Quake Champions

[Durandal]

Because rebooting one franchise was not enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myb9iK6KzHQ

Bethesda will now reboot your favourite Arena FPS into a Comprehensive Roster of Abnormal Player Character-Underpinned Netplay Team Shooter where your favourite Quake player models will now return as Champions with their own special abilities, all of which drastically change the way you play and naturally increase the depth of the game. We saw how Quake players played the game differently even though all players had the same set of abilities, so we added new and unique abilities to capitalize on that! Ranger can now teleport by throwing that one purple orb in the final boss of Quake 1! Visor has a wallhack ability which lets him see through walls because Quake was never about predicting enemy movement, paying attention to sound, and staying on the move by not camping with the railgun! Nyx is a light, fast female character who can phase in and out short distances, and then there's the big tough Scalebearer with his dangerous Bullrush ability!

Although people who wanted teamplay would play UT instead of Quake, UT is dead and UT4 is too inactive, so we can fill that void while simultaneously siphoning some off the Overwatch fanbase. We are also aware that Quake's simple-to-understand but hard-to-master gameplay, arena level design which allowed for some really high-level play, and great weapon balance was what made Quake so great and helped its e-Sports scene grow, so we want to do what everyone else is doing by adding character abilities because abilities always increase depth and fun, trust us. Maybe we'll also add another classic mode without all these abilities for the veterans, and to give our internet defense force something to work with. Trust us, our classic mode won't end up like all those dead arena shooters which are just too similar to Quake 3 and give you little reason to play something aside from Q3 if you are looking to get your AFPS fix.

[Shepardus]

Honestly as long as it has rocket-jumping, strafe-jumping or a similarly fun movement system, and a half-decent duel mode with an active playerbase of more than one person, they can add all the heroes and abilities and non-"Quake-like" things they want and I'll be fine. There's about zero chance of this being better or as good as Quake III but it doesn't need to be if it manages to attract players who aren't a decade more experienced than me (and who actually live in the western US as opposed to Europe).

[Durandal]

As long as the abilities are tied solely to allowing new manners of movement in the arenas (which they already didn't by introducing wallhack vision, so what else would they add? ice walls?) and the differences in stats between champions are either non-existent or superficial, I could be okay with it, but thinking small like that won't let you sell new characters with exciting new abilities which completely change the way the game is played. You gotta think bigger and deeper, man.

[Squire Grooktook]

Personally, I'm more excited for shrimp wars.

[Despatche]

Quake III was a reboot itself. Unreal Tournament did the exact same thing id is doing here, and it was beloved for that.

Quake Champions exists because there's nothing else left. Quake III is far less legitimate than things like Counter-Strike 1.6 now. Quake Live died a long time ago, and the recent "internal refresh" (a smart idea handled somewhat poorly) is supposedly threatening to kill it again (in actuality it's briefly revived interest of a very dead game for the last few months). Quake 4 is an entire decade old and noone liked it to begin with. Quake Wars is also a decade old and people barely recognize that it exists. Noone really wants a new "arena shooter" anymore, because those games inherently scare the fuck out of people; you see how new UT is having to handle itself.

The only id things anyone cares about right now is old Doom which is barely theirs anymore, new Doom which is apparently a single player-only game by all accounts, and new Wolfenstein which they haven't developed themselves in a long time.

Quake is barely a series; it's really more a testing bed for whatever id thought was a good idea. Champions is also incredibly bold, because it's very difficult to directly compete with Blizzard in such a way. Just be glad that it's a potentially good game and not something like the fucking upcoming "Mega Man" TV show.

[Shepardus]

Gameplay trailer

The two seconds showing strafe-jumping were more exciting to me than the rest of the trailer (but rocket-jumps are cool too!). I'm cautiously optimistic about this. Abilities seem a bit silly but I can live with them if they don't overpower the base gameplay. They at least weren't heavily emphasized in this trailer. I hope they'll let people turn down the graphics settings heavily - I was never one to go all out in making map textures flat colors but I do like keeping lighting and particle effects simple and uncluttered. There appear to be item timers on the item spawn points, which I think are perfectly fine, even a good thing, in modes like free-for-all but are best left out of duels since those are less chaotic and map control/the mind game between players is more central.

[ZellSF]

Doesn't look bad. Then again, you really can't tell from a that short trailer how bad they'll ruin the experience by modernizing it.

Maybe we'll end up extremely lucky and there will be no F2P elements, no mechanics to try to equalize the playing field between unskilled and skilled players, no RPG mechanics giving benefits to people with more playtime... I just doubt it.

Quake III was a reboot itself. Unreal Tournament did the exact same thing id is doing here, and it was beloved for that.

Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament both took the multiplayer from their last entries and improved it. They didn't change it or try to reinvent it in any way, which is generally what reboots do.

Noone really wants a new "arena shooter" anymore, because those games inherently scare the fuck out of people; you see how new UT is having to handle itself.

When was the last time we had a arena shooter with a decent marketing push? 2007? And a major reason that failed wasn't because people were afraid of arena shooters, but because they liked the previous one so much they saw no reason to move on to the new thing.

[Some-Mist]

I want a new arena shooter, but that's because most of the ones I've dedicated a lot of time to are dead. I played TFC competitively for 7 years and then moved onto quake which turned into quake live which was very short lived.

I've been following reborn by 2GD for quite awhile too (now called diabotical) and I'm hoping that fits the niche I'm looking for but I'm not sure it'll be popular at all... which is why I'm hoping for quake champions to exceed everyone's expectations since that'll be the closest thing to an arena shooter that I can get.

[Durandal]

They've actually shown us some gameplay now
https://youtu.be/-UhHcEiegb8

It does seem like they are getting the fundamentals right, but without a deeper look it's hard to tell. It doesn't look like the D44M MP at least, hopefully Bethesda learned from its criticism. Thankfully it doesn't seem as ability-reliant as Overwatch, but I still have my doubts. Loadouts are an instant boon if they do that shit again.
The artstyle has a bit too much bloom going on, if you ask me.

It looks like a HD Quake, but the speed and core gameplay seem to be intact with some new shit added (I noticed dashing?). It doesn't look as mediocre as D44M was, so who knows.

Cautiously optimistic/fucking sold

[Durandal]

According to leaked (and already DMCA'd) camshots and testimonies from people who attended Quakecon, the champions also differ in health and movement ability instead of being different skins with one power attached to them. The movement speeds apparently don't vary that greatly, but some slower champions can't strafejump whereas faster ones have more air control. Faster champions have less health, tankier champions move slower. There's apparently no loadouts either. I don't really like it, but hopefully there's no dumb shit like class counters and so on, that's absolutely the last thing Quake needs. Abilities aside, hopefully the statistical differences don't make much of a difference.

[Durandal]

Closed betas are up soon, and some new information about Quake Champions has arisen:

• Quake Champions will be F2P. F2P players only have access to Ranger as their Champion, but can temporarily rent other characters through in-game currency. If you want to unlock all characters, you have to buy the Champions pack.
  
  Champions have statistical differences in terms of max armor, max health, and movement speed. Some characters have a total of 150 HP whereas others can only have 25 armor max. How Mega Health/Armor impacts this I do not know. Furthermore, it's still anyone's guess how much of an impact different movement speeds will have. Given the difference in sizes for player models, there might be differences in hitbox sizes too.
  
  Most of the original Quake 3 weapons are present in QC, with the exception of the grenade launcher.
  
  Each Champion has its own unique Passive Ability. The only so-far confirmed Passive Ability is Nyx' ability to walljump (but why).
  
  Nyx' ability lets her phase out to another dimension for about 4 seconds where she's invisible and invincible, but can't shoot during that period. Then opponent will have no idea where Nyx might end up unphasing, as she can sneak in an almost guaranteed hit if you can't run away in time. It's got a cooldown of 40 seconds.
  
  Cosmetics are in as well. They can be bought.
  
  Cooldowns do not reset on death.
  
  QC is planned to be in beta for "a very long time".

[ZellSF]

This is not sounding promising.

[Durandal]

stats and data gathered from PAX East footage

the presence of a cooldown item is a good addition to a gameplay concept I don't like from its very core I admit
but whyyyy is air control a passive

[qmish]

I used to prefer Unreal Tournament, but at some point finally Quake 3 demonstrated true colors for me, especially when played with people.

Q3 is an amazing discipline, especially on high-level. Dunno if Champions could scratch that feel.

[Kyper]

Footage of Anarki at PAX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRO2ggYG4NI

Small clip of Q4-style crouch sliding:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRgR2ruBUEe/

[Durandal]

I've had the pleasure (or displeasure) of being able to try out the closed beta for QUACK CHUMPS (not to be confused with Quake Champions, another game currently in closed beta protected by an NDA) which I'll talk about in this particular thread for no particular reason at all. In short, the core gameplay is there, but it's brought down by bugs and errors which may be fixed since it is still in beta, and some moronic general design decisions.

The basic elements are still in place, you got your item control, the maps are still functional, you can go fast, most movement techniques are still in place with the addition of some new ones, and most of the weapons are still there. Any veteran would still recognize it as a QUACK game. The new addition to QUACK, the CHUMPS, do not turn the game into a MOBA or Overwatch as everyone is claiming, but their addition caused a great disruption in the Force.
QUACK was known for its purity where the only factors relevant to your victory were skill, your opponent's skill, and your spawning position. Adding CHUMPS with statistical differences, and different active/passive abilities, is almost bound to create a balancing nightmare, on top of your losses being possibly attributed to the CHUMP you or your enemy chose, which can feel cheap.

There's a current total of nine CHUMPS:

ROVER: The starting character, and the protagonist of the first QUACK. Even though it's tradition for free-to-play games to gimp any starter characters or equipment to get players to buy more efficient things, ROVER is surprisingly well-rounded and balanced on his own. He's got a maximum of 100 HP and 50 AP, speed is above average, a passive ability which reduces self-damage (useful for RAWKITjumping) and an active ability called the TELEORB which functions similarly to the Unreal Tournament Translocator which you throw somewhere and press the ability button again to transport yourself at the position of the TELEORB, possibly telefragging any CHUMP happening to be at the same time and space of the TELEORB. It's a neat ability which adds an element of unpredictability in combat, like fooling someone by having them look at the ORB but not teleporting to it at all so you can shoot the other CHUMP in the back. For other players, the ORB is a ball of bright red light you can't possibly miss, which is a good thing.
Though ROVER used to be silent, they've given him some kind of distraught soldier personality now, but I do like it and he has some of the better lines in the game.

ANARCHY: One of the fastest characters in the game, and a general nuisance because of his speed and voice. I'm almost sure he's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal (YEAH, WHO WON THAT LOTTERY? I DID!) which is NOT the kind of voice you want to hear over and over again, and there's no STFU option yet for characters. Imagine what MTV thinks a dudebro is like and give him the most annoying voice possible. Despite that, he's one of my favourite CHUMPS in the game. He's got a low HP of 75 HP and a max of 50 AP, but he's got the second-fastest base speed in the game, a passive ability which allows for air control and CPMA-like movement which allows for sharper mid-air turns, and an active ability which acts like a rechargeable medkit that refills his full health (by injecting himself with drugs) and increases his max HP for the match by 2 every time he uses it. Most veterans like to use this guy because of how smooth it feels to play as him, and the medkit ability is indeed useful.

WARLORD: He's a big guy. His shtick is to ram into players, where he deals more contact damage depending on how fast he goes thanks to his passive ability, and an active ability which instantly boosts him for a SHOULDER TACKLE and lets him deal massive damage to anything he comes into contact with. Getting hit by it is as fun as it sounds. However, since he's so big and so slow he's so easy to hit, which he compensates for with a maximum of 150 HP and 75 max AP.

LILITH: One of the weakest CHUMPS in the game, she's all about being fast and evasive with the help of her passive wall-jumping ability which lets her reach places faster and easier, while her active PHASEWALK ability allows her to transport into another dimension for three seconds which renders her invisible and invincible for the duration, but she cannot attack in that period. It can be used to escape or ambush depending on what you feel like, while she can also telefrag anyone standing at the same spot as her the moment her ability ends. 75HP and 50 max HP ain't much, but she has the highest base speed out of anyone. Her wall-jump tends to decelerate you often, however.

SIGHT: I can't understand a word this guy is saying at all. He's a medium-weight guy with 125 HP and 50 max AP, who's mostly notable for his WALLHACK ability and his passive ability which allows him to strafejump with no speedcap. Why they opted to do so, I don't know. His WALLHACK is more useful in Duel mode when you're facing off against one guy at a time or possibly in Team mode, as knowing the whereabouts of all combatants in Deathmatch is only half the battle.

STRIKE: Another one who won't shut her yapping, and is fittingly ANARCHY's girlfriend. She's also quite fast, has a 100 HP and a 25 max AP, and her active ability involves creating a trail of damaging plasma wherever she goes for a period of time which explodes once the duration has been reached, meaning its quite useful for area denial and making hotly contested areas like FOURFOLD PAIN spawns dangerous to stick around in, but you do have to put yourself at some risk by running around first before you can leave some plasma behind, so it doesn't come without risk. Her passive ability lets her crouchslide, though I don't see how useful that is since I never played QUACK 4.

SCALIEBAIT: A big nasty acid-vomiting lizard wielding a rocket launcher. She's slow, has 150 max HP and 100 max AP to make up for it, and her passive ability lets her automatically gain speed by just jumping forwards, which is easy to pull off. Her TOXIC VOMIT ability lets her vomit toxic sludge which deals damage to anyone hit by it, but the sludge also sticks to surfaces which makes it useful for closing off passages, or just pulling off a quick middlefinger to anyone standing in front of you if you can't aim for shit. Getting hit by the sludge also earns enemies a poison debuff which deals damage over time, though it is also (unintentionally?) a tracking ability as every time an enemy gets damaged a number pops up showing you how much damage he took from you (in this case 10), and in the case of a persisting DoT ability you can see those number through walls and figure out where the enemy is. This seems more like a design oversight to me.

CRUTCH: A big evil robot who wants to destroy all the homo sapiens. CRUTCH is for all intents a crutch character, intended for console players and old men who can't handle the physical strain of pressing jump repeatedly to strafejump. He's a tank character with 150 HP and 100 max AP, one of the slowest base movement speeds and probably has the biggest hitbox out of all characters. His passive ability lets him gain more speed the more he holds down forwards. Not with jumping, not with weaponboosting, but just walking forwards. It doesn't get any more crutch-like than that. Furthermore, his active ability lets him raise a big shield which absorbs all damage until time runs out or when he fires a weapon, but this is more useful in Team modes than it is... in any other mode currently available. Needless to say, nobody plays as this guy. I've yet to see one in-game. It's strange that a robot which hates everyone also functions as the shield for the team.

CRUSADRESS: God demands a sacrifice, and she will bring it. This dark (undead?) CRUSADRESS is more intended as a support character for team modes due to her active ability, while her stats aren't that impressive. She has a 100 HP and a max 75 AP, but her movement speed is rather slow. Her active ability plants a totem, which doubles both as a mine for enemies and a healing totem for allies, who are healed when they get near it.

CHUMPS with a higher speed and passive abilities which allow for more versatile movement have a higher pick rate despite their lower maximum health, while tankier CHUMPS with more health, less speed, and bigger hitboxes have a much lower pickrate in comparison for DM and Duel, but are seen more often in TDM for their more team-oriented uses. Generally speaking, speed is the main factor in maintaining control over the map and avoiding getting hit at all, so faster CHUMPS were balanced out with a smaller max HP and AP. Despite this, it's not completely pointless to play the heavier characters. As mega health and red armor drops give you double your maximum HP/AP, heavier characters will also benefit from it more than lighter ones, which makes wrestling control from heavier characters much harder since they can get a bigger stack going. Regardless, it feels better to play as a CHUMP with more speed, and ANARCHY's medkit/LILITH's get-out-of-jail-free card are much more useful for long-term survival.

Balancing isn't actually that major of an issue in terms of CHUMPS being stronger than the other, but there are certainly some that are generally more useful as opposed to others like CRUSADRESS and CRUTCH which only get to shine in certain situations. However STRIKE's shit stats with a situational ability ensured not many played as her after a while. There is a massive suitable cooldown on most abilities which prevents them from being overused, and the abilities are most of the time not the deciding factor for a frag. But they're just not interesting, because I do not feel they add much to the game. The main reason being: the abilities are often one-sided advantages, and don't allow for a lot of counterplay. ANARCHY can just fully heal himself, but that's it. SIGHT can see you through walls, but that's it. WARLORD can ram you to death, but that's it. LILITH can engage and disengage at her own terms by turning invisible+invincible, but that's it. SCALIEBAIT can vomit instant damage and deny an area, but that's it.

Other abilities I haven't mentioned are STRIKE's ION TRACKS, CRUSADRESS' DIVINE STICK and CRUTCH's BARRIER. ION TRACKS is also an interesting one as it leaves a damaging trail behind you wherever you walk, but in order to effectively deny areas you have to put yourself at risk first by running around creating your trail first, which is more interesting than can be said about most abilities, but comparatively useless in Duel. CRUSADRESS' DIVINE STICK is more useful on TDM because of its healing properties and mines not being that effective compared to other abilities, and CRUTCH's BARRIER can be circumvented rather easily because it's behind is not protected from splash damage.

You either avoid the attack, get killed, or activate your own ability in turn which might counter the other guy's attack somehow (e.g. LILITH phasing as WARLORD is about to ram her) but the problem is that all abilities exist to give you and your opponent more potential control over the situation with the press of a button. Most CHUMPS aren't fully built around abilities like Overwatch heroes, so standard QUACK gameplay applies 90% of the time. It's just there. It's not impossible, it's not unbalanced, but it's not interesting. They're not threats you have to be constantly wary of, the presence of cooldown reduction pick-ups makes keeping track of your opponent's ability cooldown a wild guess anyways.

If it's not clear what I mean, take in consideration how you counter these abilities. For LILITH, you keep doing 360's or run in one direction and shoot behind you after 3 seconds. For three seconds you are blind and at the mercy of your opponent's skill and whims, and then the game continues as usual. For STRIKE, you keep shooting or stay away from the trail. She can prevent you from chasing her or close off certain exits, but that's it For ANARCHY, you just keep shooting at him. His ability is only a medkit anyways. For SIGHT, you don't. It's a bloody WALLHACK dude, what are you supposed to counter against aside from respecting rail angles a bit more? For CRUSADRESS, you only need to be wary around portals and corners. For CRUTCH, you only need to get above him via a rocketjump or hit him with splash damage. For WARLORD, you need to avoid straight hallways and bridges entirely when he's around. For SCALIEBAIT, there's no other viable counter than not getting close at all. It's hitscan vomit which also doubles as area of denial and deals DoT poison debuffs. There's nothing you can do here but stay away entirely. Of course, other abilities can counter other abilities. SIGHT's WALLHACK can see LILITH while PHASEWALKING, LILITH can PHASEWALK if a WARLORD is about to SHOULDER TACKLE her, CRUTCH can shrug off SHOULDER TACKLES like its nothing, but I can't think of any other situations. Moreover, it's very rare to be in a situation where an ability can counter another ability. Now ROVER is a different story...

Take ROVER's TELEORB. Just teleporting yourself isn't necessarily an advantage for you when your opponent can clearly see your destination because of the brilliant red light the TELEORB emits. If you disappear, your opponent immediately knows where to turn towards. Alternatively, you don't have to teleport with your TELEORB. You can just throw it as a distraction. Or you can just throw it in the air to surprise your enemy when he least expects it. Or you can use it to cross large gaps to close a massive distance when an opponent doesn't expect it. The TELEORB is an incredibly versatile ability which requires some skill to make better use of than *teleports behind you*, but simultaneously requires predictive ability on the opponent's part to counter it. It's a great ability because it increases the shit you can take advantage of or have to consider in a fight, but it could possibly backfire for the user if used carelessly. It's both fun to use and interesting to play against. It's not a free bonus you press a button to earn, and it doesn't completely force your opponent on the defensive. Because of its versatility, countering it isn't some simple strategy you can learn from a guide. It requires you to read your opponent's intentions and respond accordingly, which is the gist of high-level QUACK play.

Each CHUMP also has one or two passive abilities, and most of them feel randomly and lazily assigned. You've got all these interesting methods of movement, but the core of an interesting movement system is cut up, split into pieces, and divvied amongst the CHUMPS at random. ANARCHY has air control, STRIKE has crouchsliding, SCALIEBAIT has bunnyhopping, LILITH has walljumping, SIGHT can strafejump without being bothered by a speed cap, why couldn't all these passives be available for everyone and allow everyone to learn how to incorporate these techniques across all CHUMPS? Why couldn't they keep things consistent so mapmakers know what they should be keeping in mind and design maps around? For example, maps in Unreal Tournament 4 are designed to utilize movement tricks like walljumping and elevatorjumping to reach certains items or get from point A to B faster. When only one character can do some of the tricks you are planning, and it would turn out to not be a particularly popular character so you don't feel like designing a map around the abilities of one character, wouldn't some of the potential these tricks hold end up being underutilized?

Then there's passives like WARLORD dealing more contact damage when going faster which fits him as his ability revolves around ramming people. CRUSADRESS's passive involves picking up health items to reduce her ability cooldown, which makes sense if you consider her active heals others so health pickups are best left for CRUSADRESS. CRUTCH's passive ability of taking reduced damage when walking or standing still makes sense if you consider he's supposed to be a tank for his team. ROVER's passive of taking reduced self-damage makes sense if you realize he's a versatile character which makes him more suitable for RAWKITjumping (if it weren't borked right now) and rocket duels. The movement passives do kind of make sense for characters which are supposed to be fast, but it's weird if all three (not counting SCALIEBAIT and SIGHT) were all different methods of movement control that do the same thing. They don't really suit their CHUMPS or establish an unique playstyle, they're there because the developers most likely ran out of ideas. It just feels like missed potential to do something interesting with these characters.

The weapon arsenal has also seen some changes. The EXPLOSIVE THROWER is gone, the ION RIFLE is replaced with the ULTRA NAILWEAPON, and HEAVY ASSAULT RIFLES are more common in maps alongside THUNDERBOLTS. The ULTRA NAILWEAPON fires projectiles at a very fast rate and has the highest potential DPS, but it can't hit shit at longer ranges unless you're spamming it down tight corridors meaning its more useful when used in short-range encounters, but the ULTRA SHOOTGUN already occupies the short-range fighting role on top of being able to do at least some damage at longer ranges. Though if you can keep a steady aim with the ULTRA NAILWEAPON it can dish out some crazy damage, but in that respect it behaves identically to the THUNDERBOLT anyways. The only trade-off there is is that the ULTRA NAILWEAPON deals more damage per shot than the THUNDERBOLT, but the THUNDERBOLT has a higher tick-rate and doesn't require leading your shots to compensate. The ULTRA NAILWEAPON isn't that much of a great addition to the arsenal if it came at the expense of the ION RIFLE.

The current RAWKIT LAWNCHAIR is fucked primarily because of a nasty delay between pressing the fire button and the weapon actually firing. It's still useable and effective to some extent, but this delay negatively affects the flick-rocketjumping everyone might've grown accostumed to in other games, and makes firing the RL rather unwieldy, like the RL in Shadow Warrior 2013. Since everybody is bitching about it on the forums, the devs should prioritize fixing this shit already. The THUNDERBOLT is also rather overused, primarily because it is very effective overall with next to no drawbacks, and is frequently placed around maps, with one map even totaling three THUNDERBOLT spawns. In Q3/QL it's main drawback was ammo consumption, but even that seems to be rather absent in QC. On top of which, the THUNDERBOLT applies some insane knockback, especially to mid-air enemies, which is just ridiculous and makes it somewhat overpowered in comparison to other weapons.

There's also the weirdest mechanic in place where if you zoom in with the GREEN STINGER or HEAVY ASSAULT RIFLE, you deal bonus damage, from 80 to 100 and 9 to 12 DMG respectively. If this is supposed to be a risk vs. reward mechanic, it's a ridiculously stupid one. Not only is holding the zoom before shooting button a trivial risk for a tremendous reward, but it forces you to zoom in all the time because why wouldn't you get that bonus damage? Zooming was mostly an optional function for long-range GREEN STINGER engagements, not something mandatory. It's just annoying to have to constantly zoom in, but it's more annoying when you're trying to fire a GREEN STINGER mid-air. On top of that, the damage on the GREEN STINGER being buffed from 80 to 100 with zoomed shots means lighter champions can get oneshotted on spawn, which turns Duel mode more into GREEN STINGER-centric fights because lighter champions will more likely be using the GREEN STINGER in hit 'n run attacks because of how effective it is at longer range, at the expense of other weapons.

There is a new Duel mode and it feels like the CHUMP aspect of the game was even more shoehorned in here. So what you get is that you and your opponent pick three CHUMPS, and each time you die in Duel you have to pick a different CHUMP which hasn't died yet until you or your opponent run out of CHUMPS, after which you win the round, and each match is a best-out-of-three match where you need to win two rounds to win the match. This changes how you have to approach Duel, and not necessarily in a good way, because you have to give up on playing as your favourite CHUMP, or switch to one you don't think is suitable to the current situation. This also runs counter to the previously stated intention of the developers concerning CHUMPS, as they said they are only there for those who want to play QUACK a bit differently, but here you have a mode which forces you to play a different CHUMP each time you die. As each round has a three frag limit, comebacks are also no longer possible. It wasn't impossible to see a 6-0 going to a 6-12 in QUACK, but with such a limit as QC has now players aren't that likely to take risks.

The current Duel mode presents some other issues as well. Because the timelimit is now circa 5 minutes, and you essentially only have three lives, you often see players getting one frag and then hiding/turtling for the entire round until times runs out or you present yourself. A number of other changes encourage this behavior as well. The most important being the changes in available items. Whereas you previously had all kinds of stuff like Green/Yellow/Red Armor and health/armor shards which encouraged you to traverse the entire maps in order to maintain your control and keep your stack high, now you only have a mega armor instantly granting you double your max AP and armor shields granting you 25 AP, whereas health only comes in orbs of 25 HP and the Mega Health which gives you your max HP + 50. The only items which can overheal/overcharge you are the Mega Health/Armor, meaning they are the only items you really have to be in control of in. On the currently only available Duel map which is a remake of DM6, this means those in control only have to run around the bridge back and forth, as the Mega Armor is in place of the RA spawn and the Mega Health at the old YA spawn. The underdog has to remain underground or away from the bridge where the shield spawns are. You could get off the bridge and hunt the other guy beneath, but this would mean risking your control over the items, and with the current ruleset not being suitable for taking risks, you'll see more players opting for a defensive playstyle once they get a lead. And for those players who are confident enough in their aim, they'll try to constantly poke their opponent in control with the GREEN STINGER, since there's less items on the map to contest and the two most important items are controllable from a position which lends itself strongly to GREEN STINGER duels. Of course this all might vary per map, but as of now either the Duel ruleset needs to be changed, or the item layout for the DM6 remake needs to be reworked.

The lack of overcharging items means you have to damage yourself if you want to deny your opponent potential item pickups if you want to be able to pick those items up in the first place, and weapon spawn timers should be increased from 5 secs to at least 10 secs if you want to realistically deny your opponent certain weapons, 5 secs is usually nothing anyways. The simplifying of the important drops on DM6 from 3 to 2 makes staying in control much easier than it should be, but the CHUMPS also play a factor in encouraging a GREEN STINGER meta. It's not so much the abilities, but the statistical differences which make it incredibly risky to fight heavy champions as a light champion if you get too close. Especially when you consider that the abilities of the heavy CHUMPS (SCALIEBAIT, WARLORD) allow them to potentially deal more damage to whatever poor sod gets too close to them, while the abilities of the lighter CHUMPS are more survivability-oriented. So you've got a heavy opponent with a decent stack going, and since you've got around 75HP and 50AP you're more likely to lose a close/medium-ranged fight unless your aim is really good. So what's the safer bet? Grab a GREEN STINGER and snipe the fucker of course. A lighter champion already has the natural advantage in dodging slugs (faster speed, smaller hitbox) aside from going down faster, and usually your opponent can only use the RAWKIT LAWNCHAIR or another GREEN STINGER to retaliate at long range. Which then results in a heavy champ having to use a GREEN STINGER if he wants to counter your pokes reliably. To its defense, DM6 used to be quite a railgun-centric map in Q3 to begin with, but never to this extent.

Furthermore, the max stack sizes are also smaller for all Champions as opposed to Q3/QL. Whereas in Q3/QL mega health and red armor would give you 200/200 and require around 400 DMG to kill a fully stacked player, in QC it's only [your max health/AP + 50] which then requires 200/300 DMG to kill a stacked player, depending on his chosen CHUMP. You can imagine that with a railgun dealing 100 DMG from a range only another railgun can effectively counter, lighter champions will frequently find themselves retreating if they're one rail away from death, but heavier champions will find it harder to keep a stack going if they can't get their hands on a mega. So this, compared with the railgun meta and limiting ruleset, creates a general meta where turtling is the way to go, and isn't particularly fun for both parties involved. Whether you can go in for the kill or have to run away depends on how many rails you can land and dodge. The problem isn't necessarily with the GREEN STINGER per se, aside from the bonus zoom damage. The lack of an ION RIFLE/EXPLOSIVE THROWER for area denial and the RAWKIT LAWNCHAIR feeling terrible to use in general for both RAWKITjumping and area denial also contribute to making the GREEN STINGER a safer bet for Duel confrontations. The ULTRA NAILWEAPON just can't hold up to the ION RIFLE when it comes to area denial.

An important issue mention is the sound design in QC, and quite frankly I don't know how it ever got okayed, and if the director was fine with it, I have some serious doubts about the future of this game. Sound played an important role in the earlier QUACK metagame, but in QC the sounds are nigh unreadable. The aural feedback is near non-existent, and you can't tell what's going on around you by sound alone. Nearly all sound effects have a strong reverberation effect applied to them which makes them blend in with eachother rather easily. Though each CHUMP has unique footstep sounds, they're barely audible to other players as a result of the crappy sound mixing. CHUMP voice lines and personal weapon sounds apparently take preference over enemy footsteps and weapon firing sounds. On top of which, the current weapon sounds sound rather dull and indistinctive. They lack a proper kick, and sound more underwhelming than anything.

So what happens is that you'll find yourself getting blindsided by enemies more than often in QC whereas you could hear and anticipate other players in QL. In DM it's near impossible to tell what's going on around you by sound, but even in Duel where things are relatively more quiet it is harder than necessary to hear sounds around you. Especially important sounds which are a vital source of information, like footsteps and item pickup sounds, or even whether a weapon is being fired around you, can be hardly heard. Enemies don't even grunt based on how much health they have left like they used to, making it impossible to gauge through sound how close to death your opponent is. Whereas the sounds that play when an ability gets activated are more audible than anything. It's weird, and I'd stick to any other AFPS solely because of QC's abysmal sound design. It's the same problem DOOM (2016) had but nobody cared to mention. Probably the same sound director working on both games who never got told after DOOM (2016) that hearing where sound comes from is equally as important.

The beta also features massive downtimes between matches. You wait around a minute to find a match, then you wait ten seconds for everyone to join, then you wait ten seconds for everyone to pick a map, then you wait 30-60 sec for the map to load, then you wait a while for others to load the game, then you see a flythrough of the map you're about to play on, then you see a showcase of all the players and their fancy skins, then you play one minute in the warm-up phase, and THEN you get to play the game. I'm sure the player showcase/map flythrough are just there to cover up the massive loading times anyways. Then there's loading after matches as well. There's a massive downtime between matches whereas in QUACK LIFE you can get in a game within 15 seconds. It really knocks you out of the zone.

Netcode issues are HORRID. If it says you have 23ms ping, it's lying. Especially during DM matches players will warp around, projectiles will pass through players, accurate rails will miss, and tracking becomes an absolute pain. Getting into a non-laggy match involves a fistful of luck. Feedback concerning balance can't be effectively delivered when QUACK CHUMPS eats a ridiculous amount of bandwidth only to provide you with the Genuine Australian Internet Gaming Experience. I tried playing some music via YouTube while playing the game because sounds matters jack here anyways, and it lagged like hell. Of course matchmaking is completely non-existent here, not that it matters with a community of several year old veterans who might have just started playing, but usually going up against someone with a high level means trouble. It happens quite often that I'm paired with three bottomfeeders in TDM where I am the only one with a positive K/D ratio, and I'm not even that good. I get my ass handed to me in QUACK LIFE and UT4 all the time, but apparently I'm good enough to stand at the top of DM matches when everyone else sucks in comparison.

Who okayed the HUD? Why are your health and ammo counters on the opposite ends of the screen from eachother? Why can't relevant info be placed where I'm more likely to see it? Why are all these frag messages, medals and XP bonuses obscuring my precious sight? There's barely any options for customizeability now. No custom HUDs, no custom crosshairs, no brightskins, no picmip, no customizeable rail colors, no toggle options, no alternate zoom mouse sensitivity, mouse options are barebones, graphical options are barebones, anti-aliasing goes from fucking Low to High, switch on empty/pickup options are missing, no darkening dead bodies, no teammate outline options, no speedometer, no FPS counter, fucking nada. I know it's a beta, but still. Even the fucking cosmetics and microtransaction store are more polished than the main game.

The worst part about the beta is the non-existent player-developer relation. Not a single developer has posted in the forums acknowledging others concerns, as the closest thing we get is a community manager who posts once per week. There's a zillion unanswered and unacknowledged bugs, balance issues, missing features and other problems over which dozens of duplicate threads have been made, and could be solved if a developer said he'd go fix that eventually. We have no idea what the developers consider an issue or not, or what their vision for the future is. Everyone is slowly starting to lose their will to post feedback and post in the forums because we have no idea whether we are even being heard. All we get is a notification about a weekly faceless survey which may or may not get the message through to the developers. The update rate as of now might be even slower than that of UT4, and those guys started doing monthly updates. In the fourth week of the closed beta, the only change that was made was to make all CHUMPS available to play for everyone without renting, which is something they should have done in the first place to begin with.

As it currently stands, there is an enjoyable core in QUACK CHUMPS, but its dragged down by pointless changes to the core design and bad execution of the formula, and that's not just because it's in a beta. There are some promising additions, but the direction seems to be largely misguided. The performance is alright, but I had to turn down some options to low if I wanted a smooth framerate. You might have some fun with it if you're a casual since most of the playerbase are new as well, but other than that it is what it is. You do have to install Bethesda's crappy proprietary launcher to play the game, however. Until the updates start showing some promise, I'll be focusing my attention on other games.


Oh shit, I accidentally dropped some closed beta keys
PNE7-U34P-P3EA-2E3R-M73R
PEG3-Q86R-U7HN-8A4B-R69D
UYR9-H79Y-B8KG-9R6P-K69D

[Durandal]

Quake Champions beta is now open to all subhumans for nine days, so if you want to see what it's like for yourself, try it out now