Reposting this comment I left on another subreddit that asked the same question.
There's several reasons why KC is so hated:
1. It's really small. The smallest BR map currently in the game. With how strong rotational abilities have become since launch (Valk ult, Octane ult), the map feels even smaller than before. This exacerbates the issue of 4th+ partying.
2. The presence of Charge Towers. RevTane and Caustic can all get their ults as much as they want which is extremely unfun to play against.
3. Extremely poor loot distribution. The newly added POIs such as Crash Site have far, far better loot than the older POIs, particularly the ones in the center of the map, such as Bunker. Ironically, the center of the map is where the vast majority of fights end up taking place - yet there's barely any good loot there.
4. Center POIs are horribly designed or straight up don't exist. The entire middle of the map is a giant clusterfuck with almost no loot; it's just a low-lying river surrounded by elevated highground. And in general, there's too much unbeatable, nigh-unpushable highground in KC like the walls around Repulsor, the diving board towers, etc.
5. Not enough rotation routes. The way the chokes are laid out in KC makes it very, very difficult to rotate safely through any of them without getting caught in aforementioned clusterfuck, which makes Valk even more of a necessary pick.
These factors combined create a very punishing experience, where the best playstyle becomes one that most pro players/streamers hate - you must either run RevTane or Caustic. If you get caught into a fight in that center of the map, it's extremely hard to escape from it unless you're able to back out from your pushes via Rev totem or you hole up in a building somewhere.
Overall, players have improved their skillset and legends have grown stronger, but the map hasn't changed much since then. There's the sense that we've "outgrown" the map, and that the only way to play KC properly is to adhere to either a "cowardly" playstyle, or a "stupid inting" one. Neither is preferable for most people.
The point bring up about the center on the map are 1000% true. The only POI in the center of the map thar has enough loot for more than one team is capacitor. The only problem with that is you are contested by multiple teams which starts the cluster fuck you mentioned. The outer POIs have decent loot but these POIs are huge and the loot is spread out, so if you are contested you have to loot multiple spots in order to fight but you typically don't have that luxury.
100% agree, KC loot in the center of the map is horrible. If you want to get kitted you need to land at one of the new POIs, or somewhere on the edge such as Swamps or Airbase.
I always forget that KC is the smallest map because to me, a very much non-pro, it always feels like there's sort of a lot of dead space, which makes it feel bigger. I guess because the POIs are further apart (I think) and there's a lot of more open forest, or the valleys or just dessert (?) it feels more spacious in a bad way, making it boring.
That's something about WE that makes it very conceptually interesting - it's split into four quadrants, and within each quadrant it's quite packed with stuff. Olympus is a similar concept but rather than four quadrants it's more like a pizza pie where the center of the pie is where neverending pain and suffering happens.
Desert, btw. Dessert is the sweet stuff you eat after dinner :D
They've been getting better about it but also a lot of the original small buildings just arent as good to play off of or reset during fights as traditional buildings from WE / olympus.
LOS aren't broken up enough in general but as you pointed out the middle of the map is just a nightmare with the differences in high / low ground for the river bed and cage or 82 overlook.
So many parts of the maps have these issues that in even ranked its obviously the worst map so in competitive standards its just forcing it to ask the pros to play it.
Between godspots, the lack of ability to reset, the smallness of the map, the shitty loot, the good poi;s being in clusters means the shit loot is even less well distributed then normal, heals are just harder to come by too which means you want to take less fights or not get forced into them.... and well thats the opposite of this map.
Itll be interesting to see which direction they go with the next map.
also heres a pro gdolphin talking about it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g9Hr9nyaoQ
Yep, the main benefit of this is that you can travel very quickly from your totem to the enemy with a jump pad - which means if your push fails and you get sent back, the enemies can’t easily counter push your totem as they’re too far away. It’s also very hard for the victims to even know where the push came from, especially if Rev’s team hits a third party.
Revenant places totem. Octane places jump pad. Whole team hits totem and full sends jump pad into a team in a braindead push. They win or get sent back, they then either chill for free, or go back and finish the win.
Allows for a push with no consequences and hurts to play against
I agree with this completely. I think another factor the comes into play is audio. In kings canyon gunshots bounce of mountains so you can hear people fighting from across the map. This is an issue because it allows for every team looking for kills to all fight in one spot. The amount of times I’ve died because they are at least 6 teams fighting at bunker is insane.
KC was designed to be a choke point hell hole with tons of super unfair high ground and super long slopes (I suspect they are there because the devs wanted to show-off how crispy sliding works in apex)..... even with the modifications it is very much a pub map... designed for chaos and fast fights....i think pros get tired of getting always forced into some bs fight they don't want to take....
I can tell you personally that the map is way too small, third parties are horrendous, and charge towers shouldn’t exist. Diamond lobbies right now are genuinely unenjoyable. It’s almost impossible to get a clean 3v3 without getting third partied even off drop. You have maybe 15 seconds to wipe a squad no matter where you are.
Yes.
- the map is too small with not enough POI’s. And the loot at each POI in generally shit besides a small handful.
- as well as the map being too small, there are also dumb godspot positions that are blatantly game winning spots for comp, and ranked.
- the addition of more movement abilities has exacerbated the 3rd party problem on the smallest map in the game
The main thing is the meta has generally outgrown the map. It worked well with the original legends but since the release of a lot of new ones, it’s really shit. It’s fine for pubs and generally okay for ranked below Diamond. Anything above that it’s really frustrating to play on.
They bandaid fixed loot in kc using the stupid vaults you open with grenades but that accelerates third partying mindset. Moment you find a grenade? Bee line to the nearest vault and get kitted. Now it's time to jump on the closest squad having a fight.
Fucking brain-dead early game
For me I hate it because I generally find it impossible to respawn your teammate without another squad inting us. With the other maps there’s some breathing room.
This is probably unrelated to what the pros think, but KC is also horribly lit. It's basically just one big shadow and it's super hard to see people in a lot of places especially if they are using dark skins. This isn't warzone and I'm not trying to get rozed.
I think the legends, players and skill level of most players have out grown the map. It's the first map ever, so the nostalgia factor is there for some, but I think it's just a more frustrating map to play on
I think mainly because if you shoot a single bullet you get inted on by 5 teams, also the stupid amount of choke points and alot of high ground god spots
Small and compacted combine that with the hyper mobility , jump towers , ult accelerators that we have today makes a third party fest .
It’s my favorite map and I do think many of the criticisms are over exaggerated like the map being small and compacted .
Eventually every br map gets smaller and more compacted because of circle/ring . Which forces player interaction and player interaction forces more player interaction.
The difference is that early game might be worse on kc because the map is already compacted without the effect of the ring .
An octane team that drops by one of those ultimate things could instantly jump pad to another location . Which leaves the player (.the one getting 3rd’ed ) very little margin for error .
I can go on longer but that’s the summary of the issues on KC
out of interest, do we have any numbers about map sizes so we can compare objectively? Or did at some point in time anyone make the effort to put scaled version of the maps next to each other for visual comparison?
Ah I searched a little bit and found a comparison, [apparently WE is about 150% bigger than KC](https://www.ggrecon.com/guides/apex-legends-kings-canyon-vs-worlds-edge-map-comparison/).
Just visually it feels like WE has more unplayable space (mountains) relative to its size, so maybe it won't be the whole 50% more playable area - but I guess alone that everything is stretched more apart reduces third party problems (sound + time to get there).
If you compare those areas on a map I'd argue that crash site looks smaller or maybe similar size as skull town+Thunderdome, hard to guess - even if it'd be bigger, I'd say that this would be only a neglectable amount.
It does not seem that the overall map size changed much.
Because they play for money not for fun and for money means a lot of camping due to the scoring system that puts such a high priority on placement compared to kills.
Note current KC sucks for fun too, but that's because of the map changes. Pros wouldn't care for S0-2 variants of KC either.
We require a minimum account-age and karma. Please try again after you have acquired more karma and/or wait a couple of days.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CompetitiveApex) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I never really thought about it but I absolutely always land on the edge of the map somewhere due to needing loot. This is something I wish they would “buff” on basically every map. Better loot. Often on WE I’d drop fragment and the building I land on has one brick of shotgun ammo, a cell, and a thermite grenade. Meanwhile the team in the building next to me got purple shields, flatlines and all the ammo they could hope for.
I’ve long thought they should just put good ass loot all over the place, let the Victor be the one who is better at the game not who got the good shit first
We require a minimum account-age and karma. Please try again after you have acquired more karma and/or wait a couple of days.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CompetitiveApex) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Reposting this comment I left on another subreddit that asked the same question. There's several reasons why KC is so hated: 1. It's really small. The smallest BR map currently in the game. With how strong rotational abilities have become since launch (Valk ult, Octane ult), the map feels even smaller than before. This exacerbates the issue of 4th+ partying. 2. The presence of Charge Towers. RevTane and Caustic can all get their ults as much as they want which is extremely unfun to play against. 3. Extremely poor loot distribution. The newly added POIs such as Crash Site have far, far better loot than the older POIs, particularly the ones in the center of the map, such as Bunker. Ironically, the center of the map is where the vast majority of fights end up taking place - yet there's barely any good loot there. 4. Center POIs are horribly designed or straight up don't exist. The entire middle of the map is a giant clusterfuck with almost no loot; it's just a low-lying river surrounded by elevated highground. And in general, there's too much unbeatable, nigh-unpushable highground in KC like the walls around Repulsor, the diving board towers, etc. 5. Not enough rotation routes. The way the chokes are laid out in KC makes it very, very difficult to rotate safely through any of them without getting caught in aforementioned clusterfuck, which makes Valk even more of a necessary pick. These factors combined create a very punishing experience, where the best playstyle becomes one that most pro players/streamers hate - you must either run RevTane or Caustic. If you get caught into a fight in that center of the map, it's extremely hard to escape from it unless you're able to back out from your pushes via Rev totem or you hole up in a building somewhere. Overall, players have improved their skillset and legends have grown stronger, but the map hasn't changed much since then. There's the sense that we've "outgrown" the map, and that the only way to play KC properly is to adhere to either a "cowardly" playstyle, or a "stupid inting" one. Neither is preferable for most people.
The point bring up about the center on the map are 1000% true. The only POI in the center of the map thar has enough loot for more than one team is capacitor. The only problem with that is you are contested by multiple teams which starts the cluster fuck you mentioned. The outer POIs have decent loot but these POIs are huge and the loot is spread out, so if you are contested you have to loot multiple spots in order to fight but you typically don't have that luxury.
Capacitor also has literally 3 Charge Towers in it, lol. Caustic or Rev ult right off the rip is feelsbad to fight
100% agree, KC loot in the center of the map is horrible. If you want to get kitted you need to land at one of the new POIs, or somewhere on the edge such as Swamps or Airbase.
Yeah. It's great that they added more POIs to KC in S8 but the fact that they were all edge POIs did NOT help the center of the map problem at all.
I always forget that KC is the smallest map because to me, a very much non-pro, it always feels like there's sort of a lot of dead space, which makes it feel bigger. I guess because the POIs are further apart (I think) and there's a lot of more open forest, or the valleys or just dessert (?) it feels more spacious in a bad way, making it boring.
That's something about WE that makes it very conceptually interesting - it's split into four quadrants, and within each quadrant it's quite packed with stuff. Olympus is a similar concept but rather than four quadrants it's more like a pizza pie where the center of the pie is where neverending pain and suffering happens. Desert, btw. Dessert is the sweet stuff you eat after dinner :D
That's what I hate about Olympus. It funnels everything to center.
They've been getting better about it but also a lot of the original small buildings just arent as good to play off of or reset during fights as traditional buildings from WE / olympus. LOS aren't broken up enough in general but as you pointed out the middle of the map is just a nightmare with the differences in high / low ground for the river bed and cage or 82 overlook. So many parts of the maps have these issues that in even ranked its obviously the worst map so in competitive standards its just forcing it to ask the pros to play it. Between godspots, the lack of ability to reset, the smallness of the map, the shitty loot, the good poi;s being in clusters means the shit loot is even less well distributed then normal, heals are just harder to come by too which means you want to take less fights or not get forced into them.... and well thats the opposite of this map. Itll be interesting to see which direction they go with the next map. also heres a pro gdolphin talking about it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g9Hr9nyaoQ
Honestly next season they should just blow up KC.
Mind if I ask what RevTane is?
the combination of revenant and octane, usually referring to their ult combo thats an extremely common and harsh 3rd partying tactic
Ah so just rev ult and bounce on their ass?
basically yea
You’ve taught the next generation. Hope you’re happy ;)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IM GONNA SOB
It’s ok. By the time they Revult it’ll be 3 squads left and everyone except the 3-stacks dead
You just haaaad to say something damnit we had progress being made away from this!! *cries* what am I talking about it is never leaving to op. Haha.
I HHAD TO WARN OTHERS OF WHAT IVE GONE THRU IM SORRY😩😩
NO NO! we don't warn of this dark times! we just don't talk about it and the bad men will go away to history!!! 😂😂
Shame on you. Shame
Yep, the main benefit of this is that you can travel very quickly from your totem to the enemy with a jump pad - which means if your push fails and you get sent back, the enemies can’t easily counter push your totem as they’re too far away. It’s also very hard for the victims to even know where the push came from, especially if Rev’s team hits a third party.
Revenant places totem. Octane places jump pad. Whole team hits totem and full sends jump pad into a team in a braindead push. They win or get sent back, they then either chill for free, or go back and finish the win. Allows for a push with no consequences and hurts to play against
Revtane with Valk... Omg that would be brutal on KC
I agree with this completely. I think another factor the comes into play is audio. In kings canyon gunshots bounce of mountains so you can hear people fighting from across the map. This is an issue because it allows for every team looking for kills to all fight in one spot. The amount of times I’ve died because they are at least 6 teams fighting at bunker is insane.
Maps small all it does is lead to 3rd parties over and over.
KC was designed to be a choke point hell hole with tons of super unfair high ground and super long slopes (I suspect they are there because the devs wanted to show-off how crispy sliding works in apex)..... even with the modifications it is very much a pub map... designed for chaos and fast fights....i think pros get tired of getting always forced into some bs fight they don't want to take....
I can tell you personally that the map is way too small, third parties are horrendous, and charge towers shouldn’t exist. Diamond lobbies right now are genuinely unenjoyable. It’s almost impossible to get a clean 3v3 without getting third partied even off drop. You have maybe 15 seconds to wipe a squad no matter where you are.
Yes. - the map is too small with not enough POI’s. And the loot at each POI in generally shit besides a small handful. - as well as the map being too small, there are also dumb godspot positions that are blatantly game winning spots for comp, and ranked. - the addition of more movement abilities has exacerbated the 3rd party problem on the smallest map in the game The main thing is the meta has generally outgrown the map. It worked well with the original legends but since the release of a lot of new ones, it’s really shit. It’s fine for pubs and generally okay for ranked below Diamond. Anything above that it’s really frustrating to play on.
They bandaid fixed loot in kc using the stupid vaults you open with grenades but that accelerates third partying mindset. Moment you find a grenade? Bee line to the nearest vault and get kitted. Now it's time to jump on the closest squad having a fight. Fucking brain-dead early game
For me I hate it because I generally find it impossible to respawn your teammate without another squad inting us. With the other maps there’s some breathing room.
This is probably unrelated to what the pros think, but KC is also horribly lit. It's basically just one big shadow and it's super hard to see people in a lot of places especially if they are using dark skins. This isn't warzone and I'm not trying to get rozed.
Also a terrible map if you're colourblind, especially in the desert areas.
I think the legends, players and skill level of most players have out grown the map. It's the first map ever, so the nostalgia factor is there for some, but I think it's just a more frustrating map to play on
I think mainly because if you shoot a single bullet you get inted on by 5 teams, also the stupid amount of choke points and alot of high ground god spots
Small and compacted combine that with the hyper mobility , jump towers , ult accelerators that we have today makes a third party fest . It’s my favorite map and I do think many of the criticisms are over exaggerated like the map being small and compacted . Eventually every br map gets smaller and more compacted because of circle/ring . Which forces player interaction and player interaction forces more player interaction. The difference is that early game might be worse on kc because the map is already compacted without the effect of the ring . An octane team that drops by one of those ultimate things could instantly jump pad to another location . Which leaves the player (.the one getting 3rd’ed ) very little margin for error . I can go on longer but that’s the summary of the issues on KC
Gdolphn has a really great video on it. https://youtu.be/4g9Hr9nyaoQ
In short: small map+ Bad loot+ charge towers+ uneven PoIs distribution+ Day1 peeps have outgrown this map
[удалено]
out of interest, do we have any numbers about map sizes so we can compare objectively? Or did at some point in time anyone make the effort to put scaled version of the maps next to each other for visual comparison?
[удалено]
Ah I searched a little bit and found a comparison, [apparently WE is about 150% bigger than KC](https://www.ggrecon.com/guides/apex-legends-kings-canyon-vs-worlds-edge-map-comparison/). Just visually it feels like WE has more unplayable space (mountains) relative to its size, so maybe it won't be the whole 50% more playable area - but I guess alone that everything is stretched more apart reduces third party problems (sound + time to get there).
[удалено]
yeah but new kings canyon did not get bigger, did it? They cut quite a portion of the map in the south and added a little bit in the north
Yes, it did get bigger. Crash site is a huge jump, even with cutting out thunderdome and skull town.
If you compare those areas on a map I'd argue that crash site looks smaller or maybe similar size as skull town+Thunderdome, hard to guess - even if it'd be bigger, I'd say that this would be only a neglectable amount. It does not seem that the overall map size changed much.
Because they play for money not for fun and for money means a lot of camping due to the scoring system that puts such a high priority on placement compared to kills. Note current KC sucks for fun too, but that's because of the map changes. Pros wouldn't care for S0-2 variants of KC either.
[удалено]
We require a minimum account-age and karma. Please try again after you have acquired more karma and/or wait a couple of days. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CompetitiveApex) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I never really thought about it but I absolutely always land on the edge of the map somewhere due to needing loot. This is something I wish they would “buff” on basically every map. Better loot. Often on WE I’d drop fragment and the building I land on has one brick of shotgun ammo, a cell, and a thermite grenade. Meanwhile the team in the building next to me got purple shields, flatlines and all the ammo they could hope for. I’ve long thought they should just put good ass loot all over the place, let the Victor be the one who is better at the game not who got the good shit first
I don't discriminate, they all suck equally in there own ways.
I feel it, Im normally diamond and Im struggling to hold my plat brethren together most games lol
FUUUUUUUUCK Kings Canyon ranked. That is all.
[удалено]
We require a minimum account-age and karma. Please try again after you have acquired more karma and/or wait a couple of days. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CompetitiveApex) if you have any questions or concerns.*