Part 5: A shattered economy, painful grind, and the mad grab for rainbow stars.
Oh boy bfn's economy! Where to start on this absolute mess.
Look I don't want gw2's trillion reskins (ngl though some looked better than the og cosmetic) but bfn's economy crashed and burned within founders.
1. The removal of spawnables into cooldown resources has taken away the need to buy them to use in gameplay.
I understand some don't like the randomness of the sticker packs but we still could've reached a compromise of browncoats and pea cannons costing less than outhouse zombies and doom shrooms in guaranteed amounts by coins.
2. The reward o tron is a terrible system.
The new additions of emotes and text bubbles feel like they're in the reward o tron to make up for the lackluster amount of cosmetics.
Just 1 cosmetic or speech/text bubble costs 30,000 which will require the player to play about 2 games of turf or even more games of ops and team vanquish.
You dont even get to choose what you get so if you want a nice costume, TOO BAD here's a emote you'll never use!
Solo play has to be played on crazy in bfn to even earn the normal amount of coins and xp, why? Gw2 gave double on crazy so why change it for the worse? It just feels like you're punishing solo players.
3. Prize maps, bulbs, an annoying grind, and players already max leveling.
So to combat this lack of cosmetic content popcap introduced the prizemap a system that would give bulbs to buy items based on xp and this is all downhill from here.
15k xp for a single bulb, really? Players quickly burned through the ranking system and earned all the upgrades for there characters, even be able to buy more xp through coins allowing them to beat back the mass number they had accumulated.
However pocap than released the grandmaster rank to try and increase player numbers by getting max ranks to come back but what do you get for reaching max rank you ask?
"You get Nothing! You lose! Good day sir!"-willy wonka.
Thats right these new ranks were absolutely pointless and now without the variants you have only the same handful of characters to play (I'll get back to this later).
Now xp is only good for prize bulbs coming at an excruciatingly slow pace and since it's designed to give content over a month you're meant to be playing a few hours every day. Lets not forget that any exploits to speed up this process were hunted down by popcap and eliminated. The xp changes in bfn also don't favor healers so you're far better off earning xp through kills and the objective.
Now when new content came out like wizard prize bulbs were at their highest limit and if you missed him you would have to buy him for 500,000 now lets say your new to the game, ok? You know have to painfully slave away in multiplayer to finally unlock a new character. Same with wildflower and tv head.
They even had to lower the xp required for prize bulbs multiple times!
The switch allows players to work at their own pace on prize maps while any suckers stuck with console or pc will just have to WAIT an entire year before that specific map shows up again.
It was horrible when the game was still active because we never got confirmation that these would return creating a fomo system that preyed on your time!
At least challenges in GW2 give an XP Multiplier and it's a subtle lure into making you play along with multiplayer quests to earn coins faster while encouraging you to play more modes than just turf takeover.
4. Rainbow stars, oh boy.
New content is released but it's now in rux's store. Oh well you'll be able to earn rainbow stars freely through weekly modes which only reward so much per week that you'll have to play for months before you unlock one of these sparkly costumes.
Don't worry you can still BUY it with money if your worried you'll miss that outfit you like of course!
Oh but don't worry there's ranked battle arena which will give you 250 rainbow stars at the end of every season. That is of course if you win 75 matches in a row with no game disconnects, terrible teammates, your team leaving you, tryhard metalords that make the local gw1 super commando main look pathetic, afks, being stuck on plants, and lagging.
Not too mention that the gamemode was deader than a doornail during ranked so its no wonder the mode was pulled just like mixed modes.
They did give free rainbow stars out to players that played every few days but it WAS RANDOMIZED. Thats right if you wanted enough rainbow stars by playing the game well screw you heres only 25 while other people get 1000!
5. Nothing returns.
Gw1 and 2 had many cosmetics and taunts a gw3 could pull from but due to the shift to bfn with a artstyle change the cosmetics are all just thrown into the dumpster despite having the potential to stave off content cravings for a short time. Bummer.
Part 6: The official release of bfn, several steps taken back from both garden warfares, dying game modes filled with bots and the slow death of a player base.
Why did we have no private play until near the end of the game? Gw2 had this at launch! The marketing even hyped up this feature in gw2!
We have less non turf maps than gw1!
No night maps!
This was meant to be befoore solo ops oops.
Part 7: Terrible balance and terrible animations/texture effects.
Despite having only a fraction of the characters 1&2 had bfn's balance saw little to no improvements.
We ping ponged from overpowered and buggy characters month by month starting with nightcap than after awhile we moved to all star and then superbrainz in a rough summary.
We never got fall off implemented so many characters spread was amped up and made some of them useless at longer range while others became way to effective at countersniping because they couldn't balance without fall off. Imp was destroyed by this and chomper flourishes despite being a "melee character".
All the characters moved at the same speed while sprinting so a sunflower will arrive at the objective at the same time as a citron and imp and all star are the same.
1v1s now revolved around which character you were now playing rather than the players skills factoring in as a citron in bfn will always destroy an imp with his stun roll combo and branium basher is straight up uncounterable at times if you're a 125 health plant.
The game now is dominated by station and branium basher while classes like imp and corn are pathetic.
Sunflowers damage was absolutely gutted making her combat effectiveness terrible.
The animations are also terrible in bfn.
All the returning characters abilities visual effects are much less vibrant and detailed than their gw counterpart.
Imps lights dont blink and his reload is pathetic.
Soldier doesn't bonk his head.
All stars rotors don't spin. Ps3 all stars rotors spun, wth popcap?
Soldiers shots look awful and dont even leave a paint splat. Ps3 gw1 has superior soldier effects wth.
The character models from gw are all severly less detailed besides superbrainz.
Z mech doesn't even explode. It just has a explosion filter with some screws over it.
3fps payload moving speed. The golf bomb and bootering ram didn't look this choppy.
Scientist has no visual windup for his warps and now travels instantly making his survival guaranteed with the instant heal bomb.
Superbrainz cape flows less when not moving. Hair is better though.
No idle animations for characters.
Crazy dave and Dr. Zomboss aren't even animated anymore.
Despite popular belief players do notice these details in games!
For reference:
I could sit here explaining the problems the balance had when the game was supported in greater depth but this post is long enough and I don't feel like writing a novel.
Part 8: Variants and alt abilities vs upgrades/new characters and the death of players creative strategy.
I get the upgrade system has it fans but it was never going to give former fans the diverse strategies and playstyles they once had in gw.
Lets go over the main thing upgrades lack: visible threat recognition.
When fighting say fire or ice variants in gw their bodies or weapons were on fire or encased in ice and their particle effects, sound effects, and damage/ammo count were changed.
Other variants like commando pea/mechanic allowed you to play a different style of a character while still having their ability set to use in gameplay. They once again had unique projectiles and looks to seperate them from the base characters look.
In BFN however, upgrades aren't visible at all, heck you don't even get a good description of what the player is using. Instead you have to go and memorize every single upgrade name, what they do, how much they cost, even their icon, and then you can finally try and guess which upgrades you have to contest against, and then maybe you can figure out how to counter them.
Lets look at vampiric for chomper it allows him to regain health after vanquishing a zombie but its hard to realize that a chomper is using it at first unless you recognized the upgrade symbol (which it may share with other upgrades) and see the chomper regain health which is unlikely in a firefight.
Compare this to count chompula who was bright red and visibly glowed after a swallow showing he was currently regaining health. He also had the down side of losing 25 health making him easier to kill in direct combat to make up for this new power.
Vampiric spikeweed is another one in bfn as it stays the exact same look as the regular spikeweed so its impossible to tell when a chomper is using it. Gw2 vampweed was red and dealt no damage for its healing nature so chompers had to prepare for zombies who walked into it to still be at full health and zombies now realized a healthy chomper is on the move.
The Hot rod and chomp thing upgrade have the exact same problem vampiric has in comparison to their respective variants weakness/looks
Defibrilated is another one. You dont even know a electric slide has it until they USE OUTTA FIGHT. You can be winning the fight than they bail, heal than finish you. This is bs. Compare this to fighting a charged variant. You can visually see the charge build up over time and know that a large amount of damage is soon to come your way in a firefight.
Long bomb in bfn just makes regular imp punt go slightly farther (good luck remembering the difference to know an all star has this upgrade). Compare this to gw long bomb where an all star would have to compensate for the lack of close range they traded for long range.
For reference I was playing jewel junction in gw1 and came across a particular situation: the mine building had an open window and three plants inside. I was standing on a rock outside and saw this opportunity and I was carrying long bomb and launched it in vanquishing 2 of them and allowing the 3rd to be picked off by a soldier.
Now here's a question for you all, could you even do anything relatively like that in bfn?
Now that all stars dummy shield can be walked through he loses creative placement to jump on and gain a strategic advantage.
Using upgrades to create your own variants is also a flawed argument.
Most of them are very situational and/or don't do enough. And the ones that are "game changing" force you to only use them because they take up too many slots.
A good example of this is sunflower. If you wanted to make a unique sunflower with say: Blossom, Sunslinger and something else to help out. Well too bad because you're stuck with either blossom or sunslinger with a mediocre combo. There's your "variant". Credit to reddit.
You are always going to take the best upgrades over faster regen or speed. Gw2 upgrades also share this problem. A point system to prevent players from having health, damage, and faster reload all at the same time and having the icons show up when vanquished with unique symbols like gw2's would be the best system imo.
Lets take cactus as another character who lacks variety without upgrades. In gw cactus could swap between moderate sniper (default), a heavy sniper (camo), or a non sniper close combatant (bandit cactus). This allowed you to play how you wanted while still utilizing the abilitiy kit of a character you liked. Tf2 sniper has a similar system with the machinia increasing his pure sniping ability but lacking close range capabilities while the huntsman allowed him to partcipate father up the line with his team but decreased his range and damage immensely making him less effective against overhealed heavies. Now cactus is forced to sit in the back of the map and play one way and one way only, lame.
Techniques that aided players in gw were removed in bfn: drone flying is gone, bean surfing, kick surfing, bean jumping, heal station being used as a footstool to gain a height advantage, shields and barriers used to gain a height advantage, warp distance being able to be determined by jumping, and chomper being completely hidden when not moving underground.
Why does chomper need an upgrade to not waste more power when not moving? This was a basic thing in both gws and he constantly kicks up dirt in burrow while still so an ambush is all but impossible in bfn.
I was able to save myself and a supremo in a crash course gnome bomb match by having both of us jumping on my armored heal station before a fire chomper burrowed us in open terrain. This strategy of self preservation is gone now.
A 10 chomper ambush in gw1 on suburban flat due to all of them being hidden underground waiting in ambush. This type of creative/strategic thinking is DEAD in bfn.
Scientist himself lost the dilemma of choosing between offensive capabilities and healing effectiveness. The deadlier he was the less he could help his team. His heal bomb wasn't instantaneously activated so plants had a chance to finish him off. This is non existent in bfn.
With the lack of status affects like toxic, freezing ice, and nonlethal fire; healers are made even more redundant as now they aren't needed to combat these affects since healing got rid of them in gw but since they dont exist in bfn, especially ops and with faster regeneration in bfn healers are now made irrelevant as there is no need for quick healing as you're in no danger as snapdragons afterburn can't kill you and toxic doesn't exist and ice is irrelevant. Sunflower just can't stop taking L's in bfn as scientist at least has his survivability.
Time snare is no longer a visual effect and now you just start slowing down when a rose shoots you from some corner of the map with no repercussions.
Lets not even bring variants into it for a comparison but to tf2's differing weapons instead. A spy with a kunai has only 70 health compared to the stock 125 but he gains the the health of whoever he stabbed for a total of 185. This allows the kunai to potentially be deadlier than the stock spy with Overheal but lose easily to the stock spy as even 40 damage knife hits are going to HURT when you are on 70 health allowing the stock spy to usually win.
Lets move away from the ripped gw2 varinats butchered for upgrades and look at a few others shall we? Some are class specific but you'll get the idea.
Fearless, bottomless, low life, combo, adrenaline rush, and many more. These upgrades reward players for playing aggresive and even reward them with health for jumping into conflict making healers less of a necessity as you can just bash your way to better health, ability cooldowns, and speed. You are rewarded for pushing forward when you would otherwise be punished and need a healer.
Even popcap reeled back on their decision to remove variants with the legendary upgrades which were a desperate attempt to inject life into a flat lining combat system which had gone stale quickly (there's a reason classic g&g and classic team vanquish gets boring after a few matches on gw1). This was basically an admission that the new system had failed imo. It also gave us one of the most broken characters in pvz shooters.
I could go farther for why these upgrades don't work in place of variants but I don't want to be here forever.
SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS IS AN IMPROVEMENT?!?
Part 9: Why wasn't it garden warfare 3 to begin with?
Gw1 and 2 were succesful and had a dedicated fanbase so why change the formula so drastically rather than improving on what already works? Why not use the features and maps you already have as a solid guideline for the future balancing much like how the gw1 variants were fairly balanced out in gw2 as you can only improve, why try to create a new system from scratch?
The game was even made by a majority of the same people as 1&2.
Even internally the game is called gw3. The modes besides battle arena are all garden warfares.
Shortly after gw2 released in early 2016 another hero based shooter came to shake up the genre later that year: Overwatch.
Blizzard revealed their shiny new game modeled after the grandfather of modern class/hero based shooters: team fortress classic.
Overwatch was a massive succes overnight. It was made by blizzard the company that in 2016 could do no wrong and had a long successful track record.
It launched with 21 heroes each with their own unique moveset and personalities. It was such a massive hit that many declared that it would be the next team fortress two.
Overwatch was so successful many other hero based shooters also tried to pop up and the genre became more crowded with battleborn and paladins.
However many problems quickly came: the balancing and meta was awful the characters despite their differences had a small skill ceiling and content was slow. Blizzard themselves also revealed their awful nature getting involved in multiple controveries concerning banning players over hong Kong and political pandering.
The game while not dead quickly fell of due to this and the rise of battle royale.
EA saw how much money the battle royale genre was bringing in and wanted their own slice of that pie and created apex legends which was a success.
I have no reason to believe otherwise that EA didn't want their own personal overwatch given that it made so much money.
They already had a class based shooter based on tf2 in their hands in garden warfare but a massive change towards overwatch style mechanics still called gw3 would be jarring and most likely be repulsed by the fandom. So they changed it to bfn.
Ea is a company willing to jump on the money train at all cost and even side swipe established formulas for new copycat ones after a fad.
This destroyed the gameplay as now the focus was more on a overwatch attack/defense/support roles with shields, stuns, and powerful abilities. This is a bad idea.
Overwatch was balanced with 6v6 where only 1 of each character can be chosen and only 2 from each group total. A Reinhardt style character with a shield designed to soak up damage doesnt work when there are 5 of them in a 12v12 match and he can't be focused fired by the enemy team in a tight space.
Overwatch did have Overheal and these other mechanics but it also had team wiping ultimates to break stalemates with some requiring strategic thinking unlike bfn where this power to wipe the other team resulting in painful and hard to break stalemates in bfn.
Bfn's Overheal is a pain to fight. The ttk in founders was a nightmare and Overheal lasted forever. Now it drains after a certain amount of time has passed. The modern ttk makes it a pain to fight overhealed opponents but buffing it would make playing as a non overhealed character a pain. Compare this to tf2's system where Overheal fades the moment a medic stops healing and even a 450 health heavy can easily be killed by surprise as all the weapons deal heavy close range damage, ubercharge (also counterable but more risky to attempt), and sentries exist. Bfn neither has ultimates or sentries and uber, this just makes stalemates go on longer if both teams have healers yet neither have a way to break through especially eith no fall off.
Bfn also tried to introduce team play characters but this fell apart in encouraging players to stack classes that easily obliterate any player who is trying to lone wolf an idea that both gw and tf2 try not to support but don't punish either.
For example a spy/imp are at a disadvantage figthing a heavy/citron alone but its not an impossible fight and player skill factors greatly especially with the differing weapons/variants. A plant/mercenary alone can destroy a level 3 sentry/z mech but it's easier with a team. Bfn/overwatch want the team to stick together throughout the entire match.
Bfn also makes it impossible for an imp to fight a citron/chomper 1v1 as both posses abilities and weapons that butcher the poor guy so you cannot win against certain classes when playing a class that is beneath them much like overwatch.
Another poor aspect of team play were the swarm characters that reward stacking a team full of the same character for effectiveness as the spawnables are only really usable for this buff in turf (conviently the most played game mode).
Double time is meant to help engineers team reach the frontline faster but it's abused as a quick getaway for engineer to seflishly use. Lets compare this to hovergoats speed boost in gw2, it boosted all allies around the goat allowing it to affect his allies around him EVEN IF HE USED IT SELFISHLY TO ESCAPE IT HELPED HIS TEAM AND COULDN'T BE STACKED WITH SPRINTING!
Take casting shadows as another example, it's supposed to help hide allies but it: slows enemies, sucks them in, makes them extremely vulnerable to attack. This is a better gravity grenade for nightcap than team support ability. It also doesn't blend with nightcaps other abilities which are meant to get her around the enemy lines than deal massive damage, how does a giant noticeable dome help one mushroom?
Butter beacon also only helps corn in dealing more damage while butter barrage could help his whole team by forcing enemies off an objective. Look at wizards co star it also reveals enemies but also provides armor and extra firepower while increasing the hitbox making it a better team play ability.
The aesthetic and tone of garden warfare also completely changed as now all the zombie/plant grafitti (we ate the peeple), propaganda, apocalypse signs, and statues of them in maps are now all gone and we are stuck with maps that honestly feel like they could be in splatoon and you wouldn't even notice.
