Does anyone else think the stock maps are the worst ones?

Having played the multiplayer again recently, I've noticed that it seems as if the base and DLC maps are jarringly different in terms of flow and... "fun value."

The stock maps are very boxy, feature a lot of snaking corridors and chokepoints and there's a lot of "void" space due to all the low ceilings and thick walls. Overall the design feels kind of amateur and not at all suited for the game, with a lot of platforms being really awkward to jump to. The worst offender would have to be Infernal, which is a series of hallways connected by noodley passages all surrounding a giant clusterfuck of an arena with poor visibility and a layout that feels like it tries its damnedest to prevent you from leaving. The teleporters in this map are really weird, too. They're simply these small green pads on the floor, are pretty much one-way, and are very hard to actually step on half the time. Why didn't they just make them the spiral teleporters like in every other map and indent them into the walls?

Not all of them are this bad, but they all seem to exhibit one or more of these problems to some extent. Heatwave has the potential to be interesting, but again, there's a ton of low ceilings jutting down, awkward tiny passages, and pillars that do the center catwalks no favors.

The DLC maps on the other hand, especially Boneyard and Empyrian, tend to have a lot of open air, air jets, and teleporters. I personally found these maps to be a lot more consistent in the level of action, had a lot more options for movement, and just felt all-around better to play.

If I had to guess, the stock maps are probably done by the original MP team while the DLC maps are id in-house.

I found myself disliking the DLC maps such as the low gravity one purely because of its gimmick and how it just makes the map feel horrible to navigate. Not helped by how clunky the gunplay feels compared to the single player even though it's supposed to be the same weapons??

agreed, orbital is a terrible terrible map. it is way to big and empty for a game like this.

the worst of the stock maps is beneath though. impossible to find players even on a full session due to its messy design. there's only one corridor or so that leads to interesting encounters. helix and chasm, though straightforward, are the best of the stock ones, probably because it's the ones that gives me most #1 positions. :)

Argent breach is my favorite of the DLC ones. Molten is also a blast.

I love DLC maps but not all of them. I like Cataclysm, Molten and Ritual... and yeah, maybe Argent Breach. It's enough for me. But I trying to don't play on maps like Orbital, Empyrian and Boneyard for some reasons: Orbital - I hate games with gravity, goddamn jelly; Boneyard - don't like architecture, at least this map looks too cartoonish for me, Empyrian eating memory of my GPU like a beast and doesn't looks like game named Doom at all.

Of course. Stock maps in games are always the worst.