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Dbd vs last year the nightmare ambience and map design
I've been thinking about dead by daylights level design and ambience lately since the release of last year the nightmare, and I realized that the map quality on dead by daylight really sucks and needs to improve. In dead by daylight maps are always usually flat maps with bad verticality and boring ambience and poor world-building and detail, opposed to last year the nightmare which in my personal opinion has great ambience great verticality in it's current school setting. While in dead by daylight pretty much all of the maps are exactly the same with the exact same loops and main attractions placements, every single map in dead by daylight is almost exactly the same on a gameplay standard and almost feel identical in some cases, while in last year the nightmare the school area set of maps are all very different and look very appealing and atmospheric despite it being 1 map essentially, it is very different and varied with it's locations, the verticality and level design all feels good and natural while in dead by daylight a lot of it feels forced and not too good, randomly placed pallets, reused debris assets, poorly placed light sources, and a large empty spaces and etc.
This is all my opinion and I'm sure a lot of you people may share it too. So my verdict is dead by daylights map design and ambience needs to change drastically in order to be appealing and not completely boring, I feel as if dead by daylight has a lot of missed potential with its map design and ambience, it could be great but I don't know if they're trying or not I just hope sometime in the future that they can meet the standard last year the nightmare which is significantly less popular but looks waaaay better.
I'd like to hear what some of you people think too, I'd like to see if you guys would also like the map to sign to change and be updated as a whole and if you think it's boring too, I just like to hear what you guys think so please leave a comment and share your opinion.....
Also there can still be very dark maps in dead by daylight just get actually really good not randomly placed light sources to get rid of the stupid "blendet" problem.
Best Answer
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I was wondering when the two were going to be compared.
Honestly, I agree. I feel that much of the design of the maps has been with the intention of creating "loops" rather than it being aesthetically different. However, I do think that they could do a better job at creating more unique spaces instead of always feeling like you're in the same scene with just a different set up.
The lighting is very inconsistent and some of the textures that have been used on some of the terrain just to avoid the whole "blending" situation have me wondering if they opted for balance over visual appeal. You have 3D grass that looks darker than the actual terrain grass (Haddonfield) and as someone who aspires to be a 3D designer some day, it hurts my eyes. lol
I feel that they could step up their game when it comes to maps for sure. I don't know how much of the people working on the character models are involved with the map design, but maps could use a little spice.
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It's shocked me how they've never done a school map in dbd
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I totally agree with you.
But I think the way Last Year is overall designed (maps, indoor parts) is due to its game mechanics and how the game is played which allow for there maps to be the way they are and work for them.
While indoor maps for dbd for the most part are usually hated and dont work. But dbd still regardless could have a better atmosphere and better look to the game, similar to its early days.
And not have problems with survivors just turning invisible
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They have, Badham is a school
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Do preschools not count?
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I mean like a whole school grounds as the map not just the main building
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These two games are very different though. DBD has a certain style of map design, so every map works in a balanced way with the mechanics of the game. I feel like DBD has a much more streamlined design, which makes it function more as a competitive game. I don't think DBD is really competitive, but it certainly has it's traits of a competitive game.
Last Year on the other hand just seems much more like an actual horror game, except that killers are played by people as well. It's not competitive in any way, and I'd say it has therefore much more freedom in map design.
I do agree that the visual design and atmosphere of DBD could be really improved.
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Last year also has a series of events as opposed to one constant event, and its maps follow that. Each area of the map is designed for the event you have to do at that moment.
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Even F13 map design and atmosphere was great to me despite their maps having similarities. With the forest areas, lakes, cabins yet they still felt unique.
I never felt like I was playing on the same map even with maps that were just smaller versions of the original maps they were quite unique too.
And F13 having a weathered rain option that really changed the atmosphere. And after their engine upgrade the rain doesn't tank your fps, so it's quite enjoyable
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Dbd map design is terrible
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Last year is one of the worst video games I have ever played so....anything to avoid being like that is probably correct.
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I feel like we're still riding this cop-out of map design that is "realms."
You go to a coldwind map; there is ALWAYS a meat tree, there is ALWAYS a shack, there is ALWAYS a cornfield. There is ALWAYS a harvester, or if you're lucky, 2 of the exact same harvester. Plop in 3-4 of the same T-L walls, then the only unique feature is a couple of tiles of a main building. Hell, one of the maps defining features of being unique is that IT HAS NO UNIQUE FEATURE.
The maps lack identity, they lack an actual feel to them. I don't do "well hey, I was on Torment Creek, then Thompson House, then Fractured Cowshed, that all felt like 3 different maps!" No, I've just been on corn all night and I'm really bored of it.
Sanctum of Wrath is at least a little unique in that the main feature of the map is a pretty large section, but the outskirts of it are all copy-pasted assets from the estate.
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The main thing with DbD compared to Last Year is that there is more mobility on both sides, and health conditions are different.
The devs did also kind of try to do more vertical maps with The Game, which is the most universally hated map.
As for Blendettes, somewhat being one myself, is that as a DbD Survivor, you have ZERO outs outside of literally running loops or using pallets. In Last Year, Classmates can actually go and attack the Fiend, even kill them. This makes DbD more of a stealth game than Last year, so naturally people will gravitate towards the most viable stealth option.
I do agree though that something has to be done about the ambience and sound design of DbD, though. My main concern is that a good part of the sound is based around the terror radius and it is the largest part of ambient noise around the place. Besides killer specific noises that basically tell you exactly who you're versing, there's no real noise in the game outside of proximity.
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Last Year is more of an action game, the map is designed around the fact that people can jump around and fight. Anyway the ambience is always the same, is everyone ignoring the fact that in DbD there are 14 realms and most of them have different variations? If you say the Disturbed Ward looks and plays the same as Gas Heaven I don't believe you. Sure the basic loop tiles are the same, but the strategies about which loop to use and which gen to repair are different for each map, and the main building of a map usually has a key role in this.
I don't want to white-knight DbD, I like the map design of LY, but they are different games and people tend to throw ######### on DbD just for the sake of it.
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LY is arguably the worst game I ever played.
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People who are giving props to last year, that's fine. But their company has had many huge scandals and let's be honest, it came out last year (see what I did there?) and only released one new killer. And has worse reviews than dead by daylight. Sorry, the game is a huge dumpster fire.
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Dbd maps have to be designed the way they are. Last year can have massive maps with multiple levels since friends can traverse the map extremely well. Dbd needs its smaller maps with no really big buildings because the slower killers need time to get to all the survivors.
I don't think you can really compare Last Year to Dbd because of how different the gameplay is.
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That's true. Haven't actually played the game myself yet, only watched Monto play the game. But it looks really fun, I just hope they community won't go crazy about wanting that game balanced to be competitive as well. Cause that won't be possible, I'm quite sure.
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Theres quite afew differences really. Last year has a class system with each person being able to make different things according to their class. Since this naturally makes you more reliant on your teammates, theres in-game coms. Its also time based instead of life based. The killer CAN win by killing everyone, but since a survivor being killed off is just temporary and can be brought back into play after a short time out period by their teammates no matter how many times they die... The killer is mostly just trying to stall the survivors for time until the timelimit is up.
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Yep it's very different, got the game today and am eager to try it out.
I think in one of Monto's video I heard him say that when playing the game on steam there is no voice chat in game. Though I might have understood him totally wrong. But yeah coms will be adventagous in this game as well, one of the reasons I hope people don't start with wanting the game to become competitive. It looks like a fun game that is not oriented around winning or losing at all.
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Last Year has a spider killer. Checkmate, DBD. /s
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Bought Last Year on Discord - With the way things are going now, it will be dead before NEXT year.
Hyuk.
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