How can CQC be revived?

I really enjoyed CQC, when it first came out I had a blast flying around in the little ships shooting folk, using the speed boosters and dancing FA OFF around the various collidables. I spend a lot of time exploring and CQC would be a great way to alleviate space madness for example if... people actually played it.

I've lost count of the amount of times that I've spent 10+ minutes in matchmaking then given up. Obviously, some new maps and new ships available to be used would be nice, but I imagine Frontier would only put that kind of effort in if more people actually played it.

Perhaps some ARX + a respectable amount (1 million?) Credits as a reward for winning a match? And the others in the top 3 get some credits, give some incentive to win a match and earn some sweet cosmetics.

At the end of the day, we all love a bit of cosmetic bling on our ships and giving away some ARX isn't going to ruin any game balance or affect other players, and would maybe entice people to get on that matchmaking. Maybe also some unique decals/paintjobs/ship kits that could only be earned by winning X amount of matches?

I'm by no means an expert on this, I'd just like CQC to be more than just an afterthought that almost nobody plays. Or am I barking up the wrong tree and nobody cares about it anymore? Perhaps just some bloody Elite bots to play against so we can grind out that 4th rank.
I guess the more obvious answer would be to integrate it in the main game rather than being a separate and unrelated part of it.
I would also make a system dedicated to CQC tournaments where players could start also a real career with that with credits and engineered modules as prizes.
 
Problem also lies with ED community. People are used to choosing who they play with (solo, pg) and always winning (because they fight only stupid NPCs in much inferior ship) and even in PvP dying is optional as everyone can easily leave the fight.

People just feel entitled to rules being bent for them, feel entitled to have it easy way out. But the arena has its own rules, you either have what it takes and get good at it or you whine, rage quit and say cqc is dead or whatever.. in which case good riddance.


I say CQC is dead because anytime I boot up a que for a match, (maybe if I am lucky) 15-20 minutes later I will get a match. I would love to get killed repeatedly in cqc if I didn't have to watch the grass grow.
 
With frontier's capabilities and mindset, it cannot be revived.

If i was to make a try, i would work on four main pillars and get the job done right this time, instead of this failure.

1. Put it inside the game/Integrate racing maybe
2. Customization/Presentation
3. Modes and classes
4. Reward/Boards

Lets explain..

1. Cqc ofc should be put it inside the game, as simple as that. Having it in the game's menu as a limited options mode was probably a good idea, and is especially good for those out exploring, to be able have a pew pew. But that mode should always be something extra in the concept, NOT THE ENTIRE CONCEPT for Christ sake.
It should get into the game in the form of galactic tournament, to only take place in one station each time like cg's. It could be a monthly event, or every two weeks probably and the game should provide everything needed, from signing up to any station, to training places (newly designed areas) and special storage for the tournament gear and ships (gear and ships only to be used in system that holds the tournament), which gets us to..

2. Yes players should be able to buy and engineer tournament specific ships or have specific outfitting rules in order to assign your regular ship to the tournament, like racers and pvpers do at events in this game for years now. In depth customization is what makes pew pew in main game so interesting. Devs should know better from anyone, that the majority of players that like pew pew and have spent thousands of hours to engineer and science the arx out of their loadouts, should't find interesting the cqc ships in their current form.
The key to the entire thing is variety, variety, variety. More ships and more loadouts to add in-depth customization that players like so much, without forgetting the appearance customization, which is very very important.
Announcement of the event in galnet and at every station ofc.

3. New levels and classes, including tournaments in planet surfaces, races with weapons, classes with fully enginnered regular ships for deathmatch maybe!, classes with small, medium ships etc.
And the ability ofc to SPECTATE, either from inside others ships (if the racer allows), or parking outside boundaries to watch the fight/race.

4. Aaaahhh the reward. And to stop the regular fdev dev from the first thing that comes to his mind.. NOT ONLY CREDITS. Use your imagination for once and think what players like. Don't be cheap and design a new special ship to give as a reward, ONLY to champions. No one else can be seen flying that ship but a champion. And make it an actual and unique ship, not an Asp scout.
And leaderboards ofc, and announcements of the winners in galnet, and special champion paintjobs for the winners that can wear to any ship for as long they are champions!


Those are only the absolute basics in my opinion, but sadly wont happen in ED. The coolest ideas, i am keeping for those who actually create something so good in a space game.
 
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I've done this, not especially often, but considerably more frequently than never.

I'd say that the occurrence of both pilots jumping into their fighters and duelling it out while their main ships go NPC controlled is very rare, I've never seen it happen. Usually fighters are used as a mobile hardpoint in my experience. The only time I used to jump in my fighter was when I was pirating in a slow ship like a Conda and the trader made a run for it.
 
Main CQC Discord: 2,662 members

Major PVP Discords
Galactic Combat Initiative: 1,831 members
PvP League: 424 members
ECCE: 728 members

Major Powerplay Discords
Federal United Command: 1,390 members
ALD Discord: 1,161 members
Alliance of Independents: 883 members
...and some other powers, right? Can't be bothered to look them all up but they're probably not significantly bigger.

...and for comparisions, some actual big ones
Fleetcomm Exploration Discord: 12,863 members
General Elite Dangerous Community: 15,730 members

All irrelevant really, I'm a member of lots of muted discord servers I never contribute to. PvP league is seasonal, lots of people leave the server once its finished.

All very inexact, of course, but it's not giving me a "CQC is a minority interest, unlike PvP which is super popular" impression. (In practice Powerplay probably easily beats both, and, well...)

Lots of people are implying CQC isn't struggling... which is odd considering how many of these threads popup.

PvP in the main game was once very popular... however lots of PvP players have quit due to that side of the game being neglected (and the colossal engineer grind of course). If you've been playing since season 1 you will remember how popular the war in Lugh was or the buzzing Lave cluster, or the Salome event... Fdev have slowly killed all that though through poor design choices and feature focus.

Main-ship duelling wouldn't work particularly well with the CQC format, since the high-end engineered ships probably wouldn't die once in the 7:30 allowed for a free-for-all deathmatch unless they got unlucky, and the scores in 15 minute TDM would also be pretty low. I'm not saying a simulated duel tool (with manual lobbies and matchmaking) to save you the trouble of trying to get everyone together in the same system wouldn't be a good thing - absolutely it would - but if Frontier were going to implement one, starting from CQC wouldn't really gain them very much.

I'm not suggesting that main ships are used in deathmatches, I'm suggesting a new mode of CQC be implemented so players can use the Arena platform to setup quick 1v1's or wing v wing matches, with league tables and rewards. It would be popular because:
  • You could setup totally fair matches (through prematch options like no engineering or no synth)
  • Organising a match would not require travel time if players are separated by large distance in game
  • Instancing would not potentially ruin the match like is usually tends to do with organised fights
  • Players would not have to save up enormous rebuy mountains to be able to afford to PvP
  • Players could get acquainted with PvP without having to go through the engineering grind
  • The CQC rank would then become a PvP rank and become relevant again
 
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  • integrate it to the main game
  • add bots
  • allow us to create password protected / invite only matches
  • hold regular competitions / tournaments
 
Lots of people are implying CQC isn't struggling... which is odd considering how many of these treads popup.
Oh, CQC is undoubtedly a niche interest, like Powerplay, or CGs, or PvP. I don't think anyone disputes that. Though on PC for Deathmatch it nowadays generally has enough players to get a match in EU/US timezones - it's doing much better than it was a couple of years ago, for example. Unlike the others, the numbers are (slowly) rising rather than falling.

On the other hand, if it wasn't also basically fun when it works, there wouldn't be lots of threads asking Frontier to do more with it and hopefully make it easier for them to get a match. (See also Powerplay, PvP ... contrast with Multicrew)

PvP in the main game was once very popular... however lots of PvP players have quit due to that side of the game being neglected (and the colossal engineer grind of course). If you've been playing since season 1 you will remember how popular the war in Lugh was or the buzzing Lave cluster, or the Salome event... Fdev have slowly killed all that though through poor design choices and feature focus.
I knew a lot of PvPers who quit with the 2.1 release, sure. On the other hand I know plenty who started after that release.

It's never been anything other than a niche activity either way, though.
 
Oh, CQC is undoubtedly a niche interest, like Powerplay, or CGs, or PvP. I don't think anyone disputes that. Though on PC for Deathmatch it nowadays generally has enough players to get a match in EU/US timezones - it's doing much better than it was a couple of years ago, for example. Unlike the others, the numbers are (slowly) rising rather than falling.
I think CQC is a thing when people get an itch to play, but won't bother logging into the stale main game currently. That 4th Elite rank is also a thing in the back of my head to eventually do, or at least to prestige once to get the main game permit, but RL work and other games keep me too busy to actually follow through. Currently I only play ED at all to get my fill of 400 ARX for the week while waiting for the next CG/interstellar initiative and solid info on fleet carriers.
 
I'd say that the occurrence of both pilots jumping into their fighters and duelling it out while their main ships go NPC controlled is very rare

That is very rare, though I've definitely dueled an SLF, or heavily outmatched opponent (relative to my mothership) with an SLF on occasion.

The only time I used to jump in my fighter was when I was pirating in a slow ship like a Conda and the trader made a run for it.

I hop in my SLFs all the time, even in PvP. They are considerably faster than some motherships and I've got a fair number of kills with them against CMDRs my main ship couldn't keep up with. Being able to keep the mothership from being spotted immediately, either by keeping it out of range until the battle is joined, or simply allowing it to go unnoticed until it's too close to avoid (no hollow icon if you aren't flying it), comes in hand now and then. Some ships are also a great threat to the mothership, but no threat at all to an SLF...I've driven off fragboats that could have shredded a multipurpose corvette in short order, who couldn't even land a hit on a fighter.

Anyway, the problem with comparing SLFs and CQC fighters is that they aren't the same ships. SLFs are much faster (almost twice as fast) and have much more powerful (four to five times the APV and about triple the DPS) and longer range (3-4km vs. 1-1.2km) weapons, with vastly more rapid shield regeneration, while being even more fragile and far less customizable. Fighting in a Condor or GU-97 in CQC doesn't feel like fighting with one in the main game...which is a shame. CQC combat is probably closer to the pre-Engineer main ship combat I enjoyed than current main game's main ships are.

Deathmatch

The worst of the three modes!
 
Bottom line is creative team isn't very creative it seems
Creative can only do what management allows them to do. It seem they have decided to abandon CQC, which is a shame because there was a good game there and could have brought in a different audience.

But really the lack of NPCs killed from day 1,
 
I did not read through the whole thread here so maybe somebody mentioned this, but for me cqc has two major problems:

1: Its outside the game
CQC has no connection to the main game at all. There are no infos inside the game, there is no league in the game, nothing. So its either "play CQC" or it is "play elite dangerous". It would be so much better to have this an in-game feature. With real leader-boards and leguage play. May so that other player could watch the matches from outside (would need something like spacelegs or so "spectator cam"). There could be complete squadrom "teams" that battle each other. Then some lore about it and monthly special matches or a on in a year space tournament. This would connect the whole thing to the main game

2: no reward system
The only reward is "you get a rank". This is not much. With connecting the CQC into the game we could bring more rewards like credits, decals, maybe special ship kits for the yearly tournament winner or maybe some arx as a bonus for players on the leaderboard top 5.

I think with those adjustments/reworks cqc could get very interesting. Maybe even open it up not only for the fighers but for other ship types and bring up different leagues.
 
Should FD really update QCQ some day, I hope they also review the ingame fighters. I'd very much like to be able to just choose a base model, then fit that with the QCQ module options.
 
Honestly I'd prefer to see multicrew fighter options replace CQC, even maybe throw in SRV's to that, SRV planet fights anyone, one crew driving the other on the turret :D?
 
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