Forgotten Ruins is conceptually broken
It's been some times since the map released and I have, unfortunately, played on this map a lot since. Gameplay is extremely tedious on both sides and a lot of DBD fundamentals are outright broken.
Portals
The worst aspect of the new map is definitely the existence of portals. They make chases extremely tedious. You can easily get 3-4 loops around the portals before a killer downs you without using any resources at all and it's just annoying. We've had this kind of gameplay already during the haunted by daylight event and it was incredibly obnoxious there and is incredibly obnoxious now.
Quite a few killer powers are either broken or overpowered on the portals. From my personal experience:
- Xeno can get burned out of power with no counterplay from conveniently placed turrets
- Knight guards can't handle a survivor going through a portal
- Skully drones are unavoidable for survivors and can just shut down the portal loop
Other killers that are potentially problematic:
- Trapper traps
- Hag traps
- PyHead goo
- Avoiding Nemmi zombies
Additionally, a lot of killer powers can just be dodged by entering a portal (spirit, blight, chucky, etc). Some of the portal loops have the potential to be infinites against killers (like huntress/slinger if they can't get LOS at the right time).
Verticality
DBD doesn't do verticality well at all. Directional audio is only horizontal but not vertical. A lot of killer powers either don't work or don't respect verticality.
Due to the very small size of the map, sometimes you are just permanently in the killer's TR and due to the extremely limited visibility in the dungeon, you can't tell if the killer is approaching, leaving, or just not even anywhere close to you. You can't tell if spirit is phasing above you or at the same level as you.
This problems exists on other multi-story maps but those tend to be both bigger or have more line of sight / fewer angles of approach. They also don't have teleporters that make killer movement and location changes unpredictable.
Some killers are affected by this more than others, for example artist whose power is useless in most parts of the dungeon, any killer that can be crouchteched. Nurse and Pinhead powers both have issues placing their power on maps with multiple levels.
DBD should not have vertical maps until the audio gets fixed and killer powers / survivor perks (especially boons) interact better with verticality.
Layout
The map has an extremely small footprint (smaller than coal tower and gideon meat plant, larger than lery's) but it doesn't have the resources that is expected of such a small map. Even though the map is smaller than gideon, it has next to no safe pallets. It has two maze tiles topside and the fillers are… not good (especially THAT bugged pallet). The dungeon doesn't have any good pallets except for the one sunken room that for some reason has two pallets but is a complete dead end. It has one strong window (right next to the portal exit) but other than that, you are essentially required to just string together portals.
The generator distribution also makes gameplay bad. The killer can just choose to stay either topside or in the dungeon the entire game and just defend those gens, creating gameplay similar to ARP or Suffo1, which is extremely unfun on both sides in my experience.
The hooks in the dungeon are abysmal and some of them are very hard to access and can be partially bodyblocked (the library hook in particular), with no way for survivors to rescue against certain killers (trickster, huntress in particular). The verticality also messes with the AFC feature. If a hook is ever destroyed, it can also create big zones where survivors become unhookable (like in the torture room).
TL;DR
The map does not work in DBD and should never have been released in its current state. It needs a major overhaul to make it playable.
Comments
Some more thoughts:
The exit gate placement seems to be static and is extremely unfavorable for survivors. Escapes when hatch is closed seems to be basically impossible.
Pinhead's box seems to only spawn topside and ignores the rules for distance to pinhead that exists in other maps. I loaded into a map where I was about 16m away from the box, in line of sight. I tried this in a custom with chatterer's tooth and ONLY got topside spawns in about 20 boxes.
Hooks in general is abysmal nowadays, I don't understand what devs thinking when it comes to hooks
I have tested Skully and Hag on second end of portal and survivors didn't trigger it unless they immediately moved.
So maybe just look around after you enter the portal (or always crouch) when playing against those killers.
I don't think Trapper can put trap in a way survivor will always steps into it.
Why Pinhead?
Didn't you forget Nurse? I would guess she is going to be very annoying on that map, but didn't test it yet.
Nope, I mentioned nurse but haven't played her myself or played against her. Pinhead's gateway placement uses the same mechanics as nurse blink, and his box spawn locations only appear to be topside.
Throw Sadako's TV's into the mix here.
I was laughing my head off when I first went to the map and saw 2 TVs next to each other by killer shack because (I assume) the other TV isn't set to spawn next to the arcane library generator.
Add Wesker to the list of killers that is fundamentally broken on this map:
https://x.com/beerey8/status/1799842579619656091
Whoa... How the hell this happened?
I wonder if there is any other killer who can use this.
Billy with lopro might work?