Massachusetts, USAWe thought about allowing NG+ and might have even had it as a category at one point, but when they introduced plant leveling and 100+ premium plants, it just felt like a Pay-To-Win category without much skill or strategy. Plus there weren't many people submitting runs.
Would be interesting if there were a way to balance it, but I just don't see a way.
Yes. In some versions of the game, you're required to boost at least one plant as part of the tutorial in Ancient Egypt. It's up to you to determine whether using the Zen Garden saves more time than it costs (time vs benefit). Good luck!
We normally need to see a lot of demand for the category to consider adding it to our leaderboard - at least three people actively running it. Give the run a try and if it catches on across the community, we'll consider it.
Ironic that a thread get's Necro'd in a PvZ forum.
Unfortunately, we don't know of any ways to do this for iOS, though we do have all the old version for Andriod (including BlueStacks emulator). If that interests you, join our Discord and someone can hook you up. If you want to keep playing iOS though, I recommend playing Ancient Egypt as an IL, which is the only category that really makes sense now (except the "new" All Worlds where you beat the game linearly, as now required). Good luck!
The Steam (Game of the Year) version for PC is the most commonly run version and is available for $5 or so. I'd recommend using this version.
Yeah... varies by platform and by level, so a much more complicated problem than just adding a few seconds. We've considered reaching out to the devs to add an in-game timer, but that may not be possible.
Just make sure your game is up to date before you record so the run is valid.
Yup. I recommend going offline on the device you're running on and record your runs that way. If you stream, you can still have your mobile device set to offline and just use a capture card to stream. That's what I do. Good luck with the runs.
As long as you start from a fresh file and follow our rule page, you're good. Just keep in mind that each "outside" level you complete will probably take 2-3 minutes, so be sure to evaluate whether the detour is worth it if you're going for a top time. Good luck, and let us know if you have any questions or need any tips!
We only have a few Any% runs on the leaderboard anyway, so we really can't consider CE's until the community grows.
Very interesting. Do you have a video or tutorial showing how to perform it? If we get enough runs, we may eventually add a glitches and glitchless category depending on how much this affect the run. Thanks for the tip.
As the others have said, the primary way to save time in PvZ isn't "planting faster" or "menuing" but rather making good decisions on how best to spend (plant) your limited resources (sun). There is a constant tradeoff between economy (sun production), killing a particular wave quickly (instants like chomper/squash/cherry), and DPS over the course of the level (peashooters, scardies, and gloom). There are also small instances of RNG that effect the optimal decision on any wave. Because the game is non-deterministic and different zombies appear in different rows every time you play through the game, it is impossible to come up with a single route that will work every single time. Rather, you have to react to what the game gives you, and learn how to deal with good and bad RNG effectively.
I highly recommend taking some time to watch our Any% tutorial and applying its principles to your game play. Start with memorizing what plants to take in what levels and approximately how many of each plant type to plant every level. Once you have that down, work on trying to make each wave faster via the 50% rule, especially the 9ths and final waves, and minimizing the number of very slow waves. Join our discord to get further advice.
Here is the most current and most detailed video tutorial: https://www.speedrun.com/pvz/guide/npp9u
Happy planting!
I likethis idea. We'd have to work out the rules and timing clearly.
We usually start 1-1 when the first plant is planted, but this same logic really can't be applied to 2-1 onwards. I'm also not a fan of requiring the running to start from "Adventure" for each of these IL's, because these IL attempts can/should be captured in the middle of an Any% attempt for maximum competitiveness. Maybe timing for 2-1 through 5-1 should begin on the frame when the "lawn" appears and ends when the prize is collected on the 10th level.
We'd also need to decide how to incorporate the shop, particularly for fog (4th) and roof (5th). Technically, you could farm the 9th/10th seed slots, roof/pool cleaners, or other upgrades. Not sure how best to handle this.
The auto-save feature makes this category a bit troublesome too, since restarting isn't as easy as it is for the other IL's... other than the day levels.
After some discussion within the community, the Any% and All Worlds categories were deemed two of the best to launch the speedrunning scene of this game. The Any% is effectively the standard "finish the game as quickly as possible" and the All Levels is "beat every level" - in much the same vein as the Any% (warps) and All Levels (warpless) categories of SMB1.
Your point regarding updates and the addition of worlds is certainly a valid one and will be considered when and if that occurs. If so, we'd likely need to break down the categories further based on the version number, as we would if there were a game altering buff or nerf to a basic plant. The developers have not released a new world in over two years, and we can't wait forever to being speedrunning.
Feel free to suggest ideas for categories here or in our discord. We're happy to find just the right number of interesting/relevant categories for viewers' enjoyment. Cheers!
