Re: Next game idea: Free Roam Zones

Great ideas on the Free Roam Zones! 😇

The biggest issue I had with the Free Roam Zones in Battle for Neighborville is indeed the replayability! It took me a while to get around to doing it, but once I got started on completing the quests and collecting the items in my free-roam regions, I got hooked on it, which meant I kept wanting to do it. The great thing also was, unlike GW2, there was more story and depth to the free-roam PvE content, and I was able to play it with my brother, instead of having to complete it seperately, meaning we were both able to complete our quests and collect our items at exactly the same time. That was so awesome and everything, but the problem arose when we had virtually ran out of activities to complete, and it was all over. We had a sense of accomplishment knowing that we completed all of the activities in the free-roam zones, but what now? Where's the motivation to bring us back to these well-designed PvE zones? It was basically non-existent. However, I took it upon myself to go and redo the activities so that I could create guides on this forum for completing these activities in the free-roam zones, which gave me some better overall replayability. Again though, what now, now that I have collected the pies and done all of the activities again, where is the replayability? The free roam zones were designed so well and were a massive step up from GW2, however, once they are done, there really is little reason to go back there, unless you want to hang there with your friends or something, or if you have not collected all of the Pies in the Pie Hunt (that said, that event is only available in November).

I did not particularly mind the similar rhythm of the free-roam zones, as I knew what was expected and what sorts of items to look out for. I found that quite enjoyable overall, I mean some difference would have been interesting, but the similar aspects of each zone's storyline was something I actually liked quite a lot. As well, despite the similar storylines, all of the different free-roam zones, excluding the Town Centers for both factions, were actually quite different, which meant that the quests and items were located in completely different areas to each other and there were new things to explore. That all said, if the overall structure for completing the free-roam regions were quite different to each other, that would spice up gameplay to an extent as you cannot really expect each free-roam region to play out the same way. Having a different experience in every free-roam region would sound like fun.

I really enjoyed the free-roam currencies, however, I found that it was really quick and easy to run out of uses for these currencies. Yes, Coins can be bought with the currencies, but because Coins do not have a great deal of uses in this game, there was not much point in buying the Coins as your Coin balance would soon turn stale as there is nothing that they can really be used on. I would have really liked if there were specific items that you could have spent your exclusive free-roam currencies on, as it would bring some form of replayability as well as having a reason to come back to free-roam regions quite often if you so desired. It would be really cool if you were also able to buy some items outside of the free-roam regions with the exclusive currencies. Unlocking specific kinds of Consumables would be a cool idea as you stated, as I really did not like the lack of Pots, Bots and Summonables in this game. For instance, where were the Freeze and Airstrike Bots and Pots, or the Flag Weed or Zombie in this game, for instance? 

In regards to the Gnome activities, I have always really enjoyed Gnome activities. In BfN however, the only times Gnomes are ever involved is in the free-roam regions and in the Gnome Puzzle area of Giddy Park, and that is it. There is much less Gnome involvement compared to GW2, but I really would have preferred to see more Gnome activities in this game. Doing the Gnome boss fights and gnomoliths were one of my most favourite activities that I had done in the free-roam regions, and I did end up repeating most of those activities at least once more. I found the gnome activities were really cool in GW2 as well, including Brothers Gnomus, Infinity Time and the Trials of Gnomus, so I am glad that they added Gnome activities in BfN, but there was not as much depth as there was back in GW2 (that said, there was the Luck 'O The Zombie event in March).

If free-roam zones were to be added in a future game, they could add some of the areas that you suggested. I have not played PvZ2 myself at any point (but still do plan to give it a try) but adding areas that are based off of the PvZ2 universe seem like quite a cool idea. Having most of your progress shared between Plants and Zombies Town Center was quite helpful but I would have happily completed all of the activities seperately because of how much fun I was finding completing the free-roam regions. Adding more content to the regular storyline and maybe even making the boss or final fights somewhat harder would be cool as well and add more replayability, however it may pose a bit much of a challenge for newer players or less experienced players (it is not like I would not make a guide for that though). Skirmishes and Battle Zones were actually quite fun in my opinion, they could have been expanded on a bit more, but I found them very satisfying overall and somewhat replayable.

I would love to see some seasonal events and limited-time events into free roam zones, similar to the Pie Hunt. Perhaps the developers would add some special consumables and items that you could only buy with the exclusive currencies during the duration of the seasonal or limited-time event?

In Conclusion

I would really love to see free-roam regions added to a new shooter and expanded on. I already really enjoy the current free-roam regions that we have in BfN. The solo quests in GW2 were really quite decent and in BfN, the idea of a story mode and PvE was greatly built on with the introduction of free-roam regions. Despite all of the awesome additions, there were some flaws with it, mostly replayability. Because the free-roam regions were executed quite well in BfN, it is something that should be added if there is a future shooter and expanded on so that players have many hours worth of entertainment awaiting them in their free-roam regions alone. If friends were able to join your regions, they would be good places to have friends play there with each other if they did not feel like participating together in regular Multiplayer.

That's all from me! 🙂