Space Station is way better than Oak (Zombie superiority remains a problem)

Introduction

Hello everybody 🙌!

As you probably know by now, my name is @benn1nat0r and I only recently decided to be an active forum member. Since I decided to take the plunge, I have been receiving very kind feedback from all of you, even when a lot of people disagreed with my opinion. I initially only planned on making one post. It was about balancing and included a tier list. I listed everything I thought was op, even the things no-one seems to be talking about. I thought I needed to make my very first post because many active forum members left not too long ago and they pointed some of these issues out, but they have since been forgotten. In this post in want to re-raise attention for the fact that nearly all zombies are way better than their plant counterparts and every time a plant is buffed, everybody als for it to be nerfed again.

Since I started to post here I always tried to be as helpful as I could and keep a positive tone. I will try to formulate my concerns in the least offensive way possible. I will also try to offer fixes for the problems I mention.

This will be a multi-post series. This is part one and about Oak vs Space Station.

The weekly mode

While I wanted to write a post like this anyway, the weekly mode forced e to do it now. It shows how op most zombies are. I know many say their matches of this mode have been rather balanced, with the plants sometimes steamrolling the zombies. You have to be very (un)lucky to be in as many op zombies as I have. If you are in one of these lobbies, you will see some of the most op upgrades in the game being uses. They are used by few players, so there is no public outcry about them.

Space Cadet & Station vs Acorn & Oak

After playing this mode I seriously can't understand why anyone would ask for Acorn & Oak to be nerfed.

Yes, Acorn is strong, has a small hit-box and can snipe.

BUT: sniping is a problem in general and nerfing Acorn is not the solution for this.

Everyone complains about the health upgrades and second dash.

BUT: Acorn Dash is useless, because the hit-box stays in the initial position. If you want to use it like it was intended, to doge insta-kills, you still end up dying. The health upgrades are desperately needed, because they also apply to Acorn Passengers. Without these upgrades, they would have no chance of surviving at all. I personally find it to be extremely unfair Acorn has to rely on these upgrades in the first place, because the Passenger's armor was removed and Space Station gets shared health wit a health increase with every Cadet that joins.

Space Cadet might be worse than Acorn and could use a little buff, but the difference is nowhere as big as the one between Oak and Space Station. And yet, people want to see Acorn nerfed, although Acorn's upgrades are integral to Oak's survival, while Space Station alone is op already. If Cadets join it only gets worse.

Why is Space station op and god-like with Cadets?

• Better abilities than Acorn & Oak (Sap Trap was nerfed and doesn't work anymore as a result. Space Station has the already op Cratermaker with an op upgrade called "Assimilation" -> more on this later. Space Cadets each get access to a insta-kill rocket.)
• "Assimilation" Upgrade
• Space Cadets get homing for their primary when docked, Acorns don't.
• Space Station has a better primary than Oak.
• Space Station and Cadets have a shared health pool that increases with every Passenger that joins. Acorns have separate health pools that are very small, which means they instantly get melted by every insta-kill and Steam Blaster.
• The supposed flaw of this is that Cadets go down when the Station dies, but the can just undock 1 second before this happens and then use their crazy good mobility to escape.
• All Cadets and Station can be healed at once by Scientist, whereas Sunflower can only heal one target (or 2 using an upgrade)
• If this Scientist is a Steam Blaster the combined DPS in one place is unheard of in the plants team.
• But wait, there's more! Wizard can attach himself to a fully loaded Space Station, meaning they have access to Spell disaster, which spawns 6 homing over 9000 no escape orbs that deal 80 damage each.
• They get shields. Acorns can heal themselves, but shields are better. They can be stacked. Even if the shields are destroyed, Cadets have more health due to the shared health. A healing ability for a low health Character that can't move isn't really useful if every ability in the game can insta-kill you, is it? Lumber support can't cure death, after all.

"Assimilation" Upgrade

This annoying, I mean "balanced" upgrade grants Space Station more fuel for very vanquish achieved using Cratermaker. Since BfN is designed around the teammates staying close together and nearly all game modes include a singular capture point you have to capture, this is a huge problem. The upgrade nearly completely fills the tank again. You can literally take down the entire plant team with it at once. No joke. When I first saw it I thought the player was a hacker. In ops you can float in Cratermaker for entire waves.

How could this be fixed?

• Give Acorn Passengers their armor back and / or remove the shield from 2 out of 4 docked Cadets.
• Give (Super) Sap Trap shockwave damage back
• Increase the damage dealt by Sap Trap of Acorn Passengers to match the damage dealt by Space Cadet's rocket.
• Give Acorn Passenger's primary homing or remove homing from docked Cadets.
• Add Cooldown for Space Station transformation
• Remove Assimilation upgrade or rework it completely. A nerf won't be enough.
• Separate Space Cadet's and Space Station's health or:
• Disable Space Cadet undocking when the Station has reached 25% health
• Decrease Scientist's healing rate for Space Station with every cadet that joins.
• Only grant a joined health increase for the first 2 cadets
• Disallow Wizard being able to join Space Station