Re: Spawnable discussion: pea cannon and rocket bot

@stukapooka Reading through yr analysis of the spawnables in the three Plants vs Zombie games -  which are great by the way - combined with the discussions on this board concerning the failings of BfN, I am becoming increasingly convinced, despite the presence of key former GW staff, that BFN was a rushed job.

It’s so bad from my point of view that I now no longer play the game . A pity really as I enjoy reading the comments from you guys (you, Iron Guard and The Sprinter) and can’t really contribute when I have lost touch with the game (Unfortunately the discussions on GW2 board are few and far between despite the game’s continued popularity, but that’s hardly surprising)

@PerniciousPeaThank you for your support.

A lot of stuff points toward bfn being a rushed job.

The cancelled pve game that had its devs blended into the bfn team which is probably why the pve is the best part of the game, the games alpha and launch were in the same year in 2019 with no real beta or time to change things, the lack of advertising, a lot of characters and animations were cut out of the game or watered down in terms of effects and lighting, heavily reused assests, upgrades containing watered down variant fearures like hot rod or vampiric, the overall jankiness of the game, and the game internally is even called gw3.


I will stand by my opinion that they wanted the game to be the next overwatch with a reduced budget from EA probably and they failed to appease former gw fans and failed to gain new fans from the overwatch style with only a year total of a development cycle.

I have a full retrospective on this if you wish to read that.

I really have noticed the changes in the bots and pots, as well as the other summonables, between the GW series and BFN. While I still really do like to make use of the summonables, they never seem to perform as well in BFN as they used to in other games. 😕

@stukapooka I have really being enjoying these discussions to be honest. Despite how often I place and make use of the summonables available, which is especially prevelant in BFN as they are only on a cooldown, I have been learning some things about the summonables through these discussions. For example, I did not realise that Flag Weeds and Zombies provided a damage resistance or that Vampire Zombies and Backup Dancers used to be summonable in GW. Also, I do wish the descriptions for the summonables were less "generalised" in BFN.

@Iron_Guard8 I completely agree with this. The summonables in BFN never seem to perform as well as they used to compared to previous shooters, it almost seems like they have deliberately been nerfed between GW2 and BFN for no apparent reason. The other thing is that having a much smaller variety of summonables compared to the previous shooters is really annoying, I liked having much more choice of summonable, which is why I really like your ideas for summonables in a potential future shooter (including having a much larger variety than BFN).

@PerniciousPea Thanks for reading these discussions. I like to share my point of view on the summonables while also providing information about them, and suggest ways that they could be changed in the future. Even though I still enjoy playing BFN, knowing that it could have turned out so much better if it was not rushed during development is such a shame and disappointment. Which is why I still hope that a future shooter will be a possibility. But this time, they can take their time if that is what they need. 

Will provide one of my further discussions later on these summonables like I have been doing with the others!

Additional Note: I do also plan to make a thread regarding how I feel regarding how the summonables have changed between the shooters, along with some other similar threads. You all have inspired me to do this and I really enjoy participating in these discussions! 😇

@PerniciousPea glad you're still around here as well! I do post on the GW2 forums a bit, and still play pretty much every day, more on quest days than the other days, but BfN being the latest game, I focus my posting here. 

I got max level in BfN and haven't gone back much, as while GW and GW2 could both use some patches, mostly for balance and bug fixing, BfN actually feels like it's incomplete and chunks are missing, especially in regards to Ops and the plants being down a character. 

We really need a new PvZ shooter and not too far off in the future, but it also has to avoid being rushed. A big part of why I try to keep active here, and a bit at Reddit, is to 'show the flag' for these games. I'm still ready for a solid GW3, and judging from what I see elsewhere, so are a lot of other people.

@Iron_Guard8The only problem is that they already had their chance unfortunately.

Popcap vancouver got changed into motive vancouver and a heavy amount of the dev team left.

Bfn drove away a lot of hardcore fans and most didn't even know of its existence do to its abysmal marketing. A gw3 should not be rushed but at the same moment how long has it been since gw2 support ended? Interest in the series is fading and something needs to be done fast! Even a simple statement about their plans for the future to give fans hope?

Even if we did go back to the garden warfare formula its no guarantee that they'll learn from bfn. What will the artstyle look like? Will the map design improve from bfn's with the amount of overall characters (will be lucky to even get gw2's standard with the amount of characters they have to design for)? What will the spawnable system be like? Will the pve system be improved or simplified? Will characters revert back into their gw gameplay style? What will the economy be like? Will humans continue to be a (imo stupid) plot point? Will communication with the team and the community be better than the literal void we got during bfn? Will ai backfill return and if so will the ai be improved from their pitiful bfn iterations? Will basic features like solo play actually be at launch this time? Will ops not be a flaming dumpsterfire? Will the animation and effects be finetuned better from bfn and more like their gw iteration? What will return in terms of classes, upgrades, and abilites? Will the tone and aestgetic be more in line with gw or bfn? Will modes return? Will night maps return? Will team vanquish actually have more maps than at least gw1 this time? A focus ob more characters or variants again? Will we actually have more than 2 cents and a pack of gum as a budget for the marketing and game?

I want a gw3 just as badly as many here but after bfn I doubt they'll even get another chance at the series and it sad to see as they had there best chance at the end of gw2 coming off of all the hype and even then what will they do: it could potentially be their last chance or the funeral of the series.

In short for the series future:
https://youtu.be/m5RtlpXsl8k

Time to deal some area of effect damage with these Pots and Bots!

Introduction

The Pea Cannon and Rocket Bot are summonable variants that can deal splash damage to enemies, but have a relatively slow fire rate. Out of all of the Pots and Bots, these would be considered as the most basic variants. The Pea Cannon shoots out a single pea at a time, while the Rocket Bot shoots out a burst of 3 rockets at a time. However, the direct damage of the Pea Cannon is higher than its splash damage, while the Rocket Bot deals the same amount of damage regardless of if it deals splash damage or not.

My Thoughts

These summonables perform quite well as they are, being quite effective against enemy groups and being able to deal some good damage, while also being the basic summonables so they are not meant to be too powerful. I would recommend either providing some more damage at the cost of a lower fire rate, or a slight health buff as they do not have that much health as of currently, and can be taken out quickly by opponents.

I would give these summonable variants an Easy difficulty to defeat. They do not have a high fire rate and they should barely pose a threat to you unless your health is already low from any source. The summonables benefit by dealing damage in groups, so when taking it out, try and keep your distance from your allies (similar with COVID) before taking it out to reduce the damage it can do to your team.

The Pea Cannon and Rocket Bot both appear in Battle for Neighborville, which I really like, and they currently have no cooldown in game. I would actually prefer the cooldown to remain that way as they are the most basic summonables. This way, it always gives players an option to place a summonable at any given time. The other reason I suggest this is because these summonables seem to have been nerfed in this game and never seem to perform that well, so they need all the help that they can get.

In A Future Shooter

I would recommend these summonable variants being in a future shooter and having a low cost, due to being the weakest Pot and Bot summonables. They could cost about 1,000 Coins each to obtain and there could be a promotion where you gain bonus Pea Cannons or Rocket Bots if you buy them in a bundle, for example, you could buy 10 for 10,000 Coins and you gain an extra 3 for free, since they are not too powerful on their own. I would not suggest any unlock cost for these summonables as they are the basic variants, and it should be quite easy to get hold of them if players desire.

Overall

Due to them being the most basic summonable variants, I would suggest making them easy to obtain in a future shooter with no unlock cost and bundle offers. They perform quite well as they are now, but I would recommend giving them more damage (but at the cost of a slower fire rate to compensate) and maybe some more health, as they do not have much health currently.

@stukapooka as for the next game. Things do look dark right now, and having heard nothing doesn't inspire confidence. BfN's fate reminds me of another fairly recent EA title: Anthem. Both games had a lot of problems, both games had massive potential despite their problems, and both were abandoned before they could reach that potential. 

The fact that we have no information on a new game by now is worrying, but PvZ has been a very successful IP for years, it's why EA bought PopCap in the first place. And all 3 shooters are still playable on all platforms, even PC, which apparently has the lowest population, I can get multiplayer matches on all 3, even if it's just TT. While the bigger YouTubers have largely moved on with the lack of new content for the shooters, you can still find smaller channels like Redhead Gaming and BobBox still putting out the videos and getting views. Not as many as Zack Scott who has millions of views on many of his PvZ shooter videos, but there is an audience there. Add to that, the Reddit with several posts a day, many of which are current game play footage, and they have to know people are hungry for a new game. 

They really need to get it right though, maybe they are already in progress but put the hammer down on leaks, maybe they aren't working on one right now but will do so in the future, maybe BfN was the final game, I certainly hope it isn't the last one. Despite BfN not doing all that well compared to GW and GW2, I doubt it actually lost money. The way it was handled certainly irked a lot of people though, so they need a good game and it has to be handled well. I'd hate for the series to end with BfN.

@stukapooka I'm going to guess and say yes, BfN did make money. Obviously not enough money, or it'd have lasted longer and gotten more stuff added and fixed, but I'd be surprised if it didn't make at least some profit. 

As someone who loved the first 2 Dungeon Keeper games, I'm well aware of how many IPs have fared poorly here. But to my knowledge, none have comics, toys, and are still healthy money makers like PvZ2. PvZ3 was quiet for a long time before the recent re-release, and that was a good thing for the IP for sure. 

I'm normally quite the pessimist, that glass is not only half empty, whatever that is in there is likely toxic, but with over 4k hours between all 3 shooters, I'm not giving up on PvZ shooters yet. Most of that is in GW2, as I like lots of PvE content so GW lags behind the other 2, but no other series, barring a couple MMOs, even come close as far as hours played and my investment and engagement is very high.

We've got off topic here a bit, but this is about the only game series I'd actively fight for like this. Normally I'd just move on into my massive Steam library or boot up GZDoom and play some old school FPS goodness, but until I know things are done here, I'm going to keep active and ready for a new PvZ shooter. 

@Iron_Guard8I'm with you in hoping for another game but it's hard to when a series you genuinely enjoy ***** up so badly to the point where they may not be able to recover.

Pvz 3 thankfully got delayed but it only got delayed in the first place because fans were so adamant about their disapproval of it. Before that they had actually thought the system they were going for was ok! The early build seemed to also share bfn's problem of reworking a proven system rather than refine it. Even now the marketing for pvz3's return is very weak and popcaps twitter doesn't even acknowledge it.

Even than after pvz3 the main question is what now? Do they milk it for years down the line like pvz 2 or do they try amd bramch out the series again like the did with the shooters and heroes.