Plants vs Zombies: A Post Mortem Analysis

Pretty much what I've been saying for weeks.

Give every plant a Shotgun and a health buff. oh and a Mech who can tank and steamroll any zombie in 2 seconds.

The problem lays more in the fact that a lot of people are just bad at the game and that team balancing isn't the greatest..

The following score in the screenshot was done with a fire pea to about 35 kills, rest with toxic pea. I mean, how little amount of kills can you get in a game? *sigh* I sure had a lot more kills when I was level <50.

I almost defended sometimes but then they just came in big numbers.

It's usually just the team that is most aggressive that wins in Turf War (when they aren't incredibly nooby at the game). Game only needs a few small nerfs/buffs for it to be balanced. Most comes down to team balancing. But that's very hard to do in a game like this.

Plants are plenty strong in close quarters and holding off enemies on the turf. Every plant has something against that. Most people just don't know how to use it to their advantage.

I disagree. If it were just a matter of players not being good at the game, then over a large number of games you would have the plants steamrolling the zombies an equal number of times. However, in my experience in Turf Takeover, there are far more games where the Zombies dominate the plants. There a absolutely some games where Plants can do better. You are correct in saying that is largely down to the type of player. There are games where I do quite well as a Citron or Kernel Corn. However, by virtue of the Zombies abilities, they are going to be favoured in close quarters. Let's break it down further.

Zombies up close abilities:

Imp - Gravity Grenade, Impkata, Mech

Super Brainz - Normal attack, Turbo Twister, Heroic Kick, Super Ultra Ball (in a pinch)

Captain Deadbeard - Scattershot and Barrel Blast

Foot Soldier - ZPG (situational)

Engineer - Sonic Grenade and Jackahmmer (knock back stun)

Scientist - Shotgun blaster and warping ability

All Star - Imp Punt and Tackle

All of these abilities shine in close quarters combat other than the Ultra ball and ZPG. Now let's look at the plants.

Citron - EMPeach

Rose - Time Warp and Goatify (although Rose is a terrible up close fighter so it is hard to count these abilities at all)

Kernel Corn - Shuck Shot and Husk Hop

Pea Shooter - Chilli Bean Bomb (has a delay so in most cases you die before the bomb goes off in close quarters)

Chomper - Bite Attack, Burrow and Goop

that is it for the plant side. So that is 16 abilities on zombie side and 9 on the plant side. And it is hard to even count the two from Rose. So that is basically double the amount of close quarters abilities that the pZombies have. It is extremely difficult for a plant to compete in this space.

@smokingcrop

You managed to get heal master with toxic and fire pea? Amazing.

You can't post one game using peashooter with high kills and justify it by calling everyone else bad. I went 58-2 the other night with a 29 kill streak and 41 assists with toxic pea, and? It was gnome bomb and I was camping on a roof. It doesn't change the fact plants suck. The moment I drop down everything can one shot me. On this game mode I defended our base in overtime and we won, this doesn't work in any other game mode or when they're half the skill of me. 

You did all that and your team still lost. Why is that do you think?

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@Zaheen1337 wrote:

@smokingcrop

You managed to get heal master with toxic and fire pea? Amazing.

You can't post one game using peashooter with high kills and justify it by calling everyone else bad. I went 58-2 the other night with a 29 kill streak and 41 assists with toxic pea, and? It was gnome bomb and I was camping on a roof. It doesn't change the fact plants suck. The moment I drop down everything can one shot me. On this game mode I defended our base in overtime and we won, this doesn't work in any other game mode or when they're half the skill of me. 

You did all that and your team still lost. Why is that do you think?

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Yes, they are called sunflowers, you can plant them at the turfs to get a lot of healing points 😇.

I get this several times a day.. I do not screenshot every single one of them.. A lot of the times I do manage to hold them off, but it's tough when only one other guy can really play good enough in your team. The team balance was just bad, way too many low levels on one side. The round after that, I even got placed into the better team 😞 You can imagine how easy that round was..

Besides, FYI, I was not roof camping like you were.. I do not share the same "everything can one shot me on the ground" thought. Jump around for gods sake, use your super speed, drop your chili bomb, go into machine gun mode and obliterate them all..

@Gryphon222 I have won lots and lots of times with plants side and steam rolling over the other side.. Maybe it doesn't happen on console a lot but it sure as hell happens a lot on PC. Especially when you got one other good player on your side like in this screenshot:

That's an issue with a lot of games, it's not always the guns or the abilities etc that's overpowered. It's a matter of balancing players. That's Especially hard to do in a game like Plants vs Zombie for two big reasons:

• big variety in player ages, from little kids that just like to play to adults who really understand the game and the tactics behind it

• There are so many different variants and characters, a player can be god with one plant but be * with another. Yet people kind of play every single one of them to level them up.

I'm not saying the zombie or plants side is perfect, not at all, many variants/characters need little tweaks! Just don't expect the game to be balanced, just because the plants / zombies technically are. That's only consistently possible in a Gaming event with "Pro's".

Heck, I've always wondered how on earth they would balance the new characters along with the old ones, It's turned out far better than I expected it to be with all those new abilities..

I agree that balancing the game is not going to be easy or even possible. I am just making the argument that in order to help the situation out there needs to be more close quarters capabilities on the plants side. You cannot argue that the Zombies don't completely dominate that space. If you took players of equal skill and put them on the two different sides, I would bet in objective based modes that the Zombies are going to have the edge because of the constant close quarter fighting.

I'm afraid it never will be perfectly balanced (not even talking about the players now). The way they are balancing it, is just too slow.

They should've made a system where they can adjust the numbers on the fly without having to push an update to the game.

- This character +0,5 damage, that other character -1 damage, other character bullets per minute slightly up etc etc.

@smokingcrop

I think I misunderstood you, and I think you misunderstood me. ;P

I wasn't putting you down, I just thought you meant you had one game as Pea and said its balanced. Sorry about that 🙂

I might note that while it true that zombie clearly dominate at close range, plant in general do have the advantage at mid-range.

@Boolerex

Electro Brainz sends his regards, as does Sharkbite / Lil Drake and just about every Soldier. 

Plants don't have any advantages in my opinion. Zombies don't have any problems getting close due to the abilities and extra health, that's why mostly it's always one sided.