Why is the Quake franchise and arena shooters as a whole so fucking dead?

>Quake games are old

Both CS 1.6 and Source have more concurrent players than all arena shooters combined despite being old, having a well received successor and a new one on its way.

>The genre is old and dead

SC II is still pulling healthy ~30k daily players.

Whats going on? Is strafe jumping too much of a barrier for zoomers to overcome?

  1. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    CS
    >Team game so you can blame someone for losing
    >Random element to spray patterns so you can blame luck for your aim
    >Movement de-emphasized or outright nerfed
    >"Strategy" element to help longtime players who still can't aim
    >Loadouts instead of map control
    >3 viable routes through map so you peek the same corners every round
    >Fucking 15 rounds so once in a hundred steamrolls you can have an epic comeback
    CS is like the little sibling that insisted upon playing banker in Monopoly, then starts adding their own rules

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Is this the reason my non-MP ass had a 14.0 K/D ratio when Doom 2016 released? Was all of my opposition just CSfags who don't know how arena combat works? That game even had loadouts. Though it had map control around superweapon spawns

  2. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    High skill ceiling, and full of boomers who have been mastering it for 20 years.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Yeeah the ceiling and skill gap enfrocement is pretty absurd by modern gaming standards but I still dont see how it justified the absolute total DEATH arena shooter are experiencing.

      I dont think there is a single one breaking 1k concurrent currently.

  3. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    From about 1996 to about 2002, arena shooters was pretty much it for FPS games, with the exception of Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six, and those games were extremely popular because they offered something different from the usual flavor of arena shooters. Speaking of "usual flavor" when you've played one arena shooter, you pretty much played them all, that's why most people associate Quake and Unreal with the genre because that's what people were playing the most. Not only that, those games are the standard for the genre and any deviation is met with extreme criticism from people that had no real interest in a new arena shooter to begin with because they'd rather keep their skills with Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Both of those games I might add, nobody really plays anymore. I can't imagine why.
    >Zoomers
    I'm 35, I was playing Quake 2 in 1998 when I was 10 years old, and I don't play arena shooters anymore. I'd much rather get a rank up, experience points, new skin, or whatever with my efforts in different games, then just "yay I won" with arena shooters. Arena shooters COULD add shit like that in their games, but again
    >any deviation is met with extreme criticism
    so they won't.
    Arena shooters are dead. They have no audience, no player base, it's just a bunch of 40 something year olds talking about muh arena shooders bagg in da dey and then they play CSGO like the rest of us.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >I'd much rather get a rank up, experience points, new skin, or whatever with my efforts in different games, then just "yay I won" with arena shooters.
      >I want unlocks and to watch a progress bar fill in
      >As a black man, I mean 35 year old
      Sure, zoom

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >They have no audience, no player base, it's just a bunch of 40 something year olds talking about muh arena shooders bagg in da dey and then they play CSGO like the rest of us.
      I don't touch CS even with a stick. Played it a bit when I was a teen and that's it.
      Apex Legends was sorta fun for a while but now it's more like Valorant.
      I wouldn't mind a proper arena shooter but I'm bad so if it's only played by a 100 people total who have been playing it for the last 20 years, I won't even bother.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      I am 24. I played Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004 when I was 6 my dude. Quake 3 came out the year I was born and I by far consider it the best FPS game of all time. I do not care a single bit about stupid skins, achievements, rank ups or any other soulless ribbons. I want to flick you with my rail gun going 200 km/h and see the "X killed Y" text at the top-centre of my screen. Not many things in life make me feel as good as getting nice frags in Quake 3. You are what's wrong with the industry.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      QPL is still alive and well so I would say they are far from "dead".

  4. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Tears of the False God has ruined an entire generation of retro FPS games.
    because none of them will ever compare.

  5. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Straight death match is boring.

    There's more interesting game modes.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Not really

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      There is still CTF and duels make for an amazing esport.

  6. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Literally because nobody is even trying.to do it.
    >Epic abandons the Unreal franchise entirely
    >QC was outsourced and obviously a very low priority project
    >indietards keep making endless Quake 3 clones with slight variations
    When was the last time that someone made a new arena FPS with actual dedication and did a big marketing push?

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >When was the last time that someone made a new arena FPS with actual dedication and did a big marketing push?
      wasn't Lawbreakers pretty much this? Or close enough to it?

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Lawbreakers isn't an arena shooter, it's an objective-based hero shooter.

  7. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Quake Champions official pro league still makes a ton of money, and this year there were actually a bunch of newcomers to the scene that have made a big difference. We actually have people playing Clutch and Scalebearer in pro matches and players that are actually good with them. Of course Rapha still fucking won in the end, he does nothing but play Quake but it was nice to see new blood enter the arena.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      I WANT TO CRASH INTO CRASH

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Did you happen to catch this year's championship? I saw it live. It was really fun.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Lucky bastid. I saw most of it through youtube after the fact but it was still exciting none the less. I really wanted Raisy to win, even though he doesnt practice as much as he should imo he deserved it. But Rapha has extreme autism so it doesn't surprise me that he walked away with yet another championship belt.

        I WANT TO CRASH INTO CRASH

        Me too... me too.

  8. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    arena shooters were boring as fuck in the early 2000s and they're boring as fuck now

  9. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Splatoon is pretty much just an arena shooter with a turfing gimmick and it's quite popular. The movement tech is pretty deep, too.

    Quake / UT style arenas are dead because map control is hard to visualize and hitscam spawncamps suck hard on the receiving end. n00bs don't stick around if they get roflstomped every match, so the communities gentrified and the genre dried up with them.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >the best game is on a Nintendo system

      Man, arena shooters really are dead

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      hitscan camps don't happen on quake by the game spawning you on the other side of the map.
      the reason most people believe they exist is thanks to duels thanks to the other player being op as shit by the armor and the mega that they steamroll the other player (this is an issue with duel only, which is the reason duel becoming the main arena fps mode instead of other one has became the bane of arena shooters), map control is just running to the armor and the health by most maps having enough time to get to those areas, and this is in duel only as well by removing the nuance of picking powers and getting onto them on the best moments instead of immediately (see the duel point above).

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        this is on unreal as well.
        on the other side of the map where the killer isn't there i forgot to add.

  10. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Because there's not much depth and the gameplay gets really old quick.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous
  11. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    People love the illusion of progress, of feeling like they're becoming better at something without putting any real effort in it, and modern shooters know how to sell this by anchoring success on map knowledge and learned protocols rather than motor skills. You can't pull the same thing with arena shooters.

  12. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >Whats going on? Is strafe jumping too much of a barrier for zoomers to overcome?

    Let me shitpost, but I'm also totally serious:
    A perfecty balanced game will fail because it's not very exciting and also the better player will always come on top.
    Classic arena shooters are pure skill, if you know the map better and you move/aim better you will always win.
    So my potential solution is the Mario kart route, add some equalizer like blue shell or something like the classic X factor/ultra bar.
    But let's do more, 1v1 sucks because you can only blame yourself, so go party mode like a 5v5
    But some ppl don't wanna just shoot in a shooter (I know), so add some secondary objectives on the map

  13. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >zoomers
    Dunno if you've noticed, but none of you play it either. MP arena shooters are just not as fun.

  14. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    It's impossible to play arena shooters casually. You pretty much have to be sweaty the whole time, even in casual modes, or you get no results. Fighting games are the same way, but they need way less of a player base to be sustainable.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >It's impossible to play arena shooters casually. You pretty much have to be sweaty the whole time.
      Its this plus the 20 yearlong-playtime boomers who will destroy any younger player with absolute ease.
      And I say this as the 20 yearlong-playtime boomer who got bored of playing against the same people and the same noobs and gave up on the genre.
      I only play ratz instagib nowadays. It's not what I would wish to be the ideal but it is a fun time waster.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        That's why arena shooter need to deviate more from the formula, to push everyone back to square one instead of allowing too much carryover

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >That's why arena shooter need to deviate more from the formula
          I fully agree. I just can't think of what would be the ideal ~~*formula*~~. Most of what could have been done to it was already done in stuff like Team Fortress 2.

          Unless some big studio with big word-of-mouth power and big money came up and made something new, but the only ones I think are capable of such would be stuff like Valve (which already have TF2 and CS[2]), Epic (which doesnt count because it killed UT4) or Riot Games (which doesnt count either because they have Valorant).

          One game that came out which I thought was genius in it's implementation of the "arena" style was Splitgate. Mixing arena-shooters and Portal seemed so obvious it is incredible to me it took so long for someone to realize it. It's a shame that the game is also kinda dead.

          I just wish games where cheaper to make and maintain and that arena fans would just stop complaining about there not being a new Quake 3 Arena and just start playing the options available.

          I am tired of Q3A clones with slightly different maps, guns and designs. I just want fast-paced, projectile-based, shooters with skillful movement, map control, cool announcers and fun maps.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        That's why arena shooter need to deviate more from the formula, to push everyone back to square one instead of allowing too much carryover

        The thing is that movement is the main thing that separates arena fps from modern fps, but movement is the main thing that gatekeeps new players. How do we streamline movement without making new players go 0-20 every match for 100 hours?

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >How do we streamline movement without making new players go 0-20 every match for 100 hours?
          We kinda already did on Quake Live with autohop (holding +jump instead of timing the jumps manually). My brother who never played Quake in his life took about 30 minutes to learn basic strafe-jumping in Quake Live.

          Although aside from that I don't know what could be changed apart from removing it completely. UT kinda had a good idea of ditching bhopping and such and just adding a double-tap to dash/dodge, but that isn't as effective as the movement in Quake.

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Simple, you add gimmicks that make the game more dynamic, like titanfall 2 with it's class perks and giant mechs

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      this isnt true at all

      this whole idea that theyre so impossibly hard is meaningless CS is far harder to get into vs vets

      its just that there is no player pool so new people cant play vs new people...has nothing to do with "Sweatiness" the argument doesnt make sense

      if they could play against each other it wouldnt be sweaty now would it...use your brain

  15. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    if classic afps was good people would still be playing it lol

  16. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Quake was logically a step forward from 2d shooters, a single player 3d doom you might say, with more fleshed out deathmatch, which was the reason for the big surge of popularity for arena shooter trend in the late 90's and first half of 00's. If Id wants to revitalise the genre, they need to make a masterpiece of an FPS campaign, which could teach new players in safe environment about game mechanics and movement, but it's probably impossible to make such game today, as single player FPS as a genre has been dead for many years, mainly because of esports and CoD popularity

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >they need to make a masterpiece of an FPS campaign, which could teach new players in safe environment about game mechanics and movement, but it's probably impossible to make such game today, as single player FPS as a genre has been dead for many years, mainly because of esports and CoD popularity
      Isn't that basically what they did with DOOM 2016 and Eternal?

      I think Id should make Quake into the de-facto multiplayer version of DOOM and market it as that. DOOM Eternal already plays a lot like Quake did minus the strafejumping, so they might as well join the two together.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        I'm wondering though, if doom 16 and eternal already paved the way for a new quake, why the fuck we still haven't heard about anything what's Id cooking? By now they could've at least announced something, what takes them so long this time?

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >what takes them so long this time?
          I think they are afraind of pissing the ~~*Quake fanbase*~~ or something. I dont know if you also recall it but Quake Champions had a lot of backlash from the ~~*community*~~ and had a much weaker reception than DOOM or DOOM Eternal had.

          I think the issue truly lies in the game not having changed all that much (as opposed to DooM vs DOOM). There needs to be some meaningful change big enough to attract new players, but to also repel the fags who think only Q3A is good but never actually play it.

          I think the answer is easy and it was already brought to us by stuff like CSGO or Valorant. Implement a good matchmaking and ranking system, add cool skins and cosmetics and just work on improving the game and adapting to player feedback as it goes along. That plus marketing money from China, I guess.

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            >I think 3x
            sorry for writing like a third-grader. I haven't slept in a while.

        • 2 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Here's my wild guess for the SP content. They'll want to jump on the ARPG bandwagon and add elemental damage and special skills. In Quake the Ranger ends up acquiring four magical runes. Those could correspond to different damage elements and be associated with special "weapon skills" -Fromsoft style.

          • 2 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            >lemental damage and special skills.
            Something like Genshin's elemental rock paper scissors could be interesting actually. Depending on how it is implemented, it could also work a in multiplayer scenario, as long as guns, maps, pickups, power-ups and player classes (if any) are designed with such goal in mind.

  17. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    How the fuck do you imagine anyone new getting into arena shooters unironically? They'll start a match, get BTFO in 5 sec, think it's a glitch, try a few more times, then just laugh out loud and uninstall.

    At least they're still making lots of singleplayer content for these games including completely new indie titles.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >They'll start a match, get BTFO in 5 sec, think it's a glitch, try a few more times, then just laugh out loud and uninstall.
      Uh, just like it happened in CS Source, 1.6, Cawadoody and every shooter without matchmaking?

      Just implement some basic elo/ranking system and set up matches based on that.

      • 2 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        inb4 instead of economy rounds during matches, they'll do de-rank matches during sessions so they can maintain low matchmaking rank

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      tbh skill level in deathmatch is kind of low and everybody can get kills by just spamming rocket

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >At least they're still making lots of singleplayer content for these games including completely new indie titles.
      I find this actually quite interesting. I always thought Quake-styled singleplayer shooters would die before the multiplayer ones did.

      Sure, Quake was great, but I and many others wasted far more hours on QW, Q3A or UT than we did on the campaign modes. I do think single-player modes are still important to sell the game's mechanics to the player on a """safe""" environment before multiplayer matches, but I just think that the issue really lies in people nowadays only associating FPS games with either the military type or the slow-paced ~~*tactical*~~ shooter like CS, Valorant, R6 etc.

  18. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Quake style gameplay has a lot of potential but no one wants to reach it because the genre is stuck in being an edgy 90s inspired mess. Every game tries to be quake, nothing new.

  19. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Because they take less skill than modern shooters on controllers. There I said it. You may seethe now.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >they take less skill than modern shooters on controllers
      didn't you mean "more skill". I think only gyro-turbo-nerds are capable of strafejumping on a controller or hitting airshots and other crap.

    • 2 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      You are fucking retarded.

  20. 2 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    "Realistic" shooters killed wacky movement PC shooters.
    Quake and UT died when CS and various military shooters became popular.
    Games like Battlefield had some kind of immersion to them that Quake and UT couldn't provide.
    Tribes Ascend proved that there is still a market for movement shooters, but it also showed that it was small, too small to sandrake in millions.

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