Suggestions on Balance changes and new features for VS mode

The current PvP mode in console versions is a hidden gem, and I want more than anything for it to become more popular with Replanted, as it has immense potential. With VS mode, certain plants were balanced to fit the meta more, such as Coffee Bean costing 25 now, and Repeater costing 150. While its still fun and playable, I believe lots of changes could be done to make it a more fleshed out, competitive scene, akin to PvZ Heroes. Below are a bunch of suggestions I have for balance changes on plants and zombies, as well as potential new things that could be added, as someone who's played quite a lot of it.

Peashooter and Cabbage: Cabbage 100% outclasses Peashooter in PvP, as Cabbage's lobbing lets it directly counter several threatening zombies, despite having the exact same cost. Now there are several options you could take.

Option 1: Make Peashooter cost 75. This seems alright, however, for comparison, Repeater's cost was reduced by 25%, and it went from solid to broken, so giving Peashooter the same treatment would probably be problematic. 

Option 2: Nerf Cabbage to cost 125. This I'd say makes more sense, as Cabbage is arguably one of the top 3 plants on VS mode, so toning it down a little makes more sense.

Option 3: Give Peashooter a much faster cooldown (ie. 7.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds). This could also be combined with #2, nerfing Cabbage and buffing Peashooter at the same time. Making it so you can place multiple Peashooters much faster can give it a niche as a spammable but somewhat inefficient attacker. 

Repeater

Speaking of Repeater, 150 cost Repeater is a significant buff, literally broken in fact. Nerfing it to 175 sun should fix it.

Puff Shroom and Basic Zombie: In 95% of games I've played with experienced players, Basic Zombie gets picked first, followed by Puff Shroom getting picked. Both are aggressive early game options, and counter each other. The problem is if Zombies don't pick Basic, they don't have nearly as many options for early game, which lets Plants get expensive plants more easily, and if Plants don't pick Puff Shroom, they have a significantly harder defending against basic zombie spam. This subsequently means most games pan out the same, which ends up becoming kinda boring. 

Tl;dr, if you wanna nerf Puff Shroom then Basic zombie should be nerfed in the same way, otherwise it's kinda lopsided. I'd say a cooldown increase from 7.5 seconds to 10 seconds for both would probably be fine.

As with the issue of them almost always being picked, adding different zombie types could help diversify it (especially since zombies have more limiting options). There's a VS mode in a mod called DLC Edition (highly recommend you check it out btw), and they have other cheap zombies like Backup Dancer and Imp (and various custom zombies), so Basic isn't as required.

Sun Shroom

Sun Shroom didn't get any changes, and thus is literally useless in PvP. An idea would be to make it cost 0, and increase its sun production by a lot (maybe even make it work like how it does in PvZ2, entering a 3rd stage to produce more sun), making it a pseudo Twin-Sunflower, which could make expensive plants an interesting strategy.

Squash, Doom Shroom, and Hypno-Shroom

Doom-Shroom did not receive a single nerf in PvP, which quite frankly is insane. There's a reason everyone collectively agrees not to pick Doom-Shroom when playing. Nerfing it to somewhere in the range of 200-250 sun should be fine. Also, make its cooldown during sudden death not be shortened, otherwise zombies literally can't win in sudden death.

Squash is arguably the best plant (behind Doom Shroom), due to its short cooldown and cheap cost, allowing it to literally counter any 1 big zombie they have, so Squash almost always wins at an upside due to being fairly cheap. I'd argue Squash should be further nerfed to cost 100 sun. As for Hypno-Shroom, either they nerf Squash, or Hypno gets buffed to be only 50 sun (effectively 75 with coffee). Both would still be very good, since Instas inherently are the best class, but Squash would just be a little more risky to use.

Three-Peater and Starfruit

Three-peater costs 200 sun in VS mode. That seems OP, and it kinda is, but the main reason it isn't used that much is simply because other plants are more OP. Once those plants get nerfed, I think Threepeater should get a nerf to cost 225, which is still pretty good.

Starfruit is a bit of a can of worms, as even with it costing 175, its still borderline broken. If Plants place 3 Starfruits, the game is basically over (Bungee barely counters it, as it has a long cooldown and Plants can use Instas against it).  Making Starfruit cost 200 seems insane, but arguably warranted.

Cactus

Cactus would require a complete rework, as it's identical to Peashooter, the only difference being it can't receive Torchwood buffs. Now there is an opportunity for Balloon Zombie to be in the game, but I do think Cactus should be reworked in PvP mode. It could simply work like how it does in PvZ 2, costing 150 sun, but can pierce up to 3 zombies. Also, like Fume-Shroom, it can't pierce graves. 

Tall Nut and Pumpkin

Both of these plants are pretty niche, as simply Wall Nut is often enough of a wall plant, and Pumpkin saving space rarely warrants a +75 sun cost. Buffing both to cost 25 less should suffice. 

Kernel-Pult and Melon-Pult

Kernel-Pult is pathetic in VS mode, as it has roughly half as much DPS as a Peashooter, meaning you absolutely cannot use it as a main attacker. A simple way to buff it is to make it cost 75 (heck, maybe even 50), but a more interesting thing could be to rework it to butter zombies more often, so it's like a lobbing alternative to Snow-Pea.

As for Melon-Pult, it just costs too much to be a reliable win-con, especially since it still can't kill lots of high-health zombies without support. Either 275, or 250 cost Melon-Pult should suffice.

Zombies

In general, zombies are more interesting, but also much more limiting (and worse imo), due to having a lot fewer options. I touched on this a bit in the Puff Shroom section, but it'd be cool to add more zombies. And, if the different lawns (Night, Pool, Fog, Roof) are added, that further opens up new zombies to be chosen. 

Trash Can Zombie

There's several ways he can be buffed, as is he's intended to be a slow wall, but just isn't very usable. In fact, he's so slow, a Puff-Shroom can solo it. The options could include: half his cooldown (30 seconds to 15), buff his speed from very slow to slow, or buff his Trash Can HP. 

Flag Zombie

Flag Zombie in this game is total RNG. The specials it can spawn can range from a buckethead and 2 coneheads, to a buckethead and only basics, to only 2 coneheads, which, for costing 300 brains is quite ineffective. I'd propose making it so Flag Zombie is guaranteed to spawn at least 1 buckethead and 1 conehead, reducing its RNG.

Jack in the Box Zombie

This is arguably the worst zombie, as it always explodes the moment it hits a plant, meaning they can place something cheap (like Puff Shroom), right in front of it before it can actually kill anything. Combined with slow cooldown and having to be spawned from the very right, there's not much you can do with it. I'd say simply reverting it to how it works in the original PvZ, going until a certain time or being killed, should make it an actual threat, while giving ample time for Plants to react.

Zomboni and Catapult Zombie

Both of these have 60 second long cooldowns (other Zombies with this being Gargantuar and Pogo). Despite this, they're quite middling, due to their slow speed, they're very vulnerable to Instas. Either reducing their cooldowns to something like 45 seconds, or reducing their cost by 25 each, should be fine.

Other Plants

Umbrella leaf, Blover, Lantern, and every aqua plant isn't really usable in PvP. Adding different lawns like pool, and different zombies could make them usable. 

Potential new stuff

New Lawns: It would be amazing if PvP can be on Night/Pool/Fog/Roof. This would cause different changes in strategies, as certain plants/zombies don't work on different lawns. For night mode, all mushrooms would cost 25 more, as coffee bean isn't needed anymore. For Pool and Fog, Lily pads would cost 0, and non-special zombies could be placed in Water, Snorkel zombie could be usable in Pool. In Roof, pots cost 0, and certain zombies like Dancing and Miner can't be used as they require the ground.

Upgraded Plants: They would be cool to add, but realistically they'd have to be a lot cheaper or else they're never gonna be purchased in a real game. DLC mod has them, and most of them are significantly cheaper (i.e. Twin Sunflower costs 25, Cob Cannon costs 325).

New Zombies: I mentioned several already, but Zombies are significantly harder to win with, and the more limiting options is one of the main reasons. Some ideas include Backup Dancer, Imp, Bobsled team, Balloon, and zombies from Zombotany. Snorkel and Dolphin could also be used, if Pool were to be added.

Banning plants/zombies: Something some groups do is take turns, before the game starts, banning plants and zombies beforehand, before starting to pick, adding more strategy to what to choose (certain plants/zombies like Basic and Puff can't be banned). DLC mod has this, and an official way to do it in-game would be cool.

Online/Tournament mode: Unfortunately, PopCap already deconfirmed online mode, which is a real shame, as online matching would be amazing for keeping players playing. 

Conclusion

To be honest, I don't expect most of these to be implemented. We've seen 0 footage of VS mode, which is a bit concerning considering the game's releasing in about 2 months. Some of the suggestions I made were partly inspired by the DLC Mod, which has a pretty in-depth community constantly making changes to VS mode. Ff you're interested in VS mode I highly suggest checking that out. Ultimately, if anything, as long as Doom Shroom and Repeater are nerfed, I'll be fine with that.