Maps too cramped and cluttered
Having played the game for some time know at friends and at my place I think the maps are too cramped. Hear me out on this one. Although the maps are bigger in this sequel, they feel a lot more cramp...
Forum Discussion
@ShadowRosalina wrote:No it doesn't. You probably just haven't gotten a proper feel to it yet because Normal Mode Garden Ops are easy. And no matter what way you look at it, Garden Ops wasn't the focus of this game. It's not gonna be the thing that makes you decide to buy the game. The main focus was obviously the multiplayer (and you aren't even getting a proper feel of that either because of all these Rose shenanigans) and on expanding the single player content. And having spent ages collecting Gnomes I can easily say -they did real good on the single player. The Backyard Battleground has a lot more to it then what you'd think. Like if you spend too much time in it, heroes and bosses just start spawning and- I'm getting off track. The original point of this comment was that Garden Ops hasn't gotten a lot harder. And personally I think this game is better than the original.
Sorry but I spent the best part of 40 hours trying to get a "proper feel" towards these maps and the more I played the more I realised that this simply wasn't going to happen.
Ask yourself a question; How many times have you played in an online lobby and been shot by someone you simply cannot identify onscreen because there are so many bits of moving scenery or so many nooks and crannies that could be hiding that person? By the time you *think* you've fathomed out where the shooting is coming from you're either dead, almost dead or resigned to the fact that whichever way you run something else will probably finish you off so there's actually little point in making the effort to do something about it. The main problem is (and this has been mentioned before) is that the characters blend in way to easily with the scenery, more often than not making detection virtually impossible - irrespective of what side you're on or which character you've chosen. To make matters worse, half the time the 'kill cam' doesn't actually show you who killed you (or rather where that person happened to be hiding), instead choosing to zoom in on an empty piece of map, so there's not even an opportunity to avoid the same fate (or go seek retribution) next time around!
Even the onscreen level up (where the screen fills with yellow stardust) is a problem - especially in the heat of battle - because it's just another thing that affects your field of vision.
Or ask yourself another question; How many times have you gone into a melee in gardens and graveyards (you know, when the clock is about to hit zero and world war III is happening on the garden) and started shooting at anything and everything that moves? Not because you're shooting blind but purely and simply because the screen is so full of clutter that you have absolutely no idea who you're shooting at, instead just hoping that you hit someone who either starts to spew out energy loss numbers before your ammo runs out or hope that the 'someone' (who you did stumble upon in amongst the carnage and who is also spraying and praying) just happens to die before you... This isn't an occasional thing, it's fixed and permanent and destroys the fluidity of the game. If 'run, spray, maybe die' is your thing then I really do stand corrected but I prefer something a little bit more satisfying than that.
There's one part of the G&G that i'd like to give a particular mention to - and that's the bit where the endgame is the entire lobby rolling big balls around in an arena to try and score points by presumably rolling these balls somewhere in particular (I can't really help here because normally I just sit behind an object and wait til its over). The chaos that is happening onscreen is absolutely shocking and I absolutely defy anyone who says that is triple A entertainment because it most definitely is not. It's neither fun, skilful or entertaining to watch.
Don't get me wrong, Popcap have made some outstanding and diverse looking maps but no matter how you look at it and no matter weather you're playing in an online fracas or slogging it out in garden ops they are simply not designed well enough for the purpose they were intended and from what I understand this observation isn't a recent thing. So ok, we're all stuck with it and have to make the best of things - which is quite a shame really because I wanted PVZ2 to become a permanent fixture on my Xbox instead of just the occasional quick fix which it looks like it's going to be.
I agree with most of what Boris has to say. The way I would describe this game is chaotic, but not in a fun way. I find this especially in the turf takeover maps. It isn't even just the map design. Everything about the game feels busier than the first. There are enemy icons all over the place, more particle effects, the lighting and map design seems to make it a lot harder to make out other characters. From the comments I have read it sounds like they also took out some of the things that helped you know what was going on like audio for hits and healing.
Turf Takeover in this game feels more chaotic and less strategic—for many different reasons, I think. That is the multiplayer mode I played most because I really like Gardens and Graveyards in the first one. So far this game is not as much fun. I really like certain things about it, even the map designs, but it needs some tweaking to capture the feel of the first one. I want the game to move forward, but I don't want it to lose the parts about it that made it what it was. Right now GW2 feels like it has lost some of those essential parts that made the first game great—for me anyway.
OP got it exactly right. The first PvZ:GW felt more... intimate. This one feels more chaotic and you have less control and impact on the match.
Now in multiplayer, you can get quickly mowed down when you barely leave the cover of your spawn area. In the first GW in GvG mode, you have to travel across the map quite a ways to find the action. The map felt larger and positioning felt more strategic. Encounters with enemies were often 1 on 1 and were intimate battles of skill, who had the better aim scoring the headshots? who had the better strategy? It was easier to sneak up on people and catch them completely off guard by going the long way around. I used to love playing Chomper and baiting an Engineer on a jackhammer around a corner to catch him in a spikeweed to eat him. If an encounter wasn't 1 on 1, this meant that you were fighting for a strategic position such as the teleporter, or the garden. In this one you seem to die a lot faster. This game it feels like you are getting shot from multiple angles at once way more often.
Don't get me wrong, I think GW2 is a better game overall. I love the experience system, the "backyard", the fact that you can defend in GvG mode as a zombie, and play vs. the AI as a zombie, but when it comes down to the multiplayer PVP experience... the first one had a better feel. Hopefully an update can help.
