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...
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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.
