Re: Scrapped content part 3: bfn
I still wonder if BfN could have eventually surpassed GW2 for me had they kept working on it, fixing its still glaring issues, and added more new characters (and presumably, not added the swarm characters as they wouldn't have needed filler characters).
I really liked the datamined video for Berry Brigade as the character looked and sounded fun, even in its incomplete form. Absolutely loved the idea of this character.
What really bugs me about Iceberg Lettuce is that we never got her and she was even even closer to being done than Berry Brigade was. And the teams are still unbalanced to this day.
Super Bean should remain as a boss, but I saw videos on this idea as a character too. While I don't like the swarm characters, I'd not be a huge fan of this as a playable character either.
The other characters you mention all sound like they needed some work but could have been welcome additions to the roster. BfN always felt like they were trying to go more towards OW and Paladins rather than TF2 which GW and GW2 more closely resembled as far as characters, making them more 'heroic' and individualistic, much like PvZ: Heroes too. We just lacked enough characters for that work out well, especially after seeing how beloved the variants are.
More game modes, even if only for the portal would have been welcome, and gnome tag is no exception. I'm not the biggest fan of playing characters we can't level up, much like the robots in cats vs. dinos, but too many of the portal modes are lackluster at best, and a brand new one with new ideas would be much better than say, boss turf takeover is.
I would have loved more bosses and a rework of the pickle boss a bit so its less obnoxious. Had the game kept going, maybe we could have even gotten special events to announce when new bosses were added to the game.
I'm all for alternate abilities, even if some like shuck shot in GW2, still need some work so sad we didn't see those.
We really needed more events in BfN to shake things up a bit. The pie hat quest was the only one we ever really got.
I had not heard of the confidence thing or them adding the very much needed damage fall off to BfN. The fact that we never got it is still baffling as there stopgap ideas to fill in for this crucial mechanic didn't work out and even then weren't fully implemented. Damage drop off should have been a key part of the game's core systems from very early on if not day one. It's that important.
That is a lot of unused upgrades. I had heard that they had a small team for the game, much smaller than it should have been, and seeing those missing as well as the ideas for Valenbrainz. That spin vanquish heal for only 1 point sticks out as ludicrously OP. Even a small heal instead of full should have been at least 3 points, especially when one considers how much damage it does!
Ops needed a lot more work. I know several of our fellow PvZ shooter friends were very upset about Ops in BfN, and I see why. The blue star thing could have helped, but so much needed to make them fun and interesting. They are so basic compared to Ops in the GW games and buggy (Super Bean losing its icon so you have to hunt for him, 'huge' special waves that are smaller than normal waves, bosses stuck in terrain, and so on), that it's obvious they didn't have enough time/people to get them made right.
BfN could have and should have been amazing, but it's painfully obvious that the team was too small and not given enough time to get it made to the standards they and we wanted. It's a crying shame.
