Okay, not really 12 actual nights of DoN, that’s just strangely long and short at the same time.
Since the holidays, I’ve been able to squeeze in more games. Aside from the server issues that serve more as annoyance, DoN is o’plenty lately. Even more so than usual.
I mean I’ve been around awhile and have never figured out the appeal of DoN. Plenty of people have posted the to-date-debate-heavy “idef” about this map. This is more of a “why this map”?
It’s not bad overall, can be completed quickly. (However, never the case as pre-N3 completion is still less-common… and only saying this based on 90% of the way my ally approach this map.)
Not exactly an easy map either. (Unlike VT that’s short and predictable or VL that’s long but extremely pushable or MO that’s just overall way too long and easy… DoN doesn’t offer a leg-up in speed or difficulty.)
Seen all too common regardless…
Lol, why?
As an aside, forum genie suggested to me while I was typing up this topic… that it is similar to the recent “completed all prestige” topic… way to go algorithm way to go lmao.
I often get pulled in with static D karax and turret swanns who almost certainly q’d for it specifically. I don’t mind, p2 nova player here and i love “different” maps. P&p, scythe of amon, miner evac- i love them all on b+. I prefer to run DoN with other offensive commanders because ir’s more fun to me.
Typically I burn NW map first, leave my army to defend N+E, keep nova with a pair of goliaths on the softened up W, and tell my ally to defend south. But if I have a defensive ally, I like to go banshees and stealth snipe buildings all night long. Either way is fun!
So then why isn’t ME a contender? Based on completion time, difficulty of map, or even lack of variety from DoN, ME is a far superior. Any of that aside, if “infested” is what gets people’s jollies high, I’m just saying, then why isn’t ME more frequent (when in fact, it is probably far less often in comparison).
The last 7 DoN in the past 5 days (barely breaking 30 games) or so were all with sub15 commanders, which include Abathur, Artanis, Raynor x 2, Karax, Swann, can’t remember the other one.
For the most part, it is just an annoyance. I play random commander on random maps for some relaxation, but it gets real stale real fast when this maps show up far too often .
I agree they definitely do “specifically queued” for it, and I guess that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Why? (for all the reasons I mentioned above).
Everyone has different tastes. I loved the DoN campaign mission and my only gripe with coop is that it’s over too quickly, even on b+. I don’t specifically q for it but i love seeing it. Maps like VT make me groan because they’re boring although mutations help with that.
Recently, I complained in another topic about the lots of people not knowing about expansions and their need/usefulness, yet still playing launching games at higher difficulty level.
At least those ones have an excuse to like this map
Whether you dislike having to take expansions, or like having more starting resources, this is a unique appeal of this map, less management on that side.
None of my favorite commanders excel at that map, yet it’s my most common played map . I almost always que random map (unless I was level grinding VT or OE / VL with static defense) I never que DoN.
Artanis not great on DoN (unless he’s paired with defense commander then he can stay out at night with Tempest) since his max army DPS isn’t great, his ground AoE unit the Reaver isn’t great in sustained fighting because you run out of scarabs / have to wait on scarab build time. Fenix is fine but his P2 which I like to play alot, isn’t the best for DoN . Han and Horner / Zagara are good at destroying/ clearing but not defending. Kerrigan and Nova are alright but not special at the map.
Cuz it’s not a base defense. You have to go out and get situated. Sometimes, you’re not ready and lose a ship. Plus dealing with infested banshees is just a pain.
Only commander really tailer made for DoN is Swann. Because his best defensive unit (Seige Tank) can be used for offense, and Hercs get you around the map fast.
Every static defense structure built by say Karax, slows down him making stuff to clear the map . Void Launch / Oblivion Express are much better Karax maps.
My guess for why it’s so popular is because people can to full tower defense and still be useful. I see the map pretty often as well with Idef swann and karax.
Many maps can be done by “tower defence”, people just don’t do it (or lack the skill to do so).
Similarly, for those thinking DoN is an easy tower defence, often people fail at this too. And that’s particularly why it baffles me. I can understand if someone “prefers” a base defence map but that mean you gotta be able to actually DEFEND. I mean, I’m sure everyone has commonly seen that these types can’t even do that.
So their skills aside, simply liking 1 out of 15 maps seem a rather weak evidence on why 30%+ the times you can random queue into one.
Why is DoN such a trap? Seemingly pretend to be a base defence, except you gotta do far more defence as well as move out to clear to win.
It’s also one of the only maps that doesn’t have a hard timer to it. So I can see it shining as the map people who want to build up defense, then mass T3 and move out can play.
The only other map without the hard timer still expects you to go out and stop the Hybrid spawns. And is notorious for how hard the first 10 or so minutes are of the map.
I feel compelled to point out that I’ve not once recorded DoN showing up at much higher frequency than other maps. It might feel that way if you’re really sick of playing it, but I think it’s just confirmation bias.
It’s going to be at least a bit of confirmation bias naturally, but SC2Coop has it pegged third for most played. Behind Void Thrashing and Oblivion Express. (at 13%, 10%, and 8% respectively.)
I’ve recently upgraded my laptop so I don’t have the exact details anymore, but this was the same order with my personal match history using Maguro’s overlay as well.
I have around 1100 games won recorded on Maguro, almost all random queue, roughly 50/50 split between brutal and brutal+ with some weekly mutations in the mix and very few of the weekly mutations i have done were on DoN.
By FAR the most frequent map has been DoN for me (12.5%), even ahead of Void Trashing just above 10%.
Yah but even 12.5% is barely 1 game out of 10. Higher than of it was perfectly distributed across all maps, but not the 30% or more that some claim to get.
I think people who think DoN has confirmational bias has their own confirmation bias for not believing. Aside from Kawabi’s testimony:
Here’s my last 5 days of record:
VT x 3
LL x 2
CoD x 2
RtK x 3
SoA x 1 DoN x 8 <===== See Mortis?? Do you see??
CoA x 2
ME x 1
PP x 1
OE x 5
VP x 1
VL x 6
Mal x 2
TotP x 3
MO x 2
Total 42 games only, yet DoN stands at 20% of it. So my bad it wasn’t 30% lol but that’s pretty close on a guess.
For comparison, in my 7k data (yes 7k games) on this laptop, DoN still run top at 8.3% at 556 games while in second place is OE at 7.6% (that’s without addressing the uneven distribution of newer maps taking up percentages such as CoD, PP, and Mal.)
I feel like if you’re only here to doubt DoN being too frequent, then there’s not much value to be added. The point is the frequency is very real, what makes it so frequent? And not the merit that it is frequent or not at question…
Also, just to clarify here. My topic is specifically regarding the recent surge of frequency on DoN. It’s rather unreasonable for everyone to play 7k games to reach a more normalized distribution.
The spread is also going to have been skewed this year due to prestige being a thing now. I’m willing to bet many, many more games than average this year having been played on Void Thrashing due it to being the arguably fastest map (ignoring speed running strats)
way to go lmao.
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