A couple things before we get into this:
- I'm not going to be discussing Lighthouse because the life cycle of every map/expansion (except for Factory) is it comes out way over tuned and gets nerfed over time, so the Lighthouse we'd be discussing now won't be the Lighthouse in six months from now. Also, you should be playing Lighthouse anyway because its new and its fantastic. Brief summary of it would be Great Loot, Great PvE, Low PVP, Absurd Loot.
- This is specifically for PMCs, not Scavs.
- PvP is considered a negative for a couple reasons. Firstly, the profit margins on it are terrible. Secondly, its always a risk. Regardless of the size of the risk to you personally its still way higher than it is for picking up stuff off the ground or fragging raiders, and since its proportionally a much higher risk while also being the least rewarding (monetarily) when discussing loot map ratings its always going to be a negative.
- PvE is a positive because raiders aren't that difficult as long as you know what you're doing. There's a ton of youtube videos out there demonstrating how to fight raiders, they're incredibly abusable and far easier than scavs for a number of reasons. Go forth and farm the raiders.
- This data is based off of thousands of raids (hundreds in the case of Labs) after dynamic loot final changes (yet another reason Lighthouse is off the list).
How the ratings work:
- Loot category is a positive value of 1-5.
- PvE category is a positive value of 1-5.
- PvP category is a negative value of 1-5.
- Extraction Difficulty is a negative value of 1-5.
| Positive | Negative |
|---|---|
| 5 = Amazing | -5 = Highly Problematic |
| 4 = Great | -4 = Problematic |
| 3 = Average | -3 = Difficult |
| 2 = Low | -2 = Meh |
| 1 = Crap | -1 = Trivial |
Onto the table:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
| Map v Map | Map | Loot | PvE | PvP | Extraction | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shoreline | 5 | 3 | -2 | -1 | 6 |
| 2 | Interchange | 5 | 3 | -2 | -1 | 6 |
| 3 | Labs | 5 | 5 | -4 | -1 | 5 |
| 4 | Woods | 5 | 2 | -2 | -1 | 4 |
| 5 | Customs | 4 | 3 | -3 | -1 | 3 |
| 6 | Reserve | 4 | 4 | -4 | -3 | 1 |
| 7 | Factory | 1 | 3 | -4 | -1 | -1 |
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*For those curious Lighthouse would be 2 right now, pushing Interchange and everything else below it down one. (As of 12/29, this will NOT be applicable in a month or two from this date).
Discussion:
Shoreline: To the surprise of, perhaps, absolutely no one Shoreline is number one. Here's the biggest myth about Shoreline: the resort is where all the best loot is at. Yes, resort has the highest concentration of great loot in the game. However, Shoreline has the highest number of Jaeger caches in the game. Shoreline also has amazing loot in the village, and great loot in the swamp. Additionally, it has Cottages, Pier, and Radar for even MORE loot. And then there's Sanitar, which while absolutely broken all to hell right now, is still amazing loot. Couple that with the low player encounters (in Resort its usually a 50/50, Pier is the MOST dangerous place in the map due to SBIH so for loot runs avoid that like the plague, and everywhere else you'll almost never see anyone) means you can get really safe runs in and out if you're careful and get GREAT loot without even touching resort. Also, it now has more extracts making extract camping difficult on that map now.
Interchange: Obviously, amazing loot. While OLI, Techlight, Rasmussan, and UltraMed are all great, with the recent dynamic loot changes Goshan, Idea, and every Warehouse area are pretty dang amazing as well. I haven't even touched on Kiba, Mantis, and German ffs. Interchange has ridiculously good loot. AND it has a good amount of Jaeger Caches! PvP can be easily avoided, as well, and with Safe Room being the defacto "extract camp spot" so if you don't use it you're probably safe making extracts super safe and easy to get to. The low concentration of Quests makes it a low frequency map, and early wipe its the clear number one thanks to all the hideout items.
Labs: Late wipe this is the best place to farm money and xp, only problem is PvP is nearly guaranteed and its a coin flip on you getting insta tapped by a hacker (fun times!). Raider loot and the loose loot are just the best in the game, period. Extractions are also supremely easy once you know the map. If it weren't for hackers and high probability of PvP this would be the number one and it wouldn't even be close; and that's EVEN accounting for the cost to get in in the first place. And I haven't even mentioned the locked rooms, almost all of which are fantastic (Red and Violet aren't worth the cost, though. Seriously, average yield from Red is 200k across fifty raids. If you buy it at 50 mil you'll have to hit that room 250 times before you break even. Its a vanity statement more than anything else. Violet has an average yield of about 120kish in my experience, so 300k is reasonable for that key but don't buy above that. Iirc you even get it from a quest, so there's that).
Woods: The expansion made this map competitive with Interchange and Shoreline for loot, and its rarely contested because, well, its probably the least played map in the game. However, the only reason it isn't number one is reliability. Woods has great uncontested loot but you won't always manage to get as much as you can on Shoreline or Interchange. Generally, its a bit less. Highest potential, but not reliable. This isn't to say you can't make bank, but overtime you'll earn more from Shoreline and Interchange. Still, if you like Woods then just main it and you'll be rolling in cash in no time. PvP is easily avoided and highly infrequent, and the PvE on the map is only held up by Shturman.
Customs: Really good loot and its everywhere. Customs manages to have a bit of everything but not be amazing at anything, from safes and caches to loose loot. The big downsides of Customs is the ridiculous amount of quests associated with it, and it still being the defacto "best PvP map" (even if for my money it isn't since the expansion). PvP is going to happen early wipe, and is probable for the rest of the wipe. Since VOIP its definitely gotten a lot better because most people don't care about PvP when they've got tasks on the line. You're going to be coming here a LOT of quests, but as a loot map it is held back due to just how contested everything is.
Reserve: Oh how the mighty have fallen. The problem isn't D-2 and the underground bunker, though they are related to it. The problem is the QUESTS for the bunker vacuuming all the players to it, and the absolute horde of player scavs that show up ten minutes into the map. Add that to all the nerfs to Reserve making its loose loot just barely acceptable, its average locked room absolutely terrible, and the price of even middling keys stupid high due to quests and you have a recipe for absolute disaster. It USED to be the loose loot and the various locked rooms made it so you could trip over half a mil just incidentally, but thanks to repeated nerfs even Customs can have a higher yield per minute with a far lower risk (even with RR). The investment for RR to have an easy extract just isn't justifiable anymore with D-2, and you're on a ten minute clock before you have 10 player scavs rushing you. If you go underground the majority of the time you'll end up in PvP. There's only a handful of keys worth having (RB-AM, marked rooms, RB-TB, and all the underground keys (RB-PSP)) but they're almost never worth the asking price due to all the above mentioned. The best loot in the map, no joke, is the filing cabinets, of which it has the highest amount by a wide margin, which have GREAT loot (seriously loot filing cabinets) BUT they take a lot of time to go through, time you just don't have thanks to scav army. If Scavs didn't show up so soon, and in such an absurd amount, it'd be better than Customs without a question. This used to be the best loot map in the game, even above Labs, but its been over nerfed and the scav changes make it barely playable. Seriously, you have ten minutes to get in and out if you want to avoid the, no joke, ten scavs barreling down on you. If your goal is to make money avoid this like the absolute plague. I know it hurts, to all my fellow Reserve mains, but this map is absolute craptastic for making money now. Great for PvP, though, so there's that.
Factory: Its a quest and PvP map, there's very little loot and the loot that's there is always contested even if it can be good. Great map, just not for money making. As an aside, for all those back in the day when Flea Market first came out will remember that you could make bank as a skilled PvPer on Factory. Oh how times change.
