Some interesting thoughts here

@Iron_Guard8Someone actually suggested Bfn to him on his fortnite save the world video and he responded saying that it sounded interesting.

I don't think highly competitive modes really work in pvz shooters do to the casual everyman demographic it caters to and it relies too much on spamming the power classes like branium, station, and citron. Tf2 ranked and overwatch suffer this as its devolves into the meta. In tf2 the 6v6 mode devolves into 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo, 1 medic and if your not running this your too ineffective as all the other classes either are too weak or focus too much on defense which stalemates the game. This is why 9v9 highlander which utilizes one of all classes is more fun to play.

Battle arena was also the only place to earn rainbow stars and many calculations brought up that you would have to win 75 times to get 500 stars which is just miserable due to how janky and unbalanced Bfn is and it doesn't even give you enough for a costume. It also only has 2 maps which are highly repetitive. Soil survivors on the otherhand was a regular map mode and forced players to not camp the entire match; rainbow stars were also earned even when losing.

Peel shield in gw2 had limited health and there were plenty of counters yet in Bfn fighting a shield is like punching a brick wall rapidly with your bare fists. Combine the fact that Citron gains ammo from his shield, regens, has easy almost instant 75 damage ability, no weakness at range, and a stun and you have one of the most overpowered 1v1 characters in the entire game.

Bfn healing is a trainwreck. The healers got screwed hard from generalists into being forced into pure healing but at the same moment scientist's manuverability is even better than his gw counterpart who was designed as an assault on purpose. The removal of variantal effects and slow regen was a major negative against the importance of healing so they had to buff the rate and add overheal which ruins the ttk as certain characters can just be outhealed.

The variantal system helped gw stand out while still showing its tf2 inspirational roots. Than they tossed that in the trash.

Its impressive how gw1 is almost a decade old on ps3 yet still has more active players than Bfn.

A what happened/death of a game on Bfn would be so fitting as what little I can find on the game before it came out is well... Not good, it was honestly a trainwreck from start to finish and I wonder how much faster would have died if it didn't have the pvz name (not just in players as literally no one outside the gw fandoms even know this game exists, atleast people knew gw existed as that wierd shooter spinoff they did).

Bfn really deserves one of these: the downgraded animation's and visual, worse AI, inferior lighting despite being on the same engine, the bugs, glitches, balancing, economy, and characters. Ugh its all such a mess.

Bfn is the epitome of that it takes years to build an empire but only a day for it to fall.

Milk man steve also said he was gonna due a review on Bfn that would be quite lengthy.

I have always noticed that BFN had some unncessary changes when you compare those features to GW2, such as the significant shield and healing buffs. For instance, the toughness of shields and healing rate were made much more powerful compared to the previous shooters. Lots of modes were removed from GW and GW2 and were not added to BFN and I cannot see why at least most of these modes remained. 

I can really see why the game's rushed release and the unnecessary direction that the developers went for when making this game, as a whole led to the downfall of the game. I do not know about the entire shooter series, however I am really hoping that this is not the case. I think that EA should give the shooter series another try, because the first 2 games were popular, performed well as a whole and even though BFN can be somewhat thought as a mistake, in terms of unnecessary changes which led to the game's downfall, BFN still seems to have a decent player base despite all of the issues in the game. I can deal with the game occassionally crashing, it will not simply stop me from playing the game. If EA creates another shooter and it performs well, this can mostly make up for BFN and its downfall. I would probably still play BFN though sometimes!

Despite all this, though, I might as well point out that I still really enjoy BFN. 

@TheSprinter85There were also a lot of bad changes to the gamemodes like suburbination point changes which kill any incentive to play them as you always are going to lose the moment the other team gains the second point and you can never climb back out. Sprinting derailed gnome bomb as every carrier is easily intercepted and not all of them were created equal. 8v8 makes vanquished confirmed a drawn out slog. It's a shame as even in the rather small numbered gw1 gnome bomb/suburbination games can be rather tight and fun games even at 2v3s.

We even have less non turf maps than gw1 and none of the extra modes from gw2 were added or the return of taco bandits.

I would love to see another game that builds off of the gw games but given that popcap vancouver changed into motive and lost a ton of developers so a gw3 would most likely need to be by an entirely new team.

@stukapooka I did actually forget about some of those changes, however these are great examples of some unnecessary changes that BFN added to the game. Modes like Suburbination and Gnome Bomb seemed fine in GW2 and BFN did not make them any better.

Having another shooter, as I have said a lot now, would be nice, but, as you say, I cannot see how this would be possible as the developers of GW2 and BFN as they have all left the studio now, unless a new studio was to create it.

I just returned a bit to play some Ops in BfN and noticed once again how dreadful the gameplay is. Even Ops is weak with missing difficulty settings and predefined spots. I feel like i am constantly under water. The feedback the game gives and how everything reacts just makes me hate the game. And on top of that has everything that was already bad been nerfed into the ground just to appeal to the lowest denominator. Now even 3 Weeds can bash my Explosive Barrel away before it goes off.

And apparenlty they even left some bugs as gift. As i leveled my last characters to Mastrer i noticed i can't use skills they have. They tell me they unlock at a certain level but i reached Master already.:

It was all just changes nobody needed. Instead of fixing the issues GW2 had they went overboard and softened everything. I pointed out plenty of problems GW2 had. Especially the collision around terrain. And i can see the good ideas here. We even got some anti-cheat. But as a fast paced shooter it fails. If i wanted to play Overwatch i would just do that. This whole mess reminds me of an identity crysis. 

I will download GW2 again just to get the feel for proper feedback and Ops again.

@Screion haven't seen you in a while! Glad for your input!

I recall your posts about GW2 and have to agree; it's not perfect but it was fun to play even with its issues, whereas BfN is only ok at best, and feels unfinished in so many ways. The anti-cheat is one of BfN's best features as you say too, can't stand hackers in MP matches as they ruin it and turn new players off, but that's not enough to make up for BfN's deficiencies.

A GW3 that addressed the problems GW2 has while keeping the good bits that made it so enjoyable despite its issues would have been brilliant, and I'd love to see that someday.

I can't stress enough that the main reason why i stopped playing GW2 was the cheating and the exploits. It was already enough work to deal with incompetent camping team members that never do any objective, and then having to deal with people shooting you through the floor or playing as dumb Dino Mech in TT was just too much. And that was all after the occasional one-hit cheat user.

With BfN its a different story. The gameplay isn't fun. And i say that while i really did enjoy all the story stuff. Those quests were great. The atmosphere was just right. But at some point i want to see that i improve and come to a greater understanding of the flow of the game. Which just didn't happen. Because most of the time the game does not allow me to.

My favorite characters in GW have always been the All-Star, Cactus, Engineer and Chomper. And out of those only the Chomper is kind of the same, but still drastically changed. With this Spikeweed projectile and goop spray that doesn't stop anything. The 420 IQ Engineer with his bouncey projectiles that just camps with his turret around corners and shoots projectiles at walls all day. The All-Star without an arc and hit-scan projectiles where you can't even tell from where he is shooting at and absolute no tactical use. With an Imp Punt that does nothing but bounce and a tackle that can only hit one target. I am disgusted. Not to forget that awful shield that makes your eyes bleed and difficult to aim.

I still got plenty of old clips from GW and GW2. So i uploaded this here just to demonstrate what i mean when i say All-Star

Screion auf Twitter: "Classic GW2 clips of the past. The plants might have catched a severe case of All-Star. And yes that Punt hit the same Pea Shooter twice. 🤣 #PlantsvsZombies #GardenWarfare https://t.co/SNVL4Zpd9p" / Twitter

The rattling sound combined with the motor when he shoots, the projectile speed, arc and character movement. The Imp Punt you have control over and others have to respect. And not to forget the nice addition of the explosive shield.

And don't even get me started on the cactus without nuts. That delayed shooting... which also misses most of the time because that shot looks like a coconut but the hit is small and the turn is slow...

With GW EA has a great franchise that really deserves to exist outside of the other average cash cows. And Popcap is a great developer that really mananged to engage with the community and listened. It doesn't have to copy others. Its personality was very well established with the OG GW. For me these hilarious occasional skirmishes of the Chomper lurking while the determined Engineer approaches the teleporter are some of my absolute favorite moments in multiplayer games i have ever had. It was a secondary objective on the side. Protecting a single moving objective in BfN is nothing like it. And even that was more enjoyable in the final segments of GW and GW2.

@Screion Cheating is still an issue in the GW games unfortunately, so I've mostly stuck to bot matches lately. 

We've had several threads on some of these issues you mention in BfN as well; like how Engineers are too effective while camping and spamming their bouncy projectiles, how sprint tackle is messy, and so on. 

BfN's questing was fun indeed, and I loved some of those quests like escorting Washy and learning to play the harmonica. 

Cart pushing in BfN was nowhere near as fun as it could be at the final objectives for maps like Cactus Canyon, and then add in final points like the one at Loggy Acres where the defending team practically has to camp the objective, and it just ruins the fun of what should be a great time. I miss teleporters too, I've recently posted about them as well.

All of this is why a lot of people were unhappy with BfN. It just wasn't as fun as GW and GW2, even with those games' own issues (like balance), and why the older games are still going strong today.