Ascension: A look into the world of KZ (Part 2)

Inside section of kz_Cargo

Last time we gave a brief introduction and history on the phenomena of KZ, or climb maps. Its humble beginnings and how it traveled through its iterations to get where it is today, along with a brief interview with the creator of the mode itself, Patrick "Kreedz" Wright. Today we will be explaining the benefits of movement and how KZ applies to this, especially in the context of your standard competitive game, as well as a short tutorial explaining the different techniques used in KZ. And then we wrap it all up by breifly touching on the world of competitive 1.6 KZ that is still being run today, with a special interview with Moxx from xtreme-jumps.eu

Why KZ matters:

I know what some of you might be thinking: Why should I care about jumping around a map? Despite what you may think, KZ actually has some tangible skills you can transfer to a competitive performance. Movement and positioning is so important in any game, and learning the techniques that are required as a KZ player can help you out if you play in competitively as well. For example, it allows you to do some jumps in competitive maps giving you a positional advantage over people who are unable to do it themselves.

A specific example is the pathing where you can get on top of the t side boost in mid on de_cache. This example is particuraly effective because it is rather hard, therefore people who may know about the boost are not likely to even expect it. Something to note, it has been brought up before that the performance of the matchmaking servers doesn't allow the same movement as high performance servers due to the 64 tickrate. Therefore, not everything can be applied when playing on matchmaking servers, some jumps, and bunny hopping especially, can be effected.

Additionally, climb maps allow for a nice change of pace from the intense matchmaking, pug, etc. Many people I know find them relaxing, and play them every now and then when they don’t have time for a full game. But when played in between competitive matches that change of pace can help reset your mentality before going into the next one while still keeping your fingers warm.

KZ in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

As stated before, the KZ community in Global Offensive is rather small. Even with Global Offensive absolutely skyrocketing in popularity, the percentage that plays KZ is rather small. However, there are still a number of resources you can check out to start your climbing adventure. House of Climb is a community based in North America that is dedicated to KZ in Counter-Strike Global Offensive. They host their own servers, which are quite good if I may add, and even have a pretty active forum and teamspeak for their members.

For other servers, I would recommend using a free service like GameTracker to search for KZ servers. They provide real time updates on if the server is active, whether or not it is full, a ranking for how much traffic (how popular) the server gets, as well as a basic rating system based on feedback from its users.

Tutorial for CS:GO KZ

While the actual objective of KZ may seem simple, actually climbing some maps may be extremely difficult. You have to employ special techniques other than just jumping in order to finish some maps. Here are a few of those techniques that you will have to employ while you climb your way to the top. Please note that these tutorials are for CSGO, so they may or may not work in other versions of KZ

Air Strafing/Long Jumping: With the way the movement system works in CSGO, as well as most titles in the Counter-Strike series, you can manipulate your speed by strafing (moving sideways left or right) while syncing that movement with your crosshair. This allows you to not only gain speed, but to jump further than what you could originally have by just jumping straight. Many kz maps emphasize that by incorperating jumps that force the participants to use this technique.

Bunny Hopping: Bunny hopping is a technique you can use to shave off a lot of time on your runs. Not only does it increase overall speed on flat ground, it also enables someone to perform a rapid succession of jumps in a short amout of time because of the carried momentum through the jumps. However, doing it consistently and accurately is quite the feat. This technique is rather hard to do outside of kz servers, in fact, with the way the movement values are set in competitive servers, it is even more difficult to perform a successful sequence of jumps.

These are some basic principles when it comes to KZ in Counter-Strike Global Offensive. There may be more, however, outside of these and booting up your computer and actually trying jumps and getting a feel for the movement system, there is very little else to learn.

Analyzing the Map

So appart from mastering techniques and different skills in KZ, it is important to memorize, or at least get a general image of what the map's layout is. Similar to real life racing events, it is good to know the course before you race so then you can anticipate the different jumps before they happen. This can be easily achieved by booting up the desired map on a server with cheats enabled so then you can noclip and gain a bird's eye view. From there it you can identify and break down segments of the map.

Shortcuts: Another reason for map analysis is that more often than not, you can find shortcuts that can be implemented using the above techniques. This can significantly lower your time in runs. From there you can plot out the path you think is most efficient, guessing which jumps you can skip, and maybe finding a jump that bypasses a whole section all together.

Competitive KZ

So you’ve learned about some of the techniques in KZ and you’ve checked out a few servers, what now? Well it’s standard for servers nowadays to keep track of not only the world records for map times, but also personal records for each player logged into the system. However, if you love the thrill of a head to head race, then competitive KZ might be for you. If you’re interested in 1.6 KZ, Moxx from xtreme-jumps has answered some questions about their regular jump cups as well as the general status of the scene today. CSGO’s House of Climb community currently doesn’t have anything similar to jump cups, but don’t rule that out for the future.

Moxx Interview:

How is competitive KZ Structured? Is it based on flat out time, or are there heats like in a track meet?

Well in the early days most of the people played casually or jump-cups via IRC. Which basically was 8 people adding up to either a randomized 1v1 situation with single elimination. Or 8 people adding up to a "melee" tournament, which was 8 people jumping at the same time, eliminating 2 each time. About the rules, you played from the start and got 5 minutes to get as far as you could.

No prizes really, just the fame and glory and a point system so you could keep track of who was the best.

Approximately at this time the recording part of KZ got introduced, since every map include a start-end timer it's pretty easy to actually record. So they recorded demos and sent them in, thus creating the competitive KZ we see today, where completing the map the quickest possible way. It was not complication free however, since with competitiveness comes people cheating. It didn't take long however for a guy called eDark to create a tool which checked what cvars a demo was running.

How big are events usually? How regularly are they held?

I mean I wouldn't necessarily call the events big as in a lot of people get involved, atleast now a days, as the activity among users dropped a bit from the previous years. But it comes and goes, there's no regularity in how they appear, except earlier we had some weekly contests, but with people losing interest it's hard to keep that stuff up to date.

We've had mapping contests, moviemaking contests among others, and usually with great success.

In 1.6 KZ, how often are records broken nowadays? Do you see a growth rate still in players or is it capping out?

Nowadays it's usually up to breaking records with seconds, or even milliseconds. People have advanced so much over the years and both the players and the engine is pushed to its limits.

We had a time where the activity rose and rose, when a lot of new people found out about the maps and the community, but the last couple of years it's been quite rough with less activity and not so many new players signing up. Those who played it usually still play it to a certain degree, even if they just do one map casually on a sunday or more competitive.

Conclusion

It's pretty interesting to see all these sub communities that are essentially hidden away from the public face of CSGO. Hopefully this article inspires you all to go out, explore all the different custom modes, and even maybe create some yourself. Special thanks to KZ_Moxx and Patrick "Kreedz" Wright from xtreme-jumps.eu, Mohan "launders" Govindasamy, and Blasdfa.

Resources:

xtreme-jumps.eu - 1.6 KZ and KZMOD Hub

HouseofClimb.com - CSGO KZ Servers and Forums