CQC 5.5 years old. Update 1 due yet?

CMDR Evolution · Jun 4, 2021

I look forward to the day when there'll be new CQC matches. Please see below for the situation, specifics, personal and community solutions:

The situation:

CQC came out 5.5 years ago (edit - 6 years ago now) in Oct 2015 as an MVP.
It was then put on Steam but pulled as there wasn't enough content and so not enough users.
I was surprised it was put on Steam, considering CQC only has/had 4 levels and 4 ships.
Of course, Frontier then logically removed it from Steam early 2017.
By that time, Horizons had already been out for a year and many in the community expected ground based CQC but even by December 2021, there's nothing new like the 10 points below.

Suggestions:

Cross Play***. The separate platform communities can be finally merged as a joint community for CQC, as the pilot
Sphere of combat CQC with people having different roles to play in assault / defence matches
Guardian fighters
Other new fighters like the Taipan or even the Imp Eagle (considering CQC has the standard Eagle). Also outfitting unlocks E.G. fighter variants used for Hangers in-game since 2.2 (a year after CQC came out)
SRV CQC
Elite racers CQC
On-foot CQC
New levels including planetary maps. There are so, so many beautiful locations in Elite which can be used
New lobby
CQC bots - For this point, that wouldn't be needed if cross play was done

Community suggestions from this thread (clicking the names will take you to the comments):

Enonymous: I'd buy this. I don't need it added to elite. I'll buy a new game that's just SRV CQC. A simple VR wave shooter based on SRV mechanics. 20 maps. A few upgrades. Space Mario Kart.

SushiCW: Personally, my opinion is that a good investment would be AI that can competently handle installation-based "terrain" and objectives. This would unlock more mission types / scenarios in the regular game (imagine conflict zones centered on installations, with concrete objectives like "take out the power source inside the base"), and that tech could then be ported to CQC as well to allow bots.
I think the "queue from the main game" option probably would have helped a lot more if it had appeared 4-5 years ago, before it was too late to matter.

JohnnyDangerous: Since the new foot combat zones are basically arenas, why not combine the flying arena too? Make the combat zones arenas, include all the ships, and make the respawn rules the same.

Hydrino: it is still at the "has potential, needs fleshing out" state), and those are "in-game" and not a separate game, they need to move CQC to same "in-game" status and have the matches occur around in-game assets and using NPCs (aka 'bots').

CMDR Astraea Astralis: Really great suggestions! Especially the idea of adding racing to Arena...

Huros: CQC arenas need to be in game and have NPC opponents filling in. Seriously have three stations for each power where we can go and join a game. Bring in the guardian fighters too

Angelpichu: Why not allow custom matches between commanders with ships copied from their main game?

CMDR_Raikkonen: CQC should be added to the Frontline Solutions Desk.
It should also be hyped up in game as a big galaxy wide tournament (with all the relevant Galnet articles, and even Power Play characters throwing their champions into the ring)

JohnnyDangerous: I know it’s against the whole idea, but it really needs NPCs unfortunately. I’ve logged in maybe a dozen times but only played once due to no humans.

Pigletslastand: Bots would really help as the main problem is finding matches

zombieapocalypse: I've never even so much as tried CGC, it holds no appeal to me. But I do wonder if it could be expanded and incorporated into the main game to provide a risk-free environment for PvP tournaments and leagues. Or even just as a playground for testing out different ship builds.

SushiCW: Yes please on both NPCs and Frontline Solutions integration. Maybe that looks more like "conflict zone around installations with just fighters" than "gateway into CQC"... either way, it would be awesome.

Awan: As an avid enjoyer of CQC for what it is, I too would very much enjoy Update "0.Anything-Would-Be-Nice" to come to CQC lol.
Whilst fairly barebones, CQC is quite a lot of fun with little groups. It's quite a shame then that not even a small, pre-existing map has been added to its rotations at all. I know Frontier have stated in the past that they really only update content that people use, but I don't understand how one expects any kind of 'interest in longevity' if they do not at least add an addition to their, at one time, headline feature of an update.

zikolach: What if CQC would have been integrated into main game? Something like permit-lock system(s) where you can travel only by Apex and then join specific arena in a way similar to Frontline solutions. It could be also bots added to make it working for Solo players and to fill time where there is no opponents. The billboards on the main station's concourse would show current rankings, active rounds etc.

RyuStaar: Quite frankly, IMO the only thing they need to do to make people play CQC is reduce the absurd requirements to get Elite CQC. I mean who wants to grind out a year of CQC when you can get Elite trader/explorer in a few hours. I started trying for the glorious quad elite before horizons, looked at how long it would take. I was Semi-pro, 3 ranks in and JUST OVER 1% done after playing steadily every day a couple hours for 2 weeks. Like I'm wasting my life with that. I don't even mind CQC but no rewards seems crappy. Make Elite attainable and I guarantee more people will play just for that. Though I doubt you can now because then you trivialize the work people who do have elite CQC have done.

CMDR Quarter-Master: 11. Thargoid Scouts as opponents

I've summarised this one from Vurrath, basically suggesting different 'releases' or tournaments, where you can choose whether to stay in your old one or join a newer one with newer features

artao: I would LOVE to do some PvP, using my own ships, but WITHOUT the in-verse replacement cost...
HELL!! In all the times I've tried to use it I've gotten (gotten? um .. whatever) ... I got nothing. Emplty.
Let us use our in-verse ships. No replacement cost. Separate stats. (Altho perhaps betting on match-ups could be a thing. Both those involved and those watching.)

Kissamies: Maybe "AX preparedness training" PvE where you fly AX fighters against Thargoid Scouts.

CMDR Rabbit: CQC live or recorded "broadcasts" to a giant screen in the bar in tourist station or settlements, like a sports event. With all the NPCs oohing and ahhing.

Kaocraft: CQC is supposedly the most popular sport in the galaxy, yet there is no evidence that it even exists in the game world.
There could at least be a CQC scoreboard or leaderboard or something on a monitor above one of the bars, and some in-game ads/posters/banners making reference to CQC.

Pigletslastand: Unfortunately anytime that I've tried to look for a match there either hasn't been anyone or it's the same 2 or 3 guys that do it so much they can roflstomp anyone new entering. If you could play against bots to get used to it first and always have a match that would be best.
Also we need rewards.. everything else gets arx rewards for gameplay.

FlyingChancer: We need to make CQC in-game, and create a GalTV so that people can watch some special tournaments, for example in the lobby of stations

Agony_Aunt: So the question would need to be asked, how to bring it in game? It would have to be a sealed off area, where non-participants can't enter. And also important, you really don't want anyone not participating even in the instance. With P2P every extra person can add lag or network issues. So ideally the instance needs to be sealed off. Nobody can see it of course, but importantly, nobody can mess with it by being present.
So... almost like it needs to be separated out somehow.
Perhaps FD could do more to bring CQC feel like its happening in the main game, but it can't actually happen in the main game instances.

Silv3rDragon:
ARX rewards of 10 per match with separate weekly cap of 100 (or more if you feel generous Fdev )
Increase Credit rewards by at least 2000x. That would put it in the range of 20M/hr (yes it really is only around 10-15k/hr right now)
Add Guardian Fighters
Give option when quitting CQC to pick engineering materials as extra rewards of 2-3 G5 per match (or equivalent in other grades with down trading)
Add "current players" counter to game modes to see which mode actually has players in it
Enable already purchased ship skins in customize menu
Race mode with hoops like in tutorial

CMDR Jaelor Martin: CMDR Jaelor Martin:

Increase dramatically the credit rewards.

Decrease dramatically the amount of experience needed for increasing Pilot Federation CQC rank, especially since with the release of ED: Oddysey it now have ranks Elite II-V.

Reward ARX and high grade materials, whether the engineering grind problem is fixed or not. ARX rewards could also not count towards the weekly cap.

Reward exclusive cosmetics and engineered modules and weapons when increasing rank, or reward them as players reach certain rank levels (each 10, for example).

Reward exclusive cosmetics for increasing Pilot Federation CQC rank, for a ship of choice.

Display the number of players in each CQC mode, a quality of life feature that would save player's time.

Create a practice mode with bots and no rewards, similar to the incursion training simulations, so people can practice before playing against other players.

Add Faulcon DeLacy's Taipan to the pool of playable ships for the sake of adding variety.

The engineer Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn has a story with CQC Arena. Maybe shoving certain types of gameplay down player's throats is not a great idea, but even now they have to go out of their way in order to receive some invitations or unlocking some engineers, and even more so to engineer modules. Making it a requirement for receiving an invitation from him to have a certain rank in CQC, even if it's a low one, is something that could be done, and probably should have been done in the past; sadly, changing it now would not affect those who already met the current requirements.

How could those happen?

From the perspective of someone who works in tech for a leading UK company (and how I see Frontier) - an ideal solution would be to have a dedicated CQC product team.
Frontier really should have Agile product teams for large game features rather than projects in a waterfall release process. It that's already taking place, it would be massively appreciated to have CQC included within the Agile side.
Agile product teams allow constantly refining and improving different aspects without impacting other development from devs continually context switching.
Tech teams feel rewarded for the work they've built from the ground up, and that continues, as their work continues to get developed. I still think that can be done with CQC.
New CMDRs get drawn in by each improvement and existing CMDRs are happy as there's always something new (even if it's something small IMO).

CQC and certain other aspects of Elite could be so, so amazing - even more so than they already are and I already love Elite

Hence my +6500 hours in game (236 hours in CQC) and over a grand spent with Frontier. I don't regret it but I hate to see problems and missed opportunities again and again.

Frontier, please don't ditch it. What you released half a decade ago was great, CQC just still needs to be fleshed out

.

Rubbernuke · Jun 4, 2021

CMDR Evolution said:
I look forward to the day when there'll be new CQC matches. Please see below for the situation, specifics and a solution:

The situation:

CQC came out 5.5 years ago on Oct 2015 as an MVP.

It was then put on Steam but pulled as there wasn't enough content.

I was surprised it was put on Steam, considering CQC only has 4 levels and 4 ships.

Of course, Frontier then logically removed it from steam early 2017.

By that time, Horizons had already been out for a year and many in the community expected ground based CQC but even now in June 2021, there's nothing new like the 10 points below:

Specifics:

Cross Play***,

Sphere of combat?

the Guardian fighters aren't there,

other new fighters like the Taipan, also,

SRV CQC,

Elite racers CQC,

on-foot CQC,

new levels,

new lobby,

CQC bots - For the last point, that wouldn't be needed if cross play was done .

Solution:

From the perspective of someone who works in tech for a leading UK company - an obvious and ideal solution would be to have a dedicated CQC product team.

Frontier really should have Agile product teams for products rather than classing features as projects and having a waterfall release process.

Agile product teams allow constantly refining and improving different aspects without impacting other development from devs continually context switching.

Elite could be so, so amazing - even more so than it already is and I love Elite already Hence my +6250 hours in game and around a grand spent with Frontier.

I don't regret it but I hate to see problems and missed opportunities coming up again and again.

Please Frontier, don't ditch it. Just update the MVP PLEASE!!!!! Please, please, please.

What you released half a decade ago was great, it just still needs to be fleshed out.

Thanks so much o7

Haha! Join Powerplay in the Features We Must Never Ever Talk About Again™

CMDR Evolution · Jun 4, 2021

lol! Yeah, CQC's been in that boat for 5.5 years. Sad but true! Hopefully both parts of Elite will get updated (I keep telling myself that... but maybe I'm just a very slow learner!)

enonymous · Jun 4, 2021

CMDR Evolution said:
SRV CQC,

I'd buy this. I don't need it added to elite. I'll buy a new game that's just SRV CQC. A simple VR wave shooter based on SRV mechanics. 20 maps. A few upgrades. Space Mario Kart.

VR + SRV in turret mode is amazing once you get the controls down (and if your stomach can handle it).

SushiCW · Jun 4, 2021

CMDR Evolution said:
[*]From the perspective of someone who works in tech for a leading UK company - an obvious and ideal solution would be to have a dedicated CQC product team.

If it was commercially viable, they probably would. Competitive 6dof arena shooters are really niche.

Personally, my opinion is that a good investment would be AI that can competently handle installation-based "terrain" and objectives. This would unlock more mission types / scenarios in the regular game (imagine conflict zones centered on installations, with concrete objectives like "take out the power source inside the base"), and that tech could then be ported to CQC as well to allow bots.

I think the "queue from the main game" option probably would have helped a lot more if it had appeared 4-5 years ago, before it was too late to matter.

CMDR Evolution · Jun 5, 2021

I do agree with your AI point. What I meant with my point, was that it'd help all aspects of the game if they had product teams rather than disposable project teams - the same would be true for AI.

Adding more depth to the game would be a viable source of income as the opposite can be seen with the latest MVP - Odyssey.

The less MVPs, the better IMHO. I've played since beta 2014 and strongly feel that they need to break away from the MVP culture. Doing that would give Frontier better ratings and in turn, more money too. Everyone wins. The trouble currently, is that they keep the MVPs and never go back to them and that's the sad point.

Other MVPs that would benefit are Powerplay, Multicrew, ship crew, horizons surfaces, space legs in actual space, everything really.

CMDR Evolution · Jun 11, 2021

I'd love to hear back from a CM / Mod / Dev / PM about your views on an Agile Product approach opposed to Waterfall project approach that you currently do (as was asked above a few times).

Still looking forward to hearing back. Thank you so much

Skollxbox · Jun 11, 2021

Lol I wish

JohnnyDangerous · Jun 11, 2021

CMDR Evolution said:
I look forward to the day when there'll be new CQC matches. Please see below for the situation, specifics and a solution:

The situation:

CQC came out 5.5 years ago on Oct 2015 as an MVP.

It was then put on Steam but pulled as there wasn't enough content.

I was surprised it was put on Steam, considering CQC only has 4 levels and 4 ships.

Of course, Frontier then logically removed it from steam early 2017.

By that time, Horizons had already been out for a year and many in the community expected ground based CQC but even now in June 2021, there's nothing new like the 10 points below:

Specifics:

Cross Play***,

Sphere of combat?

the Guardian fighters aren't there,

other new fighters like the Taipan, also,

SRV CQC,

Elite racers CQC,

on-foot CQC,

new levels,

new lobby,

CQC bots - For the last point, that wouldn't be needed if cross play was done .

Solution:

From the perspective of someone who works in tech for a leading UK company - an obvious and ideal solution would be to have a dedicated CQC product team.

Frontier really should have Agile product teams for products rather than classing features as projects and having a waterfall release process.

Agile product teams allow constantly refining and improving different aspects without impacting other development from devs continually context switching.

Elite could be so, so amazing - even more so than it already is and I love Elite already Hence my +6250 hours in game and around a grand spent with Frontier.

I don't regret it but I hate to see problems and missed opportunities coming up again and again.

Please Frontier, don't ditch it. Just update the MVP PLEASE!!!!! Please, please, please.

What you released half a decade ago was great, it just still needs to be fleshed out.

Thanks so much o7

Since the new foot combat zones are basically arenas, why not combine the flying arena too? Make the combat zones arenas, include all the ships, and make the respawn rules the same.

Hydrino · Jun 11, 2021

Since they have a weakly implemented on-foot conflict zone system (needs work, like most FD ED releases it is still at the "has potential, needs fleshing out" state), and those are "in-game" and not a separate game, they need to move CQC to same "in-game" status and have the matches occur around in-game assets and using NPCs (aka 'bots').

The two things that always made CQC unplayable for me were the lack of bots and no intelligent lobby that showed possible matches or simply that no humans were available to play and I would need to select a match with all bots. Why FD thought CQC would work as released is beyond me because it only took a few tries at it before it was obvious without bots and a lobby that made sense it was going to be DOA.

But for myself I really prefer they focus all the dev money on achieving the original Kickstarter and DDF design visions. To me every single other thing is "nice to have" but not necessary and should be put on hold until the core, full on-foot EVA, Damage models, gas giants, and full ELW experience is realized.

CMDR Astraea Astralis · Jun 12, 2021

Really great suggestions! Especially the idea of adding racing to Arena...

CMDR Evolution · Jun 21, 2021

For some historical context about suggestions, please see below. Here's the tip of the iceberg from a few threads I'd commented on. As you'll see below, in the forums and reddit, common points are raised and ignored time and time again by Frontier.

With the CM's now wanting to liaise with the community, the CQC people would like to stop feeling ignored after all these years:
June 18th 2016 - Taipan, new maps, rewards?
February 1st 2017 - Have FD given up on CQC
May 9th 2017 - CQC Botmatches are needed
August 27th 2017 - leaderboards, levels, rewards, chat, NPCs, Engineering?
September 10th 2019 - CQC Improvement Speculation
November 18th 2019 - ARX for CQC

Frontier, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks

LKx · Jun 21, 2021

I think that the foot combat zones integrated in the game are a far better design than the totally disconected CQC.

They probably were trying to make it an e-sport, but a lot more effort would have been required, and doing that for the foot part would be an already lost battle (can't compete with dedicated bipedal shooters).

CMDR Evolution · Jun 21, 2021

LKx said:
I think that the foot combat zones integrated in the game are a far better design than the totally disconected CQC.

They probably were trying to make it an e-sport, but a lot more effort would have been required, and doing that for the foot part would be an already lost battle (can't compete with dedicated bipedal shooters).

I completely agree. There's a great opportunity for them to combine Odyssey elements into CQC (and vice-versa) as well as many other other missed opportunities from them leaving it to go stagnant over the years. Even back in 2016, people were asking for more content.

I know Frontier have other priorities at the moment but I think those and the points from this thread, all feed in to the solution that Frontier need to step away from MVPs for everything... Then never updating things due to a Waterfall project software approach. Agile products are the way forward and are what are used across tech industries for many years - for good reason! To save this all happening; repeatedly.

If Frontier had product teams, there wouldn't be so many people in the community feeling that there's no hope of MVP improvement from Frontier. It's because Frontier have ignored us for so long (across aspects), that makes people feel like that. Anyway, I still have hope that they're listening but it gets less and less as time goes on and we're STILL ignored. I hope to be proven wrong over the next few months

LKx · Jun 21, 2021

CMDR Evolution said:
I completely agree. There's a great opportunity for them to combine Odyssey elements into CQC (and vice-versa) as well as many other other missed opportunities from them leaving it to go stagnant over the years. Even back in 2016, people were asking for more content.

I know Frontier have other priorities at the moment but I think those and the points from this thread, all feed in to the solution that Frontier need to step away from MVPs for everything... Then never updating things due to a Waterfall project software approach. Agile products are the way forward and are what are used across tech industries for many years - for good reason! To save this all happening; repeatedly.

If Frontier had product teams, there wouldn't be so many people in the community feeling that there's no hope of MVP improvement from Frontier. It's because Frontier have ignored us for so long (across aspects), that makes people feel like that. Anyway, I still have hope that they're listening but it gets less and less as time goes on and we're STILL ignored. I hope to be proven wrong over the next few months

It's not about waterfall or agile, it's about commiting to features development (i'm not talking only about cqc here, if it was the only case it'd make sense to drop a feature which did n't work, the problem is if you drop every feature you add).

Sometimes i still wonder if ED in general is considered a primary product by FD, or just a famous side project.

I was thinking that with the Odyssey release it'd be different, and ED would have been back to a full production state, but the rushed Odysseys' release makes me wonder again.

CMDR Evolution · Jun 21, 2021

LKx said:
It's not about waterfall or agile,

The thing is, that having product teams continuously improving the aspects would've avoided us all being where we are today. For the agile vs waterfall point, their release of Odyssey was waterfall in line with their financial year for their stakeholders and if done properly, Agile would've avoided that. My team at work are always improving our products, carrying out UX research etc and making sure we have what the customers want (2nd largest utility company in the UK) - it def works for us.

LKx said:
it's about commiting to features development (i'm not talking only about cqc here, if it was the only case it'd make sense to drop a feature which did n't work, the problem is if you drop every feature you add).

Very true.

LKx said:
Sometimes i still wonder if ED in general is considered a primary product by FD, or just a famous side project.

Yeah, I know what you mean mate. If feels like it's more of a grandparent left in a retirement home! lol.

LKx said:
I was thinking that with the Odyssey release it'd be different, and ED would have been back to a full production state, but the rushed Odysseys' release makes me wonder again.

I thought the same thing too

. We really do set ourselves for disappointment in thinking things will get better. That was why I started the thread as it's been 5.5 years waiting for this

.

CMDR Evolution · Jun 24, 2021

With CM's looking at the forums every day - any response from Frontier please to this and the historical threads that continue cropping up over the years?

Again, CQC really was the first major MVP and it's been over 5.5 years, well before different MVPs which people are now waiting for. The CQC community have been left the longest it seems.

Please see the issues, ideas and solutions shared above. We appreciate it's not currently on the list, but to possibly have it on the agenda down the line, would be ideal.

o7

Huros · Jun 27, 2021

CQC arenas need to be in game and have NPC opponents filling in. Seriously have three stations for each power where we can go and join a game. Bring in the guardian fighters too

CMDR Evolution · Jul 5, 2021

Huros said:
CQC arenas need to be in game and have NPC opponents filling in. Seriously have three stations for each power where we can go and join a game. Bring in the guardian fighters too

Yeah exactly, they can reuse some of the mechanics from the new Odyssey update for that and combine it into CQC

Lugh · Jul 5, 2021

yeah lets update a mode no one asked for, no one plays, and no one has any interest in.