The balance between Plants & Zombies

[Loggamer777]

@Ninja2Blade I 100% agree nobody can get beta or giganticus without hacking or playing the game earlier and getting lucky

[jj48car]

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@stevejmorr wrote:

I've been playing this game since it came out and personally don't feel either plant cards or zombie cards have the advantage, but i will say that there is one particular deck that removes any fun completely from the game if you are playing the plant side of things. the rust bolt trick deck, that consists of just playing trick card after trick card to destroy any plants played i.e "rolling stone" "knock out" "weed spray" "rocket science" essentially these cards destroy any level plant that is play all while lower the cost of "trickster" until it is ready to be teamed up with a "teleport" or just playing on its own, throw a zombology teacher in there and its pretty much a complete waste of time to play against. 

I've played multiple plant decks against this deck over the years and probably have less than a 10% winning rate. (these are not poor designed decks either, we're talking over 75 plant legendary cards and even more super rare)  It's actually at the point now where by turn 3 or 4 when i realize I'm playing against a rustbolt trick deck i just quit before the frustration kicks in.

awesome game overall but it would be nice to see the developers do something about this clearly annoying deck.

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I agree that control decks that just focus on shutting down the game instead of pushing their own deck are very irritating to play against.  In fairness, though, while this is one annoying Zombie deck, well over half the Plant decks I play against do exactly the same thing.

[LOVER6868]

It's very sad that this game was abandoned as the game could have been such a good game if handled properly. The game currently however could use a massive balance overhaul to fix the power level of lots of cards (I've done about 330 changes to cards by theory testing on power levels and from community discussion) but I want to go over some main points of balance. Cards like fume shroom cost 2 sun when you have better stated options like apple saucer making it unplayable or cards like bounty hunter that have an amazing ability and mobility compared to cards like surfer zombie which are understated and have no ability. I'm not saying to nerf these cards but to make the cards like fume shroom better to be comparable to those cards to make them worth playing even if they're uncommon cards. Doing this to many of the underpowered cards would make basically new cards for the game without the need of artists if you can boost up the powerlevel of cards enough (not just increasing a stat point like you did with deep sea garg and viking, it doesn't help the cards as that's not there main problem, they still are super slow and are stat sticks).

The balancing team is also way too aggressive with nerfs with nerfing cards like all main berries when the problem was strawberrian for being too good of an aoe tool or nerfing solar winds when it was only too good because briar rose made it free destroy tokens and by nerfing briar and maybe cob cannon you would have been fine and wouldn't have to nerf anymore innocent cards. You can nerf cards but don't go so aggressive on the nerfs and ruin every single card that was run with it since the cards that were run along side them aren't problematic and you make them unplayable for no reason, you're only hurting yourself for nerfing cards so hard. Also nerfing cards also without compensating for them is also a massive issue with balancing (nerfing planet of the grapes but not compensating for the fact that it sucks in every deck when you could have made it a 1 cost that activated once per turn and nerfing sunflower seed when you could have made it from a 3 cost 3/1 to a 2 cost 2/2 reworking it instead of out right nerfing it saving you from giving the refund).

RNG in this game is also frustrating for many players more than it is for highlights as well and leads to many instances where when you would win you're unlucky and lose instead because of the rng cards being too swingy. Cards like transfig could be made into more fun and healthier rng cards instead of making them that swingy by containing the pool and not making it so massive (4 cost 4/4 or 4/5 when another plant is hurt it transforms into a random plant that cost 1 sun more).

The block meter is also a massive issue as it forces players, whether casuals and competitive, to play with rng even if they don't want to. At least with rng cards you can choose to put them in your deck, the block meter is a main mechanic which forces you to have rng all the time which isn't fun and drives out a good audience of the card game community. Fixating the block chances or removing 1 blocks while increasing the meter to 10 would be the best solution to making sure it's not too dependent on rng all the time deciding who wins and doesn't at random so it can actually be a fun and interesting mechanic that can be played around in fun ways instead of a frustrating one that's random and can't really be played around and requires no skill.

I know I'm doing this in vain as the development team is gone and there is no community communication but I just felt like doing this was very important to bring up as there might be a chance of seeing this even if it's super small to being able to fix these massive issues and make it a better game. I would make a much more massive doc (working on one here that's reviewing and balancing every card in the game) but I wanted to point out the basic but important problems I have with the Plants vs Zombies Heroes balancing. Thank you for you time.

EDIT: Another Important note: your over rating of abilities like strikethrough on fume, deadly on Barrel of Barrel and conjure cards leads them to be extremely underpowered and as such need buffs and not nerfs because there effects aren't as impactful in games especially strikethrough on a 2 strength card, conjure on random pools with horrible stats that don't even help you unless you highroll, and deadly while good not intense enough that it wins games and it doesn't turn the table only giving you a little tempo boost and only fair trades with plants not free trading or leaving the card alive like escape through time. there are many more but those are just a couple cards.

[daalnnii]

@LOVER6868I don't have time to address it all, so I'm going with your first example. You're forgetting about tribes. Fume shroom is part of a tribe that can grow in strength just for being part of the tribe. You have to consider *everything*, including decks these cards can be included in before determining strength.  Just something to keep in mind

[LOVER6868]

@daalnnii Yes context does matter which is why you can't make Planet of the Grapes a 1 cost even though it would be fine with everything else as astro shroom would abuse it (it could just be a 1 cost and only work once per turn but that's besides the point) but given the current context of the game the only mushroom synergy buffing card is buff shroom. It needs the buffs super badly to even be worth it and cards that rely too heavily on other cards to be worth it suck as without the buffs it's a block charger that doesn't trade with any relevant cards only being 1 costs but you don't net any tempo by destroying cards below a card's cost. Also the fact that mushrooms not good as they rely on the perfect solar flare curve to even be considerable. Even when you buff it it's a 3/2 strike which is good but it took 2 cards out of your hand and leaves a bad body on the field and you specifically have to curve out of fume to be worth it which it always gets destroyed anyways and you can just play cheaper mushrooms to make better use of the buffs like shroom for 2 which work better with it. Something like a 1 cost fume wouldn't make shrooms any more better as it would still have the problem of shrooms not having any good stuff cards or any good synergy cards and again you have to curve out of it which is a lot better but it still leaves the bad 2/2 body which can often block charge and doesn't always happen and in those cases you would have played the fume in an empty lane which means you could just play something like shroom for 2 to get the better buff anyways since they won't really front the fume the next turn and it just sits there as a 3/2 when you can get a 4/2 that makes a 2/2 when destroyed with sf2 for bigger damage. It's also would take a lot of effort to make a card that would break this as a mushroom card as fume is so simple in design only having a trait that the mushroom synergy card itself would have to be broken before fume would be.

[Si1ky]

All heroes are well balanced excluding Huge-Gigantacus. There are a very high amount of starting cards which are completely and utterly unbeatable. The idea this character has a superpower (Terror-Former 10,000) which not only draws an additional card but also reduces the cost of each card in your hand. Can anyone name a card which without a qualifier (like hitting a plant hero or combining with other cards) which increases ALL resources? I am not aware of a single one.

On another note, I am completely convinced the original starting superpower is not random. I would say around 95% of my games against this character start with the "Terror-Former 10,000" (over 50%) or the "Iron Boarder". Since the "Terror-Former 10,000" is the best card in the entire game considering how early it can be played and the resource advantage it provide and since it is drawn over 50% of the time, it makes this character completely over-powered. 

I think it is completely ridiculous that such an over-powered character is not available for purchase and has not been for months and possibly over a year. I have almost play this game daily since COVID and to my knowledge there has not been a day when the packs were available for purchase (I have been playing since 2019 and didn't see it then). I have 4 of almost every card in the game but am unable to finish collecting. This is extremely frustrating considering how much of a loyal paying customer I have been to this game. 

[Hae14]

a Nice Read ,'-)

to the Next one who will Read this Post Better Ready ur Popcorn as it will take a while. ..

[big82s]

[[[Nice Balance]]]

Also I know finally why they don’t want ppl to quote on quote shame When ppl cheat. 

E.A wants game to die so they can shut off servers n Tell us to all Go to Hell w all the money n time we’ve spent on a game that’s still Fun when no one’s cheating. The devs give up on games like this but they keep pumping out Garbage Foot ball games for like 60 a pop that only have New stuff like Roster changes n things that Are worse then call of duty yearly releases.

Cheaters Prob getting paid to do this. I mean who gonna cheat in a old game like this. 

[Hae14]

@big82s yea, Just Sad..
But it's Still Fun w/ those Cheaters ~Especially when u Beat them & Shove Those Cheats in their A😁

[ee2bb91be3220ce62c14cca425664e80]

I can barely get a game as a zombie while plants I have no problem.  It seems to me that if everyone is playing zombies its because they are overpowering the plants.  I've just been conceding playing plants if I can't get a person 10 levels below me.  It's one solution to not getting run over by zombies.