"Quake Champions Is Dead" AKA The REAL Barrier to Entry (It’s Not What You Think) 

i don't see anything wrong with such post. it's not a complain. that's just an explanation "why" the majority of people can't play this game. why this particular person like many others couldn't. it's crystal and clear. and that doesn't mean the game is bad or something is wrong with such people or whatsoever. it's pointless to argue or blame people who tried to explain why they couldn't start playing quake. that's just a reality. people work hard at school, they work hard at work. they get home and want some rest, have fun playing some games. but quake is not about that. if you don't have quake skills already, you must work really hard. most people just have no time and a desire to work hard after getting home. that person just clearly explained why he did not stay in the game. people can see that the game is awesome, but they just can't dedicate themselves much into it to start really enjoying it. you can’t make the community growing just by saying "hey, you have to work hard". that's not going to work unfortunately. people need to know what kind of achievement they are going to get after a long hard work and commitment. and unfortunately, the achievement which quake gives is a hidden treasure. people can value it the most just after getting to the destination point. you can't find many people who would agree to work hard for the questionable outcome. especially by taking in the account that the word "hard" means by itself that the majority of people are not able to make it through. the statement - "hey, qpl players made the tutorials" is not solving the issue as well. the game doesn't give you these tutorials by itself. that's a point. many of people can’t even enforce themselves to “even google their question”. that’s not a blame. that’s just a reality. if you expected to see the answer in such post how to make quake community growing - that was not about it. as there is a statement "i don't know what the solution is". and that person wants to find a solution. the solution doesn't really exist yet. again... his point was not to blame but to express what kind of difficulties he faced with. to me personally - you have to learn too much at once. such small things like a "defrag mode" with the "in-game" tutorials and interesting levels would help with the entry a bit. then adding some weapons at certain stage to solve certain puzzles. just to make the entry process as "step-by-step" and entertaining instead of being painful and hard. but that's also not a solution as well. because people who want to try playing quake - they want to get them involved into the battles/action asap. defrag mode is not about the "battles" or "asap". also the problem that such kind of changes is a big $ investment move without a guaranteed outcome as well. and less likely someone is going to do anything about it.

Such a horrible take, that actually is part of the toxic community problem. You can become better at any game if you grind but not everyone has the environment to do so. And quake doesn't create the environment to learn properly. There are no good stats, no good tutorial and learning within the game. Everything is outside of the game and unless you specifically search for it you are going to be lost. Something like Apex is a good example. The "git gud" argument is a bad one. If you stick to it, you should be happy with the failure of the quake community to grow

It's a bit of a catch-22. When the playerbase is so small, and when most of that small playerbase has a decade-plus experience in Quake and its mechanics, it is *extremely* difficult for brand new players to have fun, let alone compete. Expecting someone to find fun in eating miles of shit for hundreds of hours is a bit unreasonable, no matter what generation you're from, nor whether you were raised on the CoD-style, immediate gratification gameplay model. I think the only way this can be fixed is with a massive influx of new players, so that matchmaking is actually able to function, and create games with players of similar skill levels. Is it possible for that to happen? No idea, but I don't think it's likely or even reasonable to expect it will happen for QC. Perhaps it would be possible in the event we get a brand new, high-quality Quake game, designed in-house by id, with a large and consistent marketing push.

I'm interested in this topic, but your weirdly emotional and bitter reaction isn't really getting us anywhere.

I was a pro cs player and I get clapped in Quake often. Fps skills arent always universal.

Great vid. As a newer player myself, I can say that Quake is brutal and the skill ceiling is ridiculously high. But hitting the perfect rocket into a railgun combo is one of the most satisfying things ever, so I'll keep playing, even though it can be infuriating to get wrecked sometimes.

i do agree with most of it as a player whose first quake was QC and whos been through the process of being stomped by veterans, but i do think in game tutorials like apex and overwatch will help a lot like an obstacle course which can only be cleared after learning basics of strafe jumping, circle jumping, turning while bhoping etc and a campaign will help a bunch too, even if its something like xonotic where you just play some games against bots, the thing is quake movement felt super awkward when i played the game initially, it cant be learnt intuitively by just playing more without having some knowledge so its important to give players some context of the quake movement as soon as they open the game for the first time, some hand holding is fine if in the end the game remains same, if there was in game tutorials tab which would feature some great tutorials like rapha's 1 hour long movement tutorial (maybe cut into parts) and etc would be even better, if game helps players to initiate learning process its only gonna have positive effects.

It's ok to be bad at something you are new at. That doesn't mean that an experience can't be set up better for people to learn this game, especially with how unforgiving it is. I also reject the claim that "modern gamers don't have the emotional strength to play Quake." There are tons of new players playing Apex or Rocket League, which are very unforgiving games. If you try to play Rocket League and are new to it, you will not be hitting fast aerials on high balls for months. In Apex, you will not know how to survive outside the ring, how to do your inventory, how to plan your rotations, how to know when you should/could push a team. But these games are playable for new players and the new players are retained. Why? Because the games have functional new player experiences that do not alienate them. It creates a reasonable learning curve. Quake does not do that particularly well. Unfortunately low population = hard to find even games for new players, so it's a chicken/egg situation. But that doesn't mean that Quake would be fine if it had a bigger pop. Quake would still have a pretty bad new player experience from the lack of explicit training. I again would point to the example of Rocket League and Apex. RL gives tons of training ability and Apex gives you other modes with low pressure to learn mechanics. Quake can have its gameplay and still be better to new players. These aren't mutually exclusive.

I started playing QC as a total greenhorn at early access launch. Had never even played an fps online before. Took a couple months to start holding my own a little bit against average players. Met some friendly dudes and joined their discord. Took another year or two to overcome my deficit and break a 1.0 k/d. Now I'm decent, not great, but pretty good, and QC's become my favorite game. Been gaming since the Atari 2600 days, and I don't think there's a single game I've put more time into, or gotten more enjoyment from.

You're certainly doing a great job at repelling new players with this attitude. Yes, the reddit poster shouldn't have been surprised at his performance in duels, of all modes. The fact remains that the playerbase has a huge gulf between veterans and newcomers needlessly lacking basic knowledge, which are constantly matched to each other because of the low playerbase count, a fact which the likes of you ensure will remain an issue in the future. Just don't complain about long queue times or that the game is hardly being developed anymore because of a lack of revenue - you have yourself to blame as well.

Personally i think the hero shooter stuff was a mistake. It split the fanbase yet again. Quake has suffered this a lot, because they change the formula too much imho. Quake 1 to Quake 2 had big movement changes, fambase split. Quake 3 mostly the same movement with less noticable changes, and with better balance, most moved to it, huge hit. Then we get CPMA, it adds some Q1 air control but keeps Q3 accel. Q1 and Q3 fanbases again have a split, smller though. Quake 4 adds a slide, fanbase splits. QL then comes out and all the Q3 and CPMA fans eventually land there, solid game, still kicking. Then QC. I think the idea of adding all movement styles to one game was brilliant. I think the hero shooter stuff, and having that movement bound to one skin, was a terrible idea. Instead of being the Quake to unite them all, it just split the fanbase, again. I just hope, that if they get another crack at it, they learn from this, and not bind movement to which character you play. And the next game needs a single player campaign too, many will buy the game just for that.

Every other Quake I played since I got hooked with the release of Quake 3 Arena was about deathmatch or team based clan arena, ctf, freeze tag etc... There was a lot more fun laughing with a team of friends or the chaos of a deathmatch than there is with... Dueling. Duels bring out the salt sweat and seriousness of competition and the fun for many goes poof. Quake champions does team play barely ok only being able to handle a simple 4v4. This is mostly a duelers game 1v1. If you want to have fun with Quake, start with any of the others first. I guess in my opinion QC brings out a different social behavior in players than the previous Quakes did. Duels are a bit easier to organize than an 8v8 but you lose the spicey booms of chaos that was Quake. Anyway I still try to make time to play this one until a new version replaces it but I may always jump in and out of Quake Live to experience the fun of Quake antics that you hardly see at all in salty serious QC. If you want to make a gaming name for yourself in Quake today, you don't have to worry about namechange imposters anymore which was a huge deal when winning started to matter in the orange smoothy days when cable internet was new. That actually had a huge influence in me choosing a not so serious name tag this time around. If you appear too awesome, people want to steal that awesome and run you off the road and it's just distracting and irritating. That kind of bad experience ruined online gaming for me so I quit from around 2006 until maybe 2012ish. Now that we have social media like YT, I decided I will make a channel and start with Quake so if I never make it to QuakeCon at least I can be seen as real on my channel and not some shadow troll imposter. I didn't expect to be awesome at Quake right away again but I remember some defrag tricks hehehe which QC can't handle! d8P To sum it all up Quake 3 Arena OSP/CA/CTF had team captains that took the time to show new recruits the tricks. Players had to show some determination and aptitude before qualifying in a try out. A good team leader is what really makes a pro. Anyone who just says get good is a glory hog that hasn't progressed beyond themselves yet. And finally my biggest gripe with QC is it's lagometer speaking sandskrit. Wtf do these little colored boxes on the top left mean? At least Quake 3 came with a brief description lmao Glad you are ok bud endlongrant

"earn the right to start winning games" is a crazy take. Other games as or even more competitive than quake (eg. starcraft, chess, street fighter) have proper ranked systems where even a beginner is probably going to win around half of their matches. The "problem" is the player base of quake is too small to allow this which is a vicious circle.

Interesting topic. I remember when I started online Quake during 2009 in QL I was getting massively stomped, but I still loved that, was playing a lot of FFA and was trying to master the movements. I am trying to understand what made me keep playing despite the stompings, surely the movements is for something, and also the amazing Quake vids I saw back then. I kept playing FFA and CA and introduced duels and still plays it to this day. I think you covered the topic well. As a diehard fan of Quake I still think we could have done better. There are things we could have done to retain a bigger player base : - a well made defrag game mode so ppl can chillout - there is very little in-game infos and not a single Quake Champions Wiki is up to date - well designed and actually helpfull tutorial levels - an option to have 100% abilities uptime to prac them - spawn location marks during warmup and or special prac modes - In-game map editor and publishing tool (like in Reflex/TrackMania etc.) - removal of the universal ammo boxes from team games - daily cups for every leagues Quake has unused potential: QC's maps are still extremely bare bone in terms of originality, it's still brushworks and teleporters. I remember the last official QL duel map released was called Elder (made by SyncError) and was played at the last QL's QCon duel championship (2016) and this map had a dynamic environment, you could raise ramps, lower some stairs, etc., all that just with simple triggers. QL's engine is limited, triggers can not move but can make another brush move so only simple stuff could be done (ie: a moving jump pad can not be done in QL). QC's maps are lacking in movement tricks, but more importantly on the variety of tricks. For example adding a simple slick surface just before a slope or under an obstacle can give VQ3 champs a crouch style slide on that spot (like on QL's Cold War map near the PU) the only limit with what can be done is the imagination. QC is missing a lot of stuff, liquid movement physics, slick surfaces, ladders etc. Oh and toggle zoom option is still missing. Quake is like that kid with so much potential but that runs away from school to become a crypto miner. :D tl;dr: Quake has potential! Sorry for the wall of text!

''no I'm not picking on this individual here'' *picks on the individual*

I agree with most of the video, however QC really does need better tutorials. New players shouldnt be required to watch hours of yt videos to understand the basics of the game, thats a ridiculous expectation.

I was a quake champions noob but the thought of being able to play the legendary franchise was stifled once I saw all the pay to play loot boxes and the player base was quite small... 😢

The entry barrier to this game is not having enough new players. The game would be fun for new players as well If the game had enough new players. They could play with players that have similar skill level, have fun and not feel humiliated all the time till they learn the game. As you know no one likes smurfs in their game/match and how demoralizing the experience can be. It feels the same when playing Quake Champions.

personally, I feel as though a part of the issue is also the players who already player the game often (like yourself). the tone especially. while playing, I have met several players who kicked my ass into the ground when playing for the first time, and their attitudes really wasn't that great. it really demotivated me, and at one point I stopped playing, until a friend roped me back in again. I expressed my frustrations to him, and he said stuff that motivated me. "oh don't worry, it just takes effort, you can improve" "your current rank can always change" etc etc. motivation, I feel, needs to be given to the new players. you also mentioned at one point how games, especially games like cod giving instant gratification. constantly giving the player rewards for doing things. I feel as though you've nailed it, but you act like quake champions doesn't do it as well. there is a satisfying kill sound for when you kill someone. for having a kill streak, getting multiple headshots. this is done for a reason. that instant gratification is what makes the monkey part of our brains go "oh, I did something good, I should do more of it!". quake champions is as guilty of that as call of duty, and I say it's for the best. when you get a kill and it goes "player eliminated" it's boring, but when you're on a streak, and it just keeps getting better "double kill" "quad kill" "headshot" "impressive". it is a beautiful thing to experience, and gives players a sense of progression. finally after that, you talked about people needing to continue to play the games, and how there are tutorials on how to play the game online, and go to the discords. I don't think that'll happen because the people who do that stuff are people who are already invested in the game, and new players, when discouraged, isn't going to do that. information needs to spelled out for us, because honestly, humans are dumb. I'm dumb. everyone's dumb to some extent. so how can we fix this. basic, and advanced tutorials can help. basic is how to move, shoot, jump, etc. the real basics. advanced should have stuff like b-hopping, rocket jumping, rail cannon flying (forgor what it's called) the stuff people won't do in other shooters. most importantly, make it optional. if a new player want's to figure stuff out on there own, they can skip it. if it is there first shooter, basics might be useful, if they have some shooter experience, but not in quake, advanced might be best for them. this would be a lot easier if they allowed community maps, and modding in quake CH, but they don't (which is extremely cringe). we could also probably act better to newer players, but that's assuming everyone will. even than, this might not be the best thing to do, as it could just be part of quake experience. you get dumpstered at first, and slowly improve and perfecting your skills. most importantly, I write this, not as a critique of your character, or ideas, just to bring my ideas forth, and in a way that can bring civil discussion. I agree with several things you say. especially the one where it's basically just "get gud" playing the game constantly and honing ones skills to become a great player. I also like the comment about how people need more emotional maturity. honestly I think most gamers need more emotional maturity. but by not making the game more accessible to new players, it'll keep new players away. I've already expressed what I think should be done in the paragraph before, as I think removing b-hopping, item placements, and adding weapon loadouts, and other things would make the game unlike quake. we should keep quake the way it is, just a better way to direct new players in the right direction. (please keep the comments civil, I don't want a warzone.) feel free to critique my ideas, I encourage it. by bringing new ideas, you are helping me understand more about the community, and about the game itself. (edited to revise some text that I felt improperly expressed my ideas)

I learned to play Quake back in Q3 days. I started playing against medium bots, by the end I was playing the hardest bots I could find, learned how to strafe jump from watching other videos on the internet. Then, and only then I began dueling other people, and sometimes I was destroyed by them.

As someone who used to compete in tournaments in Quake 3, I'll tell you right now, the barrier to entry for Quake Champions at this point is too high for the vast majority of gamers, thats why the game is on life support, because it can't bring in new blood... I got bored playing the same people over and over again and I couldn't get any of my friends into Quake Champions because they would just get frusterated and quit, then go back to Apex or Fortnite... I got tired of playing alone, and having to sink my life into quake to maintain my ability to play because it isn't like riding a bike, you step away from a quake game, you get rusty after only a couple of weeks and I just don't feel like no lifing anymore. Arena shooters are just... always going to have this problem, the skill floor and skill ceiling are too high and new players get alienated very quickly.

I pretty much agree with everything you said in the video... But I can add one more thing: If the game is too hard for you, make it easier by playing easier modes first (playing public TDM or playing vs. Bots of lower or medium skill) and once you can dominate easily in these modes you can step it up and play harder modes (1v1 ranked).

It's not a complete argument by any means. Difficulty curves are huge in incentivizing/disincentivizing activity choice. If you played basketball against college level players from the beginning you would be extraordinarily discouraged. And yeah - it's a game. It should feel good to play. It's recreation, bro.

I am an old veteran and I would not say that I am particularly good. The main problem that I see in new players is that most actually forgot or never learned to have fun playing. At that time we simply had unspeakable fun hopping around in the arena in the TDM or DM. We spent hundreds and thousands of hours in Quake without mainly thinking of ranked. Today everything is always a competition and the number of narcissists has also increased significantly. In addition, the frustration limit of today's generation is very low. Unfortunately, I can also observe that in my immediate environment.

Quake is actually one of the few games where there's tolerance against new players. Try being a new player and doing a PUG in CS, they will fucking kill you if you don't know everything about the game and all weapons and maps. In Quake, nobody will call anyone out for being a noob. They will get treated the same way as everyone - which is that they're gonna be targeted and shot at. And are more than welcome to return the favor.

Quake champions made a mistake to not add a bot arena to practise in like in quake3. Hell even quakeLive had a bot arena to practise in.

Dude with also about 6h ingame here, probably 10 years since last playing arena shooters. If this game could just hold stable 240 fps on 11gb 2080ti, i9 9900k and 32gb of ram on lowest settings @1080p, in goddamn 2023, that would be a nice start... And oh, letting us just play normal quake without any abilities and character differences ? Guess there's a reason why quake live is 10$ and champions is free. Those would be my main reasons for being on the fence to keep playing or not.

Now I want to preface this by saying, i’m not a diehard quake player or even really gamer anymore. I like the game and am okay(?) at it but i’m not competitive by any means. But this sort of response to new players being curb stomped by veterans is painfully reminiscent of the fighting game community around 10 years ago. I play super street fighter 2 turbo (ST for the rest of this) and it’s one of the most bullshit ass games you will ever play in your life. If you aren’t getting zoned for 99 seconds you are getting put in guess for game situations off of a single opening. But the reason this game is still played and is gaining more players is because the fighting game community has evolved. There are websites for everything you would need to know about these games and the community has made comprehensive training modes for these old games. When people complain they don’t just get told “git gud lmao” they get redirected to these resources and get taught counter-play by random people just sharing knowledge. This change in the way we treat new players has made fighting games more popular than ever. street fighter 6 has been a hit with both casuals and diehard players due to complex mechanics and tutorials teaching new players how to utilize these mechanics at a basic level. A game having zero in game tutorial and a community unwilling to help to players learn is a recipe for a dead game with no relevance to people outside of the core community and even players within the space are unwilling to learn the game. sound familiar?

A game should be easy to learn but hart to master and not hard to learn and hard to master. Period.

There’s also bots you can play against until you at least know the maps and item placement, and practice aiming and movement while your at it

Agree. I played lots of Q3A, but mostly on LAN with friends - and while considered myself quite good mechanically, when met players that actually played competitively online - was smashed hard most of the times. And while it wasn't much fun - I took it, and considered it to be fair. Quake is a deep game, one of the few games that makes cyber-sport actually comparable to sport. And to be good at it - you have to put the work. Once I was prepared to be owned, gritted my teeth and went it - I started winning here and there. One point I think is not emphasized enough in this video - is that Quake is one of the games that give you lots of TOOLS for expression and winning, and learning those tools requires time and dedication. Momentum, some gravity, specifics of movements, weapons - its all tools. You need to learn how to drive the car before you start drifting, you have to learn how to dribble before you start playing basketball. We all say that games gets dumb-er and shallow-er all the time ---- well, Quake is one that is NOT. To feel achievement you have to invest, and thats why we love this game.

Friendly reminder that some people have jobs, and playing a single game for 6 hours is actually a pretty good amount of time to be able to tell if you're into a game or not. You can refund games on steam at 2 hours. So he played 3 times as much as that, then stopped. Seems pretty reasonable to me honestly. Not saying he should be a great player after that time, just that 6 hours on a single game isn't a miniscule amount of time to most people with bills to pay. I see the points you're making but I feel like his point was avoided a bit. The issue isn't that he wasn't a god gamer after 6 hours, its just that the game is hard to get into and have fun with, compared to other games. Tf2 is a pretty rough game for new players but I absolutely had fun and felt like I was doing decent at times well before 6 hours. Quake is unfortunately filled with very unhelpful players that would rather ridicule new players than help them or acknowledge the issues. If one person had that view, you could dismiss it. But when tons of people hold the same belief, telling them to just git gud is pretty pathetic, and will only lead to less new players coming in.

This is why call of duty 4 did irreparable damage to the online fps. Systems that rewarded bad play, and giving careots on a stick to chase rather than organically improving skill. Although I do believe in game resources like a tutorial walking players through mechsbics they'll be expected to use would be nice. Ending with a practice match where the new player will be REQUIRED to finish at #1 in order to leave the match. A glossary with information detailing timers on weapons and pickups would be a nice addition to give a new player some idea of what they need to keep in mind. They then have to take this knowledge the game gives them and go into the furnace of online and struggle and improve. This way they'll have some inkling of how they're supposed to play.

To be blunt, speaking as someone who was playing Q3 and UT back in '99, and who currently plays UT99 nearly every weekend with a couple of younger people who didn't play it the first time around; the main barrier when it comes to Quake Champions? It's really not very good. UT99 is slick as hell, aged well, is immediately fun to play - I got two people who previously only ever played console games, and every time they play it, they're immediately having a blast. There's no way in hell, however, that I would ever be able to convince them to play Quake Champions. And yet, we've already played - and enjoyed - the Quake 1 and Quake 2 remasters in deathmatch. If UT or Quake 3 got Nightdive remasters, all slick and with Steam integration and so on, Quake Champions would be stone cold in a week. It's not the speed. It's not the actual difficulty. It's the sweaty tryhard vibe the game gives off, trying desperately to feast upon its own heritage, coupled with some major deviations from what actually made Quake 3 and UT the twin peaks of arena shooter fun. That, and the image problem it has - being a modern product of Bethesda rather than a true product of the old Id team, replete with microtransactions.

This is so true. I think my skill rank was more or less in the same area. But that didn't stop me from enjoying the game. The feeling of just winning is enough. I totally agree that modern gamers today have to many things holding their hands in FPS games, Calling out choppers and airstrikes, revealing player locations etc. This is why I love Area shooters, because there is none of that crap here. You want a power up go earn it and battle another player to claim it on the map its not going to just give it to you cause you got a few kills. I would suggest to any new player to get Quake 3 area and put the bots on the hardest difficulty so that you can get some minor sense of what playing Quake is like online. Its not accurate but it will help you with reaction and also numb the anger of being killed all the time. Practice is key for anything in life. Image we all just started walking and talking immediately when we were born. It just doesn't work that way with humans. As for tutorials there are so many resources to help online for any game not just quake so that shouldn't even be an issue these days. Maybe back in the 90's it would be a problem but not today. And that will be my 2 cents Sir :3

I don't agree at all Classic games like these all have a similar problem for the newer player, the small but dedicated playerbase. Of course the new player that has 6 hours is going to be stomped by the guy that lives and breathes this game. It doesn't matter on how simple or complex the game is, the more experienced player will always stomp no matter what. It is not fun to be continually destroyed by these players and most people don't want to walk through the hot coals that would let them reach the skill level that would give them the chance to even somewhat fight back. It also doesn't help on how hard it is to even find match. No one wants to wait 10 minutes in the que only to get a match that lasts like 5 minutes where most of it is spent watching the respawn timer. This would give anyone a feeling that they are wasting their time Look at dota and lol, extremely complex games that basically need a phd to play at least decently, but these games remain popular, why? It is because the player base is so large there are always going to be newer players to match with. yeah the game is complicated and they aren't going to know what is going on but they are going to be matched with opponents that also doesn't know what is going on thus creating balance. The solution isn't a better tutorial, single player or any amount of "hand holding". The real solution to this is to have a large playebase in the first place but unfortunately this isn't something that can come from an update.

Hey Odin, Thanks for the video. I started playing quake, 3 years ago, casually. I started playing with bots for a couple of weeks to get a sense of the game and then started duels. I am not interested in DM. My first ranking was 400 or so, and these days I am around 600. I was 1200-1500 the patch before that, but last patch got ranked 600. When I started, I just looked on RU-vid for tutorials and found QPL and been following every quake related content on RU-vid since then and enjoying it. But everyone is not like me. This person you talked about is probably not an arena player to begin with, otherwise you don't expect to start dueling and get wins. That's not the case in any arena shooter. I tried Apex sometime, Just got in a couple of games, got smashed and uninstalled it. It didn't catch my interest. I also play Overwatch from time to time. Its an easy game and a lot more forgiving. If you can move your mouse and hit some keys, you will get frags (quake players will do fine). But Overwatch also doesn't have a useful tutorial for advanced stuff. The difference between Overwatch, apex, and quake to me is the player base. I either get matched with 300 elos and smash them, or get matched with 1200s and get smashed these days (on ASPAC S). This is the result of low player count. If I want to get a good game, I have to know at which hour of day and day of the week I have the best chance and login at that time. Having said all of that, catching the player's interest is the game's job. It can be done with tutorials, advertisements, paying streamers to stream it, big prize tournaments and a million other ways which all of them cost money. Quake doesn't have the budget I guess. But we all love it and will continue playing it.

Thats what i love abouy this game, its raw, theres no hand holding, no teammates to rely on, just you.There will always be someone better than you in this game. Ive been playing since 2010 and i still get rolled, and heck my elo is sub 1000 still. I NEVER won a duel. But the best part is that i still have fun, and the stuff i learned from this game applied other shooters too, skills carried over. Theres something addicting about the limitless potential of getting better i miss from most modern games

I got into Quake with QL in 2016. I approached it with the same mentality as a fighting game. That being "Im going to get my ass kicked until I learn how to kick ass back" and now today I'm one of the people who new players complain about. I never understood the need to win in order to have fun. If the game mechanics are interesting, then learning them and feeling improvement is the fun. I realize this is not the normal mentality anymore.

As a modern gamer who started with Doom 2016 and fell in love with doom and quake, why not have tutorials for things like bunny hopping and rocket jumping? I agree that skill should be earned and not just handed to you like in say call of duty, but maybe new players will want to stick with it when they know HOW to get better. They'll have something to work towards and learn other than just "getting good". When someone plays a game for hours, never wins, and doesn't really know how to get better, why wouldn't they just switch to a game where they actually find enjoyment? Newcomers play games like doom eternal because it tells how to do better. Like it or not, games often need to include things like tutorials for player who have no idea what they're doing in order to be as successful. Players shouldnt have to youtube how to play correctly. That's just my two cents

preach my man! If you cant accept that no matter how much you play there will always be someone who can 20-0 you, this is the wrong game for you.

for me its a bigger problem that quake champions is not really cared about by the devs.

Your comment on Call of Duty instantly rewarding was really good! I personally am a RTS player. Starcraft, Command and Conqour, AOE2 etc. All strategy, and my friend group plays FPS. Call of Duty, Apex Legends etc. They can never come try out an RTS game with me.... very one sided friend group. But one of these friends found quake champions and showed it to me end of last year and thought I would like it because of the "strategy" involved. Granted I got absolutely stomped by my friend at first because FPS vs RTS basically time runouts on time limit duel everytime. But game after game I started doing better and better... not with FPS per say but my timing of items decision making and sorts and after really trying I can beat my friend because there's actually multiple aspects to the game that we both enjoy and now I am a firm enjoyer of quake champions. Rather than games were you get shot once and then respawn because I can't click first, but Quake isn't like that which I love but my friend who is use to that still gets shocked when I quickly slip away from a fight to get extra health which makes him rage a little XD.

It is the game's fault. Nobody has the patience to close the skill gap to a competent player who's been playing for more than a year. And that's because it has more mechanics that it needs, like individual ammo types and the fact armor exists. Bhopping requires tons of practice too and new players don't bother mastering it. All these things are what create the skill gap that incentivizes players from playing arena shooters like Quake and Diabotical.

This video reminded me of why i love Counter Strike - it's not about your player getting better with new guns or abilities, it's about YOU getting better, climbing the ranks & playing w/ and against better players b/c YOU have gotten better! Also, personally i've never really played any quake games but i love watching the pro scene and admire the sheer skill those players have. Really good vid!

Huge Quake 3 gamer here back in the 90s, went back last year to play Quake Champions and performed decently, won some lost some but I did well. I stopped playing QC because I couldn't handle the wait times to get into a game. 30 minutes to an hour just to play a game is tough lol. (Oceania btw)

This is just like titanfall 2, high skill ceiling issue lack of tutorials

03:58 - Completely faulty reasoning. I can get back to anything a dropped 5 years ago in 3 hours back to 70% of my capabilities. Anything skillbased. Maths, Logic, TF2, Work I did over and over way back when. Anybody can do it as far as I'm concerned. You can recall even a language you didn't practice for years just after being immersed in the env-nt for a couple of hours.

As a new player i put in the time into diabotical (may that game rest in peace) and started playing competently after around 50 hours. The duell games I played then were some of the most fun I've ever had in games. But I think we could decrese the barrier to entry using "Training Wheels" because learning all of duell is a lot at once. 1. start with holy trinity instead of starter weapon 2. show opponents stack at all times 3. show item timings at all times when once you hit a high enough elo you take those helps away ONE BY ONE that would motivate players to learn quake I think

Loved the video! Hope to see more Quake videos in the future. P.S. You should sell your Axe of Hel song! It's one of my favorite songs.

the funny thing for me is oddin is laying it softly on the dude, the reality is most gamers today lack the testicular fortitude to accept the fact they suck and need to improve. like all skills it takes time and the reward is being better than you where a month ago or in the case of the dedicated fans years, hell some have been playing arena fps games for about as long as fps games themselves came to be.

Barrier to Entry: A quantum computer

It is not about tutorials. It’s also not a “societal problem” or indicative of “emotionally immature” players. All myths. All those sentiments are equally wrong yet have a kernel of truth that is over exaggerated in each case. In the end, the total pool of Quake Champion players is too small and those who play have devoted a lot of time to it. That does deter people. I agree that Quake is too hard for modern players, especially initially as there is a tough learning curve. Many people are not willing to “work” at a game that hard or have the time to do so. Quake and Quake Champions are, in my opinion, brilliant games and among the best. I wish QC was more popular. I get what you’re saying but “get good” is not a helpful response.

Yo. Just found this video and I just want to say. I played Quake Champions for the first time without previous knowledge on movement and all the mechanics, played for a few weeks and getting my first and only two frags in PvP was worth it. Unfortunately, I can't play the game due to hardware limitations but that's no reason to stop learning the game. I am playing OG Quake my laptop can handle and learning the movements and fundamentals so that once I get a proper PC build, I wouldn't be totally in the dark when I start really getting into the game. Watching content of Quake Champions players, they share similar mindset that makes the grind worth it.

This is such an absurd argument. Players in general are good and they do want to practice, but they have better options to spend their time and effort in. I've been playing Quake since Quake 1 and I do love the franchise, but I can't tolerate your point of view. The user does not want to own, but to get any small amount of juice from this game to make it worth his time to practice. However there are other shooters (not arena) like Valorant or Fortnite competing for player attention and they will grab most of them because they are a vastly superior experience for entry-level players. It's not that this player does not want to put in the hours of practice, I think he would if he would consider it a worthy experience in the long run, however I bet he would rather practice a different game, one that gives back and one that is up to date in terms of available drills. If you check out the training options in Fortnite, you'll understand that Quake is still in the stone age. Just to add insult to injury, Duel is not the mode to start with if you're a noob or have taken a long break.

The barrier for entry is actually starting to close again for new players, I've noticed finding lower SR players in duel is getting more and more rare in NA. I'll tell you why you can't find beginners, its because a beginner who doesn't sink in many hours is on the game LESS than the players who have sunk in many accumulative hours. The best thing you can do as a beginner is either join a community of likewise players, absolute beginners, or broadcast to different things like discord, reddit, youtube, steam... your need to find players at your experience level. Even if you have played Quake for 30 years, if you play it very off and on or never sunk in too many hours, even a player with one to two years of solid experience probably can take you. I remember when I started playing Quake Live as a total Quake beginner, by playing and practicing every day for about 3-4 months... I gained over most players who played for 5-10 years except those who were doing the same thing as me, and the players who did the same thing as me who played for much longer were immensely further out of reach than any of the others. There are also resources to get you started, but perhaps not as many as there were in Quake Live and Quake 3 Arena. If you need to learn strafe jumping, I highly recommend getting Quake 3 Arena and installing Defrag mod. As you can find tutorials or go onto the Defrag discord and get help on setting up the strafe jumping hud for learning how to strafe jump like the rest of the players. 90% of learning a game, instrument or sport requires knowledge of a concept, you have to learn concepts to be able to perfect your form. These are like basics or fundamentals, and once you have a rudimentary understanding of them, the hobby becomes much more enjoyable and you proceed to find value in practice. So with Quake, you need to identify key concepts that would improve your basic skills: dodging, aiming, weapon selection... work on it in Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch until you're sure of how to play at that fundamental skill level. And once you can start getting frags, you can then start focusing on more arbitrary things like positioning, timing, defense and map awareness. For instance, in Quake Live I am 1800-1900 elo in Duel, and I have a pretty high winrate. I know most of the concepts for playing duel, concepts for most of the maps, spawns and weapon handling... positioning tactics also. So when I play Quake Live, I only have to work on improving the consistency. And so when I play Quake Champions, most of it transfers, except the conceptual differentials that only pertain to Quake Champions. There are many new maps and movement styles I am playing against, and it adds a massive spin on the way I am used to playing Quake, and anyone that would normally be on my skill level in Quake Live is significantly better at this game than I am and it would take a lot of time to catch up to them. And right now it seems like I am playing very difficult players, but if I sunk in time to learn the concepts of each maps, and champion picks... then it wouldn't be so difficult to match up with them. Everything has to click and fire off in your brain instantly in Quake since it is a game of time restraint in fights (you die fast), and its not easy to learn overnight, it takes a lot of time and effort.

Very well said and very insightful ! What a great video ! 🤩🤩👍 This should be required viewing for any new player that is struggling with "the challenge" because "the challenge" is the point ! Instant gratification can be fun for a while but real gratification and sense of achievment has to be earned...and it's sooooo worth the effort !

The moment the post talk about rank they already lost me, so what if you're on the bottom 5%, it's not like the whole playerbase are gonna laugh at you

10:02 Yes, laughing so hard but it's totally true. I'm the first to help anyone on the map if needed, and after quaking since Q3A in '99 but few people coming today and gone disappointed caused sometimes by those toxic veteran players but also the high level requested to stay alive.

Great music taste! Do you have playlist or something?

I mean I get where you're coming from, but the numbers speak for themselves in terms of low player counts. All multiplayer games are going to have people that are more experienced and/or better, this isn't unique to Quake. But unlike many of those other games, Quake can't attract and keep new players. That's a sign of something wrong. To be clear, I suck at FPS games and have still had some really fun times in Quake, so I'm not trying to say it's impossible. But it's really not set up in a way to encourage it. Probably part of the reason I had a good time with QC is that I was introduced by one of those long time vets, and so I at least knew to look up how to strafe jump and such. But I also played it when it was relatively new, so there were other players at my skill level. I think that's the point of the reddit post (and others like it) that you're missing. If I had come into QC without either of those two advantages it probably would have been a far worse experience. You're wondering why this person expects to be able to go against decades long series vets after only 6 hours, but I don't think that's what they're saying at all. They're wondering why if they are already at the very bottom rank they're still getting stomped so hard. Generally in a healthy game there will always be a steady trickle of new players. So if you are in the very bottom ranking, you would be playing against someone else that also only had 6 hours, and it would be a far more even match. If you're getting stomped at the bottom 1% or whatever, it implies there are no other beginners to play against, and that's the problem this user seems to be having. Like they said, they don't mind losing, they just don't want to feel like they have a 0% chance of even doing decently. You're right it's absurd to expect to win against decades long vets, but when time is finite and there's such a vast selection of games to choose from, I don't think it's absurd to expect that you won't have to slog through 100 hours of getting stomped before you get to actually enjoy a game. It makes me sad to see Quake have this problem. Like I said, I had a great time getting into QC. In fact I liked it more than other FPSes, the fast pace means that even as a new player that sucked I had epic moments like clinching a TDR round with a triple kill. And yes, I watched tutorials on RU-vid to learn about the game, and yes you are right the community has wonderful tutorials already. But if I hadn't had my Quake vet friend to give me advice, I might not have known to look at the tutorials. I'm not exactly in the habit of looking up how to move in video games. I think Id could have done a lot more with in game tutorials here, but with Id dropping the ball on that the community could also do more to proactively reach out to new players and let them know there's a whole hidden set of game mechanics they're missing. And to let them know to stay the hell away from duels for a bit. Any way sorry for the long post, but I genuinely want to see QC and arena shooters make a comeback, and for others to have the amount of fun I had learning it. And I don't think obsessively beating the "get gud" drum is going to make that happen.

I read old, big books. I drilled the ~2,200 Joyo Kanji into memory by writing them over and over. I'm trying to learn to play pipe organs. I've run saltwater aquariums and have grown corals for over a decade. I play Quake. I think it makes sense I like Quake. It's hard and satisfying.

At this point developers should just put text on loading screen that say "you are new to the game, you will eat shit, accept it or leave"

Very complicated topic for one side theres people playing Dark Souls just for the sake of difficulty and challenge, on the other side theres people that have no time for play so they want some easy to learn and fun to play experience so its impossible to satisfy everyone, in the end I found the Electric Underground, Ponstory youtube channels are pointing some of this issues from a new point of view, but personally speaking when I enter Quake Live people destroy me and even kick me for pub matches, just recently in Quake Champions im still bad but theres nobody kicking me match after match and I being getting better, right now im 750 rank and I can fight well good against 1600, 1300 I lost but every match im learning a bit more and more, any competitive game takes time, but for the most skilled fps game right now its expected to be unreal skillfull needed

From a casual's perspective, I just find FFA/DM/TDM/CTF too undersaturated these days. When I play a game like quake I just wanna chill and have a good time experimenting with the movement and weapon sandbox, not being a major sweat in a 1v1 where your barometer of fun/success is winning or losing. I just wanna haul ass and shoot fast and shoot the shit with a few randos on a server.

Those are some good points but hey if new players don't have fun with the game then it is what it is, they don't have or are meant to play quake they are free to choose the game they want. And I love quake but got to accept that people don't always like what you like. I still found your opinion very interesting and looking forward for more vids

the only barrier that keeps me playing quake champions is the lag because i live in the opposite contintent where the population is lol. at least i bought quake live because it's not straining as champions

I agree that players likely shy away from the skill gap nowadays but they also don't want to play different games from their friends and it's hard enough getting one person to stay. I disagree about players having to watch tutorials though. If you have to leave the game just to learn the basics then that is an issue. It's interesting, to say the least, that the devs still haven't added something even as simple as the training maps from QL. The game needs strafe, aim and item timing training challenges with medals and stuff for new players but there's nothing. The engine is just weird too. Aiming and shooting is fine, though the netcode is a little off but the collision model is broken and many maps have terrible clipping. It's just not precise enough and movement feels inconsistant. Anyway, I have hope AFPS games won't completely die out. We'll probably trundle along like we always have 😂

the problem with Quake is that as new, modern games were dumb down for ppl quake mechanic and gameplay still stayed the same. Be aware that Quake is the ultimate reality check how good are you with FPS games... it tests your movement, how good you are with hitscan flick weapons (railgun), hitscan tracking weapons (LG), weapons which shoot projectiles: slow, fast, with curved trajectories, close range weapons and at top of that you need to understand when and where to use a specific weapon.

Telling people to watch online guides is a bad advice. Telling people to learn to play the game by playing the game is a good advice... But the thing is we no longer live in late 90's early 00's. Back then there was much more inexperienced players to play with and learn the game gradually... I'd say naturally even. What we have now is old farts who learned to play in the past and had no problem playing like pros now. And that very old farts is the REAL reason why Quake Champions is dead.

I'd love to have the chapters and overview in the first 10 seconds. It's 11:00, and it seems the story is over, but there is 40% of video left.

I only partially agree. When I started playing Quake more it was 2010 (Quake Live), but not even on the first day I had an experience like the player mentioned in the video. First of all, I did not start playing duel, which is not a good idea, but with FFA. Then there were Tiers 1 - 4. And even the first games felt reasonable. I couldn't strafe jump or anything, but I nevertheless won a few of those FFA games the very first day because there were Tiers and other low skilled players around. And from FFA Tier 1 to Tier 4 and then to Clan Arena Tier 4 it was a gradual increase in difficulty and I never had that moment of utter desparation. Duel of course is more unforgiving. But FFA and later Team Deathmatch are a more enjoyable way to start, even if you don't win the game in the end. Unfortunately there are no Tiers or anything these days for FFA or TDM.

I'm completely new to quake as I have only been PC gaming for two years. Previously a life long console player, been playing Halo my entire life. I agree with the video. Growing up, I always thought Halo was a skilled shooter. Maybe it was for its time and maybe for being a console shooter, but I've realized that it's a fairly low skilled shooter. Keep in mind that I still love and play Halo. That doesn't keep me from recognizing the truth of the situation. Halo, especially the newer games, have catered to low skilled and new players to attract said players. It has failed at doing so, and now the game is too easy for long time players. This is precisely why, or at least in part, why I have taken an interested in Quake. Call of Duty, Halo, etc, are all easy shooters. Believe it or not, I do believe players want a game to be challenging. Take a look at the top games on Xbox/PC and you'll see fairly skilled shooters at the top of the list. Apex, OW, Fortnite, etc, are all skilled shooters by comparison to cod/halo. Call of duty is only successful because it is arguably the best casual game on the market. It's also a place where competitive players can come to relax only after playing their main competitive FPS. Call of duty has done that well. Quake is amazing. I played the 1v1 duel and barely got a single kill, but I loved it. The depth this game has is beautiful and I hope more players will continue to pay their dues and learn. It doesn't hold your hand like aim assist. This game is hard. I like it.

Quake does make you feel good. It Probably has the best kill satisfaction of any game. Also: name the top 10 FPS games out there… they’re all TEAM BASED. QCs team based modes are trash, They’re basically deathmatch and you pay them on duel maps.

i think that though it's true that arena shooters nm what will have a high barrier to entry, i think it's not all that productive to say there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Sure the format is old and you can't completely reshape the game, but simultaneously you shouldn't rule out the possibility of their being creative ways to help alleviate the issue of their being a small player count. If you look at tf2 and overwatch, games which have alot of similarities to high barrier entry games, you can clearly see they have huge playerbases. So i think there is definitely a demand for arena shooter gameplay. I don't personally know the solutions and i'm not all that knowledgeable about quake in particular beyond just a general understanding. But i honestly don't see a genuine reason why this is an impossible issue to solve.

I agree but i think its the journey to improvement which could be made more fun.

I'm terrible at Quake. I pop in and play it for a month or two then move on. I love the game, I would never blame the game or the community for my rough experience. I'm just not good enough and that's ok. I'll download it again soon.

There's no gratification from work when work is not required. It's not just Quake, or even video games. It's reward addiction.

Bro I got over 500hrs in quake Sometimes I'm ripping alot of times I get rest. But it's soo much fun no that I know the maps and the movements good. I love quake and hope to play it for many years to come.. Snake Fires

I play aoe2 and the reddit is insufferable because of casuals who want to change the game and reduce skill elements to make it easier for them. Instead of learning the game they will threaten the developers with getting bored and wanting to leave the game if they don't keep adding civs which clutter the game. Just lazyness and they have no shame going on reddit to ask things like "wow this game is so hard, how do I get better?" without apparently any cell in their brain which considers to use the search function or watch some guides.

My problem is the lack of servers for asia. I live in the Philippines and the ping is so high it sucks

The solution for this is as old as these games. We had the big head mod on Unreal Tournament so casuals would play with us. These simple tweaks go a long way in growing the community. The hero shooter genre unmodded is too harsh for casuals. It is the games fault if you run it that way and expected a big base of players

the thing is, he played for six hours and did not have fun. it is a game after all, people need to enjoy themselves. most adults can not justify the time required to succeed in quake champions.

I love quake, but hate quake champions, powers and characters that have more health or move faster or slower or have different game mechanis ruined the game. I duel it occasionally, but overall just feel like i was forcing myself to try to find fun in it. Diabotical was a new take on ModernFPS that had probably the most promise, but the deal with Epic kind of stiffled people coming over, and it didn't have the official qauke title.

i'm living in a country where i can't play qc. the connection is so bad i have to uninstall it

They added the Super Shotgun to CoD and for some reason I don't want to ADS while using it. It doesn't feel right ADS with a Super Shotgun. Then it hit me like a rocket to the face. ADS does nothing but slow down the game for no reason and CoD has made their guns so nerfed that it feels like am firing a nerf gun.

I really want to play quake but I don't find players when I search for some reason... but I really want to

Hey you are back!! I'll check out the video tonight

I still enjoy QC but really missing new maps. I personally think that QC missing a robust singleplayer campain to learn the game for noobs.

If I take five days off let alone five years I loose 6 games in a row

Frankly if they removed the hero abilities and stat differences between characters then it would feel moderately better But as it stands it’s an okay game because skill does determine the battles more Hopefully if there’s a Q3A remaster/remake they’ll keep it simple and be pure skill based

I'm sorry, but you completely missed the reasoning behind the post probably because you're not familiar with game design at all. I understand your opinion since I'm a hardcore player too, but I also understand that to get new hardcore players game needs to somehow be interesting to the casual for fun players. This is something that Quake is unable to do because it's not built into it by the game designers during the game development.

I agree with some points, however Counter Strike is no doubt the most complex shooter with the higest skill ceiling and has learnt how to remain relevant and insert modern aspects into the formula while keeping the sauce.

Elo of 3, how is that possible? I’m new so that sounds insanely low coming from chess and smash melee elo

I swear, if this video is literally just 10 minutes to say "get good" -

I haven't played Quake in 10 years. I started playing QC yesterday. First match 0 kills but by the 3rd match i got 8 kills. And I've been having fun honestly. It's sweaty...super sweaty but it's cool. I grew up with Quake so as someone who spend years on COD and APEX and others I'm glad to be playing something like this. Idk how good I'll get but it looks great, music slaps, controls are smooth, game play is fast and exciting. Idk what there isn't to like really.

i have like 700/800 hrs in the game (played mainly between 3 and 2 years ago) . Haven't played a single game for a year or so. The game is not beginner friendly... I mean most of todays fps games are so easy that you can be a real beginner and still have fun. There's no serious competition because the game themselves dont mean to be competitive. Games where you shoot while standing still or with endless randomic elements give at least once every 1 hour of gameplay the chance to kill someone or to win a game (maybe getting carried). A new user who is willing to go ahead and take the arena fps route has to be really patient and focus on having fun WHILE learning. If you are not willing to do so, dont even start in the frist place.

I agreed with the video, but I'd still like to have a quake live alike tutorial/training section in the game

You, sir, understand Quake and the current gaming scenario, meaning gamers nowadays just wanna win or have some gimmick inside the games that allow them to get at least some free frags. I played Quake 3 for years back in the 2000's. Currently a Doom 2016 multiplayer player on Ps4. I'm top 10% there. Been diving now into the remaster of Quake 2 since it's on Ps4 and similar to Quake 3 mechanics. I was also a Defrag player in Quake 3 and I know how much time it took me to be good. I'm getting my ass kicked in Quake 2. With all the lava in the maps, I fell many times in the first matches. Still fall a lot, but less and less with time. I know it takes time. I don't care if I finish a match with -1 frags. That's Quake. It's hard. It's your own responsibility. Put in the time, learn the maps, understand the pace of the game, manage your resources and the map resources and try to make no mistakes. And to master that, you're gonna have your ass kicked 1 million times. And learn from every mistakes. No, modern games will never be Quake players and yes, quake players are the best players. Amazing video. For more rants on how Quake is amazing and meritocratic and how people just wanna feel like they are good.

You have to feel it, get into the flow. And that needs time. And you arr right we need more new players...