Most players hate Miramar, the new desert map of PUBG. I know this not just from the endless forum whine, but from the fact that Miramar often doesn’t have 90 people because they quit during matchmaking. This is why I have less Miramar plays than Erangel, I quit too when the player count goes below 90, as it decreases ratings gain.

But is this hate subjective or the outcome is different on the two maps? I’ve checked my current season duo results for maps and found:



While the average result is the same, the Erangel results are much more noisy and have lower median. This means that it’s easier to get great results in Erangel, but also that it’s easier to get killed early. Miramar results are more consistent. The reason for that is that Miramar has much more buildings, much more elevations which allow everyone to hide early, but much less grass that would allow late game crawling. So it needs a special kind of stupid to die early in Miramar, but special kind of luck to hide yourself into top 3 without having to shoot.

Probably this is why baddies hate Miramar: they are special kind of stupid, who get slaughtered by OK players who find a good spot and a Kar98. Miramar is just “not fun” in the sense that you can’t just rush around guns blazing and get into 1v1 fights, it needs some tactical movement. If you know how to move, you can avoid being killed and also get kills if you trade some safety for chance to shoot.

What does it mean? It means that PUBG can’t be an E-Sport. What? How does this come from the above? E-Sports need consistency. The tournaments cannot last for weeks, over hundreds of matches. To find a winner in a few games, you need these few games representative to player skill. Someone shouldn’t win or lose because of good or bad luck. My result of double standard deviation proves that Erangel is more “RNG” than Miramar. So Miramar would be a much better map for E-Sports. But players hate Miramar, exactly because is consistent. If you suck (and 90% of players do in every game), consistency means consistent defeats. But on inconsistent maps, RNG can bless you with something, like landing on an AKM and killing 3 unarmed people in School.

Making PUBG E-Sport ready would need maps that are even more consistent than Miramar, ergo, even more hated by the players. So PUBG can either go for E-Sport worthy maps and circle rules, or for player-loved ones, but never both.

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PS: if you had a doubt that RMT is ignored in EVE, this thread is for you.