[suggestion] Make CQC great again

Lex Humboldt

Lex Humboldt
Well, I come from esports, I played Enemy territory in ESL and I play Starcraft II league over years now. I want to give some suggestions or some points to discuss to make CQC a better esport game with competitive game play. Here we go:


  • Lobby with chat
While waiting for players and match beginning there should be "global chat" where players can talk with each other.
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  • mode with no XP based advantages
When at comes to eSport or competitive games you need equal conditions for all players at game start. You need a fair status quo for all players anyway they played 1 hour or 100 yours. In-game items with advantages like these rings you fly through are okay as along as they are reachable in same time and distance from any after at the moment the game starts. Or disable these things aswell.

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No XP advantages leads to the following:

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  • all ships and item available from the beginning
All players should have access to all fighters and all modules form the beginning. No advantage for anyone. There should be all things available like:
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  • [*=1]shield bank cells
    [*=1]heat sinks
    [*=1]chaff
Of course there will be a meta game play with the time. In best case this would be a build with all these things, scb, heat sinks and chaff so a good player has to manage all these things. In worst case this would be a full commitment to one simple technique - this has be be rebalanced then.

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This way CQC would be a skill based game where the human factor makes the difference and not the gear.
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  • creation of own matches
This one is very important. It should be possible to create private matches. E.g. for guild wars or scrims. If a group of players wants to fight against another group of players it should be possible to arrange! I would also like to load a map for me alone to explore and learn the map before I plunge into the fight.

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  • new game mode: Last Man (Team) Standing
For clan wars, cups and league games there should be a game mode like "last man standing". Nobody respawns, the match will be played until one team is completely dead. This could be played 3 or 5 times ("best of 3" or "best of 5").

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  • more game modes with different player counts
Especially in private game there should be team sizes possible for​


  • [*=1]1on1
    [*=1]2on2
    [*=1]3on3
    [*=1]4on4
In public matches with random players the player count could be reduced. A game could start in 3on3 or 2on2 mode if there are not enough players.
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  • longer rounds
On public games the ration between matchmaking is not very good. You wait a long time to prepare a match and then the match itself is very short. On public matches I don't care who wins the match I just want to have some arcade fun. The ratio between waiting and playing times spoils the fun. In private matches the match time could adjustable.
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There are more possibilities for the long term, but these might be difficult to balance. It could be an option to offer asymmetric games, one strong big ship vs. 3 small fighters. Maybe you know the game Evolve (if not check it out), where 4 hunters play vs. a giant monster (the monster will be played by a human player itself). There could be modes where each team has a freighter to defend, and the other team has to get cargo of the fighter. There could be hollow planets where you fly through tunnels (like in the great old game Descent, or mountain chains where you have to boost through the canyons with aqueducts and bridges and ruins.

CQC yould be also added into the main game. Maybe there could be CQC arenas. The players has to fly into such a system and can subscribe to a match and join the arena.
 
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Scoopy Doopy

Scoopy Doopy
Always good to have someone put some thought into CQC.

I think we can all agree that a lobby chat would be a great addition to CQC and also that CQC should be accessible from the main game, perhaps in the same way that multicrew is. The other points you raise, I am not so sure about.

CQC is already skill based where the human factor makes the difference, not the gear. The difference in loadouts between a new player and a top level player is not very much, far less that most new people think. The very first ship and loadout you get, the Condor, is perfectly capable of winning matches even against seasoned players as shown by the fact that each time they reach level fifty, the top players are reset back into a starting Condor and still win matches. I admit that you really want to have the efficiency booster but you can get that in your first hour of playing. Also, I don't think all ships should be available at the start as you would lose the sense of progression you get as well as the elation when you finally get your imp with pulse weapons.

I completely disagree about the creation of your own matches. I personally have learned many new tricks from playing with people I never knew before and the current method of match making encourages that. It IS still possible to have groups fighting each other as shown by the fairly recent matches between CQC elites and SDC.

The rounds are OK in time in my view but remember that usually the game ends when a player reaches 750 points which can happen very quickly when you have good players who are actually going for it.

The powerup rings are contentious I agree. I like the stealth one and think you need to have shield one but the weapons is a bit over the top. I like it but think the respawn time should be randomized as currently, you know exactly when it is going to respawn and can keep it for the entire match.

Anyway, good to see some time spent in coming up with CQC suggestions.
 

Lex Humboldt

Lex Humboldt
Well i'lll joined the Quake Champions closed beta test. They doing the same mistake now by offering XP advantages. Thats not the spirit of esport, and I already dropped this game.

In real good balanced games like Starcraft 2 each round starts with equal status quo. Balance patches change things like you can do a build 2 seconds faster. So you have very slightly minor changes and changing of very small values result in a noticeable effect.

When you say some player rock the match even with beginner ships then maybe they are just very "over the top" skilled. The human factor might be too large to compensate with gear. But this is not an argument not to have fair builds and gear as a basic condition!

Lets say difference in the human factor is 30%, the gear makes 10%. The better player wins with a poor ship.

But what if the difference between two players in human factor is only 5% and the gear makes 10%? Then the bad player wins. But the better player should win but maybe he has no access to the right gear.

I took the numbers / percentages just as an example.

When CQC wants to join ESL or something like this, and wants to be a serious esport game, it needs equal conditions for all players in some kind of mode.

There could be another mode maybe a "league mode" without XP advantages beside the public rumble fun mode with XP advantages.


About private matches: I don't mean that private matches should replace random public matches. But it should be possible. If you want to make a serious ladder or league or cups, you will need this! You need to launch games between player groups. You need this for scrims in preparation of cups aswell. You cannot arrange qualifying or play-offs or the final round with randomness in matchmaking. How the hell this should work?

So public matches - okay! But private matches aswell, please.


No need to say that you can do this in other games. E.g. in Starcraft you can do customized matches, ranked or unranked games or cups. You can do trainings vs. KI or players, you can join the competition when you're ready. Or you just arrange a game vs. your beloved enemy. :) Thats state of the art in multiplayer PvP games.
 
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Lex Humboldt

Lex Humboldt
I want to add one point:

For clan wars, cups and league games there should be a game mode like "last man (team) standing". Nobody respawns, the match will be played until one team is completly dead. This could be played 3 or 5 times ("best of 3" or "best of 5"). I add the at top posting.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Lex Humboldt said:
All players should have access to all fighters and all modules form the beginning. No advantage for anyone. There should be all things available like:
Click to expand...
The risk with this is that most of the "upgrades" available are either highly specialist or not as good as the base module/ship. At least as it is you're guaranteed to get a fairly good ship for your first match. Losing the unlocks when prestiging is also a good push into trying new things.

Perhaps allowing private matches to set a particular unlock set for everyone.

Lex Humboldt said:
In public matches with random players the player count could be reduced. A game could start in 3on3 or 2on2 mode if there are not enough players.
Click to expand...
For private matches, yes. For public matches the problem is that 2v3 is incredibly unbalanced. It does start TDMs at 3v3 at the moment, though (which often leads to a nasty 3v4 as someone else joins)

Starting deathmatch at 2 players rather than 4 could be good.

Lex Humboldt said:
On public games the ration between matchmaking is not very good. You wait a long time to prepare a match and then the match itself is very short. On public matches I don't care who wins the match I just want to have some arcade fun. The ratio between waiting and playing times spoils the fun. In private matches the match time could adjustable.
Click to expand...
Changing it from "first to 750" to "always lasts 7:30" might help - rather than potentially being over in a few minutes if someone gets lucky or has easy targets.
 

Lex Humboldt

Lex Humboldt
Ok this thread dropped already to page 3. I understand CQC is more or less dead and only a few people are interested.

How a thing like CQC could be pushed?

E.g. by starting official cups and ladders. Give prices to the winner. 60.000.000 Credits for the winner, or a bag of rare micro materials for grade 5 modifications, a very special module or module value, or a trophy like a decal. Something for the winners of gold, silver and bronce and something small for everyone who participates. Something that can be used in the main game.

Get attention by streaming the whole thing. If it gets popular find sponsors for prices like a Hotas, a gamer mouse or whatever.

And last but not least stay to the schedule (someone remember the Icarus Cup? Just an example how better not to do it..) and host events in a professional way or find people form the community to help.

CQC is dead, I think there is room for a sophisticated multiplayer space combat simulator on the game market. To attract the right people it should be without grind and very well balanced and focus on PvP. It should focus on balance and not on advantage. Elite has the physics and the basics. Maybe one day there could be a stand alone game by Frontier beside Elite:Dangerous that takes all the great PvP things from the main game (and drops all things combat player do not like to do) and makes very good Arena style game.
 
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