RDM Maps Analysis: Terminal Summit

WARNING: THIS IS AN OUTDATED ANALYSIS. THIS VERSION OF TERMINAL SUMMIT IS NO LONGER IN THE DEFAULT MAP CYCLE.



RDM Map Analysis

Rapid Deathmatch has been around for a while now, and while not as popular as it once was it remains a mainstains a constant following in KAG. With the removal of builders and the shorter games, terrain is much harder to change and the preset maps become much more imprortant. Even more than sword swingin' or arrow spammin', intelligent movement and positioning through the maps are the name of the game. So I thought I would make a thread about RDM maps and do what I do best, get really nerdy over trivial gameplay elements!

I thought I would start with a simple map: Terminal Summit



Summary:

Terminal Summit is a small but open map, allowing both knight and archer to be effective. Archers will be hardpressed to escape the fury of bombs but conversely arrows can be a major pest for knights with clear lines of sight and many ladders. In general matches on TS are characterized by a flurry of bombs through the wide center area and then a race to the top.

Key Positions:

Strong knight positions in cyan. Knights don't have many especially commanding positions save perhaps the top near A; it can be fairly easy for a knight to hold off other knights coming up the ladder. The main level has only minor elevational advantages except for hanging off the ladder, though that has the drawback of slowing you down. Mainly you'll want to fire off slashes in the main area, trap in the tunnels and abuse ladders.

Strong archer positions marked in dark blue. Archers have a pretty good time on this map once/if the bombs have all been used up. Provided they have adequate knight support it's easy for an archer to snag some kills spamming into the center melee. What's really deadly (and possibily broken) on this map is once archers get to the top by A. It's extremely easy for archers to sit up top and hit incoming knights with charge shots and machine gun them to death on their fall down. The underground area can be favourable in transit, but I didn't make it as you can be easily trapped there.

Opening Routes:

The standard is for knights to chuck and opening bombs and charge the center with archers supporting from the back. Blue gets a minor advantage in the standard attack due to the elevation. Depending on the number of players on the server and their bomb tossing tendencies/skills it can also be effective to hop into the shafts by F and G to dodge the main conflict. This is generally more effective for Red since a knight can go back up the shaft with a vault or a slash jump and an archer get arrow climb out on that side much quicker. Take care that you do not surrender the mountain to the enemy though. As with many maps it may be prudent to hang back for a sec and let the bombs fly, though depending on your team you may end up sacrificing all map control in doing so. A very effective route for red archers is to arrow climb from E to C, marked with the brown line. If Red has any center presence at all an archer can easily get up there and spam down on blue. Knight can bomb jump up there as well (marked in blue) though this is somewhat slower and more wasteful of resources, considering the fact that knights can't abuse the position as well this is not recommended.

Endgame:

Knight: Try to clean up the main floor and underground before tackling enemies on the summit as you are easily sandwiched if you try to ascend with enemies below. If there are archers before take care to keep out of their lines of sight. When fighting underground it's generally more favourable to take enemies from the right on this map due to height advantage. Also try to catch them on ladders as they will be slowed considerably. Take note that you can slide down the wall next to the left ladder rather than climb it. Work with your team to corner enemies and try not to get caught yourself. Be careful when trying to assault archers camping the summit. There is just enough room for you do dodge arrows, providing there aren't two archers working in synch. Step carefully as even just your shield getting hit by a charged shot will mean your death. Consider switching to archer.

Archer: You can easily run circuits underground, kiting knights and catching them on ladders. When attacking the summit you can take advantage of gravity by firing at your enemy and having the arrows come back down in the same general area. It's fairly easy for enemies to fend off arrow climbers so don't rush needlessly.

Edit: Please comment! Disagreements, additional routes, useful trick jumps, etc. Especially on the archer bits; I'm not very familiar with playing archer in RDM. Even grammatical/spellnig errors if you really feel like it :p.

 

This is a ubiquity of an analysis, just a few things.
In the picture you could add some 'places to stay away from', some of these areas could be where the archer is, and the two main bomb landing areas, but great analysis, I don't think the creator of this map thought of even half of these points of annalysis. (Who made this map anyway)

Also, did you spell 'spelling' incorrectly on purpose in the last line? I really hope you did. :p

I also just noticed that the game mode you are talking about is not RDM 'Rapid death-match' death-match being by yourself, but the game-mode you refer to is actually RTDM, 'Rapid team death-match'

Like I said, fantastic job, I think you should do this for 'official' maps, and put them all together, then stickied; if you keep this thought and you keep going through the maps as thoroughly as you have.

 

It is RTDM, but some players think it is RDM, and ask for 1v1. Other times teammates don't help. it can be very frustrating.
also i notice that red usually has a more advantage in regards to their position. here, archers have more an easier to get on top. climb the tree, arrow ladder the rest the way. blue has to go through the mountain up the destroyable ladder or go the way blue does, but that is extremely dangerous having to pass the enemy team, and by the time they get up the enemies are more likely already there.

 

I think you failed to mention that loosing the center can lead to extremely harsh consequences for archers on both sides. Archers usually stay near the base in this game. Once a knight reaches the center they can throw a bomb that will be able to reach the base, and because archers don't have shields most of them will die. This forces the knights to usually push forward somewhat, to prevent their archers from dieing.
Another strategy used sometimes on this map is cutting off the ladders after conquering the middle by a friendly knight. This allows friendly (red) archers to be almost impossible to kill (except for other enemy archers)

Some other random stuff
I usually find that blue has a slight disadvantage on this map compared to red, though its a small one. The red archers have an easier time getting up the mountain, while most of the good archer spots are in the same area. (just look at the map) Even with the knights bombs, for the red can throw the bombs all the way to the blue's base easily, while for the blue they can't directly throw it there because of the notch in the ground.

If a blue knight does manage to get up the mountain, they usually are able to dispose of most of the red's archers. With an easy mop up of the archers having no where to run and the remaining ones at the base killed either by bombs or jumping on top of them.

The fighting underground at H is a bit more complicated, usually after the aftermath of many bombs, ladders could be gone. This could make it no way back up after the knight/archer has defeated the enemies. To the right of H also has a small "cave" that people can hide in. Sometimes hiders or knights wait for an unsuspecting enemy.

This game at the end commonly has a last man standing at either the top (mostly red archer) or a knight at the bottom.

 

Unfortunatelt Rapid Deathmatch isn't as popular as it once was :'(
Also this is a great tactic for this map as most people I see climb the ladders and bomb them.

 

@Ghozt: Thanks for the positive feedback. Yeah if I do more of these I'll add more stuff like places to avoid, high traffick areas for knights and bombs, good lines of sight, all sorts of stuff.

99% sure all of the maps in the default cycle were made by Geti except for the one with the abyss which is an edit of one of mine. I don't think Geti thought about the gameplay of the maps as intensively OCDish as I do, but complexity in gameplay comes from very simple principles in elevation and shape and flow. Making aesthetically pleasing maps will generally lend itself to interesting gameplay; overall probably in a much better way than in thinking specifically about gameplay elements.

Shad called it RDM when he first made the gamemode and it's not like anyone runs single life 1v1 servers so I call it RDM.

@Toast: Yeah fuck those guys they're really annoying. Uh yeah the arrow climbing path is a huge boon to red but I think blue has maybe a marginal advantage on the opening knight fight and a much better inital archer position.

@flamegod: Hey, somebody who knows RDM. Great points, I may try to integrate them into the OP later if you don't mind. One thing I disagree with is that red has such a big advantage just because of the arrow climb path. Sure that's a big deal but that means less force in the center meaning blue has a better time of dominating the center (which I'd argue they already have a slight advantage in) whichy means they have a fair chance of meeting the red archers before they have a chance to start really fucking things up.

@Geti: Yeah actually the original intention of this was to focus on suggesting improvements, but I ran out of steam trying to first put out a comprehensive overview. This isn't really my favourite map but has the least to talk about so I started with this. I hope you do look at it though as maps are the lifeblood of this gamemode. The only RDM server which ever gets played is Clemo7's Fast Round, which is coincidentally one of the only (if not the only) servers that has a non default map pool.

So does anyone actually care about these? Lemme tell if you want to see more and which maps you'd like to see. And of course feel free to open discussion yourself if you'd like.

 

sadly clemo's server was taken down as rayne was hosting it and couldn't do so any more due to certain circumstances that i can not remember. ....

 

what do you mean?
you has less then that much ping or were you facing high ping enemies?

 

Ｉ don't mind if you want to use it. Oh and I played this map later and Ｉ think that your right about the arrow climb for the red as not that large of an advantage. (meaning that I played as a red archer and got slaughtered by blue knights up on the mountain) I think what really depends on is if the ladders get bombed or not letting the red archers either being invincible from blue knights or extremely vulnerable if the red knights don't move forward.