The poor state of non turf maps and modes in pvz
The very poor decline of non turf maps and modes in pvz shooters.
Let's look at gw1 maps first and see how it goes from here.
Gw1 maps allowed player great verticality and sightlines to take advantage of.
Certain techs like drone flying or shield stacking allowed certain classes to catch up to the faster pace of soldier and peashooter. Chompers roamed the streets allowing them to pick off zombies that fell from vertical positions.
Flank routes also allowed players to move around the map swiftly and avoid conflict in high traffic areas.
Gw1 maps had favorable areas to fight in but its maps also rewarded those who took alternate routes and thought creatively.
Gw1 also had the addition of the unique mode taco bandits and introduced the individual mixed modes we know today, sadly nobody really cares about these gamemodes in 1 and they don't have many players.
Jewel junction introduced the new hazard of trains that could run over players and could not be easily jumped over while blocking players from attacking each other (also encouraged less fighting in the middle of the map) and sharkbite shores and port scallywag had water that would cause players to drown if they went to far into it.
The critiques I would throw in of gw1 maps was just how much the game was dominated by peashooter and foot soldier's control of the high ground making them the most played classes.
Cactus also took advantage of these massive sightlines far better than any zombie could and some of the of the range of these sniper sightlines was just ridiculous like crash course.
Chomp town lives up to its name and unfortunately leads to rooftop camping or being devoured faster than landing in a lake full of piranhas.
The coin rewards for completing matches weren't phenomenal but did allow players to purchase a small amount of cosmetics or spawnables.
Gw2 non turf maps were viewed as a a downgrade to gw1 and don't get me wrong time park does suck and they could be better but in what they lacked in verticality they made up for in map specific gimmicks/innovations.
Gw2 maps introduced low gravity allowing every class to get to high ground without abilities but also featured indoor areas that had more cover, portals that transported players across the map to reach objectives faster and could even produce moving cover that could be used to reach high ground (z tech factory), sandstorms that could obscure vision, instakill lava that made certain areas with cover more unappealing to fight in, cannons to shoot across half the map quickly, and even a zombot that could walk around the map crushing and blasting everything indiscriminately in its path while being used as cover. Gw2 maps also introduced the creative gnome placements that bfn's pve would eventually use.
Personal opinion: The new class additions solved one of gw1 biggest issues with maps and that was peashooter/footsoldier/cactus supremacy imo. Superbrainz and Corn were also able to grab the high ground but in differing ways that seperated them from their predeccesors for the better which I will go into here.
Superbrainz no cooldown high jump and kicks allowed him to quickly travel rooftop to rooftop forcing off peashooters that are harassing his team, however Superbrainz could not take advantage off the high ground do to his beams pitiful damage at long range and unreliable super ultra ball which can be seen for a fair distance.
Corn however had a rocket leap esque ability in husk hop but could deal damage allowing him to fight off soldiers but be unable to take advantage of the high ground as efficiently as peashooter could with splash damage/lacking a machine gun esque fire rate ability alongside having a bigger hitbox than peashooter.
Deadbeard balanced out the long sightlines cactus once singularly ruled in gw1.
Imps double jump rewarded skillful jump usage to get onto buildings.
Rose floaty jumps allowed her to slowly jump longer gaps thab most characters. Hovergoat followed this as well.
Citrons ball mode allowed him access to a lesser version of hyper and gus dash is surprisingly good at getting across distances.
Gw2 maps also had much more graphical clarity and effects going on in the maps with much more happening in the background and on the map than gw1's maps ever did.
I honestly even prefer playing gw2 non turf maps than gw1 non turf maps however I would've lo ed if they were better designed as stuoid sightlines due exist.
Gw2 also brought improvements to old modes like gnome bomb by allowing players to summon defensive spawnables to defend the bases.
Now let's look at the number 1 way 2 helped these less popular modes: incentive. Gw2 quests gave multiplayer specific quests that gave out more coins for playing and winning modes, while not much it still causes players to not play turf 24/7. The coin rewards were a bit better than 1 because of this but they were still lacking compared to turfs.
Solo play also rewarded higher income on higher difficulties.
Now let's look at how bfn destroyed these modes.
Mixed modes.
Suburbination: What did they do this poor mode?
In bfn they changed this modes score mechanics to where you need to own 2 points to even start scoring. This is a terrible mechanic as the team with only one point gets nothing and falls farther behind the winning team.
The game even starts the two teams off with points already under each teams control so rather than flanking a negligent team who didn't capture the one closest first, now you are funneled to point b in the center of the map and this basically guarantees who will win because due to the 2 point system a losing team will gain no points so even if they turn the tide the amount of time they will need to hold the 2 is insanely long and the winning team can't just limp across the finish line with the little points they need. This leads to horribly curbstomped games in bfn like 100-20 rather than the close games of gw such as 3v4 100-96 match after being almost 50 points down.
By having 1 point still give out a score you incentivise the aggresive team to take all 3 and flank the farther points as there is a chance they can still lose.
Due to 8v8 players the points constantly change hands due to spawns and drag out the game for an excruciatingly long time.
The spawns on bfn maps are also horribly positioned causing the two teams to quickly see and engage each other shortly after spawning. Ruiny ruins is horrible for this as after spawning and going left for a sec as zombies and you'll encounter the enemy team with a stupidly open sightline onto point a.
Certain classes are also great for camping the points.
Now lets go back to when bfn was new and ai backfill wasn't introduced. Now let me tell you as an xbox player that mixed modes was dead in the water. When i finally did get matches I spent minutes running around the maps looking for an enemy player.
Lets look at the points themselves, now rather than a garden or tombstone that sinks when captured and rises anew it simply changes lights, in gw the point statues actually provided some cover and you got points for neutralizing a zone ensuring that at least your opponents won't have it when you die. You are still doing something even when you're not in control of the map.
In fact in gw2 you get 50xp for netralizing and 100 for capturing in bfn you just get 50 on crazy so in reality your getting less for playing this mode than ever! Note this was on gw2 1.00xp so it's double if you max out.
Suburbination in gw2 gives you coins in a lump sum every few seconds while bfn decides to just start slowly adding to coins starting from 1.
Side note but can I state how much i hate the look of the new capture points? They are no longer gardens or tombstones surronded by a flower bed or dirt but instead they are a pole with a light on them that changes color to the faction that owns them, why. They may as well be control points in tf2 given that they only change color and team logo when captured. This is plants vs zombies right?
Potential change: to actually improve this mode maybe they could introduce a 3 spawnable squad of browncoat, conehead, and buckethead to defend these areas for the team that has fully captured them and they will despawn upon the point being captured/neutralized.
The reason suburbination isolation is so popular is because players don't have to go through the regular crapshow system they get normally, but it makes me wonder why they never just considered making a king of the hill mode given that most players fight in the center of bfn maps anyway and the focus on overwatch styled powers.
Vanquish confirmed stayed relatively the same but it's a longer drawn out 8v8 team vanquish and the orbs appear to be sprites rather than 3d models due to the symbols moving with the camera. I do like that the orbs seem to float towards you more now.
Gnome bomb
Pov: you just picked up the bomb.
Now they're some nice changes to this mode and I will list them.
Holding a button to pick up the bomb. Prevents accidental grabs.
The bases are shown onscreen making then easier to find.
The bomb area being highlighted before it spawns rather than being random.
Now let's go over the bad.
Sprinting absolutely DESTROYS this mode.
Gw had classes moving at differing speeds so classes like imp and healers who were faster than the tankier characters making them fast but weak carriers and vice versa. Since an icon appears the enemy team knows where the carrier is and while carriers always lost abilites, now the carrier CAN'T sprint.
The enemy team will always overtake a carrier before they reach the bases unless they're right next to it.
Who is the worst carrier in bfn: stock superbrainz. He is easily picked off from range, lacks his regular high jumps from 2, and he cannot use his shield. He is a sitting duck waiting to die.
The pot placement. Its awful. Gw2 put them a solid distance away from the bases and served as a last line of defense. This defense was stronger in 2 due to ice spawnables and air strike spawnables.
However in bfn these pots are stretched far away in awkward and open positions (z tech factory) while the cooldown leaves you with being able to only play viable consumables like goop shroom and loudmouth bot every few mintutes.
Small rant: but what is even the point of bonk choy anymore? He is positioned so far away and can't even get cheap corner kills and his damage is so low you have to practically let him kill you. Literally every gw2 player viewed him as the worst spawnabale only rivaled by snapdragon, so why keep him without buffing him in the slightest!
Of all the spawnables that were cut in bfn they literally chose bonk choy to stay over ice shroom?!?
Correct me if I'm wrong but we also never got any prise bulb related quests to these modes so there's even less reason to have played these modes before they died over turf or ops.
Ops
This mode just causes me pain thinking about how badly its been abused.
The maps with gimmicks now lack them such as oozevoir or colossal fossil unlike some gw2 maps which kept factors like sandstorms and low gravity.
The vertical advantage of gw mapd only hero classes could counter is gone entirely and there's no point in trying to look for a better defensive position.
The spawns are too close to the points and the enemy placement due to 5 waves putting soldier, imp, and tv head together elimimates them stupidly fast and the pots themselves just feel worthless with them being so awkwardly placed and weak.
How did they make a mode with less variety in its ally and enemy lineup than their first game?
This mode feels like an afterthought that they rushed out last second.
Now let's move onto the maps.
Is it strange how hard colossal fossil tries to be jewel junction. Desert map with a mine in the center that has two tracks with objects that run you over and jewels and dinosaur bones strewn throughout.
The minecarts are more of a nuisance than anythibg but they really don't change the battlefield as much as the trains do because the trains cut off the parts of the map and made the outside seem more pleasurable to fight in.
Half of the maps are from the pve and simply aren't meant to be pvp and it shows.
In the matches of bfn I've played I've noticed that players just keep running to the center of the map and hardly ever try to flank.
The spawns can be camped or you can screwed over and spawn with the enemy, no wonder its 8v8 with how awful the spawns are at anything over that limit.
There is no high ground! Seriously these maps have little to no vertical advantage and areas that are higher than a house rooftop provide terrible cover. Every class also jumps like a kangaroo and they're little to no class exclusive areas. Its like popcap is scared to say no to a character gaining the highground, why do we have these vertical options on multiple classes if there is nothing to use them on!
Seriously I wanna know why popcap went so hard on making these maps as close to the ground as possible. One thing I've noticed in many multiplayer shooters that don't focus entirely on 1 story ground combat is that new players don't look up this was true in team fortress, alien vs predator games, overwatch, and even garden warfare itself. Is popcap so scared that players may actually want to try creative strategy than basically play overwatch with modern cod map design? The main thing I hated from the so called advanced movement era of cod was it necer did anything with the possibility of getting to never before seen heightd and every roof now feels like it has 2 ways to enter rather than making an enemy team actually have to put effort into taking a building.
They're also invisble walls on simple height gains that shouldn't exist its not like they're some out of bounds gamechanger, mainly on the pve maps turned pvp.
The techs that rewarded creative players in 1 and 2 are dead.
The maps have these outlying areas where combat rarely takes place as everyone fights in the middle area of the map online!
They also only introduced ONE new non * map in bfn and its oozevoir! Gw2 had 8 non turf maps at launch! Gw1 has more maps than bfn! 8>7 8>6 if you count daisy drive as non new. Not Too mention gw1 had nighttime variations. Remember that this is their 3rd shooter! Not too mention we went back from more interesting locations like the moon back to suburban town/ desert # 263. 2 maps in this series are now called z tech factory because thats not confusing at all and creating names is hard I guess, just call it the church of dummy or something.
Players bumrush the middle of oozevoir and the outlying area is never fought in.
In the dozens of matches I played online for this post I never encountered 1 cactus or deadbeard. Yeah there are some easily campable corners but no decent high traffic sightlines that wont have you easily killed from the enemies perfect no falloff weapon!
Credit to all youtube sources in this post as once again I don't own any of them.
I'm gonna try and make more positive posts in the future discussing the spawnables we've seen over the series and theirhistory.
