Bug: Realm and Map Selection System Broken
Realm and Map Selection System Broken
| Status: | Duplicate |
| Added by: |
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| Reported for: | |
| Actual Result: |
You are significantly more likely to arrive on one of a handful of maps, often more than once in the same short to medium length play session
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| Expected Result: |
All maps are roughly as likely to appear, but you don't arrive on recently played maps or realms too often in one play session
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| Severity: |
Major
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| Reproducibility: |
Always
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| Platform: |
Steam
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| Additional Notes & Comments: |
I have chosen a major severity for this issue as landing on the same few maps multiple times in one play session feels terrible and has made me stop playing several times and less likely to play the game in the first place.
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Steps to Reproduce
- Have a pen and paper, spreadsheet, or any preferred means of recording your matches
- When you complete or load into each map, make a note of it. If you see a map get repeated, add a tally beside it / increment your counter
- Continue to count the appearance of each map over the course of your play session
- Repeat this for each play session in a given week or month, and observe what maps you arrived at most and by how much
- Compare your findings against community statistics collected from e.g. Nightlight.gg or deadbyqueue.com
Explanation
The Realm Prevention / Map Prevention system's weightings are broken or missing entirely.
As it stands currently, realms are selected first and maps second to allow for repeated realms to be excluded from consideration and boost map variety.
However, there is either a flaw in the selection of realms or the system has broken, as all realms hold an even chance to be selected. In practice, this means you have a significantly higher chance to see maps which are the only member of their realm than others, and as the system only excludes the most recent realm from consideration, possibly several times in one play session.
It seems the issue is not directly tied to the listed realms of each map, and rather what offerings they're grouped under.
For example, Nostromo Wreckage and Toba Landing both have extremely high likelihoods of appearing in a single play session, but also are very likely to appear together within the same session. Unlike other realms with only two maps, these maps each have their own offerings which cannot be used to play on the other.
Observing community stat trackers like deadbyqueue.com or Nighlight.gg, these realm odds are often reflected in the play rates recorded. There is a proportional relationship between the chances of a player being sent to a map and how many possible maps their respective offering could have sent you to. (See attached.)
This doesn't seem like it's a complete explanation, as some maps like Eyrie of Crows seem more likely to be played than their other realm counterparts (e.g. Dead Sands).