i am sorry for having to take this down, the audio was really bad and was caused by some incredibly dumb crap and just pain anyways its back up now i am so sorry for the inconvenience
Damage threshold are so important for literally every game. Things becomes meta in a game because of damage thresholds and it also simplifies important data that can be shown or teach in a instant. Once a game tries to mess with said threshold, it can really make a game feel completely different from before because of how impactful and important it is
Best example of that I can give of Thresholds being screwed over by Meta is Splatoon. Some weapon kits are broken because the damage threshold is over the health threshold, armors included. Edit: Another good example of threshold I can give is in BTD with basic and super Ceramics. Early games, it you cannot quickly destroy a basic ceramic (10 HP + the layers underneath), you know you will not be able to survive for too long. For Wave threshold, Round 55 gives you a good example of what will later ceramic and the dense waves of, like the infamous Round 63, will do against your strategy. Not many things can survive round 63 if they have a hard time dealing with round 55. Edit 2: Fixing minor spelling mistakes.
Conehead zombie is the most important zombie because they have to regulate the traffic for the other zombies to get to the field. You don't want any grave accidents
Truly a profound an phylosophical analysis on the concept of cone, head, and zombie, and how they synergize together ot create a new and innovating concept with multiple branching implications
@@peridrawland5955 the cone was the most important innovation for zombie society it lead the way into many innovations it’s impressive how versatile it is it took the zombies all the way into the far future to find improvements for it. just like fire was for humans
Conehead costing 2 points somehow equals the amount of times this video has been uploaded, Good job, Creep! You have successfully spawned a conehead with your two points
well creeps kinda simplified it, it is technically 10 points for basic, 20 points for conehead, 40 for buckethead. It just makes no sense to keep them as multiples of 10
@@KPoWasTaken unless they were planning to, in a future expansion, make some world have a system that adds imps to the initial spawn and make imps cost like 5 or something then it does make sense to make them worth that amount to “future proof” the system
@@Randomgamer-di3ow i think its pretty fun and interesting you can get stupidly powerful plants that normally wouldnt see much uses i didnt think i would use turkey pult but now i leveled it up it can solo most gaurs
Personally I refer to the concept of damage threshold as interactions, as that is a good blanket term for how plenty of things work against each other and how efficient one option is or isn't, like showing how Rockpunchers may only survive with 70 HP, but that means support is necessary or Citron has to charge another full shot just to finish off this one enemy, which can be crippling. Admittedly I kind of just adopted this term from Clash Royale discussions and Orange Juice's tech videos in particular. Still fun to talk about, and back when I did fan content for Kingdom Rush it was a big aspect of number tweaking for me.
Yeah, but the difference is that in 1v1 games like clash royale you remember it as "what would happen if those 2 fought" because those 2 alone never really fight, there is more happening. In a game like pvz2 where its an AI, in the early game, the most important part of the game, there is just a solo conehead and thats what you have to deal with. Also, in clash royale there is a use in excess. In that game, having something barely kill and having it kill with all of its health remaining is the difference between winning and not winning, while in pvz2 it isnt really like that
Damage degradation is a very nice thing, I really liked how eclise added degradation stages to gargantuars so it wasn't just the imo toss to go off of for how much damage you've done
@@madmonty4761 and then set the blender on fire, throw it in a microwave, heat it up some more, and then blow up the microwave as well and then set the amalgamation on fire
I think a concept that's been missed here about damage thresholds is cheaper plants that deal damage more frequently. Take the example of buffing citron. If you're ONLY using citron, yeah, the buff isn't that impactful. It'll take the same amount of time to kill most zombies. But now imagine you have a couple lanes of lightning reeds. Now, the coneheads will die much more quickly, thanks to the citron buff, since the lightning reeds will take less time to finish off that little bit of hp left over. I think the idea of having 1 lane of heavy hitters and a couple lane of light hitters is a concept that's underrated by people.
I have used Citron consistently and this is how you do it, take advantage of Citron's cheaper price and run a lighter hitter like Lightning Reed to shred the horde. Lightning takes out lighter zombies, so Citron can shoot the tankier zombies for Lightning to finish off. Probably not the most effective strategy, but very fun.
well technically the point system is actually 100 for basics, 200 for coneheads and 400 for bucketheads in pvz 2. But I guess it is more simple to use 1, 2 and 4. It also uses different numbers in PvZ 1 as well but I'm not sure which one that uses.
great points, in addition, it seems like the topic is much deeper than just simply gameplay aspects - the cone itself had pretty much became a symbol of tankiness in the game, and you can see this from a variety of examples from the pvz games, like the Robocone Zombie from Far Future or the Hearty class in pvz heroes representing a class of tanky zombies, whose icon is portrayed as a cone on an orange background
I just like how he said "what on earth is conehead?" Despite literaly everyone knowing what it is. Also i think conehead zombie is kinda the mascot of modern day
Talking about a zombie that called for walls to be used made me think of some sort of zombie with super high stats, that slowly loses health, so there’s an actual benefit to keeping a bunch of zombies on the board in the mid game
Damage threshold in multiplayer games are really interesting too, and if pvz ever has a battle mode where 1 guy is zombies(in pvz 2 not in pvz 1 and more accessible) it will be interesting how these thoughts change, as in 1v1 scenarios the game is about subverting these thoughts. good video overall, not many videos are made about this topic and there should be more.
I love these super specific breakdown videos. So important for understanding what deaign matters, what works, and what doesnt. Such a subtle but importakt fueld
why does youtube recommend me a pvz2 video explaining how important a zombie variation is for 15 minutes, while also salvaging one of the game mechanics used to determine how much health does each zombie have
ive read somewhere that a game's 2-costs are generally its most important units for balancing, because while you can only increase a 1-cost's cost by doubling it, 2-costs can be halved to get 1-cost units or increased by 50% to get 3-costs, meaning it gives you both a weaker than average and stronger than average without as large an increase as 100%. I think thats part of what's going on with the conehead, too. At 2-cost, theyre allowed to matter while being small, and are where all other zombie strengths are based off
I think this is actually an idea I cultivated in my head while playing the original, and carried to PvZ2. In 1, I found the toughness of basic, conehead, and buckethead to be more of a 1-2-3 case. If you planted a Peashooter just a zombie is visible, it started shooting just as they reached the lawn. And from there I observed: Basics took 3 tiles of time(1/3 of the whole lawn), coneheads 6, and bucketheads 9, Peashooter just barely finishing it off because it stopped to eat the pea. I haven't played 2 in a while so they probably buffed coneheads based on the stats in the video, but the same observations I made applied to PvZ2 when I played it. That was kinda an inverted example though, so here's a more straight one: Magnifying Grass' shots were 1 hit(50 sun) to kill a basic, 2 for a conehead, 3 for bucket. I never used it because my main strategy was Sun-shrooms, but I digress. Basically, I thought of zombie health as units instead of larger numbers, but considered that possibility when some of my calculations based on them turned out inconsistent. I guess what I'm saying is had I known back then wikis were a thing, I could have actually made more informed strategies. I would have known the damage thresholds and thus work around them than keeping all these numbers in my head of "how many of [plant shots] kills [zombie type]?"
This video was really interesting to me because having never looked into the stats of PvZ, I used to think this about bucketheads. I felt backed up in this belief by the fact that PvZ 2 added what I called “buckethead variants” like the pyramid head, barrel head, knight, etc. However, now looking at the actual HP of the zombies and knowing about the point system you discussed, I agree with your assessment that coneheads are the most important zombie type.
I personally love listening and talking about balancing for games. As someone with some game making under my belt balance is in fact key! I made an unpublished game called destroid where there were different ships with different firing types, took me forever to balance the three stats between all 5 ships. Ended up making all pretty decent ships, some weren't optimal but interesting enough for people to Want to at least try them! Usually the worse the weapon the more hp the ship had, but I had the most trouble balancing the standard ship (technically the best due to stat distribution) because it had a viable fire type and 3 hp with a decent acceleration speed. I made it this way to cater to more casual players which is something to consider when making games! The five ships were the standard with a slowish machine gun type fire, a burst which was the strongest fire type, a trap layer that would leave traps at the cursor, a shotgun which was good at crowd control but bad at taking down large asteroids, and a minigun like ship that fired so fast and was so strong I nerfed it by making it slowly kick the ship backwards while firing making it harder to control, probably the most skillful ship due to this and its low hp!
i remember realizing that 1 peashooter can kill a conehead if it was already planted before it walked into the lane, but the peashooter would be damaged. i remember feeling so smart and professional.
It has been ages since I've played PVZ2, but Coneheads kind of don't exist in my mind, because all the time spent in Survival (to the point that they spawn enough Gargantaurs to severely lag the game), I'd say that how much damage it takes to kill an imp is still a pretty good threshhold to know. You generally don't give Gargantaurs time to throw imps, keeping them stuck in a perpetual cycle of stomping spikerocks on the far right side of the screen, but when they do, that's time the wintermelons aren't throwing at the back line, and they might be wearing off the chill effect. So how long it takes to clear column 3 is very important. My usual strategy: an infininut in the centre row, and Phat Beetz on the sides, because Egypt Survival needs something capable of clearing in all directions to get rid of tombstones.
i was just gonna meme the explanation of what conehead is but no, this is a really good and insightful video! as someone who hasn't been huge into pvz2 this is a bit of an eye-opener to me for the way this game was designed
Buckets just help to make you lose when you're already losing. It's a lose more zombie because by the time they come out, you likely have one plant every row and at worse as you said. Instant kill plants are basically much stuck with being used on them because around when they come out your line is safe other wise.
Instead of the video, I half-focused on the hollow knight music in the background as I'm playing the game. Good video, Creeps. You teach me specific things in a game I never thought to think about before.
Damage thresholds are really interesting when it comes to nerfs too, they're why sometimes a nerf or buff that does seemingly nothing, like a 2% hit speed buff or something, can often completely change something's viability in the competitive aspects of a game.
I once saw a shop with PvZ plushies and inmediately thought "Oh, I need the conehead one!" It's in my room rn. So yeah, Conehead are the actual protagonists.
in the first age in the first battle one stood Burned by the embers of firepea, his soul blistered by the fires of snapdragon and tainted beyond redemption, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the neighborhood seeking vengeance against the plants who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the zombies and those that tasted the bite of his jaw named him...
I feel like I was braindead the entire video, but there's one thing I find Coneheads nice, is that Bucketheads are tough, but their weakness is the Magnet-shroom, while Coneheads have balanced toughness and its cone cannot get pulled off by the Magnet-shroom.
I do actually agree with this. I mainly play PvZ1, but coneheads are so important there too. When considering 50% rule in PvZ1 (and the fact that armor zombies actually mean something) cones can be used to pass waves quickly, or stall them out for a long time.
@@philippeleprohon4823 the 50% rule is something that speedrunner use to speedrun pvz1. Basically the rule is that if you deplete 50% of the current wave’s hit points, the next wave of zombies will spawn. For example: if there are two regular zombies in a wave and you kill one of them, the next wave of zombies will spawn within the next 6 or so seconds. It’s what makes pvz1 a game that can be speedran, rather than an auto scroller. There is a video if you want me to show you
As soon as I saw you were making the video, I knew the answer Coneheads have the perfect mix of hp, and commonness They have enough health and apear in enough numbers to define aspects of how you play, which, as stated in the video, bucketheads dont
Tecnically, both RNG speed and spawn points are both absent from PVZ2. Unlike in PVZ1, the speed of all zombies is always consistent in PVZ2 so yeah. Due to how waves work in PVZ2, spawn points are also absent from man-made levels (which to be fair, composes like 95% of the game), as the waves will always be the same, no mather what.
The best example of Damage Thresholds is level2 magni the damage per shot is only increased by 25dmg but on level2 it can 1 shot Conehead and only Conehead! but the difference fells massive because of how common Conehead is
Only Creeps20 could stretch a video about coneheads to 15 minutes AND have me watch it the whole way through I don’t know how you do it, but I’m impressed
@@theonetheycallheadspace2899 I tend to hear people say that it’s one of the worst. Maybe times have changed, and people have realized its true potential.
There is a great video by Extra Credits (no worries, an old one) called break points, that explains the idea you call Damage thresholds in terms of rpg leveling. Not saying your explanation wasn't suitable, I just got reminded of a goodie from 4 years ago
1:40 Does anyone know where I could find the internal values for every zombie in either pvz 1 or 2 (Ideally both). I tried looking on the wiki and couldn't find anything.
I was watching this video and refreshed when an audio glitched happened to see if it was my end, just for the site to say it was private I was worried I would never see this video again lol
I’m a big fan of Team Fortress 2 and there’s a weapon there that perfectly exemplifies damage thresholds: the Machina sniper rifle. For pretty negligible downsides compared to the base sniper rifle, it gets a free damage buff on a fully charged shot, but that extra damage does not change any of the sniper’s interactions, so when it is used over base, it is used for aesthetic reasons.
I always conceived of damage thresholds in terms of overkill, and I honestly thought it was a more commonly known idea. Overkill is how much extra damage is left over after the killing blow, so if you have a sniper that does 90 damage an a target with 100 health, the second shot has 80 damage of overkill. This has the effect that on-paper DPS for heavy-hitters isn't really ever reached. Small, frequent attacks almost always approach their calculated DPS closer, so even if the heavy-hitters look significantly better, they can end up having very similar killing power. You could think of it like a ratio of damage to health... If that ratio is a single digit number, you're likely to have more than 10% overkill. I guess damage thresholds are just a reframing of the question in terms of "how many hits to kill?" as a starting point. Same concept once you apply it. It's one reason games with variable damage:health ratios work, you aren't so likely to try and minimize overkill or reach that next damage threshold, and you can focus on other things.
i am sorry for having to take this down, the audio was really bad and was caused by some incredibly dumb crap and just
pain
anyways its back up now i am so sorry for the inconvenience
dont worry, ill watch it again
It’s ok, shit like this happens all the time nowadays
Glad you redid it although the audio was pretty funny
im sick and i fell asleep listening to the first upload, woke up to an error screen smh
Hello
When creeps told me twice why conehead is the most important zombie, I was now fully convinced
hes my brother lmaooo
They're invading!
I thought it was privated forever
Pigeonholed
You mean CONEvinced?
Damage threshold are so important for literally every game. Things becomes meta in a game because of damage thresholds and it also simplifies important data that can be shown or teach in a instant. Once a game tries to mess with said threshold, it can really make a game feel completely different from before because of how impactful and important it is
Fireballie and loggables
Best example of that I can give of Thresholds being screwed over by Meta is Splatoon. Some weapon kits are broken because the damage threshold is over the health threshold, armors included.
Edit: Another good example of threshold I can give is in BTD with basic and super Ceramics. Early games, it you cannot quickly destroy a basic ceramic (10 HP + the layers underneath), you know you will not be able to survive for too long. For Wave threshold, Round 55 gives you a good example of what will later ceramic and the dense waves of, like the infamous Round 63, will do against your strategy. Not many things can survive round 63 if they have a hard time dealing with round 55.
Edit 2: Fixing minor spelling mistakes.
Sojourn in Overwatch 2. Sniper in Team Fortress 2.
@@philippeleprohon4823 I have never had trouble with 55 and 63
There shouldn't be a single tactic that always wins, what you should do should depend on what is happening.
I am now just imagining Popcap releasing a plant which instantly kills everything but coneheads/nothing but coneheads.
Lol
Conehead zombie is the most important zombie because they have to regulate the traffic for the other zombies to get to the field. You don't want any grave accidents
Ba dum tsh
Without the Coneheads, the Zombies might end up in a rather _grave_ situation.
But someone already made that joke, so it’s already _dead in the dirt._
funniest thread? !1!1!1!!?!!?!!!?!!?
Does anyone else find it funny how quick “what is conehead” is
YES LMAO me
Truly a profound an phylosophical analysis on the concept of cone, head, and zombie, and how they synergize together ot create a new and innovating concept with multiple branching implications
@Guest 536 2 hours ago (edited)
it's a traffic cone lmfao
@@peridrawland5955 the cone was the most important innovation for zombie society it lead the way into many innovations it’s impressive how versatile it is it took the zombies all the way into the far future to find improvements for it. just like fire was for humans
I like that you’re talking about a zombie this time instead of plants, I think it’s good to give your videos a bit more variety.
shut up squidward skeleton looking guy
Brains?
@@stargazer-elite no brainz? 🤨
@@Jnp-rw1yg no brainz. 😔
@@alternatedenzno brainz 😢
Conehead costing 2 points somehow equals the amount of times this video has been uploaded,
Good job, Creep! You have successfully spawned a conehead with your two points
well creeps kinda simplified it, it is technically 10 points for basic, 20 points for conehead, 40 for buckethead. It just makes no sense to keep them as multiples of 10
@@KPoWasTaken Dam,
Guess Creep is still missing 18 re-uploads.
@@KPoWasTaken unless they were planning to, in a future expansion, make some world have a system that adds imps to the initial spawn and make imps cost like 5 or something then it does make sense to make them worth that amount to “future proof” the system
@@KPoWasTaken Actually, "Basic = 1 point" point system was in PvZ 1. PvZ 2 uses "Basic = 100 points" point system.
@@AnonChuck.ObjectShowVieweroh yea, you're right
thx
(also lmao an extremely late respone from me... tbh I forgot I even commented that)
Cone heads always feel like they take forever to kill, but are shrugged off as a “weak” zombie
I just really like Conehead's visual design
The cone is really charming when put on a zombie's design and palette
I suppose the robot pylon creators were indeed onto something by stating the cone was the pinnacle of zombie protection
"You'd be using instas most of the time to deal with coneheads,"
People who use magnifying grass level 2:
Also Citron
@@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917 Any manual fire expensive plant basically.
I just hate how vannila banana cant 1 shot a bucket, its those "not quite" scenarios that make me know interactions out of spite
To be fair it only needs to be level 2 to one shot buckets. Since it’s an adventure plant it isn’t that hard
@@pvzhEnjoyer the levelling system is something that does not belong to a game like Plant vs Zombies
@@Randomgamer-di3ow i think its pretty fun and interesting you can get stupidly powerful plants that normally wouldnt see much uses i didnt think i would use turkey pult but now i leveled it up it can solo most gaurs
@@Randomgamer-di3ow ok but that doesn’t change the fact that banana launcher only needs to be level 2 to one shot buckets
@@Randomgamer-di3ow depends, it can work if the game is made around leveling
I came to the same conclusion when figuring out which zombie plushy to buy to put up against my Peashooter and Sunflower plushies.
Personally I refer to the concept of damage threshold as interactions, as that is a good blanket term for how plenty of things work against each other and how efficient one option is or isn't, like showing how Rockpunchers may only survive with 70 HP, but that means support is necessary or Citron has to charge another full shot just to finish off this one enemy, which can be crippling. Admittedly I kind of just adopted this term from Clash Royale discussions and Orange Juice's tech videos in particular. Still fun to talk about, and back when I did fan content for Kingdom Rush it was a big aspect of number tweaking for me.
Yeah, but the difference is that in 1v1 games like clash royale you remember it as "what would happen if those 2 fought" because those 2 alone never really fight, there is more happening. In a game like pvz2 where its an AI, in the early game, the most important part of the game, there is just a solo conehead and thats what you have to deal with. Also, in clash royale there is a use in excess. In that game, having something barely kill and having it kill with all of its health remaining is the difference between winning and not winning, while in pvz2 it isnt really like that
@@Willdroyd
It can be pretty significant depending on the threat level of the enemies you're facing. And mainly for slow attacking plants really.
Positive Sun Trade
...I guess
Reflourished has made me use Magnet so frequently due to all the nerfs to splash damage that Buckets are basically just browncoats lol
Honestly I go up against buckets so much in that game that I've forgotten how I deal with them. They just kinda... Die.
Damage degradation is a very nice thing, I really liked how eclise added degradation stages to gargantuars so it wasn't just the imo toss to go off of for how much damage you've done
Eclipse looks like you toss pvz into a blender
Because PvZ 1 has Gargantuar's damage degradation, I think.
@@AnonChuck.ObjectShowViewer yes the bandage
@@CoolyCools And shoes damage.
@@madmonty4761 and then set the blender on fire, throw it in a microwave, heat it up some more, and then blow up the microwave as well and then set the amalgamation on fire
Me: What is conehead?
Him:A tankier basic zombie"
*Thank you Mr.Helpful*
I think a concept that's been missed here about damage thresholds is cheaper plants that deal damage more frequently.
Take the example of buffing citron. If you're ONLY using citron, yeah, the buff isn't that impactful. It'll take the same amount of time to kill most zombies. But now imagine you have a couple lanes of lightning reeds. Now, the coneheads will die much more quickly, thanks to the citron buff, since the lightning reeds will take less time to finish off that little bit of hp left over.
I think the idea of having 1 lane of heavy hitters and a couple lane of light hitters is a concept that's underrated by people.
I have used Citron consistently and this is how you do it, take advantage of Citron's cheaper price and run a lighter hitter like Lightning Reed to shred the horde. Lightning takes out lighter zombies, so Citron can shoot the tankier zombies for Lightning to finish off. Probably not the most effective strategy, but very fun.
@@mewmew8932It's really effective, AoE + single target is the peanut and jelly of rpgs.
You described the concept of effective helath pretty neatly.
10/10
well technically the point system is actually 100 for basics, 200 for coneheads and 400 for bucketheads in pvz 2. But I guess it is more simple to use 1, 2 and 4. It also uses different numbers in PvZ 1 as well but I'm not sure which one that uses.
great points, in addition, it seems like the topic is much deeper than just simply gameplay aspects - the cone itself had pretty much became a symbol of tankiness in the game, and you can see this from a variety of examples from the pvz games, like the Robocone Zombie from Far Future or the Hearty class in pvz heroes representing a class of tanky zombies, whose icon is portrayed as a cone on an orange background
I just like how he said "what on earth is conehead?" Despite literaly everyone knowing what it is. Also i think conehead zombie is kinda the mascot of modern day
conehead zombies: there a cone on its head
Talking about a zombie that called for walls to be used made me think of some sort of zombie with super high stats, that slowly loses health, so there’s an actual benefit to keeping a bunch of zombies on the board in the mid game
Also it just caps the damage it takes in 1 hit and immune to instakill (it just doesn't eat instakills) so you can't instant your way out of it.
1:26 never just randomly pop out a peashooter out of nowhere. I was scrubbing my eye and thought I was hallucinating
Ah the conehead torchlight zombie in PVZ Brutal Mode Ex, instantly trample plants and move twice as fast as normal zombie, totally balance
Damage threshold in multiplayer games are really interesting too, and if pvz ever has a battle mode where 1 guy is zombies(in pvz 2 not in pvz 1 and more accessible) it will be interesting how these thoughts change, as in 1v1 scenarios the game is about subverting these thoughts. good video overall, not many videos are made about this topic and there should be more.
Potato bait loadout
@@LutasticLu god
I don't want to return to the era of log bait
Imitator will be op
I love these super specific breakdown videos. So important for understanding what deaign matters, what works, and what doesnt. Such a subtle but importakt fueld
why does youtube recommend me a pvz2 video explaining how important a zombie variation is for 15 minutes, while also salvaging one of the game mechanics used to determine how much health does each zombie have
Basic zombie: exists
Creeps: Whatever
Basic zombie: takes a cone and put it on his head
Creeps: THIS BEING IS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE
ive read somewhere that a game's 2-costs are generally its most important units for balancing, because while you can only increase a 1-cost's cost by doubling it, 2-costs can be halved to get 1-cost units or increased by 50% to get 3-costs, meaning it gives you both a weaker than average and stronger than average without as large an increase as 100%. I think thats part of what's going on with the conehead, too. At 2-cost, theyre allowed to matter while being small, and are where all other zombie strengths are based off
Just like chemistry-physics with hydrogen (1) and helium (2) in stars core
Oxygen (8) atoms were made from 4 helium (2) atoms
I think this is actually an idea I cultivated in my head while playing the original, and carried to PvZ2. In 1, I found the toughness of basic, conehead, and buckethead to be more of a 1-2-3 case. If you planted a Peashooter just a zombie is visible, it started shooting just as they reached the lawn. And from there I observed:
Basics took 3 tiles of time(1/3 of the whole lawn), coneheads 6, and bucketheads 9, Peashooter just barely finishing it off because it stopped to eat the pea. I haven't played 2 in a while so they probably buffed coneheads based on the stats in the video, but the same observations I made applied to PvZ2 when I played it.
That was kinda an inverted example though, so here's a more straight one: Magnifying Grass' shots were 1 hit(50 sun) to kill a basic, 2 for a conehead, 3 for bucket. I never used it because my main strategy was Sun-shrooms, but I digress. Basically, I thought of zombie health as units instead of larger numbers, but considered that possibility when some of my calculations based on them turned out inconsistent.
I guess what I'm saying is had I known back then wikis were a thing, I could have actually made more informed strategies. I would have known the damage thresholds and thus work around them than keeping all these numbers in my head of "how many of [plant shots] kills [zombie type]?"
Same with Wall-Nut Bowling. 1 shot for basics, 2 for coneheads, 3 for bucketheads
I guess im CONEvinced that cone zombie is special
This video was really interesting to me because having never looked into the stats of PvZ, I used to think this about bucketheads. I felt backed up in this belief by the fact that PvZ 2 added what I called “buckethead variants” like the pyramid head, barrel head, knight, etc. However, now looking at the actual HP of the zombies and knowing about the point system you discussed, I agree with your assessment that coneheads are the most important zombie type.
13:23 Finally! Someone appreciated us haters! A personality that revolves around hating someone!
I personally love listening and talking about balancing for games. As someone with some game making under my belt balance is in fact key!
I made an unpublished game called destroid where there were different ships with different firing types, took me forever to balance the three stats between all 5 ships. Ended up making all pretty decent ships, some weren't optimal but interesting enough for people to Want to at least try them!
Usually the worse the weapon the more hp the ship had, but I had the most trouble balancing the standard ship (technically the best due to stat distribution) because it had a viable fire type and 3 hp with a decent acceleration speed.
I made it this way to cater to more casual players which is something to consider when making games!
The five ships were the standard with a slowish machine gun type fire, a burst which was the strongest fire type, a trap layer that would leave traps at the cursor, a shotgun which was good at crowd control but bad at taking down large asteroids, and a minigun like ship that fired so fast and was so strong I nerfed it by making it slowly kick the ship backwards while firing making it harder to control, probably the most skillful ship due to this and its low hp!
i remember realizing that 1 peashooter can kill a conehead if it was already planted before it walked into the lane, but the peashooter would be damaged. i remember feeling so smart and professional.
It has been ages since I've played PVZ2, but Coneheads kind of don't exist in my mind, because all the time spent in Survival (to the point that they spawn enough Gargantaurs to severely lag the game), I'd say that how much damage it takes to kill an imp is still a pretty good threshhold to know. You generally don't give Gargantaurs time to throw imps, keeping them stuck in a perpetual cycle of stomping spikerocks on the far right side of the screen, but when they do, that's time the wintermelons aren't throwing at the back line, and they might be wearing off the chill effect.
So how long it takes to clear column 3 is very important.
My usual strategy: an infininut in the centre row, and Phat Beetz on the sides, because Egypt Survival needs something capable of clearing in all directions to get rid of tombstones.
"CONEHEAD OP??!?!?!?!? with three 1s"
THIS IS WAY TOO FUNNY
Interesting I was expecting you to talk about the design, about just how iconic it is. This was sick!
so according to creeps:
"bucketheads?"
"explosives"
Finally i got reconnected for my true potential
i was just gonna meme the explanation of what conehead is but no, this is a really good and insightful video! as someone who hasn't been huge into pvz2 this is a bit of an eye-opener to me for the way this game was designed
Thanks mate, appreciate it.
Reminder: conehead is a zombie with a cone and industrial grade adhesive on his body
coneheads are made to push more pressure to make you plant more attack plants, assuring you get ready for bucketheads or anything stronger than that
Buckets just help to make you lose when you're already losing. It's a lose more zombie because by the time they come out, you likely have one plant every row and at worse as you said. Instant kill plants are basically much stuck with being used on them because around when they come out your line is safe other wise.
“Conehead zombie is the most important zombie”
First few seconds: “okay let’s be clear, conehead zombie is not the most important zombie.”
Road cones protect my head
Instead of the video, I half-focused on the hollow knight music in the background as I'm playing the game. Good video, Creeps. You teach me specific things in a game I never thought to think about before.
The conehead is so important this had to be posted twice
Damage thresholds are really interesting when it comes to nerfs too, they're why sometimes a nerf or buff that does seemingly nothing, like a 2% hit speed buff or something, can often completely change something's viability in the competitive aspects of a game.
I was kind of looking forwards to the "what is a buckethead" joke tbh
I haven't played a single PVZ game since PVZ2 released and these videos are so interesting to me even though I barely know too much.
I once saw a shop with PvZ plushies and inmediately thought "Oh, I need the conehead one!" It's in my room rn.
So yeah, Conehead are the actual protagonists.
in the first age in the first battle one stood Burned by the embers of firepea, his soul blistered by the fires of snapdragon and tainted beyond redemption, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the neighborhood seeking vengeance against the plants who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the zombies and those that tasted the bite of his jaw named him...
finally, zome reprezentation
Nostalgia throwback
Cone head is the most important zombie
Remember coney from LuihiaFan’s pvz plush series
I dressed up as neon conehead for Halloween for once so I have always liked conehead
I like Conehead, Conehead has a cone.
Same
I feel like I was braindead the entire video, but there's one thing I find Coneheads nice, is that Bucketheads are tough, but their weakness is the Magnet-shroom, while Coneheads have balanced toughness and its cone cannot get pulled off by the Magnet-shroom.
I do actually agree with this. I mainly play PvZ1, but coneheads are so important there too. When considering 50% rule in PvZ1 (and the fact that armor zombies actually mean something) cones can be used to pass waves quickly, or stall them out for a long time.
What is the 50% rule in 1? Enlighten me.
@@philippeleprohon4823 the 50% rule is something that speedrunner use to speedrun pvz1. Basically the rule is that if you deplete 50% of the current wave’s hit points, the next wave of zombies will spawn.
For example: if there are two regular zombies in a wave and you kill one of them, the next wave of zombies will spawn within the next 6 or so seconds.
It’s what makes pvz1 a game that can be speedran, rather than an auto scroller.
There is a video if you want me to show you
Road cones protects his head
Even in PvZ Heroes
Browncoat is nowhere to be seen
Conehead exists as a 2 brain card hahahahah
As soon as I saw you were making the video, I knew the answer
Coneheads have the perfect mix of hp, and commonness
They have enough health and apear in enough numbers to define aspects of how you play, which, as stated in the video, bucketheads dont
“Cone head is a tankier basic zombie” *ends section*
"Conehead is the most important one"
*PvZ Brutal Mode EX players:* o_o _(flashbacks to Lawnmowerhead, one of Conehead's variants)_
Who would have expected a conehea- wait. I’ve watched this before..
Tecnically, both RNG speed and spawn points are both absent from PVZ2. Unlike in PVZ1, the speed of all zombies is always consistent in PVZ2 so yeah. Due to how waves work in PVZ2, spawn points are also absent from man-made levels (which to be fair, composes like 95% of the game), as the waves will always be the same, no mather what.
But do the waves differ in the sense that, yea, the same Zombies will always appear, but the order will not always be the same?
i always knew my homeboy was the most important on.
I think a good title for this video would be: "Conehead zombies are more important than you think, here's why:"
The best example of Damage Thresholds is level2 magni
the damage per shot is only increased by 25dmg
but on level2 it can 1 shot Conehead and only Conehead!
but the difference fells massive because of how common Conehead is
Conehead when buckethead spawns:
Only Creeps20 could stretch a video about coneheads to 15 minutes AND have me watch it the whole way through
I don’t know how you do it, but I’m impressed
Can you do a video on magnifrying grass? I find it being a very underrated and fun plant to use.
It's not underrated it's known to be the best plant in the game
@@theonetheycallheadspace2899 I tend to hear people say that it’s one of the worst. Maybe times have changed, and people have realized its true potential.
@@Soul_evacuated_Ian weird
@@theonetheycallheadspace2899 Yeah.
I'm pretty sure it's known for being able to clear on it's own almost all stages (with sun producers of course) @@Soul_evacuated_Ian
2:50 peashooter is cost efficient.
Thanks for the imformation in 1:46
I will use that tactic in my games while coding.
There is a great video by Extra Credits (no worries, an old one) called break points, that explains the idea you call Damage thresholds in terms of rpg leveling. Not saying your explanation wasn't suitable, I just got reminded of a goodie from 4 years ago
Conehead zombie is now in Beverly hills cause of his newfound fame.
because he's cool
Just in case you didn't see, I said: I don't even play this game just like listening to people who are confident in what they say
Damage thresholds are also important in tf2, and really any other game as well.
1:40 Does anyone know where I could find the internal values for every zombie in either pvz 1 or 2 (Ideally both). I tried looking on the wiki and couldn't find anything.
Youre the only youtuber I NEED captions for
all u had to said is that it makes a cool twonk sound when u hit it :)
I don't enjoy watching, I'm just bored 😭 like this is such a random topic but I'm still engaged
As a buckethead enjoyer, this video was hard to watch
Conehead & normal zombies with normal abilities are from different universe are important :00000
Ok. Now you have to make a video about the zombie point values and how all that works
I watch your videos because I am interested, I like watching them, God bless
I was watching this video and refreshed when an audio glitched happened to see if it was my end, just for the site to say it was private
I was worried I would never see this video again lol
I feel cone'd
I’m a big fan of Team Fortress 2 and there’s a weapon there that perfectly exemplifies damage thresholds: the Machina sniper rifle.
For pretty negligible downsides compared to the base sniper rifle, it gets a free damage buff on a fully charged shot, but that extra damage does not change any of the sniper’s interactions, so when it is used over base, it is used for aesthetic reasons.
i might have gotten owned,clickbaited and quite possibly bamboozled...but i ended up watching the entire video.
I'm I seriously gonna watch a 15 minute video about someone praising conehead? This better be good
I always conceived of damage thresholds in terms of overkill, and I honestly thought it was a more commonly known idea.
Overkill is how much extra damage is left over after the killing blow, so if you have a sniper that does 90 damage an a target with 100 health, the second shot has 80 damage of overkill. This has the effect that on-paper DPS for heavy-hitters isn't really ever reached. Small, frequent attacks almost always approach their calculated DPS closer, so even if the heavy-hitters look significantly better, they can end up having very similar killing power.
You could think of it like a ratio of damage to health... If that ratio is a single digit number, you're likely to have more than 10% overkill.
I guess damage thresholds are just a reframing of the question in terms of "how many hits to kill?" as a starting point. Same concept once you apply it.
It's one reason games with variable damage:health ratios work, you aren't so likely to try and minimize overkill or reach that next damage threshold, and you can focus on other things.
I, once again, wasn't ready for omori music in a video about PvZ.
I've never used repeater in Eclise since Fire peashooters are too good.
I love how the conehead description went on for 5 seconds
7:40 cat noise moment