Map design discussion.
Anyone think it would be better if they just designed the maps more around quantity instead of quality of tiles? Just only have 1 or 2 strong/god pallets. Then have a massive amount of unsafe pallets and a bunch of weak tiles.
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The current design trend they seem to be going for are 'unlinked' strong tiles. So you have good tiles all over the map, but deadzones between them.
This forces the survivors to end their loop on a given tile with a strong breakaway, like a won 50/50, to get the distance needed to get to the next tile, without eating a hit.
Most of the worst maps in DBD for killer are the worst maps not because of the NUMBER of resources, but their placement clusters them, as zones sorta scale exponentially: A 2 window jungle gym on its own is strong, but a 4 window jungle gym is FAR more than twice as powerful, and if the gyms are too close to each other that is what it effectively becomes.
This is why Ormond still feels like a neutral map despite not having many of its stronger loops nerfed too badly: Simply by removing some along the sides and concentrating them into 'corners' with a central building that has strong transitional tools but not a strong loop, you still have plenty of resources for the survivors to win, but now they have to actually win mindgames at loops to extend chases because simply knowing how to loop isn't enough anymore. Looping is a non-skill based activity, especially around low walls, that just lasts as long as it lasts if you know the loop, while being forced to master transitions IS a skill based activity and good killers will do better on the transitions than bad ones.
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Fractured cowshed is the best example of how chained tiles can make you lose a game.
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So do you prefer what they're currently doing with a limited number of strong tiles (quality) or would you prefer a larger number of weaker tiles (quantity)?
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Its interesting because what we are seeing is the number of weak tiles sorta doesn't matter, those just determine how well branched the strong tiles are, and good killers can overpower that. It also sucks to have too many strong tiles, but it matters WAY more the density of high quality tiles. Basically, there is a third axis beyond 'strength of tile' and 'number of resources on the map overall' that is how clustered tiles are together that is actually way more important than either other metric.
This explains why old Autohaven, Chillwind, and Lampkin lane are so ridiculous: all 3 of those maps had jungle gym upon jungle gym with pretty minimal distance to each other, or in the case of Lampkin lane full on vertical loops in literally every house which meant winning a really trivial 50/50 due to strong super tall walls or full indoor-outdoor transitions made the entire map effectively a 'weak infinite.' And that matters way more than the fact that say... Lampkin Lane has a lot of moderately strong pallets in the middle of the streets and by the houses, because those merely create openings for either side, rather than actually adding a lot of mandatory chase time to every chase mostly independent of killer skill based on relatively trivial survivor execution, which is a super negative quality of the map.
What strong linked chains effectively do is increase the time investment to get a CHANCE at a hit. So if you run the strong full loop at Lampkin you are maybe spending 50 seconds to try to get one hit in (Unless the survivor makes a serious execution error) before they permanently expend a strong resource. Meanwhile at say... new auto haven... that is down to like 20 seconds. So it doesn't matter that new auto haven has a lot of strong pallets, it isn't literally twice as much, and it also is forcing the survivor to make these plays more frequently which means they are more likely to make a mistake or make a deadzone. It also rewards the survivor more for running a loop well, because any himbo, bimbo, or thembo can eat up 30 seconds on a T-L wall, but it takes a really good survivor who is making good calls on the killer to eat up a minute (or a really predictable killer), or to run a mid tier pallet 3 loops instead of just 2. This matters more when getting an extra 20 seconds out of a chase is a near 100% improvement on that loop, rather than only a 60% improvement
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This was a really good explanation all round- thank you!
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My only objection regarding maps is the inconsistency on placement of areas where you can trigger Balanced Landing. We don't need a whole Hill spawn, but some small assets where you can climb and fall could be enough. The climbable rocks in Yamaoka, for example, were a bit of fresh air. Some maps like Shelter Woods, on the other hand, have absolutely nothing besides the fall into the basement stairs.
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