Hey Neighborville residents!

In celebration of “Choose Your Seeds” being released this month as part of our 18.0 update, we wanted to take the time to chat with our Associate Game Design Director: Cory, about bringing such a huge change to PvZ3! So strap in and get comfy (I recommend a snack because why not)!

Cory: Yes! Let’s start by addressing the Zombie Elephant in the room, because we all know it’s been a big point of contention. So when this project was first started a few years ago, there were some compelling ideas and theories about what might make PvZ3 a more streamlined and accessible experience than in previous games, and looking back, I think it’s fair to say the team might have lost sight of some of the things that make PvZ so fun in the first place. After Soft Launch, it became clear through data (and community feedback!) that features like Choose Your Seeds were sorely missed and felt integral to a true PvZ experience, and so we’ve been really focused on bringing that feature to the game.

Speaking of experiences, PvZ3 wasn’t originally designed around this type of feature. Can you let our players know what kind of considerations and challenges go into implementing Choose Your Seeds into an existing game?

Cory: Since the game was originally designed to play without the plant selection feature, a lot needs to be re-thought and re-examined to make sure players can make meaningful choices in a way that still results in balanced gameplay. For example, we’re working on re-balancing specific plants, both in terms of their gameplay stats as well as Sun cost to make sure they provide both maximum value and interesting choices for the player.

Hear me out: there’s some speculation that this was secretly something we’ve been working on this entire time and waited to release to the public! Can you confirm or deny these rumors??

Cory: *Laughs* If only! It was clear throughout the first couple months of this soft launch that PvZ3 wasn’t quite hitting players’ expectations of what a true Plants vs Zombies sequel should be, and the first steps towards getting back on track are adding back in Choose Your Seeds and updating our early game tutorial to include more plants, zombies, and faster-paced gameplay. You’ll notice that only the first 18 levels have changed in our most recent update, but as soon as we validate that we’re going in the right direction, we’ll begin updating the rest of our levels as well.

On that note, the whole PvZ3 team has been working super hard on implementing this big change and getting it out to our players as quickly as possible. It might seem like a simple update, but developing systems like this at quality can sometimes take months to design, implement, test, and eventually roll out to our players in a way that won’t negatively affect their experience. More is on the way!

Huge shout out to the team for getting this out for our players! The Choose Your Seeds feature becomes available at Level 12 during an overhauled first-time user experience where a LOT of changes have been made! Can you let us know why the feature isn’t available on every level?

Cory: The beginning stages of the game are so important for new players to learn how to play PvZ. We’ve learned over time that dripping out content and features bit by bit goes a long way in not overwhelming the player so much that they drop the game and potentially never pick it back up. This isn’t exclusive to PvZ3 either - in both PvZ1 and PvZ2, the player doesn’t get the ability to choose their own plants until several levels in, and so we’ve mirrored that experience here.

Of course, with the addition of Choose Your Seeds comes the “Survival Guide” to view which zombies and threats you can encounter ahead of taking on a level. This allows you to choose an appropriate counter/team in order to challenge a level based on which zombies you’ll be encountering. Are there any other returning quality of life changes coming soon that you can tease for our players?

Cory: In our next release, we’re bringing an update to Grapes of Wrath to allow players to trigger its explosive ability at will. It’s a relatively small change, but already it feels so much more fun and engaging than before, and I really hope our players enjoy the additional interaction and strategy while playing levels. Looking further ahead, we also do have several really big features coming down the pipeline that I could not be more excited about - but you’re not going to get any spoilers from me!

Okay, fine! Here’s a bit of a nitty-gritty question that I know players will want to know the answer to: right now Choose Your Seeds is limited to 5 slots, whereas previous PvZ entries allowed for a wider selection. Is there a reason why this is limited?

Cory: This is another piece of feedback that we hear quite a bit. Right now, our roster of plants is still fairly small, and by opening up more slots in Choose Your Seeds, the worry is picking your own plants might actually feel less impactful because you’d likely to be able to get most if not all of your favorite plants on your team for every level, meaning there’s not much meaningful choice or puzzle-solving happening - and that’s the whole point of picking your plants! However, as we expand our roster of plants, the number of slots is something we will absolutely be considering to make sure gameplay is feeling as fun as possible.

I also just want to take this opportunity to say how much we appreciate getting feedback from the community, because at the end of the day, we’re making this game for them. Everyone here at PopCap loves PvZ too, and we’re committed to making the best dang PvZ3 we can. 

Thanks, Cory! Before we call it a day on this blog, I’m sure the community is going to want to know: what’s your favorite plant and why?

Cory: Oh, hands down it’s gotta be Lightning Reed. For me, there’s not much more satisfying than seeing a whole storm of lightning bolts decimate piles of zombies. That said, there are few brand new plants currently in development that could quickly change that - stay tuned!

Huge thank you again to Cory for taking the time to chat a bit more about Choose Your Seeds and thanks again to everyone for their continued support! See you next month, and until then…

Plant on!

The PvZ3 Team