Well, if by “nearly everything” you mean you get access to only the Ranger character permanently, then yes.
Everybody wants to be an “e-sport” now.
Anarki
Actual Gameplay Video of Quake Champions
Awesome, constant jumping is still a thing. Time and money saved.
I’m in the beta. It’s fun!
I tried to get it working yesterday and today. I finally went through all the hoops, but I still can’t connect to a server. Maybe they ended the thing early and I’m too late in trying to connect?
Yes, I think it was opened during the weekend only. In other words, it’s still in the early phase where the beta is only open in specific time windows.
I have three keys btw, Who wants one.
Beta is open again.
I’m surprised with how good it is. It combines the super solid arena gameplay and good level design of Quake 3 with just the right amount of character differentiation. It isn’t like Battleborn or Overwatch with very different characters, and of course the weapons are the same (taken from the arena, as a normal Quake game), but the small differences are enough twist for this type of game.
Every character has their own combination of health/max armor/speed, a passive effect that usually is related to movement (Ranger can rocket jump more because he has a 20% self damage reduction, Anarki has more air control, Visor can strafe jump, Nyx can wall jump, etc) and a single active ability, with a longish (30 secs) cooldown, like acid spit or ghost walk or a front shield).
Some people worry because the possible effect on balance, but modern games just take the stats of all the players, and they can easily discriminate by time played, skill, and a bunch of factors, in other words if they are proactive it isn’t hard to have a fairly balanced game.
I’m of two minds on this. It’s very slickly produced and everything seems well done with regards to concept. It’s Quake movement and engagement with significant but not spammy character differences. Even with special powers firing off all over the place, it still feels very much like a Quake game. Achievement unlocked!
That said, I don’t know how successful this will be precisely because it still feels like a Quake game. Movement is very fast and fluid, and the gun combat is reflex-based and twitchy. That’s all very Quake, but it’s also a really steep and brutal skill curve which has a tendency to put off casuals.
One of the appeals of Overwatch or Call of Duty to casuals is that even if you’re a sup-par player, you can get kills and feel “epic” or whatever the marketing says you should feel. A great player will absolutely dominate, but bad players can still get that “booyah” just based on the group engagements and relatively slower speed of the game.
In contrast, Quake Champions will immediately separate casuals from the hardcore and the pace is relentless. I know people will say this kind of thing can be solved with good matchmaking, but I feel the skill differential is so vast that it’s going to quickly become a game of Quakemasters versus bullet fodder. If anyone played Quake Live when it went from its own thing to appearing on Steam, the aftermath was almost comic.
Yeah, I’m not sure how successful will be the game in the market, the skill ceiling is high, objective based game is the norm, and it doesn’t use the trick of having a pair of ‘easy’ characters (say healer) that still can help their team even if they suck aiming.
I’d have to look it up, but I believe that they’ve opened the beta a bit more for a longer stress testing period this week. So if you were curious to play now you have better odds of getting in.
I don’t think I’m allowed to really discuss it in detail yet, but I do like how it plays and hope it does well. Having a well populated arena shooter that isn’t a decade old to play when the mood strikes would be just dandy in my book.
Edit- Found it. https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/9/15593044/quake-champions-open-beta-dates-large-scale-tech-test-id-software-bethesda-pc
Played some more over the weekend. Still a little fudgey sometimes with the servers/net code, but when it works it’s a blast.
Also had fun watching some Quake pros showing up streaming and being awesome. So fun watching them and their amazing rock solid movement and map control.
Great stuff.
Duel Mode trailer:
I played this last night.
The Good: Very fast, relentless movement (I played some other shooters after and felt like I was moving through molasses…it was a hard adjustment to slow down). The guns feel great and achieving a frag does really feel like an earned, skill-based event.
Neutral: High skill ceiling. I am a very weak player and was struggling with some unbalanced matches. The skill difference between players can be surprising and alarming. That said, I stuck with it for several matches and slowly some of the elements started to click and I felt myself gradually improving over the evening’s session. I felt a strong sense of reward over the course of 6-7 games. It felt so nice to have some skilled and well executed moments after residing at the bottom of the leaderboards. Some people will be ok with this but it will put a lot of players off…especially the countless millions accustomed to Overwatch’s warm embrace.
The Ugly: They infected Quake with Loot Crate nonsense and Champions that you need to “rent” with in-game currency or purchase with real-world money. That just feels gross and doesn’t make sense, but I guess that is our hobby now.
Oh, and I wish there were bots available to practice with.
Loot crates nonsense is nonsesnse but it’s pure cosmetics so whatever.
About the f2p model, you also can buy the full game, they will have an option for that, pay $60 and have everything.
Oh that is nice to hear. I haven’t been following the development or discussion of this closely so I thought this was going to be a pure F2P game. I am glad there is a traditional purchase option.
Edit: Also I am am idiot. If I had scrolled up in this thread I would’ve seen the link! :-)
Well my somewhat positive remarks earlier are somewhat tempered now. The matchmaking needs work. Just played a game. I was level 1; paired with level 2 and a level 3 players. So we were a team of 3 randoms just starting in the game. We were matched against 4 players all level 15 or higher. The match was basically spawn and die in 3 seconds. If Bethesda doesn’t fix the matchmaking this game will be lost to a diminishing hardcore population. Yikes.
I’m not even sure if there is any matchmaking implementation in the beta, but I don’t think there is.
They have said they plan to have it when it releases.
I would say then it’s worrying they are not giving it the needed priority. It’s a 100% online game, ideally the matchmaking system should have been a priority from the start, not something cobbled together in the last months before release.