Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare

[Stoney Mason]

I was more referencing that I don't think they will carry this approach over to their other franchises but beezy did rightly point out me3.

And yeah. This is one of the few shooters win or lose that doesn't make me rage.

[Stoney Mason]

I enjoy playing this more than I enjoy playing battlefield 4.

Just saying.

Look at this awesome list of patch notes for the dlc. BF 4 has been out 6 months and hasn't received a patch remotely this good.

New Features:

- Added new map Cactus Canyon (Gardens & Graveyards) – w/ cool Golf Bomb minigame at the end.

- New card pack added to sticker shop “Zomboss Down” – This is the only place to collect the new Zomboss Down characters and customization.

- 8 new playable characters to collect.

- 200+ new customization items added.

- 3 new consumable plants (Bamboo Shoot, Fire Peashooter, and Ice Peashooter).

- Now able to view party member locations during gameplay via a different colored Gamertag being shown over their character.

- Added 10 new achievements.

- Character level cap increased from 20 to 30, with new star challenges to complete.

- Players can now communicate with all other players in End of Round Screens

- Added a ‘Mute All’ button to leaderboard on Xbox One – This function appears when you enter the leaderboard and highlight another user.

 

Scoring/Coin Changes:

- Gardens & Graveyards scoring has been overhauled:

·         Plants can now earn almost as many coins as Zombies in G&G sessions that go the distance.

·         Plants stand to earn the most coins if they stop the Zombies in the 1st few bases (especially if they get a perfect win by not allowing the zombies to capture the 1st garden).

·         Zombies stand to earn the most coins if they progress through to the end of the map and beat the final challenge.

·         Most scoring takes place as each base is captured vs. all awarded at the end of the session.

- Gnome Bomb Coin payouts increased across the board.

- Added Solo and 2-player bonus coins payout to Garden Ops.

- Increased coin payout amounts based on difficulty played in Garden Ops (Craaazy Difficulty is now worth the effort).

- Added new support scoring:

·         Engineer Zombie now earns coins for each Plant vanquished by their Zombot Turrets.

·         Plants can earn a Garden Defend Assist by standing in the capture circle and vanquishing Zombies.

·         Zombies can now earn Garden Capture Assist by vanquishing plants that are standing in the capture circle.

·         Assist awarded for freezing an enemy who is then vanquished.

·         Assist awarded to Chompers if a zombie gets vanquished while in their Spikeweed’s grasp.

·         Assist awarded to Chompers if they goop a Zombie who is then vanquished.

·         Chompers earn coins for destroying zombie shields (Newspaper, Coffin, Screen Door, Outhouse, Barrel, Treasure Map, etc.).

·         Cacti and All-Stars can earn a cover assist by having their Tallnuts and Shields used by teammates to protect themselves while vanquishing enemies.

·         Sunflowers now earn assists for any enemies vanquished by their active Healbeam target.

·         Soldiers now earn assists for any teammates who vanquish Plants inside their smoke clouds.

·         Engineers now earn assists for stunning Plants and having their teammates vanquish them.

·         Scientists now earn a bonus for vanquishing a target by sticking a sticky grenade on them.

·         All-Stars earn Suppression assists for shooting at or near targets who are then vanquished.

·         All-Stars now earn a bonus for vanquishing more than 1 target with a single Sprint Tackle.

- You now get coins for destroying Zombot Turrets – Payout scales based on which turret level is destroyed.

- Entire team now gets coins whenever an enemy boss is shot down.

- Destroying any Bossmode item yields coins (i.e. Coconut Spotting Station).

- Using abilities in Bossmode now awards coins.

- Entire Zombie team now gets points for destroying Tallnut Cannons, Corn Launchers and Flax Cannons.

- Destroying tombstones in Garden Ops now yields a coin bonus.

 

Map Changes:

- There were a few sections where Zombies were having a hard time capturing the garden early in the game due to severe chokepoints:

·         Added new flanking route to 1st section of Driftwood Shores G&G Map – Zombies can now flank to the left and attack garden more easily.

·         Added new flanking route to 2nd section of Main Street G&G map – Zombies can now flank to the right around the buildings and attack the garden more easily.

- Fixes for a few spots in Driftwood Shores, Shakbite Shores and Port Scallywag where players could get stuck underwater and not be able to respawn.

- Fixes across all maps to reduce areas where players could potentially get stuck in world geo.

- Added more pots to final mansion objective in Wall-nut Hills, and removed the Zombie grave dirt spawners to better balance out the objective.

- Fix for an area in Sharkbite Shores that Zombie AI couldn’t reach.

 

Tuning/Balance Changes:

- Fixed an exploit where characters could use abilities such as Energy Warp and Jackhammer and also carry the bomb in Gnome Bomb.

- Toned down ragdoll explosion when vanquished by a primary weapon.

- Fixed hit “X” indicator sometimes appearing when not actually damaging a target.

- Added better vfx indication of a Chili Bean being deployed so Zombies can better notice their impending doom and try to escape.

- The Scientist’s Energy Warp ability can no longer pass through players/objects (Tallnuts etc).

- The Scientist’s Energy Warp can no longer enter the mansion in Wall-nut Hills.

- Fix for spamming the Sunflower’s Solar Flare beam where the beam would appear but no damage would be dealt.

- Scientist Heal Bomb wouldn’t heal AI zombies, and well… now it does!

- Fix for Engineer not taking damage from Nugget Mines when riding his Jackhammer.

- Sunflower’s Dark flower ability has had slight damage reduction.

- Engineers on Jackhammers can now run into Cactus Drones and destroy them…. Why not right?

- Stunning a Cactus with Sonic Grenades or Mines will now properly pull them out of drone control.

- You can now stick the Sticky Explody Ball to a drone on either team…

- Engineer drones can now set off Potato Mines if it flies near them.

- The Sunflower’s Heal Beam now cancels after 4 minutes of use.

- Spikeweeds are now properly removed after snaring a Zombie and releasing them.

- Fix for the Retro Pea Gatling ability not ending if player tapped shoot instead of holding it.

- The Scientist’s Mega Heal Bomb was too light-weight, and has been given a little more mass.

- The Sprint Burrow ability made targeting players difficult due to its speed. This has been tuned to require less accuracy.

- Chemists are now able to properly damage the Mega Flower.

- Chompers are now stunned longer than other characters when hit with a Sonic Grenade or Mine.

 

Fixes/Improvements:

- Optimizations added to reduce latency.

- General stability fixes.

- Fixed an issue where a player could spawn as a character on one team but still be considered on the other team, thus allowing them to team kill.

- Scaled Gamertag and damage number size on Xbox One to make them more legible.

- Fix for Zombot Turrets magically appearing when bases are captured in G&G.

- Fixed occasional loss of UI if spawn menu was up when Garden was captured in G&G.

- More improvements to the “Hold B” interact button when reviving players.

- Fixed some corrupted textures on Imps in Garden Ops.

- Fix for Spawned Zombies sometimes not moving.

- Fixed some incorrect text for Scientist Challenge at level 13 should have been “Plant the bomb” not “Pick up the bomb”.

- Fixed some incorrect text for Scientist Challenge at level 15 should have been “Plant the bomb” not “Vanquish the bomb carrier”.

- Fixed Peashooter Level 14 challenge where it incorrectly stated to “Vanquish 2 Players” when it should have been “Vanquish 2 Foot Soldiers”.

- Fixed Engineer Level 13 challenge that incorrectly states “Vanquish 5 Players” when it should read “Vanquish 5 Chompers”.

- Fixed incorrect text for Chomper Level 13 which states “Vanquish 5 All-Stars in a session” but should just read “Vanquish 5 All-Stars”.

- Fixed Chomper Level 7 challenge where players had to “Goop a Zombie and immediately vanquish them”, but it didn’t work on AI.

- Fix for bug where occasionally Engineer Turrets, potted plants and Dark Flower would not take any actions or attack.

- Removed the word “nil” from the challenges that clearly should never be set to “nil” because what’s the challenge in that?

- Sometimes when players level up or used skip challenge stars right as the session ended it wouldn’t carry forward – this has been resolved.

- Several star challenges didn’t work with the alternate abilities and now do!

- Fixed up many of the Sunflower hats so that more of them could be used in conjunction with accessories.

- AI will no longer move when taunting so they don’t appear to slide around.

- A Zombie arm no longer appears in Chomper’s mouth when unsuccessfully chomping a Zombie.

- Improvements to better sync up positions and animations when Chomper is chompin’ a target.

- Can now no longer get stuck inside houses in Driftwood Shores.

- Fixed up some graphical weirdness where sunbeam had flickering texture when fired at short distances.

- Cleaned up Gargantuar jumping animations .

- Fixed some geo issues on Garlic Drone - could see through it in a few animations.

- Fixed Tallnut issue where the models would swap only a few feet in front of the player.

- Spikeweed will now properly play their retract animation.

- General cleanup for some AI zombie animations that made the zombies appear like they were sliding when being shot.

- Fix for Gamertags sometimes appearing as “?” in leaderboard.

- Fix for Rocket Drone beam not playing hit vfx when shooting most surfaces.

- Proper icons now appear for pirate AI in Bossmode.

- Gnome Carrier in Gnome Bomb Mode will now always show Gnome icon even when gooped/stunned, etc.

- Can no longer get warped if entering a teleporter while simultaneously getting chomped by a Chomper.

- Removed purple splash effect from green super sticky goop.

- Fixed bug where consumables didn’t always appear properly if the player quit from a match and quickly entered sticker book.

- Added proper match objectives for Gnome Bomb mode when displayed in Smartglass.

- Bossmode player will now see end of game sequence instead of black screen at end of Gnome Bomb session.

- Fixed issue where Plant team would not see vfx for Teleporter or get the proper audio.

- Fix for entering Teleporter while in Scientist Energy Ball that would cause a map wide laser show (sounds cooler than it was).

- Fix for Bossmode stats being incorrectly added to other playable characters.

- Fix for players not seeing the end of game video if they get vanquished right before the last Gnome Bomb explodes.

- Tombstone text for getting vanquished by Fire Chomper was not appearing properly for weapon name.

- Beam weapons now properly leave decals on walls.

- Some characters were not properly showing their reload animations to other clients.

- Outhouse Zombies no longer enter an unresponsive state if saved from a Chomper’s burrow attack.

[chronovore]

Played a mess more tonight. The new additions are readily apparent in-game, and compelling.

Everyone's probably sick of hearing this, but it's nice to have a game I can not only play in front of the kids, but one which my son also enjoys. He's actually placed 2nd and 3rd occasionally now on Team Vanquish.

[Stoney Mason]

[chronovore]

Great news! I've not been playing this much, recently, so it's nice to have a reason to go back!

[Stoney Mason]

[chronovore]

Free?

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, all the expansions are free. They only charge for sticker packs.

[chronovore]

Thanks. I expected as much, since that had been the case before, but they'd also made a big deal out of "FREE" in the trailers before, and didn't notice it this time, viewing it on a phone on vacation on a crappy connection, etc. I'm lame. So, er, thanks.

[Stoney Mason]

Played this evening for the first time in months. This game is so much god damn fun. I never rage. I just smile when I play it.

[chronovore]

Played this evening for the first time in months. This game is so much god damn fun. I never rage. I just smile when I play it.

The only time I rage is when some rinky-dink Sunflower waltzes past my corpse, there's no-one threatening our position, and LA-DEE-DAH, onward he squeaks and marches, as my KO timer counts-out.

[Stoney Mason]

The suburbination game-mode actually suits the game very well. I like Gardens and Graveyards but it can be a bit of a clusterfuck when you near the capture point. By spreading everybody out over three positions on the map, it lessens that effect.

[chronovore]

The suburbination game-mode actually suits the game very well. I like Gardens and Graveyards but it can be a bit of a clusterfuck when you near the capture point. By spreading everybody out over three positions on the map, it lessens that effect.

Ooh, that sounds pretty nice.

Yeah, when there's actually a coordinated attack on a G&G capture point, the framerate even drops if there are multiple, overlapping particle effects.

[StealthFan]

I'm renting this for PS4. Any PS4 borians want to play with me hit me up at JamesWoodsKiting.

[chronovore]

I would, but I’m on 360.

New content available:


Appears to be taco-related, so everyone make a run for the border!