Re: How a lack of variety (and variants) killed ops.
Quite the long post, but then, so are most of mine!
1-I do like variants but had that made the AI versions of players with variable upgrades (and added more characters), they could have varied them up at least a bit. You don't even see wizards in Ops at all. Had they launched with more new characters, and added them faster over the life of the game, this could have mitigated the lack of variants at least partially. The blandness of the variety of enemies we fight in Ops is a major problem with BfN. The lack of AI variants (like more shield variants and such), hurts here too.
2-The special waves are not only limited, they aren't even working properly at times. Getting the 'huge wave' bonus wave and then the next wave is actually larger, doesn't work well. In GW1, as you point out, some of those special waves were crazy difficult, even on normal difficulty (no one take any damage at all as just one example), but we lost the mini gardens and such for GW2 but it still has it's own unique challenge waves as well. The fact that we only have a couple of these in BfN and even then, they don't always work, is a major letdown.
3-I've mentioned the lack of special minions before as well. Where are the backup dancers for the disco zombie boss, the vampire zombies for Baron Von Bats, and so on? Part of why I do like BfN, but not as much as the earlier games is this lack of variety. One of the things I love about the tower defense games and Heroes is the massive variety in plants and zombies, BfN falls far short in this regard.
4-Part of this issues is that instead of the actual 3 individual slots, we just get the one and it comes off odd and feels less engaging. I really like the elite bosses overall as they're like much shorter versions of GW2's boss hunts, but they really needed to balance these better as some are actually pretty easy (disco boss), and some are really tough (yeti). These should have been made more unique and make the challenge level more equal across the board.
5-GW1 is the hardest of the bunch and I feel that GW2 tuned the difficulty very well. BfN does feel like it's always on the easy difficulty level, but then we can't select a level which I also miss. I almost always play on normal in GW1 and GW2 Ops, but sometimes got to Craaazzzzy or easy to get quests done. Chomper could be a liability in Ops in GW1 and 2 as they are so limited to melee. I'd say that Chomper in BfN needs some tweaks as it is though.
I'm mostly indifferent to sprinting. If they remove it for the next game I'm not going to complain, and I'm sick of people running away all the time in BfN, but I'm largely used to it now.
I liked the grave/garden idea from the GW games more than the machine versions in BfN. It is rare that I see it take much damage.
I've not noticed that Sunflower Queen crit thing. That beam is nasty in GW2 and largely ignorable in BfN as she doesn't do it for long.
I really miss evacuations. They could be rough in GW1 especially, but I love that whole idea and it needs to come back for a new game.
Difficulty settings would be very welcome.
I've never been knocked off an OPs map in any of the games, I've had bosses and AI teammates do that though! Not even with the berserkers, have I been knocked off. Of course, many of the Ops maps in the games you can't be unless in specific spots anyway.
I actually prefer the BfN version of 'no damage to the garden/grave' as a single stray soldier bullet could ruin that special wave mission in GW1 and GW2 and that was frustrating, especially when questing in GW2.
I think the cooldown system could work and with full Ops teams it's not terrible, but we need more consumables available as we just don't have enough of any of the consumables in BfN.
Overheal is another thing I'm mostly neutral on. If it goes away, I'm not going to worry about it. Healing in general is just too strong in BfN though.
Wave spawning feels very odd in BfN and it gets annoying when you see icons somewhere and nothing spawns there at all. In GW1 and 2 you may get a spawn spot that is only like 2 basic browncoats, but something will spawn at every icon.
The waves can feel long and tedious as they work in BfN and they're often so spread out that the only threat is with a bad team or when they spawn too close to the objective.
Other things I would bring up:
- Dill pickle boss is super annoying with the knockback spam. I'm glad to see more bosses, but they need to be more interesting instead of just obnoxious.
- More variety in special waves is needed. (and fix the ones that aren't working properly).
- Let us use AI teammates for solo Ops.
- Give us the option to enchant the location.
- More than 1 spot to spawn the objective like we had in GW1 and GW2 would be better than just 1 spot available.
