Spawnable discussion: newspaper and leafshield

The biggest issue I have with the newspaper zombie in GW2 is his newspaper bugged out and was invisible a lot, and I mean a LOT of the time. We definitely need him as a spawnable zombie for the next game, but they need to fix that bug as well.

I know it could be a bit overwhelming to have a lot of choices on what we can summon, but we need as many options as possible, even when they're just reskins like the map pirate zombie vs. the newspaper zombie here. I want so many options, including a bunch we need to unlock via themed free roam regions, holiday versions from Rux and holiday quests, and so on. This is also why I suggest a 'favorites' system where you can have certain spawnables put at the top of the spawn menu to make it easier.

@Iron_Guard8That bug was annoying in ops and it definetly needs fixing for a new game.

I dont care if it's overwhelming as long as they are decently explained to new players in a tutorial of sorts.

Imo more spawnables allow the game to be more creative and chaotic, especially in gw1 where you a group of dancing zombies, newspapers, and pirates trying to capture the pier in driftwood shores from laser beans, fire peas, and bonk choys only to get wiped by a shoot airstrike is extremely fun and why I like gw1 spawnable selection the most (imo watching the ai duke it out in gw1&2 is extremely fun to watch to see who wins unlike bfn where attackers always stomp) Even if pirates are not spawnables having them spawn as retextured skins for certain maps would go along way in helping the selection not go stale like it did in bfn.

Now, to get over to useful tools called shields.

Introduction

The Leafshield Weed and Newspaper Zombie behave like the regular Weeds and Browncoats respectively, but also have shields that protect them from attacks from directly in front of them. They can be attacked from behind to deal damage that ignores their shields. It seems that the Leafshield Weed has less physical health, but more shield health than its counterpart, while the Newspaper Zombie has more physical health, but less shield health than its counterpart. These summonable variants do have differences to their counterparts, for instance, the Leafshield Weed does more contact damage than normal while it has the shield, while the Newspaper Zombie gains a decent speed boost when it loses its shield.

My Thoughts

Similar to the tougher summonable variants, once their shields are destroyed, they cannot gain those shields back. However, due to these summonables having higher physical health than their basic variants, it means they are tougher to defeat even without their shield. While they are different to their counterparts, and it is not really much of a problem either, I would rather them be more similar to each other, preferably. For instance, they could have the same physical health and shield health as each other, but keep their other special abilities, such as the Leafshield Weed damage boost while the shield is alive and the Newspaper Zombie speed boost when the shield is destroyed.

In terms of their toughness, I would give them a Medium difficulty to deal with in an overall sense. I would personally give the basic, Pumpkin/Conehead and Terracotta/Buckethead summonable variants an Easy difficulty in my opinion. By themselves, they are not really that difficult to deal with, but if there are multiple or other enemies present, they could easily provide a problem, as they can take more hits. Their armor weaknesses are quite easy to exploit though, if you have another ally with you and you are on either side of them, as they can only shield in a single direction at one time, so being able to shoot through their armor and defeat them faster is helpful.

I do not see why Battle for Neighborville could not have kept these summonables in game, if they were in the game, they could perhaps have about a 3 minute cooldown each, as they can be quite strong, and having to deal with lots of them would be annoying for the enemy team. If you saw these summonables occassionally, it would not really be a problem, but seeing waves of these summonables would give the enemies a hard time, so having a decent cooldown should straight up mitigate that problem.

In A Future Shooter

These summonable variants are normally relatively common and easy to deal with, but due to their extra health, shields and powers, they should be somewhat expensive to get a hold of. About 5,000 Coins seems quite sufficient to me, as players will be able to invest in this summonable if they wish, but players would need to fork out a bit of currency to do so. To be able to use these summonable variants for the first time, there could be an unlock cost as well. For example, 20,000 Coins to be able to use Leafshield Weeds and Newspaper Zombies, but you gain a starter pack as 5 as well (which also provides for a discount).

Overall

These summonables should be somewhat trickier to get hold of in large number, due to their improved stats. Perhaps needing an unlock before even being able to use them in a future shooter would make them trickier to get hold of at the start, but you would be able to purchase them freely after you unlock them. Their stats are quite different to each other, and while I do not mind them as is, I would prefer their physical and shield health to be identical to each other, but keep their special unique abilities as they are.