One thing the new game needs to do well on is how it handles consumables. I actually don’t mind the timer system in BfN as compared to the constant spam of outhouse zombies we get in GW and GW2, but I also feel the choices are far too limited and this is also an issue with the more individualistic AI mobs that we used to have in GW and GW2 and in the other games too. This extends to team retries and self-revives since I have so many of both in GW2 especially, that they feel wasted when I get them in packs., but they need to be a thing as I want Ops to return to the GW and GW2 style of Ops as opposed to BfN’s.
Rux will be the main source of consumable items. This is a key change from before. No longer will you buy packs and get a mix of costume pieces, character stickers, and so on. Instead, most things will be sold by Rux for various amounts of coins. Some will have to be unlocked via various methods (free roam zones, battle passes, purchased for coins, etc.), but some will be generally available, while some are opened up and made generally available if you play a higher tier; free tier gives you basic consumable access (team retries, self-revives, browncoat zombies, weeds, heal weeds, heal zombies, conehead zombies, pumpkinhead weeds, imps (the explodey kind), dandelions, bonk choy pots, heal flower pots, gatling peashooter pots, peashooter pots, DR. heals bot, boxer bot, gatling bot, and rocket bot), the basic paid tier adds; buckethead zombies, terracotta weeds, flag zombies, flag weeds, lightning reed pots, Scaredy Shrooms, Hide and Shoot Bots, and mister electro bots; and the deluxe tier adds; leaf shield weeds, screen door zombies, hypno-shrooms, karate zombies, mister toasty bots, snapdragon pots, doom shroom pots, and MR. explodey bots. Note that if you upgrade your account level later you will gain all these immediately. If you already unlocked them via spending coins, you will be awarded coins in the same amount that you spent to unlock them.
Rux’s store will be available in the bases in your personal neighborhood and the public battlefield, in between PvP matches and likely between Ops, and in the free roam zone bases.
Once you have unlocked a consumable, however it is done, you can always visit Rux and spend coins to increase how many you have. When you first unlock one, you won’t have any to use immediately, but instead will be able to visit Rux and spend coins to buy uses of any unlocked consumable; this replaces getting them out of packs. The cost will be variable, based on how powerful that consumable is; for example a basic browncoat zombie might be 500 coins, while a coffin zombie would be 5000 for comparison. So, if you had 10 thousand coins to spend, you could buy 2 coffin zombies, or 20 browncoats for that same price in this example. These are used up when you summon them just like in GW and GW2, so if you had 10 weeds bought and used all 10, you’d not be able to summon any more of them until you bought more at Rux.
The idea here is that you have a large amount of control over which consumables you have, and how many of each consumable you own. While most will require unlocking, even as a deluxe version player, this unlocking can be done via spending coins, working on the battle pass/prize map, and questing/exploring in the free roam zones. My idea is to have more consumables than any of the previous 3 games, and to keep expanding them, the fact that this may be overwhelming in variety for selecting them in game will be covered in a later portion of this post.
As far as function, there will be some overlap, like the pirate map zombie and the newspaper zombie are functional identical, but that small difference adds flavor, and PvZ is about small changes as well as big ones. Many of the more unusual variants of consumable plants and zombies will be unlocked via the free roam zones as part of that zone’s theme; for example, you’d unlock the pirate zombies in a nautical themed free roam zone, and if you want primordial heal flowers, you’d have to hop over to the prehistoric free roam zone. This does mean that you won’t need to unlock all of them, but can focus on just the ones you want. That being said, unlocking them won’t be super expensive, although the more powerful ones will cost more to unlock, just like they cost more to buy copies of them. This allows player with time and coins to focus on a few, while completionists like me, can work on getting them all!
Menu selection with so many options: In GW1 especially, there are a lot of options for zombies and pots to summon. It works fine, but I want to add in all the ones we have in all 3 shooters already, and many more besides. This would be a mess to deal with, so you would have favorites set for the following; potted plants, zombie bots, plant mobile AI, and zombie mobile AI. These would be listed at the beginning of your option list when interacting with the appropriate summon point, and the rest afterward so they’re still there, but your preferred consumables are at the front of the list making it easier to pick in a hurry. You can set these favorites at pretty much anytime you aren’t in an active multiplayer game.
Why I think this is a good system: Essentially it gives the players a lot of choice in what they get, it reduces spam of only the most powerful consumables, allows you to focus on the ones you like the most, gives you some control on the UI for summoning them, and means you won’t end up with thousands of self-revives but you can still buy as many as you feel you need. It avoids the randomness of buying packs by letting us decide when to spend our coins and where to focus our questing efforts so we unlock the consumables we want the most.
