The Summonable Discussion!
Hi everyone, I am going to discuss what I think overall of the summonables in the PvZ Shooters, and a general basis of how I would like to see them change in a future shooter. I have always liked us...
Forum Discussion
Iron_Guard8 On afterthought, the spawnables, although often a pain, are actually good fun and I agree it would be a loss to the game doing away with them. Your suggestion of paying for them using a graduated scale is a good idea and would by reducing the number of the more powerful spawnables ensure that a takeover depends more on the players' skill rather than their choice and inclination to spam the more powerful spawnables. So I'm all for that.
That said, my second problem with them remains, as I would still like to see their ability to take over a garden/graveyard/objective nerfed or preferably done away with completely. As it is now, they are on equal footing with the attackers in the game, and that surely must go against both the intent and purpose of gaming.
Thanks for all your responses, I wanted to create a post like this for a while now. The summonable discussions have been fun to participate in and I wanted to also give my general thoughts into the summonables.
@stukapooka My idea of keeping summonables would apply to all modes including Ops and this mechanic would reward for players for protecting and placing their summonables well. This would be especially cool if players could recover Legendary and Seasonal Summonables this way. I actually realise that my cost ideas for summonables in the summonable discussion posts are quite expensive. For instance, I suggest 5,000 Coins per Doom Shroom, however if you only make 5,000 Coins in a game, then it may be costly to earn summonables and may not even be worth using, however being able to recover your unvanquished summonables automatically may make purchasing these summonables, even for these sort of costs, way more worthwhile. I did not know the seasonal summonables were available in GW. I did not realise that some of the BfN summonables sometimes suffer from the hit detection, that should be sorted out, and I agree that they should have an aim or accuracy buff.
@PerniciousPea Alright, I understand your points. In Garden Warfare 2, Summonables were quite powerful and in large numbers can easily capture a point. In Battle for Neighborville, however, the capturing system is different where even a single defender can stall the point and pause the capturing, so even if many summonables are together and jump on the point, it is completely possible to prevent them from capturing. Additionally, summonables have generally been nerfed across the board due to some direct nerfs, as well as mechanics such as overhealth which makes them less powerful. I would want to see summonables in a future shooter, although the basic aim is that it would be harder to spam strong summonables due to them costing much more currency and due to internal cooldown of the summoning piles, or the pot or bot locations. Maybe if a Pot or Bot is physically on the objective and is alive, it automatically contests the point as well to counter out the fact that the attacking summonables can count toward capturing, that or the attacking summonables are unable to capture on their own?
@Iron_Guard8 I have not really thought much about the "vanity summonables", such as the pirate themed zombies that are identical to the regular variants but are quite cool. I only normally see them in Ops, but it would be cool to have the option to summon them instead of the regular variants. They could be purchased in lieu of the regular counterparts if players want them for the same price, or they could perhaps be a free bonus if they are purchased along with a bundle of the regular summonable counterparts. Similar thing with some "vanity" plant summonables. Hopefully your idea to make stronger summonables cost more than weaker ones, to prevent overusing only the strong ones would help to prevent having teams need to deal with an influx of strong summonables in a future game.
@Positronic-Rift It was a direct downgrade seeing Battle for Neighborville host a much less variety of summonables. In a future shooter, I would want to see the regular summonables make a return, as well as possibly adding a small variety more. Not sure if the summonable Wildflower and TV Head should return, but would like to see them, maybe just not the playable variants though. With your other idea, do you basically mean the attacking team can also place Pots and Bots as well, and the defending team can summon the regular mobile summonables? I like the idea of the defending team being able to place the mobile summonables, but I am not sure how the attacking team would be able to utilise Bots and Pots as well. Perhaps the Pot and Bot locations can be available for the attacking team as well, if they manage to place something before the defending team does or something like that.
These are just my thoughts and opinions on the summonables and how they should be handled in a future shooter. 🙂
I may make posts like this in the future, I enjoy participating in these discussions.
@TheSprinter85Oh the hit detection in bfn is worse than you think for pots.
Fume shroom can literally not even touch outhouse and doom shroom can sometimes have a explosion miss a slow moving screen door. Browncoats dodging and tanking pea cannon blasts before murdering them easily.
The accuracy is also really bad as scaredy shroom misses a lot of shots and pea gatling misses me standing still at close range.
I've tested a lot of these guys in solo play and it's worse than you think in bfn and I'm honestly shocked popcap was never called out for it.It wasn't simply a downgrade from gw2 to bfn in pots but more like a straight up freefall from orbit.
TheSprinter85 Thanks for the summary behind the mechanics of the summonables in BfN, as having left the game over a year ago my mind is pretty rusty on the intricacies of BfN, and with that distance to the game I shouldn’t really be taking part in these discussions.
However, I felt that a possible future GW3 would have to incorporate the learnings gleaned from the previous versions of the Plants vs. Zombie games in order to avoid a repeat of the failings of BfN and to a far lesser extent that of the 2 GW games.
That said. Your suggestion of having summonables/pots/bots in the actual objective to counter the attacking summonables is definitely a third possibility, as long as there remains a proper measure of player ability.
@PerniciousPea even if you are a bit rusty on some aspects of BfN, I welcome your participation in the discussion! I'd like to see more folks posting and joining in the conversations, and glad to see it.
I got max rank in BfN earlier this year and haven't played much since, I did get some more GW TT and Ops in this year as well, but as always, I've focused on GW2. GW is good but too many roof top campers and teams full of toxic peas and super commandos can ruin matches, and in BfN, it still feels like chunks of the game were never fully developed, and with nothing to spend coins or prize bulbs on, and TT being less fun than in GW2 thanks to narrow map design and other things and no mixed mode to play, along with Ops being so lackluster, I'd rather just play GW2.
The next game has got to do better than any of the current ones, including GW2, and spawnables will be a part of that. I'd like them to be useful, fun, humorous (hearing the pirate barrel zombie in his muffled voice state;' arg, brainz' always makes me smile), and as balanced as possible, would be great. Part of why TT is my favorite mode is the combination of using the spawnables, teamwork to get the points taken/defended, and the fun mini games at the end, so spawnables are a very big deal for me.
@Iron_Guard8 Many thanks for that! There’s nothing for it then but for me to get cracking on a brush-up of the abilities and general gameplay of BFN so that I am more eligible to comment on the game (says I with a gnashing of teeth).
Agree. Campers can be an absolute pain in GW2, which as far as I remember is a gameplay that isn’t really possible to the same extent in BfN. So there is something rather good in BfN after all :-)
By the way. Sorry if this is a bit short, but I’m on holiday in a place bordering on the boondogs in this country so the internet at this hotel is pretty patchy.
@TheSprinter85 wrote:@Positronic-Rift …With your other idea, do you basically mean the attacking team can also place Pots and Bots as well, and the defending team can summon the regular mobile summonables? I like the idea of the defending team being able to place the mobile summonables, but I am not sure how the attacking team would be able to utilise Bots and Pots as well. Perhaps the Pot and Bot locations can be available for the attacking team as well, if they manage to place something before the defending team does or something like that.
Bingo, you got the gist of it. I forgot to mention that both teams would have the ability to place both types of summonables. Regarding how the attacking team could utilize Bots/Pots, the maps could have more spots added & scattered around. Another idea would be that the attacking team could have the ability to place a limited number of containers in locations of their choosing, although not too close to the garden/graveyard. If the Bot/Pot in the container is vanquished, then the container would spawn, and it can be collected by either the attacking team or the defending team.
Summonables, such a fun aspect of the PvZ Shooters.
@stukapooka Honestly never paid attention to the hit detection of the summonables in BFN. It's already annoying to not be dealing any damage with Chomper or Super Brainz sometimes, why do summonables have to suffer as well? As far as I am aware, summonables never really had a problem with hit detection or accuracy in the previous shooters, so this should absolutely be addressed in a future shooter and it should be avoided from happening again.
@PerniciousPea Oh no, I would still like you to participate in discussion regardless if you wish, and I do agree that the developers should take consideration into what went well regarding the summonables in the Garden Warfare series and what should have been improved from BFN and make appropriate changes for a potential future shooter. I feel that having attacking and defending summonables would help to counter each other, this can also help if one of the team are down players, especially if it is the defending team.
@Positronic-Rift Well, completely agree, I would like to see both teams be able to make use of both sorts of summonables (this is something I never thought of originally though). They could even take it another step further and add the mobile summonables to other modes such as Gnome Bomb, perhaps they could be summoned near each team's spawn, since the locations are fixed. The other option is Ops, there could be a location near your Garden or Graveyard where some of them could be summoned, but you are limited to how many you can place per round.
@Iron_Guard8 I absolutely respect the vanity aspects that the developers add to the summonables, and not just the functional aspects. For instance, I noticed that BFN has watered down descriptions for the summonables compared to the Garden Warfare series. They had really interesting flavor text and now in BFN that has mostly dissipitated. Variety is also something I would love to see, having all of the summonables available from GW, GW2 and BFN combined, as well as a few new ones, would be super cool.
Thanks for adding to the discussion everyone! 👍
- @TheSprinter85 It's hard to notice the bad hit detection at first because enemies still act like they've been hit yet they simply take no damage and don't die. Once I started really paying attention to them it was awful to notice just hpw bad it was. It was fine in the previous games but bfn is just well, bfn.
@Positronic-Rift I love the idea of being able to place bots ad pots in other spots (within limits of course), and for the defender and attacker to summon both kinds of spawnables. The attacker could use pot/bots to help protect a flank on the advance, and the defending team could use the aid of the mobile spawned AI to help defend the objective.
