Spawnable discussion: pea cannon and rocket bot

All the spawnables in BfN suffer compared to the GW and GW2 versions, but your results here explain why I barely notice these guys when I plant/build them. The whole spawnable system in BfN falls short of what it could/should be and has been since GW.

Pea cannon should just shoot one big pea as the pea gatling and repeaters are the multishot pots with smaller peas. 

I think part of why that I don't hate BfN, but I don't like it as much as GW and GW2 is that a lot of the personality of things is gone, like that rocket bot blurb you shared. Missing the stickerbook in BfN is something that really stinks and I loved reading all those little fun facts about things, like the almanac in PvZ. PvZ thrives on little fun stuff like that, and it's sorely missed in BfN, even while it does have its own good bits, like the Washy quest, which is still one of my favorite things in any PvZ game.

@Iron_Guard8Trying to find areas to summon the pots and bots in bfn turf is a pain as there either too small in number or sepreated so far out from each other that they can't provide any support to each other.

Take seeds of time as an example: not the best map but the first point has 6 pots with two each in the left, middle, and right. Two of them are positioned toward the teleporter locations and can even shoot into them to an extent and provide the other pot back up.

I agree that he shoot just shoot one but we need to bring repeater back into the family and make him stronger.

Bfn overall suffers from a lack of personality in its characters and universe.

In gw2 we got an explanation for why every new class wasn't in gw1 but in bfn there's no reason snapdragon couldn't have dragged his fat roots out of his pot to start helping sooner and new players to the franchise have no idea where any of these characters came from besides wizard who has a pretty half baked explanation imo.

It sucks even more to realize that every variant in gw1&2 was given somekind of backstory or little lore tidbits that made them more interesting like supremo making up his battle plans as he goes or plasma pea shooting universes.

Even the quests in gw2 provided funny little tidbits like the plants wondering if they even have a gardner anymore since they have to put down pots now or how they should get to know pots better by takibg them to movies.

Even the maps suffer this problem like gw1 maps given off a light apocalypse vibe with the end is near signs and the complete lack of humans while focusing on all out war with the zombies to bfn simply having dozens of humans hiding in their homes which really makes the zombies seem stupid for not finding them immediately, especially considering that humans in bfn seem to be pretty freaking dumb.

It gets worse when bfn tries to throw a reference out to the gw games which technically means they still are canon in universe which opens up a whole new can of worms that popcap will never awnser such as: where did the all the missing characters go? Why do we not time travel anymore? Why the massive shift in zomboss' personality? Why are there now normal dinosaur bones, where did the chomposaurus go?  How are there suddenly humans? Why are the zombies dumber and cant find humans despite having the knowledge to use explosives, robots, and firearms (Flanderization)?

Ability descriptions were also watered down pretty hard.

Washy quest was pretty nice. I enjoyed the wierding woods quests the most tbh.

@stukapooka Reading through yr analysis of the spawnables in the three Plants vs Zombie games -  which are great by the way - combined with the discussions on this board concerning the failings of BfN, I am becoming increasingly convinced, despite the presence of key former GW staff, that BFN was a rushed job.

It’s so bad from my point of view that I now no longer play the game . A pity really as I enjoy reading the comments from you guys (you, Iron Guard and The Sprinter) and can’t really contribute when I have lost touch with the game (Unfortunately the discussions on GW2 board are few and far between despite the game’s continued popularity, but that’s hardly surprising)

@PerniciousPeaThank you for your support.

A lot of stuff points toward bfn being a rushed job.

The cancelled pve game that had its devs blended into the bfn team which is probably why the pve is the best part of the game, the games alpha and launch were in the same year in 2019 with no real beta or time to change things, the lack of advertising, a lot of characters and animations were cut out of the game or watered down in terms of effects and lighting, heavily reused assests, upgrades containing watered down variant fearures like hot rod or vampiric, the overall jankiness of the game, and the game internally is even called gw3.


I will stand by my opinion that they wanted the game to be the next overwatch with a reduced budget from EA probably and they failed to appease former gw fans and failed to gain new fans from the overwatch style with only a year total of a development cycle.

I have a full retrospective on this if you wish to read that.

I really have noticed the changes in the bots and pots, as well as the other summonables, between the GW series and BFN. While I still really do like to make use of the summonables, they never seem to perform as well in BFN as they used to in other games. 😕

@stukapooka I have really being enjoying these discussions to be honest. Despite how often I place and make use of the summonables available, which is especially prevelant in BFN as they are only on a cooldown, I have been learning some things about the summonables through these discussions. For example, I did not realise that Flag Weeds and Zombies provided a damage resistance or that Vampire Zombies and Backup Dancers used to be summonable in GW. Also, I do wish the descriptions for the summonables were less "generalised" in BFN.

@Iron_Guard8 I completely agree with this. The summonables in BFN never seem to perform as well as they used to compared to previous shooters, it almost seems like they have deliberately been nerfed between GW2 and BFN for no apparent reason. The other thing is that having a much smaller variety of summonables compared to the previous shooters is really annoying, I liked having much more choice of summonable, which is why I really like your ideas for summonables in a potential future shooter (including having a much larger variety than BFN).

@PerniciousPea Thanks for reading these discussions. I like to share my point of view on the summonables while also providing information about them, and suggest ways that they could be changed in the future. Even though I still enjoy playing BFN, knowing that it could have turned out so much better if it was not rushed during development is such a shame and disappointment. Which is why I still hope that a future shooter will be a possibility. But this time, they can take their time if that is what they need. 

Will provide one of my further discussions later on these summonables like I have been doing with the others!

Additional Note: I do also plan to make a thread regarding how I feel regarding how the summonables have changed between the shooters, along with some other similar threads. You all have inspired me to do this and I really enjoy participating in these discussions! 😇

@PerniciousPea glad you're still around here as well! I do post on the GW2 forums a bit, and still play pretty much every day, more on quest days than the other days, but BfN being the latest game, I focus my posting here. 

I got max level in BfN and haven't gone back much, as while GW and GW2 could both use some patches, mostly for balance and bug fixing, BfN actually feels like it's incomplete and chunks are missing, especially in regards to Ops and the plants being down a character. 

We really need a new PvZ shooter and not too far off in the future, but it also has to avoid being rushed. A big part of why I try to keep active here, and a bit at Reddit, is to 'show the flag' for these games. I'm still ready for a solid GW3, and judging from what I see elsewhere, so are a lot of other people.

@Iron_Guard8The only problem is that they already had their chance unfortunately.

Popcap vancouver got changed into motive vancouver and a heavy amount of the dev team left.

Bfn drove away a lot of hardcore fans and most didn't even know of its existence do to its abysmal marketing. A gw3 should not be rushed but at the same moment how long has it been since gw2 support ended? Interest in the series is fading and something needs to be done fast! Even a simple statement about their plans for the future to give fans hope?

Even if we did go back to the garden warfare formula its no guarantee that they'll learn from bfn. What will the artstyle look like? Will the map design improve from bfn's with the amount of overall characters (will be lucky to even get gw2's standard with the amount of characters they have to design for)? What will the spawnable system be like? Will the pve system be improved or simplified? Will characters revert back into their gw gameplay style? What will the economy be like? Will humans continue to be a (imo stupid) plot point? Will communication with the team and the community be better than the literal void we got during bfn? Will ai backfill return and if so will the ai be improved from their pitiful bfn iterations? Will basic features like solo play actually be at launch this time? Will ops not be a flaming dumpsterfire? Will the animation and effects be finetuned better from bfn and more like their gw iteration? What will return in terms of classes, upgrades, and abilites? Will the tone and aestgetic be more in line with gw or bfn? Will modes return? Will night maps return? Will team vanquish actually have more maps than at least gw1 this time? A focus ob more characters or variants again? Will we actually have more than 2 cents and a pack of gum as a budget for the marketing and game?

I want a gw3 just as badly as many here but after bfn I doubt they'll even get another chance at the series and it sad to see as they had there best chance at the end of gw2 coming off of all the hype and even then what will they do: it could potentially be their last chance or the funeral of the series.

In short for the series future:
https://youtu.be/m5RtlpXsl8k

Time to deal some area of effect damage with these Pots and Bots!

Introduction

The Pea Cannon and Rocket Bot are summonable variants that can deal splash damage to enemies, but have a relatively slow fire rate. Out of all of the Pots and Bots, these would be considered as the most basic variants. The Pea Cannon shoots out a single pea at a time, while the Rocket Bot shoots out a burst of 3 rockets at a time. However, the direct damage of the Pea Cannon is higher than its splash damage, while the Rocket Bot deals the same amount of damage regardless of if it deals splash damage or not.

My Thoughts

These summonables perform quite well as they are, being quite effective against enemy groups and being able to deal some good damage, while also being the basic summonables so they are not meant to be too powerful. I would recommend either providing some more damage at the cost of a lower fire rate, or a slight health buff as they do not have that much health as of currently, and can be taken out quickly by opponents.

I would give these summonable variants an Easy difficulty to defeat. They do not have a high fire rate and they should barely pose a threat to you unless your health is already low from any source. The summonables benefit by dealing damage in groups, so when taking it out, try and keep your distance from your allies (similar with COVID) before taking it out to reduce the damage it can do to your team.

The Pea Cannon and Rocket Bot both appear in Battle for Neighborville, which I really like, and they currently have no cooldown in game. I would actually prefer the cooldown to remain that way as they are the most basic summonables. This way, it always gives players an option to place a summonable at any given time. The other reason I suggest this is because these summonables seem to have been nerfed in this game and never seem to perform that well, so they need all the help that they can get.

In A Future Shooter

I would recommend these summonable variants being in a future shooter and having a low cost, due to being the weakest Pot and Bot summonables. They could cost about 1,000 Coins each to obtain and there could be a promotion where you gain bonus Pea Cannons or Rocket Bots if you buy them in a bundle, for example, you could buy 10 for 10,000 Coins and you gain an extra 3 for free, since they are not too powerful on their own. I would not suggest any unlock cost for these summonables as they are the basic variants, and it should be quite easy to get hold of them if players desire.

Overall

Due to them being the most basic summonable variants, I would suggest making them easy to obtain in a future shooter with no unlock cost and bundle offers. They perform quite well as they are now, but I would recommend giving them more damage (but at the cost of a slower fire rate to compensate) and maybe some more health, as they do not have much health currently.