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Map offerings should be removed/nerfed/reworked
Hi everyone,
I don't know if I'm the only one, but I'm a killer main and these days I've made a graph for myself and I swear that 90% of my games survivors send me to a very survivor-sided map such as Eerye of crow, Badham, Garden of Joy or coldwind farm. Sometimes it's also maps such as auto-haven maps or macmillans which are not as bad.
But my problem is, every time I see a map offering (reminder 90% of the time) I know the game will be unfun, either because of extreme sweat or toxicity. I feel like map offering are way too strong, or some maps need a reajustement take it either way. Probably if maps were all perfectly balanced for killer/survivor (impossible) map offering would not be such a pain in the foot.
How do you guys feel about map offerings? I really curious if I'm the only one
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Remove them all and replace them with Party Streamers. Everyone's happy except the one person who still plays Scratched Mirror Myers on Lery's.
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"Every time I see a map offering, I know the game will be unfun."
You've hit the nail on the head here. It's a psychological issue. Seeing the map offering is a trigger event for players, because they associate it with an intention to play sweaty or bully.
Making map offerings hidden would prevent this.
The map offering itself is not as big of a factor. There's no guarantee that the lack of a map offering with place you on a map that's favourable to you. There are enough 'killer sided' and 'survivor sided' maps out there that you basically have a 50/50 chance of ending up on a 'good' or 'bad' map anyway.
If ending up on Garden of Joy with no map offering is not a problem, then why is ending up on Garden of Joy with a map offering a problem? Because of the psychology of showing the map offerings before the game starts.
Not least, people can play map offerings for a whole host of reasons.
Myself? Firstly, I will play an indoor map offering if I'm playing Mirror Myers or potentially Ghost Face. This isn't giving me some unfair advantage, this is making those killers/builds viable to begin with. These builds would be virtually pointless without the use of map offerings.
Secondly, I tend to throw on a map offering as a solo survivor if I don't have any decent bloodpoint offerings. It's not always Garden of Joy, it could be anything that I feel at the time I'd like to play on as survivor, usually something that's considered' survivor sided', but as a solo player, it generally doesn't actually increase my odds of survival all that much, because player skill and coordination are still much, much bigger factors than the map you end up on. If anything, it might make it harder for me to survive, because of the psychology. Maybe the killer sees my Yamaoka realm offering and thinks "oh it's a SWF, I have to sweat". When in reality, I just want to play on Yamaoka because I like those maps from a survivor perspective.
Thirdly, is dailies or challenges. If I have to 'fall from a great height' then I'm playing a map offering that has a second story. I'm not expecting to survive, I just want to get my challenge done and die. If I have to destroy x pallets then I'll play Jigsaw piece as an M1 killer so I can break all the pallets and probably let most if not all survivors go.
Lastly, I will play a map offering just because I want to, because it's fun. I play Ormond when I play as Snowman Dredge because it's thematic, despite the fact that it's probably one of Dredges weaker maps. I play RPD because I like RPD, even if it can be a nightmare to navigate. This idea that "map offerings are not fun" is completely backwards. Map offerings are fun. What's not fun is playing the game from a min-maxing perspective, playing with the pressure to win every match instead of accepting that you will and should lose around half your games, and playing sweaty and assuming everyone you play against only wants to play sweaty. These attitudes turn maps from a form of variety and atmosphere setting in the game, into a tool to use to either win or lose.
None of these are bad or unfair reasons to play a map offering, and I would wager that most map offerings are played for these reasons. The "SWF bully squad playing Garden of Joy to teabag the killer at the exit gates" is a minority. It exists, and it's probably far more prevalent at the top end of play, but it's not the majority of map offerings used. But it's the psychology, that any map offering played must be a "SWF bully squad playing to teabag the killer at the exit gates", is the problem.
Map offerings actually are not that strong. The outcome of a game is not decided by the map you end up on, otherwise certain maps would have wildly different kill rates, which is simply not the case. Eyrie did have a lower kill rate, and it's getting reworked because of it, so these things are sorted out. I have won, and lost on every map, as every killer, at some point in my time playing DBD. Other factors, like team coordination, items, perks, add ons, and sheer luck of making the right play at the right time, are far, far more impactful to the outcome of the game, than the map.
They are on par with every other game-state altering offering. Shrouds, Oaks, Reagents, Coins. I've probably been screwed over by a purple Oak more than I have a map offering, or a Shroud allowing survivors to knock out the first gen in 20 seconds.
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You just created this topic:
I bring it up, because you've done something fairly unique and mature among DBD players. You've taken responsibility for your own psychological state and how it affects your gameplay.
Instead of lobby dodging TTV's and clan tags, you've hidden names so that seeing them doesn't affect your performance. Despite that fact that these are clearly indicators that these are probably higher calibre survivors with a higher likelihood of having more hours in the game, and a higher likelihood of being a SWF and using communication.
These are probably more influential on the outcome of the match than the map you play on.
So why not apply the same attitude towards maps offerings?
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Honestly, the idea of making them hidden offerings never occured to me but I think that could be a good idea.
Aside from the balance issues though, it is frustrating having so many map offerings take up what could've been add-ons, items or BPS. It's an issue that is just going to get worse as more realms are added. I guess they could group multiple realms together into a single offering but even that wouldn't fully address the issue.
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I would like to see more combined map offerings.
Mainly I just wish new original maps would take place in existing realms, flesh out Red Forest, Yamaoka and Crotus Prenn a little more, and give us multiple maps for the more recent realms.
They've unfortunately backed themselves into a corner with all the new maps. Since Dead Dawg, every new map has been a new realm, and it does make them feel kinda oversaturated.
I like how unique maps get their own offerings, mainly the licensed maps, but I suppose Lerys is in there too. But when the maps end up being slight redesigns on previous layouts, like Eyrie, Garden and Borgo, it seems like a waste to stick them on their own.
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You're assuming that not seeing the map offering won't just move the feeling onto the maps themselves once you load in, which is a big ask. If it's Garden of Joy for the fifth or sixth time out of ten games, people have clearly been playing map offerings. Especially if you start seeing a secret offering every time you go to a certain map (or if someone's playing their own offering and goes somewhere else)
And also assuming that everyone's issue with map offerings is "Oh it's going to be sweaty" and not "I hate this map and we're here again". Hiding map offerings does not fix the latter. Hiding map offerings does nothing to address the underlying ridiculous imbalance in some maps, the imbalance in offerings between two sides, or the nonsensical existence of sacrificial ward (where you won't even be able to tell if it did anything).
Seriously, 'just hide map offerings' does nothing to address the majority of problems, makes it worse to try and determine if there is a problem somewhere, and all for assuaging some players' getting tilted on loading?
Map offerings are fun.
No they aren't. There are 18 realms still in the game, and playing 2/3 of your games on a selection of about five because those are the ones that keep getting offerings burnt isn't fun. Map Offerings are fun for the person burning it, but if you just want to go somewhere randomly where nobody has anything planned, they're the opposite of fun.
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I've found myself on Dead Dawg 5 times in a row, despite no one playing map offerings.
I've considered playing Mary's Letter as Dredge, decided against it, and then ended up on Midwich anyway, and lost.
I've played a map offering as killer, while someone else has played a sacrificial ward, ended up on a survivor sided map, and won.
I've played a map offering as killer, while someone else has played a sacrificial ward, ended up on the same map anyway, and lost.
They do not determine the outcome of the game, and they are still all potential destinations, even without map offerings in play. This aversion to map offerings is entirely psychological, and irrational.
I play map offerings when I want to go to a specific realm, for whatever reason that isn't just "I want to win harder", I've already mentioned them so I won't repeat myself. But I'll also play map offerings for specific killers. Game for Pig, RPD when I play Chris. Midwich when I play Cheryl, etc. because it's fun. I want to play my favourite characters on my favourite maps, and maps that suit them. That is fun, that's what fanservice is all about, that's why these characters are in the game to begin with.
These things are what fun is actually about. This is why we play videogames. Not to tear our hair out and scream at people over the internet for being #########. Reevaluate your life choices if this is what you are doing.
If these things are not fun, then why don't we get rid of all variety in the game? Delete all the licensed characters, make every map identical, then everything is fair.
The reason you don't find them fun, is because you're determined not to have fun in DBD. Your attitude is all about winning or losing, about "that isn't fair" and "this needs to be fixed so I can win!"
This game is just so much more enjoyable if you don't have a salty attitude towards it. Everyone is playing the same game, everyone wants to have fun, everyone wants to try to win. But you have to accept that you can and will lose games as well.
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Map selection shouldn't be a thing in a game that has blatantly one-sided maps, in fact blatantly one-sided maps shouldn't be a thing
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Dude, cut out the armchair psychological analysis, it's ridiculous.
It's a given that some maps are biased more to one side than others. This is a fact of the game, and it's not looking likely to change any time soon. Given that this is the case, always starting off with a handicap can be considered not fun. Can you have fun despite that? Sure, it's not like any map is that lopsided that it can't be won regardless.
They do not determine the outcome of the game, and they are still all potential destinations, even without map offerings in play. This aversion to map offerings is entirely psychological, and irrational.
My aversion is to, when I only have a few hours I can spend playing, spending 2 hours of that on variations of one map, which is inclined to one particular chase style, with its own visibility characteristics that can really impact how things shake out. Sometimes this can happen entirely by chance. Given enough tries, any sequence is entirely possible, yeah. But it's also way more likely if people are aiming for it, and given a large enough sample it would be painfully obvious why a realm is present way more than 1/18th of the time in the long run.
Because I do enjoy variety. But variety means actually, you know, getting different things.
"You can have variety but only if you give up on bonus BP, fun stuff like moris, offering-heavy events when those are running, and (if for some reason you wanted to use them) other gameplay-altering effects" isn't a good trade. And even then, because of the way conflicting offerings work, it could still turn out that lose a few coinflips and still get stuck playing the same map with its same few variations and same playstyle.
Map offerings aren't fun because they tend to take away from the variety if you don't start giving up on playing any other offering. They're going to stay that way as long as BHVR keeps adding a new realm every time rather than adding a ton of maps to existing realms, so that you get some variety within said offerings. Macmillan and Azarov's are the only ones that have huge differences and plenty of choice (Coldwind obviously has a bunch of variations, but Thompson House aside they're all kinda samey in layout to some degree)
(And they're also plain not good from a bloodweb bloat point of view and the sheer dumb way that Sacrificial Ward still works).
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I have a better suggestion. Why not rework the maps themselves that are problematic instead of the offerings? The offerings are a symptom to a bigger illness. We should address map problems and then look into the strength of offerings
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