I'll have to start this post by again pointing out that I enjoy all 3 shooters but BfN is the least enjoyable for me for various reasons.
I don't think there's a single music track in any PvZ game I don't like. I'll never agree with those that say that BfN's music is somehow worse; Sir Biff's theme alone disproves that.
Balance: Anyone who tells me that any of the 3 games are balanced is simply wrong, and this can be easily seen if one plays enough PvP matches. I'd say that GW2's balance is probably the worst of all 3 games thanks mostly to some legendary characters and the obnoxious detonation variants, but GW1's G&G maps are far too sniper friendly and super commando with the ammo upgrade are serious problems and BfN has overnerfed some characters (Nightcap), and left others too good (Brainium Basher Super Brainz), as just a couple examples. When we get a new shooter I hope they can get the balance tuned better.
Cheaters: I was disappointed to encounter one Saturday when getting my quests done. BfN definitely got this right as it has an anti-cheat system that seems to work, and console and PC have the same issues here unlike in the GW games. The next shooter must handle this as well.
Movement speed/TTK: Without sprint, movement is sluggish in BfN, but sprinting in BfN makes GW2 feel slower as you can't sprint so even though the base movement is faster, it feels slower thanks to getting used to BfN's sprint. At least GW2 like GW1, makes different characters move at different speeds. As far as the TTK, it's definitely shorter in the GW games but some characters in BfN are so obnoxious to take out and healing so powerful that I've literally logged off the game at how tedious this can be, especially in the free roam zones with certain special NPCs. BfN's TTK is also very spikey as cacti and deadbeards can one shot certain characters while getting sniped once in the GW games isn't as fatal barring specific situations. As far as the sound of being vanquished, I barely notice it anymore. In BfN I do like to see people's punchers and slabs though.
Trying and being punished: The only time I felt GW2 utterly irritated me in this regard are the boss hunts. Nothing more annoying than getting a 'crraaazzzzy' boss down to a few % of health and fail, losing all that time (up to 1/2 hour at times), with little to show for it. Crraazzzy Ops can be a pain too but there is no difficulty setting in BfN's ops at all, and having the ability to select difficulties for Ops in BfN would have been nice.
Achievements: I really wish for GW2 that they would give us the boss hunts and cats vs. dinos in the portal so people can get those achievements. Also they need to either reopen the community challenges or sell the hats in Rux so newer folks can get those. I strongly suggest to EA/PopCap to let these happen as the game is doing well even on the less populated PC lobbies, much less the console ones. This is largely moot to me as I have all the achievements in all 3 games, and I normally don't bother. These shooters are the only games I actually went and actively work on those achievements this much!
Packs and coins: This one we disagree on a lot. Pay to win implies if someone pays more than someone else, they will win but that's not the case in GW2 (I would argue it is a problem in games like World of Tanks though, part of why I quit). While all my friends I played with in GW2 unlocked the legendary characters long before you could buy them, some of them should have been balanced better in the first place, but watching a very low ranked player think they're going to stomp you just because they bought Toxic Brains instead of unlocking it, get vanquished over and over is highly amusing. A really good computer scientist is going to be an issue but I've had no problem doing well with the more maligned variants like AC Perry, Tank Commander, and Rock Pea, and you'll never hear me brag about how amazing a player I am; competent for sure, but not incredibly good. There is a lot of satisfaction on winning these matches when someone thinks they are going to automatically win due to the character they chose. You can also use the same argument for stuff like brainium basher in BFN as you can simply buy your way through the prize map or grind through it normally. It's less random of course, but buying packs and playing Infinity time (or getting the infinity packs) in GW2 will lead you to unlocking everything barring Torchwood and Hovergood sooner or later, and those 2 can be earned via the trials as well as purchased.
On packs and coins, GW1 gave less coins than GW2 but things are cheaper there (1k for the reinforcement pack vs. 2.5k as an example). It's extremely difficult to compare to BfN as I emptied out the reward-o-tron long ago and coins are borderline useless after that barring that XP machine. I'd rather have to play more matches for coins and have them do something than get useless rewards. BfN is extremely unsatisfying in this regard.
Themes: The zombie controlled theme of GW2 is in fact one thing that even those that love GW2 the most have complained about since day one. I've always liked that even on maps like Zombopolis, once of my favorite maps in any of the games, is both dark and easy to read/see what is going on. Even if you don't like the heavy use of purples to represent the zombies, which as I said is a common complaint with GW2, we have to give the devs a lot of credit in making the design fit the zombies and still not so dark you can't really see. I actually do like the mix of dark zombie and light plant themes but I always rooted for the ghosts in Scooby Doo as a kid, so no shocker!
I like all three games looks, they all look like PvZ and all bring their own thing. The only character in BfN I really don't like the look of is Rose. It's odd how less cartoony the world looks in BfN but the characters are more cartoony. The buildings and vehicles are less exaggerated than they were in the GW games, but the characters have been made a bit goofier looking which, barring Rose, I have zero issue with. I like my goofy shooters far more than games that try to be ultrarealistic.
Replayability: I find returning to GW2 an easy thing, even when I was focused on BfN and only playing a small amount of GW2 when BfN was fresh and new. With BfN being stagnant, and me playing more GW2, I find even with the free roam zones in BfN, GW2 feels more alive and exciting than BfN. A lot of this is map design, BfN's TT maps are especially dull tactically, but it's hard to quantify exactly why GW2 just feels better to play and hang out in compared to BfN. When BfN first launched, it was on track to become my favorite PvZ shooter of all, but once the initial excitement wore off and I finished the free roam zones, the lack of updates, and the lingering issues, that opinion shifted back to GW2. GW1 I don't play as much as
Lobbies: Lobbies have been very weird for most if not all the 3 games' existence. I'll be put in an empty or mostly empty lobby, leave, jump back into the portal, and then am put in a full match more often than you would think in GW2. GW1 is not as busy as it was but can still find G&G matches that are least 6v6 on PC. I haven't tried to get a BfN PvP match in over a month now, but when I last I did, it had dropped off to the point that the matches were easily 50% bots consistently. When BfN first launched, it was easy to find multiple full lobbies, but it didn't last long. From what I've seen from YouTubers revisiting GW2 and largely on console, GW2 is alive and well on all platforms. Looking at the numbers we have, BfN did far worse than I thought, even taking the lack of marketing and sudden release into account. That must be why they pulled the plug like they did. A lot of people I saw in GW2 for years were also in BfN early on, but most/all of them left over time, and most returned to GW2 where I encounter them to this day.
The next shooter needs to have better netcode, crossplay, and of course marketing and support so we can have strong lobbies for a long time.
Toxicity: This is simply less of an issue on PC as unless someone is your Origin friend, they can't send you a message and I never have open voice chat on (we use our own discord with friends), all they can do is taunt and target you in GW1 and GW2, but BfN adds those emotes like the poop one. Between GW and GW2's combined 3k hours and BfN's 800ish, I have encountered a lot more toxic behavior in BfN, both directed at me personally, at other players, and from watching/playing with ZackScott and seeing him get a massive amount of these kinds of things at him. It exists in all 3 games but BfN has been far, far worse in game from my experiences.
As far as social media, PvZ's fans are better than most, but it definitely has issues. The Reddit was downright hostile towards BfN for a time, but that's really fallen off as people are realizing if they bash BfN too much, we may never get a new shooter, and we really need one!
