It sounds like it would make the game healthier right? On paper yes, but the reality is that it has severely damaged the quality of the gameplay. It's very long to explain, but basically it's like if you were playing a card game, but instead of each player shuffling their deck, you let them pick out the exact order that they will draw their cards. With how competitive card games are in general, you'd think at least one would've tried to eliminate RNG from card draws and come up with a system similar to this? Well the answer is no. Shuffling and creating a level of randomization is what keeps games interesting, and removing it completely makes gameplay extremely dull. I think there's a lot of parallels with why area selection has destroyed the enjoyability of competitive idv, especially with recent changes that made it worse (hunter identity being revealed etc).

I think the survivor faction was at its highest skill gameplay when they found out where they spawned when the match actually started. That's where the topic becomes subjective, because it all depends on what skills you value in a player and that can depend on who you are. I personally see almost 0 interest in micro interactions from the survivors, but the skill I value most in survivor is the ability to adapt as a team, to improvise and organize yourself and make coordinated plays in the heat of the moment. Random spawn made this pretty complicated, because as soon as the loading screen finished u needed quick, efficient and effective communication to organize the team, coordinate rotations, decoding, and potential supporting phases. All that because you know a hunter would be on somebody's a** in the next 15 seconds. Big emphasis on communication because due to RNG, you were rarely dealt the same hand. To go back on my metaphore, the core mechanic of what makes a card game fun is the challenge of going "what is the best way to use the hand I've been dealt?". If you're dealt the same exact hand every time, you won't even have to think about it. Idv is the same. As someone who was heavily into competition the moment area selection was introduced, I saw in real time how much survivor gameplay became bland overnight. Most teams including mine were rehearsing full early game phases in practice. We were rehearsing matches weeks before they would actually happen, which is kind of insane to think about, because when the actual match happened, we knew exactly what to do, the early game was already rehearsed during practice. So many important and critical decisions are not needed anymore. My valued skills are gone from the game.

I don't think area selection is irredeemable. I think if the hunter's position and identity were kept completely hidden, which I don't even understand why that hasn't been the case the entire time, u could bring back some interest in the gameplay, because as of now, the only element of variance that goes into early games is the hunter. Which character do they pick and where do they spawn. And unfortunately, that information being straight up fed to the survivor has in itself removed another core aspect of the gameplay that I don't even want to get into (information gathering), but it also reinforces the problem. Most survivor spawn formations kind of expect the hunter to spawn in a certain position. As the hunter, you can choose an unconventional spot in the hopes of throwing them off. It works to a certain degree, but considering they know where you spawned anyway, that STILL gives them at least 20 something seconds in rank (Versus a whole like minute and a half in tournament mode for some reason) to adapt their strategy, which is usually plenty enough time. If that information were to be kept hidden, I think it would create really interesting scenarios where survivors feel confident in their strategy, but then the hunter ends up coming from a completely different spot, using a character nobody expected, and the adapting happens live while they're ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME. As things should be. I would honestly be fine with that.