Plants vs Zombies: A Post Mortem Analysis

Not to mention All Star. He is a beast at medium range. Plus he has moves that let him close the gap for an imp punt. I still think Plants only really have an advantage over long range. But you could make an argument that they are even at medium range. Although I would disagree.

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@Gryphon222 wrote:

Good evening everyone,

I decided to make a post about the challenges of playing as the Plants when up against Zombies. I know there have been a lot of complaints about this match up and that it does seem to be extra difficult when playing against the Zombies when you are the Plants. Just to qualify my opinions here, I have spent over 125 hours playing almost exclusively the multiplayer components of this game. In my opinion, the problem boils down to the fact that Zombies have a largely superior matchup against the Plants in close quarters combat. I believe the Zombies also have a slight edge in medium range combat. Over longer distances, I think the plants abilities favour them. 

Now this would not be as bad of a problem if objective based game types did not force the Plant team into many close quarter engagements. In Team Vanquish, if playing as a plant, you can pick how and when you want to engage the Zombies. In objective based game modes, like Turf Takeover, you do not have as much of a choice. As a plant, you are continually forced into close quarters combat. Which, as I mentioned earlier, heavily favours the Zombies side.

Since the Zombies close quarter power comes from their abilities, rather than their raw damage output, I do not believe fixing this problem is merely a matter of reducing the damage the Zombies do. It is a class based problem. As such, what really needs to happen is there needs to be more plant variants, or even a new class, that is excellent in battling the Zombies up close. As well as engaging them at medium range. Until such a class or variants exist, I believe the Zombies will always have an edge in objective based modes or against any player who does not understand this dynamic in slayer Based game modes.

Thoughts and opinions?

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The way the maps are designed is the reason plants are forced into Close quarters combat, they're very tunneled in. Look at the maps in GW1 compared to GW2. The plants have more breathing room in GW1 than in GW2. But it's possible for plants to win, just not always.

I don't know. I mastered Tennis Star and got lots of medium range kills. Same for Moto Star and a good amount with wrestling Star.

After many many games of turf takeover I do think the zombies do have the upper hand in close range combat. One example was about two days ago I was playing a game of Zomburbia as plants. My team surprisingly managed to make it all the way to the finale and almost achieve victory. From past games on this map I had noticed one room in the finale that the zombies always have a good chance of defending. The gallery has been the one room zombies are capable of defending unless the team is very uncoordinated. I feel the reason is this room is somewhat medium-small size and the plants have to funnel in from 2-3 entrances and engage in close combat. The plants have a easy time getting all the other rooms since one is close to the plant spawn and the other can be acsessed from ground level and the ceiling. From this game the zombies managed to defend one painting and to describe how they did was so simple but difficult. Before reaching the finale our team was steam rolling even 75% of the finale. The zombies managed to defend by placing dummy shields and sticky explodey balls next to the painting. They also had two pylon imps in mechs placing mines everywhere. Then they had all stars and super brainz guarding all the entrances with prates ready with their cannon rodeos. Even with my team steam rolling they managed to win at the finale. All in my opinion because the plants must engage in close range.

The reason the balance worked so well in the first game was because they played into each others hands. the plants were about making ground dangerous with splash damage (pea shooter) and crowed control (chomper). With the cactus keeping long range attackers away, and the sunflower healing and keeping zombies on their toes.

The zombie would then try to uproot (hahaha) the defences. The plants were about order and keeping boundaries. the zombies were chaos and breaking weak points. because this relationship was stable the game could "self balance" though smart play. 

However it seems popcap thought they could add an assault class to the plants and expect that to allow them to push an objective in turf take over. however by there nature (as said above) the plants are about staying out of reach. They don't push a hill well. Any reason they could before in something like Suburbination was because the zombies needed to as well. allowing the plants to root in.

For Herbal Assault they needed to not just copy G&G, but make some kind of game mode that still focused on that defense. maybe mutable Hills So the zombies can't camp one? 

They could have also given the pea shooter new specials focused on attack. maybe a new special could have increased there rate of fire or the speed of there projectiles? or maybe they wouldn't need to reload for a couple of seconds? these could have taken the place of the Pea Gatling.  I'm sure these are bad ideas. But I'm sure you get the point.

I think that was well said, teh plants are stuck at a deffense point in the game and it is what they are best at. With herbal assualt it become hard to cap points when your purpose is to defend caps. I also think that plants have problems with defending is so many people choose the assualt characters instead of the defense. I don't think I am the only one who has encountered games where the defending plants consist 75%-90% of corns. It's like taking a team game such as Overwatch and having all offensive characters defending, that won't work out well. I do think plants should be given abilities to allow them to be more offensive since most if not all of the new characters don't have any alternate abilities like the old characters. Plants have a nice defensive spot first point of great white north by having the uphill advantage and long sight lines. Imagine that but plants have to attack, I bet that would beat Moon for being difficult to attack.

good point cmh0517. something else I didn't think about as well is his role in G&G. he has no defense ability's and can make it hard for the zombies to play their role.

I'm not sure what popcap can do now. It's not really something they can patch though variables like damage and health. It seems like it's an issue with his class as a whole. the only thing I can think of is remove him from Turf Takeover. but now they have to please fans that like him as a character (which is valid as they bought the game too). it seems they have created an impossible situation.

I hope they can figure this out. I had such love and respect for the first game for being different and not being afraid to put mechanics first. Now they added classes that play outside the theme of there team. (super brainz and corn.) It would be tragic if GW2 dies of obscurity. although if I'm honest I'm kind of half expecting it. It pains me but I still play GW1 over GW2. GW2 is great in it's own ways. But while GW2 has more features (that I love mind you) GW1 has better core mechanics.