I'm aware that CQC is widely regarded as a failure, but I personally have always really enjoyed it. I personally feel that with a little bit of love it could come back to life so I had some ideas I wanted to share.
Firstly, some Low Effort stuff. I feel these changes could be added with very little effort saving on development time and cost.
1. Make CQC pay more credits that transfer to open play
I'm aware CQC already does this, but it's really a pitiful amount of money. In my opinion the credits should be balanced so that at Prestige 10 level 50 a player ranked the highest in the match should be able to pull around 250 million an hour. This would match it up with some of the highest paying open play methods allowing players to grind for money without risking their personal ships. I realize risk is a part of the game, but if you want people to play it, it needs to be worth their while
2. Add Holo-Me and Ship Skins/Cosmetics to CQC
I'll get to why this is important on my next bullet. But the big thing is people love to customize things. I'm genuinely confused as to why your character isn't visible in CQC. Yes, I know, there's not much point when you're not looking at your character during matches and you can't see them in the lobby screen. But as part of my next point, trust me, people don't care and just like to know it's there.
As far as ship kits and skins, I do not personally see why the ships have to be Red and Blue. There are already a large about of skins for the Sidewinder and Eagle, as well as the ship kits. I feel like skins and ship kits could be added for the fighters as well. But again, being able to customize your ship in CQC, having custom contrails and weapon colors, would go a very long way. Most of this is already in the game, it would just need to be incorporated into CQC. Which I realize is a lot harder than it sounds, but I still feel like it's low enough effort to not take away from big updates.
3. Add CQC as a standalone Free-To-Play game on Steam
CQC already has a standalone version. Veterans like me will remember that way way back when CQC was first released CQC was going to be released as a standalone version for like $5 or something like that. It failed and was ultimately removed, but I would hope those files still exist. By making CQC free to play, you would collect a ton of people who just like to play free stuff. I feel like this could bring in loads of players who like Free-To-Play games and might not be into the aspects of Open Play.
Once this is done, and all the cosmetics are available in CQC, you would have the ground platform for a Free-To-Play model where you can play for free but purchase cosmetics. This would provide more revenue to help keep the base game running, it would provide people who love CQC with the ability to grind ranks since they would be able to find matches. On top of that, making it a viable source of income would give people a reason to go play. I feel like this would be a big win for everybody, and is somewhat of a missed opportunity.
Next up some Medium Effort stuff
1. Monthly CQC tournaments
To go along with the viable source of income thing, I propose some form of CG style system be added to CQC. At the first of every month it would reset, and at the end of the month it would provide a payout, and maybe some CQC unique cosmetics based you rank. Coming in first should, in my opinion, pay some absurd amount of money. Something like a billion credits. This would make CQC extremely competitive when combined with the ability to make money passively from playing. It would give everyone playing something to really strive for. I would probably do something along the lines of the top 5 players get really big rewards, and then do it CG style where a percentage of participants get diminished rewards going down from there
2. Ship Kits and skins for the Fighters
I'm not sure the reason these haven't been added. I would assume it something to do with how the game handles outfitting, hence why we have multiple fighter choices instead of being able to just swap the weapons out. So I'm not sure if this one is even possible. But more cosmetics to add to the previous statements would further boost the Free-To-Play model bringing in more passive income. I personally would love to customize my Condor.
Next up the High Effort stuff
1. Odyssey Deathmatch
I'm aware of some of the gripes about balancing and what not when it comes to On-Foot Combat. But there's a reason why games like Call of Duty are so popular. People love On-Foot Combat. This would obviously have to come later down the line as it would require building maps, possibly adding in new weapons, suits and equipment. But I do think people would be interested in the PvP aspects of On-Foot Combat. It would be interesting to have unique map features like maybe someone turns off the gravity somehow. But it would also provide an excellent platform for testing balancing and equipment
2. AI Substitutes
If nothing else, I would really like to see AI added as a substitute to players so when you can't find a match you can at least still grind out the rank. If nothing else in the entire list was ever added, it would at the very least be nice to still be able to play and get xp while no one else is on. They don't have to count as kills, or increase any stats. Just having some AI so we could still rank up would be so nice to have
I'm not saying Frontier should drop everything and just do this. But I really do think that CQC is a pretty big missed opportunity to create some revenue for the game. There are people out there who love CQC, but I think there's just a few issues as to why people don't play it. The main one being time investment versus reward. A lot of people would rather be grinding their progress in open play and CQC feels like it takes away from that because you don't really get anything for playing it. I genuinely think that if nothing else, just making it a viable source of income would make people play it. It would be a great place for new players to learn the basics of how to fly. It would be a great place to grind out some credits if you're a bit short on your rebuy.
The Free-To-Play model would also be a great source of advertisement for the base game. Yes, most of the people who like Elite, already know about Elite. But I'd bet there's a solid amount of people who just haven't tried it. Making just CQC Free-To-Play I feel would bring a whole new wave of new players to Open Play.
Firstly, some Low Effort stuff. I feel these changes could be added with very little effort saving on development time and cost.
1. Make CQC pay more credits that transfer to open play
I'm aware CQC already does this, but it's really a pitiful amount of money. In my opinion the credits should be balanced so that at Prestige 10 level 50 a player ranked the highest in the match should be able to pull around 250 million an hour. This would match it up with some of the highest paying open play methods allowing players to grind for money without risking their personal ships. I realize risk is a part of the game, but if you want people to play it, it needs to be worth their while
2. Add Holo-Me and Ship Skins/Cosmetics to CQC
I'll get to why this is important on my next bullet. But the big thing is people love to customize things. I'm genuinely confused as to why your character isn't visible in CQC. Yes, I know, there's not much point when you're not looking at your character during matches and you can't see them in the lobby screen. But as part of my next point, trust me, people don't care and just like to know it's there.
As far as ship kits and skins, I do not personally see why the ships have to be Red and Blue. There are already a large about of skins for the Sidewinder and Eagle, as well as the ship kits. I feel like skins and ship kits could be added for the fighters as well. But again, being able to customize your ship in CQC, having custom contrails and weapon colors, would go a very long way. Most of this is already in the game, it would just need to be incorporated into CQC. Which I realize is a lot harder than it sounds, but I still feel like it's low enough effort to not take away from big updates.
3. Add CQC as a standalone Free-To-Play game on Steam
CQC already has a standalone version. Veterans like me will remember that way way back when CQC was first released CQC was going to be released as a standalone version for like $5 or something like that. It failed and was ultimately removed, but I would hope those files still exist. By making CQC free to play, you would collect a ton of people who just like to play free stuff. I feel like this could bring in loads of players who like Free-To-Play games and might not be into the aspects of Open Play.
Once this is done, and all the cosmetics are available in CQC, you would have the ground platform for a Free-To-Play model where you can play for free but purchase cosmetics. This would provide more revenue to help keep the base game running, it would provide people who love CQC with the ability to grind ranks since they would be able to find matches. On top of that, making it a viable source of income would give people a reason to go play. I feel like this would be a big win for everybody, and is somewhat of a missed opportunity.
Next up some Medium Effort stuff
1. Monthly CQC tournaments
To go along with the viable source of income thing, I propose some form of CG style system be added to CQC. At the first of every month it would reset, and at the end of the month it would provide a payout, and maybe some CQC unique cosmetics based you rank. Coming in first should, in my opinion, pay some absurd amount of money. Something like a billion credits. This would make CQC extremely competitive when combined with the ability to make money passively from playing. It would give everyone playing something to really strive for. I would probably do something along the lines of the top 5 players get really big rewards, and then do it CG style where a percentage of participants get diminished rewards going down from there
2. Ship Kits and skins for the Fighters
I'm not sure the reason these haven't been added. I would assume it something to do with how the game handles outfitting, hence why we have multiple fighter choices instead of being able to just swap the weapons out. So I'm not sure if this one is even possible. But more cosmetics to add to the previous statements would further boost the Free-To-Play model bringing in more passive income. I personally would love to customize my Condor.
Next up the High Effort stuff
1. Odyssey Deathmatch
I'm aware of some of the gripes about balancing and what not when it comes to On-Foot Combat. But there's a reason why games like Call of Duty are so popular. People love On-Foot Combat. This would obviously have to come later down the line as it would require building maps, possibly adding in new weapons, suits and equipment. But I do think people would be interested in the PvP aspects of On-Foot Combat. It would be interesting to have unique map features like maybe someone turns off the gravity somehow. But it would also provide an excellent platform for testing balancing and equipment
2. AI Substitutes
If nothing else, I would really like to see AI added as a substitute to players so when you can't find a match you can at least still grind out the rank. If nothing else in the entire list was ever added, it would at the very least be nice to still be able to play and get xp while no one else is on. They don't have to count as kills, or increase any stats. Just having some AI so we could still rank up would be so nice to have
I'm not saying Frontier should drop everything and just do this. But I really do think that CQC is a pretty big missed opportunity to create some revenue for the game. There are people out there who love CQC, but I think there's just a few issues as to why people don't play it. The main one being time investment versus reward. A lot of people would rather be grinding their progress in open play and CQC feels like it takes away from that because you don't really get anything for playing it. I genuinely think that if nothing else, just making it a viable source of income would make people play it. It would be a great place for new players to learn the basics of how to fly. It would be a great place to grind out some credits if you're a bit short on your rebuy.
The Free-To-Play model would also be a great source of advertisement for the base game. Yes, most of the people who like Elite, already know about Elite. But I'd bet there's a solid amount of people who just haven't tried it. Making just CQC Free-To-Play I feel would bring a whole new wave of new players to Open Play.
