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Koochi-Q's avatar
Koochi-Q
6 years ago

Snapdragon’s blue blazes

So I’ve always loved Snapdragon, even when he was a potted plant. Since this update he’s even better BUT somehow his blue blazes fails to connect to a target at some points. The target allocation is a succes, but 3 things can happen:

1) the thing connects as it should (happends 50% now for me)

2) the thing goes towards the enemy but as soon as the enemy moves, the thing just goes straight to where the enemy was. Even if he stood less than 5m in front of you (I think 30%)

3) the thing follows an enemy and when he jumps, the ball just soars into the sky until it explodes... (20%)

this is what I noticed... have any of you have the same things happen?

Kinda weird seeing the ball go, I die but I think, yea yea yea vanquish from the grave and seeing nothing...

6 Replies

  • realitysquared's avatar
    realitysquared
    6 years ago

    Snapdragon is becoming one of my favorite Plants and I've noticed a couple of things about the Blue Blazes which it seems to share in common with Rose's Homing Thistles.

    The first thing is, of course, to make sure you have a proper lock-on. If the enemy is too close and moving rapidly you can lose your lock-on a fraction of a second before the Blue Blazes is fired. Additionally it has a certain range or total amount of distance it will travel so if the enemy is too far away or executes some dodges the Blue Blazes can just fizzle out.

    The biggest thing though, and the thing it has most in common with Rose's Homing Thistles, is that it has a limited turning radius. This means that a Zombie at close to mid-range moving in a line from side to side rapidly can move beyond the ball's ability to keep turning at which point it will lose the lock-on. Rose's Thistles have the same issue but since the Blue Blazes moves much slower it has a better chance to keep it's lock-on as long as it's not too close to a rapidly evading enemy.

    Players have figured out that you move a fraction faster while you are leaping which is why so many "bunny hop" around the map and that might actually allow a laterally moving Zombie to get outside the Blue Blazes turning radius.

    Of course it's also possible that the lock-on and tracking is bugged but if it is I haven't noticed.

  • dwooten77's avatar
    dwooten77
    6 years ago

    Agree with the comment above.  Test it out flanking an oblivious foe.  Should work every time.  Then try on face to face.  With practice you will learn the curve.  

  • asabaida's avatar
    asabaida
    6 years ago

    I had a couple of games with him earlier, and I too thought there was something off about his blue blazes...
    definitely seemed not working properly or harder to use properly.
    I'll investigate again tomorrow... everybody feels a bit different 🙂

  • Koochi-Q's avatar
    Koochi-Q
    6 years ago
    @realitysquared Definitely understand where you’re coming from. I know the ‘angles’ it can take. As I’ve stated I’ve played with him when the game just launched so I have hours and hours of practice with the thing.

    Sometimes it’s that ppl just evade it. But obviously if that was the case I wouldn’t mention it here as it missing :P but what I’ve seen is that the ball for instance travels 7m to a target that’s 10m, he sees it and hops to the left. Before, the ball could make this turn and would still hit the target unless he does some complicated evading. Now it just dead on goes straight...

    Yea the ‘near lock-on’ happends as well but that’s to be expected. But the funny thing about that is, there’s usually some other zombie nearby who gets that blue ball of hell in his face, which is always funny... but 70% of the time I see it’s an AI and I’m like WHAT?! AGAIN AN AI XD
  • realitysquared's avatar
    realitysquared
    6 years ago
    @Koochi-Q It could be that the last update bugged it a bit. I honestly haven't invested much time with him since the most recent update landed- I played him a bit this morning on my son's account in Turf Takeover and didn't notice any odd behavior from the Blue Blazes.

    I was in Loggy Acres defending the last objective at the covered bridge and the Blue Blazes seemed to track fine towards every Zombie I fired it at- including watching it track towards a distant 80's Action Hero and follow him up as he launched his Rocket Ride.

    I'll invest more time with him and see if I can observe the same issues.
  • Provin915's avatar
    Provin915
    Seasoned Veteran
    6 years ago

    Imo homing abilities shouldn't be in this game, unless it's thoroughly developed and tested. Before the update, blue blazes would follow me so long and turn corners better than real-life race drivers. After the update, I feel that it has been buggy. Sometimes, it doesn't follow targets at all or the blue blaze explode on the ground. And then you have the occasional homing which hits enemies behind walls etc. It's just inconsistent. Also, seriously it can 1-shot some characters. Does Popcap even test this stuff? I'm not an advocate of 1-shot abilities, because it's ridiculous in a game like this. I can live with the Peashooter's bomb, because you can clearly see it, hear it and it has a duration.

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