The compass is effected by damage, pristine compass will work flawlessly but direction will be slightly off when it's worn, more so when damaged, worse when it's badly damaged and it'll point blank won't work when it's ruined. Check the condition of said compass.

On saying that, I did play a little yesterday where I was running from the NWAF North to one of the newer cities, I knew I spawned in facing East so had to run left to be running north.

However after a bit of running North and then West in an attempt to get to Vavilovo I found myself in Vybor, my compass was worn and was unable to test a pristine one so it'll be interesting to see if you're compass is damaged in any way.

With my experience a worn compass wouldn't put you off course that much however a damaged or badly damaged compass would send you in the opposite direction, (North being South and South being North) and I've been out of the loop for well over a month so I'm unsure what changes they've made in regards to damaged items and how they function.

Hi mattata,
while this might have been caused by damage as RagedDrew has stated, we are fairly sure there are such issues at the moment. Please refer to #19253 in the future.
Regards,
Andy