Deathmatch can be found in many games so its important to understand the issues involved with this gamestyle. In this article I cover such issues as weapon placement and gameflow.
Map Structure
Weapon, ammo, armour and health placement determines where players will gather. If an area has no equipment people won’t gather there. People will always home in on the goodies.
The map should have variation in height (different floors and levels) so it adds an extra element to fights. Fighting on the same plane all the time is boring in both gameplay and looks. Having height variation also adds an extra tactical option. Those on a higher level are at an advantage to those further down.
Gameflow is very important. Players need to be able to constantly go around the map and not have to ever turn around and go back. Basically have some sort of circular flow to your map
Weapons And Goodies
Try to fit in all or most weapons as they are all useful in different situations and each player will have their own weapon preferences. However put the more powerful weapons in higher risk or difficult to reach areas otherwise everyone is likely to get these weapons and the game will get very messy and unbalanced.
Be careful with the really powerful goodies (quad damage, super health, etc). They should be used very sparingly because they can all too easily unbalance games and it’s no fun if you are on the receiving end of people with them.Avoid having too much health spread over the map as it encourages people to run away from a fight to get healed up again. Instead have the odd health in a few spread out locations.
Sniping And Camping
Camping is not popular in deathmatch. You should take measures to discourage it by placing weapons in areas where they are not so effective (shotgun in a large open area for example) so that the player has to move somewhere else to use it effectively. Also avoid dead ends and little pockets where players can hide and be difficult to get at.
Don’t mistake camping with sniping. Sniping may annoy people at times but it requires skill unlike camping. Have open areas to accommodate them but don’t provide specific sniping locations as they can be open to abuse. They shouldn’t be able to take out people without ever being seen.
Obstacles
Don’t have lots of architectural features that the player can get easily caught on. In a fight players don’t want to have to worry about dodgy architecture as well as the enemy. Fighting someone with the risk of falling into a lava pit or over a cliff edge is ok, fighting someone and getting caught on a pillar isn’t.
Basically bear in mind that deathmatch is fast paced and is about fighting other players, not the map so avoid doing too much stuff that slows the game down like having to jump across lots of platforms or having to swim through excessive amounts of water
Spawn Points
Have plenty of spawn points that are spread out all over the map to discourage any respawn camping. Players should not all be respawning around the same area.
The location of player start points should be out of the way of main action areas and snipers but be near to some weapon or armour so they have a decent chance of surviving when they respawn.
Sound
The thing that separates the truly best deathmatchers from everyone else is sound. They listen for other players whether it is the sound of footsteps, someone walking through a puddle of water or picking up a weapon etc. The influence of this factor between games varies (its especially important in the Quake series) but you should always consider it. An example of this is to put goodies at the entrances to main areas so that they can choose to pick it up (and potentially give away their position) or leave it and be more sneaky.
