Maps
in dbd right now theres like 40 maps or something, some of them are well balanced (wreckers yard, coal tower, midwich are examples imo) and some of them are so horrific that its a wonder to think theyve even been play tested (cowshed, eyrie, garden), and the balance of maps greatly affects how "scummy" killers play, and how easily one side can dominate.
the point is, theres no real consistency in balance between maps. i have a few potential solutions to this:
having some form of map banning, something that doesnt affect queues but does affect fun (each player having a list of 3 maps that they cannot go to. a map to me is azarovs, not the parent map thingie which would be autohaven so theres no confusion). this would allow 12 maps to be removed from the playable pool. and the devs could look at what the most commonly banned maps are (likely to be cowshed, garden, eyrie, rpd, rpd, maybe midwich). this solution would require the deletion of map offerings but i doubt anyone would be upset with that
having map rotations, so every month or something they choose some maps that are removed from the playable pool. for example, they could choose 8 maps that can be played on for the month, and all other maps are only available in customs. this would also require the deletion of map offerings
having a restricted map list, but this map changes for different mmr brackets (lower mmr having bigger maps due to survivors not being effective in chase or on gens due to being scared, and higher mmr having smaller maps since theres 0 fear, and those top survivors are really not scared, and are almost unmindgamable at some tiles). this also would require the deletion of map offerings
choosing 1 map to base balance around (this solution will assume they chose wreckers yard, but the devs would likely choose a map that has the kill/escape rate to be what theyre most comfortable with). so they look at the size of the map, and the real "playable area" of the map (the area that survivors and killers really play in, not including the edge of maps where theres nothing but z walls), and then go and shave down all other maps to have a similar size playable area, same amount of generic tiles (wreckers yard has 6 off memory), 1 centralised structure (a main building or a shack depending on the map, and the main building being adjusted to 1 safe vault thats mindgame-able with a god pallet) and a relatively consistent amount of filler pallets, with relatively consistent safety. this solution unfortunately requires a lot of effort, so its likely not going to happen, regardless of it maybe being the best solution. and also it would work weirdly with the existence of indoor maps, but also may help with the making of future maps, since theyll have a sort of "template" for the making of more or less balanced maps.
Comments
Killer main detected.
Midwitch and wreckers yard are about as balanced as old headonfield was to killers. Next time write, that shelter woods and rotten fields are survivor sided. Absolute nonsense the whole post
wreckers is one of the fairest maps, and it still has 2 god pallets. its got 6 generic tiles and a shack. what makes it balanced is that most of the tiles are fair tiles, where the killer gets a hit if the survivor makes a mistake, and if the killer makes a mistake its another loop at the tile, and theres enough pallets that all the gens can get done if the killer just insta breaks.
it might be op for killer if killers were strong, but they arent so the map is balanced
p.s. im not a killer main, im mostly solo q since the patch bc killer queues have been so long
It's a tiny map with quite a big visibility. Shack always in the middle = there is almost no way killer can't get you to shack. Meaning if the killer is balanced around being territorial (e.g. trapper, hag, etc) or around being slow on map (trickster, clown) or has some strong area effects (sadako, pig, most used nurse builds), or if it's camping killer (as mentioned shack position - so bubba, trapper, hag, huntress, trickster) - the killer is definitely VERY strong on that map.
I mean. You could get fair match - if you are lucky on something like plague. But the map is hardly fair against majority of them. So no. The map is not balanced at all. Maybe if you play sweaty comp SWF, then you are able to MAKE IT fair. But generally the map IS killer favored.
If I had to name balanced map, it would be something like Thomson house - not too big (killer can still traverse it), but not too small so area abilities hit "every" survivor even if used randomly. Has quite a few tiles and some dead zones (middle of corn field has nothing in it). Contains strong structures (main building, cow tree, shack), but all of them can be mindgamed to some degree.
Another instance with very similar reasoning would be coal tower (smaller dead zone, but only 2 strong structures - everything else is basically the same).
Now compare those 2 to wrecker's yard and e.g. randomly selected bubba.