I'm late to the party having been busy with work, but I spent some time playing around with DDB Maps this evening and I was very pleasantly surprised. This is basically what I was looking for five years ago when I had to move my game online and was looking for an online replacement for my beloved MapTool.
I had spend many, many hours testing most of the major VTTs before settling on Foundry. The one thing none of the VTTs I've used were good at, in my experience, it making it easy for me as a DM to run a no/low prep games. With TableTool, I could pull up a map from my collection of hundreds, apply fog of war and drop tokens in a couple of minutes. The DDB Map alpha is the closest I've come to finding an online tool that givens me a similar fluid and convenient experience.
Depending on the campaign, I could see using this as my primary online battlemap tool for a 5e game, even with its current limitations.
What I like:
The maps from my purchased DDB material is easily available by default
I can upload a map, apply fog of war, and plop tokens in under a minute
With my decent, but not great, overseas internet connection, it runs silky smooth, it just never gets in my way
Many in my group use DDB as their primary character sheet already as Foundry and its various community created DDB integrations are wonky and I've given up on trying to get everything cleaned up and get the automations working properly in Foundry. The DDB gamelog displays in the DDB Maps, so you can see everyone's rolls.
What I would like to see improved:
First, I don't want them to try to develop every feature set of the more robust VTTs. They should be looking to compete with Owlbear Rodeo more than Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20. But there are some quality of life features I would like to see.
1. Charactersheet integration with tokens. Having the charactersheet open in a separate tab is not that big of a deal for players, even if they don't have a dual-screen setup, but but it is kind of a pain for the DM. Currently, I will need to have tabs with stat blocks open for various monsters and need to set up the encounter builder separately or do it with pen and paper. I would be nice to be able to just double click on a token and pull up the associated charactersheet.
2. Integration with encounter builder. I would be nice to have another tab in the token browser that would allow me to select from pre‑created encounters. Even better it would be nice to have an option to create an encounter from the tokens currently dropped on the board.
3. Default to the eraser tool when I click "cover all". This is very minor, but I default to applying FOW and I find myself forgetting to click on the eraser tool.
4. More FOW eraser options. Example: changing the eraser size and shape, being able to draw out sections where you want to remove FOW. Again, for now, this is a minor wish for me. I find the current eraser fine. But a few more eraser options would be welcome.
That's about it. While I have no plans to drop Foundry for more cool prepped map effects and support of systems other than 5e, I could see DDB Maps, even in its alpha state becomming my default battlemap for 5e games. Its really all I need. Will wait and see what the 3D tool offers when it is released, but the only thing I hope for that would likely get me to take out my walet for a full-featured 5e VTT would be solid and user friendly application of AOE damage and effects and good status tracking.
All-in-all I feel that this makes my DDB Master Tier subscription much more valuable to me.