Seeding maps for DBD tournaments (@ScottJund)

Just wanted to quickly make this post because of a discussion that popped up in Umbra's stream last night. @ScottJund

Her argument (and by extension Scott's) was "I won't play DBD tournaments until they allow us to seed maps such that teams can play on EXACTLY the same map". While I understand where this logic comes from it is actually the wrong approach to doing a DBD tournament. Let me explain.

Firstly, by removing RNG from the game you make survivors THAT much stronger. Having +10 years of experience in competitive games, AND YES, even experience playing in a few very low profile DBD tournaments, I can say with certainty that THIS IS A BAD MOVE. You don't want survivors to be stronger than they already are. In our tournament games, most games end in a 3e or 4e. Every team is on comms and well coordinated, imagine the best SWF you ever played, that's basically every game in a tournament. It was exceedingly rare for a match to end with more than a 2k, and the only times it did was when it was a strong killer on a heavily killer favored map (eg. Freddy on Hawkins). By removing RNG now survivors know where every totem, gen, and pallet is. That means that all totem perks are now completely obsolete, teams can always ensure they do the right gens first to split the map in the most efficient way, and they can plan out paths ahead of time such that if you chase them they just run a pattern and you will take ages to catch them. You could argue that killers could know what gens to protect, but let's face it against a 4 man on comms they aren't going to do much to stop them. For tournaments to actually be viable, survivors need to be WEAKER to make it more competitive. You do that by adding RNG, which benefits killers and makes the game more difficult for survivors.

Secondly, yes, you want to avoid situations where one game's RNG has a heavy influence on the outcome of the game. Scott did a video about an Autohaven map (IIRC it was Azarov's) where one variant had 8 pallets on the map and another had like 18. Yes, this is dumb. Agree 100%. However the solution is not to seed the map, the solution is actually... just don't play those maps. Any map that is highly variable like this would just be classed as "not tournament viable". In fact you don't even want to play on every map anyway. Maps like Haddonfield or Ormond greatly favor survivors, while maps like Lery's or Hawkins favor the killer. All these kinds of maps should just be banned. Competitive games that feature a lot of maps in the base game end up only picking a handful of tournament viable maps anyway. Reason being, it just makes sense to pick out the most suitable maps for tournaments and discard the rest. There is no reason to have a lot of maps to play except for variety sake. But variety has a limit, as the more maps you include the harder it becomes for teams to practice those maps in a tournament setting. Gears Of War 3 is the best example of this I can give. Gears 3 has 25 maps, but only 6 or 7 are used in tournaments, for the exact reasons I just went over. It's impossible for teams to legit practice on 25 maps, AND majority of the maps are just god awful in a tournament setting where players are really good and playing to win. The ones that are played are the most balanced (note I didn't say perfectly balanced, this is a pipe dream especially in DBD) but offer enough tactical variability to keep it fresh each time. This is what we would need to do for DBD tournaments, select a handful of maps (8 is probably the best number to aim for) and just play those. The ones most fair to either side that don't have so much RNG that you get wildly different variants each time you play. Church is a good example of this kind of map, it's pretty well balanced and it's pretty consistent with how many pallets are on the map, tile placement, etc. Worst case scenario, you include a rule that allows teams to restart a trial if they got the variant with exceptionally good/bad RNG, whatever the case may be.

Finally, the big problem with seeding maps is IT IS BORING. Yes I used that word. From a spectator perspective, watching teams play the EXACT same maps is boring AF. You can't have a valid eSport without spectators and sometimes when coming up with rules you have to think how entertaining it would be to watch. Like if the game was nothing but Nurse on this exact version of Shelter Woods, no one would watch that. It's too static. RNG introduces a little dynamic to the game that makes it interesting, and if you had good rules regarding killer picks then you can avoid people always picking the strongest killer. The game needs to be interesting as well as competitive for it to become a viable eSport.

Oh and we do sort of have a seeding option with the new blueprint offerings. In my opinion, the only RNG that you should really always account for in a tournament is the placement of basement and hatch. Even on a map as balanced as Church, it can sway one way or another depending on where basement spawns. And forcing hatch to spawn in a specific spot gives more power to the killer to counter hatch escapes, which is what we want anyway. So for some of the RNG that matters most we do actually have a seeding option, albeit a tad janky.

My point here is that, even though we don't have the ability to seed maps for tournaments, we honestly don't need it. You can construct tournament rules around the RNG, and in fact you want to include it to some degree if only to make the game more competitive on the survivor side (else every game would be a 4e, how exciting). It's also more fun to watch.

I know most of you don't care, but I wanted to make this point last night in her chat but couldn't because it was too much and chat moves too fast. I'm sure someone will come in and say "LOL tournaments in DBD?" and make some snarky comment. I've seen more party friendly games become competitive from good rulesets. It can be done, just because YOU do not want tournaments doesn't mean other people don't either. So if that is all you have to say please just don't say it.