The fate of Quake and arena shooters

[Chadaclysm]

I seen the name Quake pop up in a thread earlier and it got me thinking about the old days, especially in Quake 3. The many hours me and my friends would spend playing.

Why aren't games like Quake champions seeing their old players return? have times simply changed or have skills and speed just started to wane so they don't bother? or are games where skill is needed just simply too hard for people these days?

Thoughts and opinions? Did you play Quake back in its hey day?

[Noobc0re]

Arena shooters require skill, and in FFA you don't have a team to cry about when you lose. As such, casual gamers don't want anything to do with them. With casuals being the only thing the industry, save for some indies, care about they're obviously not going to put resources into an arena shooter.

[David_Kay_Conrad]

As much as I love classic style shooters, I was never a fan of their multiplayer modes. In a singe player game the thing I always disliked the most was encounters with small, fast moving, relentless enemies that are hard to hit. You know, your lost souls, bees, mosquitos. But they were rarely the focus of the gameplay so it was not such a big deal. Now when it comes to multiplayer, you are fast and mobile in these games, which is tons of fun in itself, but it also means all your enemies are also fast and mobile. And that makes them fast moving relentless enemies that are hard to hit... It's like playing eclusively against lost souls, bees and mosquitos. This might be fun when playing against friends on similar skill level - when you are all not very good at all this bunnyhopping and can't evade attacks that well. But playing against competent players online is a diffrent story. It's the same thing as with Starcraft - online games are just too difficult for beginners and casual players to enjoy them. This means beginners have hard time practicing and getting competent. I begin to understand why games shifted towards modern trands - slower and more realistic cover based shooting seems more accessible for new players. Enemies will never move at insane speed and the style of game actually rewards you for stopping and taking your aim. And even though I'm not interested in modern shooters, just thinking about slower and more accessible multiplayer makes my want to try it at some point.

[Justince]

Old school, long time Quake player here...

It became a model of gameplay that couldn't be easily exploited, that's all. Stringing players along with unlocks, and perks and junk like that are all methods to keep low-skilled players in the game. If they had to learn all the minutiae of a game like Quake 3 right out of the box it would turn away most of the casual market. That isn't good business. Even Quake Champions needed a new carrot to string into it's formula, the hero class mechanics, which isn't a deal breaker but could easily be waved off.

[PeJota]

I've been playing Quake Champions on and off this past year. I think it's a good game with a lot of potential. It does recapture the feeling of oldschool arena shooters quite well, and with that comes a certain type of skill that isn't prevalent in a lot of the shooters of the last 10-12 years. With a decade of emphasis on tactical shooters and regenerating health it's possible that the bigger FPS market just isn't in the mindset of the run-and gun arena grinder?

I know some people don't like the idea of QC being class/hero based. But I do like that each Champion has their own unique skill that allows you to play the game your way in a sense. Honestly this is a fine game and they have improved it a lot with new maps and modes. The only major issues that persist are the occasional long long/wait times.

Oh yeah and the goddamn loot boxes. Seriously this is the modern trend (cancer) that's gotta go.

[Cat]

I came to this revelation when DOOM came out, the era of the true arena shooter is dead. The industry decided no one wants to learn maps, spawn points, proper map control, weapon spawns, buff timers like quad damage, punished for camping by not having survivability through health and armor but also lack of ammo, etc etc. people want load outs and to start with the best weapons in the game, and that camping should be rewarded.

DOOM wasn't a true arena shooter, but it was the closest we got, on console, and it was one of the better FPS experiences I've had in awhile as I haven't bought any of the newest shooters from Activision or EA outside of Battlefront 2 (and we know how that went).

I think what we are seeing here isn't necessarily an end to shooters or a rise of strategy games - probably just a difference in taste of competitive gamers with Rainbow 6 and CS:GO being intensely popular. Perhaps a move away from fantasy and into realism.

[Origami-Unicorn]

Difrent times, difrent trends.

There are far less people today that are ready to put the time and effort to get good at a real arena shooter. Games like Overwatch provide people with the chance to feel competent by giving them screen cleaning skills that require you to just point at a cluster of enemies and press "F". Especialy since there are far more casual players being sucked in by the marketing machine.

I agree with this, the arena shooter while not dead has been pushed to the fringes of the wider gaming community thanks to the rise of MOBA's and hybrids like Overwatch.

I wouldn't say I was a veteran Quake player but I did have a run with it back in its heyday and I enjoy Champions, I just don't have the time to really grind out some ranks so it's more of a casual experience for me.

I think with some more development, game modes and events QC can get stronger.

[Cyruss]

I came to this revelation when DOOM came out, the era of the true arena shooter is dead. The industry decided no one wants to learn maps, spawn points, proper map control, weapon spawns, buff timers like quad damage, punished for camping by not having survivability through health and armor but also lack of ammo, etc etc. people want load outs and to start with the best weapons in the game, and that camping should be rewarded.

DOOM wasn't a true arena shooter, but it was the closest we got, on console, and it was one of the better FPS experiences I've had in awhile as I haven't bought any of the newest shooters from Activision or EA outside of Battlefront 2 (and we know how that went).

[darkhog]

If you liked Quake3, you'll love Xonotic. It's built on modified Quake3 engine (DarkPlaces) and supports modern graphics features, though they're disabled by default. Given it's a Q3 code at its core, it will also run on a potato. It's free and open-source and you can download it at their site.

[skoot]

Still play unreal tournament 3 on my pc from time to time, but Quake has almost faded into obscurity to be honest

[Matex]

Quake champions could be much better, terrible optimization netcode long loading times forced lootboxes... yeah it's a modern disaster with solid gameplay.

[Yeshu]

Difrent times, difrent trends.

There are far less people today that are ready to put the time and effort to get good at a real arena shooter. Games like Overwatch provide people with the chance to feel competent by giving them screen cleaning skills that require you to just point at a cluster of enemies and press "F". Especialy since there are far more casual players being sucked in by the marketing machine.

Also, Quake Champions while not the bigest player on the field seams to pull in a healthy playerbase (1800 at the moment of writing and that's only the Steam count). So arena shooters are far from being dead but they seams there time in the mainstream is long gone.

[OverdriveActive]

Ehm, I'm seeing loads of Quake veterans playing QC. Just have a look at the list of players for Dreamhack Winter 2018. The general community also has plenty of old blood filling the ranks. The weekly tournaments are also run by people that were prominent or at least around a lot during QL / Q3A. The casters as well usually have a tenure of 10+ years. Off the top of my head you have Rapha, Xhep, Kaplan, Jehar, Makaveli, Cooller, toxjq, dahang, Veea, Base, ins and more in the community. There's loads of old players in the community playing the game seriously.

New players though aren't much into it. The game doesn't really make you feel good about yourself like battle royales do or Overwatch does. It's like a fighting game in that way. It's a hard look at yourself, incremental improvement and any screw up gets punished. It's a wild ride man.

[Teratus]

I've never been a big shooter fan myself but to this day when the feeling kicks in I always, and I mean always.. boot up an oldie like Quake, Doom, Duke Nukem, Half Life, Timesplitters, Operation Flashpoint/ARMA or one of my personal favorites, Unreal Tournament, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark or Turok 2.

I don't know what it is about new shooters but they have next to no ability to grab my interest.
I feel like there's just no soul in them you know..

[ifnir]

I played Quake since the beginning and there is alot of old players returning, we have coollers, rapha and many more competitive player. I believe though that a lot of the old-school quake players either don't like Champion or simply don't have the time for it anymore.

And for new players, I think a lot of them have a hard time, because its more ruthless to new player, while other competitive games have a better rank system. There is just more to learn than
shooting headshot and know where to throw the smoke, before you're able to enjoy the game. Example the different types of rocket jumps, you can make, how to play slash and strafe jumping etc.

I think to help new players, we simply just need more gamemodes like clanwar and capture the flag, we also need bigger maps for those. Rapha recently made a How-to tutorial, which I feel should be featured in Quake Champion to help new players understand better how you can play quake.