I feel maps being bigger would benefit the game more than maps being smaller
I know many people agree maps need to be smaller, but I feel maps being bigger would actually solve a lot of pain points about the game.
Before you disagree with me, let me run you through my thought process, as this change wouldn't come by iself:
- The further away gates and gens are from each other, the harder they are to camp. The less camping, the fewer stalemates to face. Movement and constantly doing something is promoted over standing still for several seconds.
- The bigger the maps, the more hooks on them. The more hooks, the more difficult sabotage builds are to pull off.
- With bigger maps, there's more space for more gens. Increase total gen number to power the gates, decrease individual gen time. Say, instead of having 5 90-second gens, we have 8 or 9 60-second ones. On one side, survivors will feel better because they don't have to sit on the same spot for as long and they'll spend more time moving and potentially interacting with the killer. On the other side, survivors can't pop all 5 gens in two waves of 90 seconds or less, making matches where killers get stomped by survivors less likely (or at least longer and with more potential for interactivity).
- Wall-to-wall travel time ratio would remain largely the same with increased movement speed. Say the maps currently are 10 units and you travel 1 unit per second, the change would make them 20 units and make characters move 2 units per second. Am I making sense?
With this I think a bunch of problems the game has would get fixed, particularly those moments where people feel stuck in a lose-lose situation, which are the least fun moments in this game, I think.
The only problem with this that I can think of is probably the increased amount of loops that would inevitably come with a bigger map. Pallets and windows will probably be fairly abundant, potentially making catching a single good survivor a nightmare.
Comments
My only thing is maybe make the exit gates take longer to open, since if the killer is across the map when the last gen is finished it may take them a while to get there
It should not, Gate spawning is so random, 45% the time its a guarantee kill, 45% is guarantee escape (with no mobile killers only), 10% requires that 24 Gate and barely make it in time.
This shifts the game in so many ways...
1, more gens with less time for each buffs survivors even if the overall time is slightly larger, because there would be no time to regress (prigressed) gens. There would need to be a lot of work to balance this
2, sabotages are already very hard, because killer can pick any of those 5-7 hooks available (provided he is not in corner) and hook on it when surv can't really outrun him + even after successful sabo killer usually have enough time to just go to next hooks. Even if you make perfect sabo play and took 1 hit, it's very possible killer will be able to go to next hook (ofc this is average case. Midwitch and saloon change this dramatically - both in oposing way. Breakout, flip-flop+ub and iron grasp, agitation change it dramatically. The list of modifiers is much longer, but you get the idea).
3, making the game faster is huge killer buff. It buffs all looping as reaction time is constant (so fair LT's are now killer sided) + lag hits would become even more of a problem. All loops, or filler pallets, all zones would need to be adjusted or looping outside the safest, largest and rarest structures would stop to make any sense.
Overall I think this creates more problems than it solves (even if I do agree that it solves something)
Increasing movement speed would only result in more problems. Tiles and loops are balanced with the idea of looping. Changing the killer's and / or the survivors's speed would destroy that fragile balance completely. You would also need to adjust some killers's powers and several perks. How exactly would you balance would you balance more gens that take less time? That would mean that killers had a harder time defending them because gens get done faster which makes the killer unable to regress them before they are finished. Deadlock and Corrupt intervention would be heavily impacted by that. On the survivor's side Prove Thyself and Hyperfocus + Stakeout as well as Toolboxes would benefit largely. Overall your suggestion would result in even more camping then before. What is the point in leaving the hook to get to an area you will be unable to reach in time anyway?