corn players run rampant through most all game modes.

Citron still has 200 health, A laser that deals an absurd amount of damage and takes what seems like forever to overheat, a shield to absorb even more damage, a crazy stun ability, and can escape death via the use of ball form.

Frozen Citron freezes in about one second, and his beam doesn't overheat for about six seconds.

Rose's hitbox and abilities are still absurd, and her ammo has been drastically increased.

Chomper's Spikeweed arms instantly, rendering Superheroes that try to attack him useless, and it is quite insane to just run up to someone with Hot Rod Chomper and place one at their feet.

Toxic Chomper is still a direct downgrade from Power Chomper, and even the new, nerfed Fire Chomper.

Pea Gatling and Sunbeam damage output and resistance.

Imps are still as hard to hit as before, and Gravity Grenade is still a nearly guaranteed way to win any fight.

Imps are calling their mechs more than ever, and they last even longer than before.

The Drake Z-Mech. 'Nuff said.

Toxic Brainz struggles to activate his legendary mode in multiplayer, but when he does, he wrecks everything in his path.

Deadbeard's scattershot is more effective than the Chemist's Beaker Blaster at this point.

Arctic Trooper's Freeze to ZPG Combo.

Big Bolt Blaster and Cannon Rodeo hitboxes (You don't deal damage to the Engineer/Pirate by shooting the Blaster/Cannon).

Chemist is dead at this point.

Computer Scientist's Crunch Mode isn't even worth the additional damage very much anymore. You still vanquish most enemies in the same number of hits.

Rugby Star and Wrestling Star have basically no purpose thanks to their slow firing speed.

Elemental attacks in general (Fire deals crazy damage over time, Ice slows and freezes for several seconds, Electricity spreads from player to player, Toxic isn't worth mentioning, as Fire is so much stronger).

And let's not forget what I'm sure EVERYONE is complaining about...

The Trial Keys.

Ooh boy, I'm really getting myself into a deep, dark abyss now.

Popcap did announce the key drop rate would be increased to 75% after the first mystery portal event. Before that, I don't even know.

Within the five events, I have only managed to get TWO keys, and I've heard many others have had even worse RNG, only obtaining one key, or even NOTHING thus far.

Time and time again, we open the 50 Rainbow Star chests, only to be sent further into depression at the discovery of not a key, but something else that doesn't appeal.

I'm sure many have quit playing altogether out of frustration of the RNG.

If anything these Rainbow Star chests should give us more items, and the 50 Rainbow Star chest should reset, should the player not obtain a Trial Key.

Sure, we could just assume that Popcap is having some technical difficulties at the moment, but I believe that is NOT the case.

Instead, I think we are in this situation today not because of them, but...

The community.

Day after day, people post their opinions, angry messages, and hate comments on this very site.

I believe Popcap is having trouble deciding what to do, when they have so many comments everywhere, some suggesting "nerf this" and others saying "don't do that, do this instead."

Honestly, I think we would be better off if this had never happened. The developers would get to create their game in THEIR own, unique way, and have fun doing it, rather than getting hundreds, maybe thousands of messages each day, wanting something changed.

I believe Popcap is trying their hardest to make the community happy, but I'm sure there's one thing we can ALL agree on.

No matter what changes.

No matter how long this goes on.

No matter how many people complain.

There will never be a time where everyone is satisfied.

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  • Iron_Guard8's avatar
    Iron_Guard8
    Legend
    10 years ago

    I had the same issue in GW1 though too. G&G was almost always a short delay if not instant, mixed mode often had a slight delay, the other modes could be very lightly populated. there were times I wanted to play Taco Bandits and couldn't get a pop besides the 'solo' pop where I was the only player there and had the 'waiting for players' message on my screen. Like most I prefer TT over them all but I do like to mix them up and get some gnome bomb, suburbination, etc. in as well, but its been like this the whole time essentially.

    For the quests I often go for private games vs bots and/or with friends to get them done. It's more fun against other players but private games give instant pops.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    10 years ago
    @Scruffy_McGuffy wrote:

    Based on the frequency I find empty games in the US lobbies for a couple of game modes, yeah I'd say it's dying. Perhaps there is some validity to OP's list of balance concerns, but IMO the main reason is lack of real new content to keep it fresh. Since launch 8 months ago there has been, what... 1 new map (Zombopolis Herbal Assault, way back in March), a couple of character variants, and two new character classes which people like myself cannot access despite best efforts (1 key from 5 events). Of course players are going to drift away, and it will get worse in the next couple of months.

     

    I thought the whole point of microtransactions in PvZGW was to fund development of new content, not simply to pad the publishers profits.

    I learned recently that Infinity Mode packs can give new characters, so I spent 800K the last time and didn't get a single character part, never mind a new character to play. With drop rates like that it's discouraging. When all signs point to an insane amount of grind for little reward, many people will just leave instead.

    You hit the nail on the head Scruffy.  I brought up the lack of new maps and got shot down by the resident fanboy RealitySquared. Gears of War 4 with its problems with micro transactions will be giving out two new maps each month for twelve months and that is not including the many maps it had at launch. That is 24 new maps over the course of the year yet GW2 has five maps for turf takeover. They spend time on non-sense like dinos versus cats or go through the trials of gnomus. On top of that it is lazy programming or maybe more likely take the cheap way out reusing code. You keep it fresh by adding maps and new characters. The mystery portal and community challenges are fine but give me new maps. How great was it when Zombopolis was added? I went back and played GW1 and boy the big thing they lost with GW2 was the great strategy the game brought. If you can't give us that level of strategy at least load us up on three new maps. I would even be happy if they can somehow transport the Golf Club maps or an old map.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    10 years ago

    I originally purchased GW2 for PS4 when I had that console. I never had an issue playing any game mode I felt like. All modes were very well-populated. Now that I no longer have a PS4, I purchased it for PC. I can hardly believe that only TT is played. Why is there such a vast difference between consoles and PC when it comes to population of servers? Just to sell the point, this isn't the only game I've seen console servers more populated than PC servers.

    Also, I didn't read a straight answer on whether people are returning to GW1, because if that's the case, I'm purchasing that one again immediately. It's sad to say that I just enjoy GW2 less.

  • crazydave0923's avatar
    crazydave0923
    10 years ago

    I play on the Xbox one and I don't have any issues with finding teams to play with.

    However, it does seem that people are still play PVZGW1 because I find their servers to be full often also.

    I believe PVZGW1 is going to be shut down next year. Does anyone remember when?

  • PurpleKudzu423's avatar
    PurpleKudzu423
    10 years ago

    PC players are having a real hard time finding games other than Turf and that's really odd since apparently people play all the game modes on the consoles. You would think since most everyone has a PC that there would be more people on PC.

    Classic GW1 is still fun and a lot of people play. Its always great to go play some Taco Bandits or Vanquish Confirmed for old times sake! 👍

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