I'll copy paste what I wrote on beth/qc forum:
Hello!
So, as long time fan of Quake series, here are my thoughts on why QC failed and why almost no one plays it compared to other games. I know some of you guys wont agree with me, but we all have right on our own opinion.
1) adding champions to fps arena game was a bad idea - SyncError was under impression (and maybe still is) that this will work, so he presented it to his bosses as a great idea as moba games and overwatch (which is childrens fps game with extremely big budget and dev team behind it) have champions/heroes and those game are popular at the moment and they thought it will work. Than, after an release of the game, in totally unprepared alpha state, they presented champions to the audience, everyone was shocked, players played few matches and people started to abandon the game, why? Because champions idea doesnt work in Quake setting. Makes game random, inconsistent, too easy to avoid fights and earn cheap, no satisfaction, no skill frags for players and audience. Yes, it added something new to Quake, but it didnt work - current number of amateur players says that...and I dont want to talk about pros who practically dont play this game anymore unless there is some money involved, which means...game sucks, they will only play it to earn money, abandon it and than come back again when there will be another tournament with money prizes. But, remember good times when pros played Q3 and QL all the time even if there were no tournaments with big money around. What does that mean? It means everyone enjoy and played the best fps game ever = Q3/QL in which there were no champions, everyone had equal opportunity, it all came down to talent and skill of the player, there were no champions which will give you advantage of getting cheap frag or running away at 5000 mph speeds...or getting invisible every 25 sec or so hahah. It will be impossible to balance champions properly and it will be even above impossible to do it right when they add more champions, which will only increase variable for error which will lead to total player frustration. Champions are only frustrating players and playerbase, deal with it. This is the core problem of the game.
2) hiring a development team with no talent and skill - so, id/Beth gave an chance to some no name dev team to work on game with almost no budget invested in it, bad combo. Why they didnt had a proper budget for it? Because some big manager noticed or had a hunch that this game wont work. And what did players get? An total mess of a code, game lagged in every possible way, be it graphics, net code, game balance, various bugs (QuakeCon 17 winner exploited wonderful LG bug in each match to earn some nice cash, that never happened in any game tournament before, so sad...), glitches, bad sound engine, no proper matchmaking, etc etc. Than we come to slow development, it was extremely slow in the beginning and now its almost nonexistent. No new content, no new maps, no proper anticheat, no new classic mods, nothing. Even when new patch arrives, it fixes 1 thing but destroys 15000 other things. No further comment on this.
3) round based duel - would love to meet this person who came up with this idea and try to understand what was in his head when he/she came up with this idea. This soooo doesnt work properly, he/she turned an action packed classic Quake duel which was filled with adrenaline and blood rush till last second to an impotent weak little mod that favors hiding and not confronting an enemy at all...its boring, useless, not practical, totally antiQuake ideology.
4) forcing an crap mod as a main mod for the game (Sacrifice) - this game mod is definitely one of the worst I have seen in my life, terrible to play and even worse to watch. Again, bad execution and bad idea, totally not fun - add champions to it and your have big pile of mess. Proof - pros only played it because of money, no one plays it anymore. Cant understand how could someone think this will be better than freeze tag or capture the flag?
5) sound engine - how can someone use this low quality type of sound engine in a game where using sound queues as a main tool for fighting and positioning is one of the most important things? Current sound engine is so bad that its almost impossible to pin point from where does enemy come from and from where someone shots at you. Those two components are one of the most necessary ones for an arena fps game, but they are not there. Even Q3/QL with its ancient sound engine fulfills those two components better.
6) adding loot and packs - only little children are interested in that type of stuff! If they focused more on proper development instead of adding such stupid ideas to game, we might have been somewhere with it at this moment, but no...they had to add loot and packs to this game to make interesting...not...
7) no community dev tools - what made Q3/QL also great was an ability for community to make maps for it, there is bunch of talented guys out there who could do wonders...but id/beth/sabre decided its better for Quakes future not to add that option and use closed source Maya tools to make maps for the game. Great move, respect!
8) no CTF/InstaGib/FT - they decided not to add those 3 most played mods in history of arena fps games to QC because they thought Sacrifice is better. Well done!
9) no anti cheat sw - cheaters infested QC 2 days after its release...says enough...
10) devs not listening to community - I believe this is self explanatory...why would they listen to community? why? No comment...
You guys can agree or disagree with me, but this is my opinion on QC. This game will never be famous and good as Q3/QL was. QC is total miss and nothing will save it. It will never gain more than 400-500 concurrent players in next few years and the reasons why are above.
QC should have been and QL HD - ultra cool graphics (new id tech engine), same movement engine, no champions, a bit improved sound engine, new maps, new content, classic mods (classic duel, tdm, ctf, instagib, ft), anticheat sw, ladder - leagues, proper matchmaking, community tools, some tutorials...and game would have thrived with old school players and newcomers.
These are sad days for Quake community. We have been waiting on proper new Quake game for ages...and what did we get? An robot which flies around map, skinny girl which goes invisible whenever there is a reason to fight, a drug addict which gives himself an shot, a skate girl which leaves disco trails, lizard which is sick and spits bacteria around???? This is not Quake!!!
Peace
Hello!
So, as long time fan of Quake series, here are my thoughts on why QC failed and why almost no one plays it compared to other games. I know some of you guys wont agree with me, but we all have right on our own opinion.
1) adding champions to fps arena game was a bad idea - SyncError was under impression (and maybe still is) that this will work, so he presented it to his bosses as a great idea as moba games and overwatch (which is childrens fps game with extremely big budget and dev team behind it) have champions/heroes and those game are popular at the moment and they thought it will work. Than, after an release of the game, in totally unprepared alpha state, they presented champions to the audience, everyone was shocked, players played few matches and people started to abandon the game, why? Because champions idea doesnt work in Quake setting. Makes game random, inconsistent, too easy to avoid fights and earn cheap, no satisfaction, no skill frags for players and audience. Yes, it added something new to Quake, but it didnt work - current number of amateur players says that...and I dont want to talk about pros who practically dont play this game anymore unless there is some money involved, which means...game sucks, they will only play it to earn money, abandon it and than come back again when there will be another tournament with money prizes. But, remember good times when pros played Q3 and QL all the time even if there were no tournaments with big money around. What does that mean? It means everyone enjoy and played the best fps game ever = Q3/QL in which there were no champions, everyone had equal opportunity, it all came down to talent and skill of the player, there were no champions which will give you advantage of getting cheap frag or running away at 5000 mph speeds...or getting invisible every 25 sec or so hahah. It will be impossible to balance champions properly and it will be even above impossible to do it right when they add more champions, which will only increase variable for error which will lead to total player frustration. Champions are only frustrating players and playerbase, deal with it. This is the core problem of the game.
2) hiring a development team with no talent and skill - so, id/Beth gave an chance to some no name dev team to work on game with almost no budget invested in it, bad combo. Why they didnt had a proper budget for it? Because some big manager noticed or had a hunch that this game wont work. And what did players get? An total mess of a code, game lagged in every possible way, be it graphics, net code, game balance, various bugs (QuakeCon 17 winner exploited wonderful LG bug in each match to earn some nice cash, that never happened in any game tournament before, so sad...), glitches, bad sound engine, no proper matchmaking, etc etc. Than we come to slow development, it was extremely slow in the beginning and now its almost nonexistent. No new content, no new maps, no proper anticheat, no new classic mods, nothing. Even when new patch arrives, it fixes 1 thing but destroys 15000 other things. No further comment on this.
3) round based duel - would love to meet this person who came up with this idea and try to understand what was in his head when he/she came up with this idea. This soooo doesnt work properly, he/she turned an action packed classic Quake duel which was filled with adrenaline and blood rush till last second to an impotent weak little mod that favors hiding and not confronting an enemy at all...its boring, useless, not practical, totally antiQuake ideology.
4) forcing an crap mod as a main mod for the game (Sacrifice) - this game mod is definitely one of the worst I have seen in my life, terrible to play and even worse to watch. Again, bad execution and bad idea, totally not fun - add champions to it and your have big pile of mess. Proof - pros only played it because of money, no one plays it anymore. Cant understand how could someone think this will be better than freeze tag or capture the flag?
5) sound engine - how can someone use this low quality type of sound engine in a game where using sound queues as a main tool for fighting and positioning is one of the most important things? Current sound engine is so bad that its almost impossible to pin point from where does enemy come from and from where someone shots at you. Those two components are one of the most necessary ones for an arena fps game, but they are not there. Even Q3/QL with its ancient sound engine fulfills those two components better.
6) adding loot and packs - only little children are interested in that type of stuff! If they focused more on proper development instead of adding such stupid ideas to game, we might have been somewhere with it at this moment, but no...they had to add loot and packs to this game to make interesting...not...
7) no community dev tools - what made Q3/QL also great was an ability for community to make maps for it, there is bunch of talented guys out there who could do wonders...but id/beth/sabre decided its better for Quakes future not to add that option and use closed source Maya tools to make maps for the game. Great move, respect!
8) no CTF/InstaGib/FT - they decided not to add those 3 most played mods in history of arena fps games to QC because they thought Sacrifice is better. Well done!
9) no anti cheat sw - cheaters infested QC 2 days after its release...says enough...
10) devs not listening to community - I believe this is self explanatory...why would they listen to community? why? No comment...
You guys can agree or disagree with me, but this is my opinion on QC. This game will never be famous and good as Q3/QL was. QC is total miss and nothing will save it. It will never gain more than 400-500 concurrent players in next few years and the reasons why are above.
QC should have been and QL HD - ultra cool graphics (new id tech engine), same movement engine, no champions, a bit improved sound engine, new maps, new content, classic mods (classic duel, tdm, ctf, instagib, ft), anticheat sw, ladder - leagues, proper matchmaking, community tools, some tutorials...and game would have thrived with old school players and newcomers.
These are sad days for Quake community. We have been waiting on proper new Quake game for ages...and what did we get? An robot which flies around map, skinny girl which goes invisible whenever there is a reason to fight, a drug addict which gives himself an shot, a skate girl which leaves disco trails, lizard which is sick and spits bacteria around???? This is not Quake!!!
Peace
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