The Shift W Meta, the Anti-Loop Killers and Map Design vs Gens
Let's talk about how these things are related. Alot of people, mostly the people who have played the game for the longest time, will probably tell you that chases are the most fun aspect of the game, they've had experience with the different versions of the game and throughout them this is their standing. Personally i think they are right, it's where Survivor meets Killer, it's where the intensity is. Doings Gens is boring for Survivors and going after Gens is not killers objective but Gens dominate the matches. Survivors can't all escape without doing some Gens and killer can't win without doing some Gen protection.
Why tho? This is because primarily the natural 4v1 aspect of the game but also because chasing 1 single Survivor is time consuming, why is it time consuming? It's time consuming because the killer needs to get 2 hits on a survivor, getting those 2 hits depends on what killer you're playing, on what map you are, on what loop you are, perks and depends on both players individual skill level and understanding of the game.
There's manny factors that go into a chase, to me it's too manny factors, i think there's things we can definetly tone down.
In the 1v1 aspect of the game Killers have their power and perks and Survivors have their Perks and the Map. If we remove the perks because those are player controled then it's Killer power VS Survivor and Map, wich we can equate to skill of the killer player vs skill of the survivor and the Map.
Map is the only defense Survivors have, so naturally Maps have to cater more to Survivors needs more than the killers, it's logical and fair. Then how much does the Map offer Survivors and how much can Survivors do with the Map is the question. So it's the Map design and the skill of the Survivor player in using the Map. A skilled Survivor will utilize the Map to it's full advantage cause they understand how the Map is designed and what options they have, a lesser skilled Survivor player won't have the same understanding thus they can't utilize the Map as efficiently.
This is where Map design comes in, the Map is designed to allow the lesser skilled Survivors to still perform reasonably well by giving them more connected looping areas and/or safer areas. The mistake here is designing the Map for the lower skilled demographic and why? Because the more skilled Survivors will be also benefit from the Map being designed this way, the more skilled Survivors will be safer and have more to work with. This where the problems start for Killers.
The safer the Map is the more time Killer needs to use to chase a single Survivor, not only Survivor has advantage in the 1v1 because of the Map but they then gain Time to give the remaining 3 Survivors to complete Gens. This is where Anti-Loop killers come in, they are designed to be shut down loops thus they are designed to use less Time to catch a single Survivor and use more Time to pressure the team as a whole and prevent Gens from being completed. If the killer achieves this then the Map isn't safe anymore so what can Survivors do? Don't use Loops, just hold Shift W and stay away, if the killer is designed for Anti-Looping then can't they handle open areas.
Can you understand the problem? We're going in a circle now because the initial thought was to make the Map, and the game, accessible to a lower spectrum of the skill gap, we made a Map too safe where all Survivors benefitted, then we had to make killers to counter the Map and now that that is done the lower end spectrum of the skill gap is suffering again, so you gotta tweak the Map and/or killer, this a problematic cycle that comes from making the game too accessible.
Then of top of this we have different versions of the same Map, this creates a scenario where RNG benefits and hurts players, you don't fix a map by making another version of it, you fix just 1 Map instead of having 2 versions that cater to each side, just make 1 good Map, it's simple, just don't cater to the lower end of the skill spectrum.
There's 4 key elements i'd consider in design for a DbD Map, it's Shape, Safety for Survivor, Visibility for Players and Objectives Placement. Objective Placement and Survivor safety are 2 hard things to handle for sure. My take is first you decide what the Map Shape is, then you Place the Obejctives, then you give Survivors Safety, then you play around with visibility, are some of these stuff indoors? Are there decorative things in between, is the Fog? Is there Smoke? is there Rain? Is there light? The map needs to play well first before it looks great. THe biggest example of this is th RCPD from Resident Evil Chapter, the Map looks good but it plays very poorly.
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