Radar/map has always been there, however in 1.6 radar wasn't as informative as it is now (it didn't show the map itself, so you were only guessing where your teammate is by how close he is to you/at what angle). Still, even now it serves only a secondary function, it can't replace voice communication even though they did everything they could to minimize the need to communicate. Very often it's not enough to know where you're standing, you should also say which angle you are watching and what are you going to do. Like "I'm watching the hangar, can you popflash me so I can peek a boost spot?" "I'm pushing B, will try to circle from mid, live, don't peek" e.t.c. Obviously, when you have a real team and everyone knows what his teammate should do by default it shaves off a lot of otherwise 'mundane' communication. It's still important, though. However, as Rikoll pointed out, CS is too much a different game to be compared to QW. Not completely different, some teamplay concepts still hold, but different enough to facilitate different types of communication. The difference in speed is tremendous. You simply won't have any time to coordinate your team actions with the same precision as in CS. Everything changes so fast... Heck, even in CS there's often not enough time to say everything you need.
So, to address the argument with mm3 being an improvement to mm2: it is - in a way that you can say more, but compare the time. The argument I've heard a lot of times is that while mm2 appeared as a means to have communication in the absense of voice, it is also clearing up a lot of spam from the voice when the two are combined not just because you need to say something often, but more because you need to say it very fast. QW is a very fast game, you'd rather spend 0,5 seconds on relaying some info, then 1 second on saying "took secret red". As you say, it's individual, but at least I've never heard anyone saying "I'm at lower RL, I'm at lower RL, I'm at lower RL"... Now imagine 4 people doing that simultaneously, you won't even have any time or space to say/hear anything else.



err, I'd say it's an ineffective use of status report. Most people actually advise not to spam it too much precisely for the reason that the info should be useful, like you've changed your position or at least a few seconds have passed since last you were where you were. Of course, a lot of people misuse it, but then it's a sort of 'skill' to learn? Not much of a skill, sure, but if you add it to a million other things that you're doing simultaneously, it matters. The main problem with teamoverlay is that you take out a mistake factor from team communication. If you assume that everyone always reports everything correctly - then I'd be all for enabling teamoverlay, but is it really that simple? With teamoverlay on it's impossible for anyone to forget to report something, which means their teammates will avoid making a wrong decision e.t.c. So it removes an emphasis on the importance to communicate properly/on time/. Which takes away from teamplay aspect of the game, IMO. Even the best players can sometimes miss a report or forget to relay something really important - with teamoverlay that will never happen. One missed status may get you a quad rocket to the face. One report you've failed to read will get your quad rocket into your teammate's face e.t.c. It's much easier with overlay, you don't have to remember who reported what a few seconds ago, you can just look at it and know instantly. Does this take away from the complexity of the game? I think it does.

Hi, I'm a newer NA player. I think the best ways to advertise qw and grow playerbase, is to point out the game has no rg, to publish new maps, and to remind people that the game is technically robust and well featured.

I think that team binds are excellent. I can sometimes barely speak when I am gaming, but it's very simple to press a bind. qw requires lots of dexterity on the keyboard, so I don't think these presses are at all demanding. Personally I hate radar stuff and minimap, its one of my biggest annoyances about modern games like bf4. I haven't played a 4on4 and don't actually know anything about what teamoverlay is. I think radars and maps take away from the immediacy of making decisions about things based on perceptional info from your point of view. I don't see thru walls in real life, and so my brain ain't wired to think like that. I'm not saying I don't want to learn to use teamoverlay, I'm saying I can probably make decisions faster and with a factor of immediacy if I cannot see teammates thru walls or whatever.

I think we should be very cautious to make changes to the game, and proceed at a glacial pace to allow people to rigorously inform themselves about new changes and come to consensus. One nice thing about qw is that it is so stable, development wise. Yes, it's very hard to learn the game and practice takes time. But if the game will be the same two years from now, it's an appealing target to practice for if I have little time to do so, because I can spend time practicing things instead of adjusting to and learning about changes.

Instead of changing the damage numbers of the lg, what are some things that can be done in new maps to reduce the effectiveness or modify the role of the weapon? Stuff like water transitions, grate or railing geometry that impedes lg tracking but allows for splash rl shots, low cell availability, things like that. Got any more ideas?

How many people actually think the LG damage is a problem?
I think it's one of the best things about qw. Having tons of ammo and no damage to do with it (in Q3, QL etc) is way less exciting.

Absolutely agree 100%
It's the only Quake game that doens't have an Railgun. And many players hate it.



About LG: Lg's influence can be reduced in new maps, by lowering the available ammo. But it can't in existing maps - unless ppl can somewhat agree on removing ammo on some maps (hello dm6 hello aerowalk hello ztndm3).

The way to prevent LG from becoming extremely annoying to less active and new players IMO iss either limit LG ammo on some existing maps or change LG power. Don't get me wrong, i love the LG. No need to change drastically. Just keep the knockback as it is and make it a bit less powerful.

I can open some server ports here and there with minor changes to the gameplay for testing purposes. contact me with suggestions on gameplay changes. Relax everyone, these ports will be have a distinctive hostname

I don't buy this "LG is too powerful now with 1000fps bla bla" bullcrap. I got really active at 2008 and at _that_ point had a really hot LG that according to sources even Milton feared. However we had basically the same setups, fps, mices as today and that's 7 years ago! My aim is much worse today than back then and none of the active players today has as good aim as the best aimers had at around that time (blAze, inter, xenic, UL, you name them). So I don't get the problem here.

I'm starting to believe it's more likely that people of today are more lazy and want to get things served rather than practice hard and get rewarded for it. I think the youtube video "if quake was done today" pretty much sums it up.

EDIT: Actually, when "antilag" arrived, I think it evened out the playing field. In my case I feel my LG got worse than before (IMO not many ppl at that time could handle the LG properly) and the "bad LG'ers" LG got better. So it only made every "bad LGer" a little bit more competitive and the better LG'ers a bit worse. The arguments made doesn't make sense to me.

EDIT2: The arguments makes even less sense when watching dm3 games, like take any mix you want of recent. Why in the world is everyone fighting for the RL and not the LG if the LG is so powerful it needs to be changed? Again I can't recall a single top player that thinks that the LG needs to be changed. Actually LG sucks pretty hard in close combat situations (like sng tele @ dm3), you just have to practice and figure out how to fight against it, but that also requires you to keep track of your enemy status and that in turn requires practice...

Im not saying that the game would be much better with a handicaped lg.
im saying we could / should try it on some servers
as well as other things, like replacing items: GA with YA on dm6 for example or add a red armor in dm4's suicide room
could be fun

and im all in for fun!

(Edited 2015-10-05, 14:30)

People will have different opinions, no matter which arguments are made so there won't be any consensus. I don't think this community needs more diverging things if I'm to be honest. I think focus should be put on something more important that unites the community rather than splits it.

qw needs more smileys! ***

why so serious ?

qw is about Fun & Friends
at least for me.

"let the boys have some fun!"

This kind of mindset has led where we are today. Nowadays only match-based DeathMatch is played because we converged into it, to "compete".

It's been like that for 10 years. Besides the now dead xs4all ffa server, everything is match-based. The casual play is almost no longer possible in qw.
I miss the matchless mods. CTF, rocket arena... just hop in and play. Even instagib could be fun. But instead we prefered to compete - which isn't bad - but it led to specialization. and that imo that is one reason we lost so many players though the years. we got too specialized.. too focused. Masking this problem as an argument is wrong.
your argument is invalid.

It seems natural: higher diversity leads to more activity

I played some reflex on the weekend, just hopped in and play. casual games. not possible on qw. unless its ffa. but would like to play casual 1on1, ca, ctf, instagib, rocket arena, midair, dmm4... matchless, maybe queue-based.

We are planning on get back the FFA server here in Brasil!
we too think (specially for new players, or "returning players" that "Casual" games (like FFA) are VERY important!

FFA here always was the "Gathering Place" for new teams to emerge... Like: 4 new/returning players, while playing, realizes that they are at the Same Level (skill)
then: 2on2 begins....

About the LG.....
Also about dm6......

First, about DM6 ---> For me, 2on2 dm6 has become the WORST game ever....
In the past, we (I'm talking about ME and My friends) didn't know how to dominate the map.... So it was FUN.....

Today, 2on2 on dm6 is only good in 0,000001% of the games (where both teams are 99% equally good), the others are just stupid.... If a change was to be made, I agree ---> YA instead of GA


About LG ---> I think (and I've said it MANY TIMES here to my friends) that it should take less damage (like, instead of killing you in like 900ms, maybe 1,3 seconds....
Right? for me it's the only "problem" in QW I can see.... it makes the other guns irrelevant....

Maybe cause there are practically no cells on the map but there are tons of rockets everywhere you look. An average player gets 30% lg. If it takes 4 cells to kill someone that means you've used 12 cells. If you picked up lg in water with the cells, you have enough to kill 2 unarmored players and are back to no weapons. An average rl player at low ping takes 2 rockets to kill the same unarmored person. You get 5 rockets with the rl pickup, and plenty more all around the map.

Also, consider that many teams will give the quad to a player that has lg over a player that may have a better stack but no lg because quad lg is so powerful (instant kills, no splash damage team kill potential).

Can we look into a ffa server with entirely new maps? Maybe posts in the map forum here, if they have certain information and formatting, can be included in maprotation. Maplist could be updated once a month, and maybe the most skipped map could be dropped at this time. Part of getting onboard with new maps, is finding hosting. I guess miami, fortaleza, somewhere eu are the central locations.

Also I have a though about revised .ent files. Are those files contained in the .bsp? What if we made alternate versions of existing maps, for example dm4r, or refresh, with a RA in the MH room. And dm4k, for kenya, with a tele entrance in mh room and exit below sng platform or something. This way, with discrete maps, the changes are more distinct. Of course the .ent files, however they work, are a seemingly nice and easy way to test changes.

Fair enough. Let's unpack this.


My own "active era" was 2000 - 2002. Most people used ball mice until the tail end of my time. Quake still pushed systems pretty hard. Only people with really solid systems hit the 77 fps cap. LG aim was unambiguously worse, but it was still *scary* in the hands of a great player.

By 2008, to my understanding, everyone was using optical mice, frame rates were no longer capped to game physics, fakeshaft settings were available, and other subtle client/server improvements had taken place of which I am not qualified to speak. So by this time frame, for better or worse, the LG had already become much more powerful than originally envisioned. It seems most would disagree, but I'd take the position that the LG was too powerful even in 2008.


It's true that 2008 -> 2015 hasn't changed stuff as radically as 2001 -> 2008. But, to reiterate, the problem was already there for me in 2008.

There have been some changes since 2008, though. Anti-lag was popularized around 2010, giving all online players lan-quality LG. The RL couldn't be given the same treatment. Unless playing on 12 ping (and probably ~95% of all games are played above 12 ping), this is a significant boost in the relative power of LG vs RL. And the discrepancy becomes starker as ping increases.

I don't think it has made a big difference, but mouse sensors have also improved. Example: the G400, which is basically the modern golden standard elite QW mouse (used by most of the best players), was released in 2011. Its predecessor, the MX518, was released in 2005, and has an unambiguously less accurate optical sensor.

I'm not sure when people started using 1000 hz polling rates, but that surely made a difference too.

Any other improvements since 2008 that I'm forgetting?


For games at, say, 50 ping I'd imagine anti-lag has improved LG % significantly.

It'd be interesting to graph LG % over time if I could find a good population/sample (duel tournaments or povdmm4 games, maybe?). If I had a good, representative collection of demos I would do it.

Stagnant LG % among top players could be due to lack of practice or slowing reflexes due to age.


If true, this is unfortunate. It would also be a way to explain why top players' LG % hasn't improved since 2008 (if that is true). That said, I'm not convinced.

There is also the fact that display tech hasn't really improved with regards to hitscan weapons since the late 90's. But that seems to be changing. There seems to be a lot of momentum to increase LCD refresh rates. A 200 hz LCD was released last month. Give it a decade, and an affordable 500 hz display seems plausible.

My 144hz HD LCD and my 160hz 800*600 CRT seem pretty nearly equivalent for LG aim. But 500 hz? On a 10,000 fps QW? I have no idea how much that will improve hitscan accuracy.


As I said in the OP, my strength is hitscan weapons. I've been told I have great LG and awful RL . I feel like it's more common for newbies to have have good hitscan aim and not-so-good RL aim (especially if migrating from other games). I'm only interested in this from a game balance perspective. And, considering that most people disagree, it's a purely intellectual exercise anyways.


I think Bogo was right on with his response here. This is very map-contextual.

On Aerowalk people often go for the LG before RL.
On ZTNDM3 people often go for the LG before RL.
ON DM4 people often go for the LG before the RL.
ON DM6 good players get the LG ASAP, even if risky.

It's just context.

Alright, I have some more thoughts on lg. But first I will say that I do not think the weapon is too powerful, or that the damage or cellcounts should be changed. I personally think hitscan aim can be intimidating, since I consider it to be a more mechanical and sensory activity than projectile aim, which has a more predictive element. Of course positioning is important with lg, and you need to make predictions to position well. And of course, in qw, aiming and tracking hitscan is not so simple as pointing and clicking, since you may need to move, and strafejump, and these activities could interrupt your tracking. But I consider lg aim more physical and thoughtless than rl aim, and I think lg aim benefits more from practice hours. For these reasons I consider the lg to be a less accessible weapon, although I also think that new players coming to quake from other shooters today may feel more comfortable using lg than rl. Ultimately if I have weak lg aim, I have to practice hard to beat an opponent with strong aim, I have to match his aim. With rl, even if my reactions are poor, I can rely on my insight to send predictive rockets, and don't have to track my opponent. So that's it, I think the lg can be intimidating because the aim is more mechanical than rl.

Maybe there is a way to emphasize the burst of damage the rl can deliver at the beginning of a fight. Because, the longer the fight goes, the lg becomes more effective due to its higher dps. Maybe, if a map has lower health and armor items available, there is some room for a rl user to press hard with direct hits. Of course the lg dps is still very high, so I'm not sure this idea makes sense, but the idea is that the rl can apply a critical amount of damage before the lg can respond effectively.

e, another possibility, is to change the way armor absorbs lg damage, to make armor absorb more of it. This could give lg effectively less damage, and I don't think it's an elegant change, I just mention it to throw out another possibility.

Most of this 'context' is really arbitrary. It's very easy to convince yourself that all these factors matter when they might not. You can start with a reaction like "I got killed by LG a lot and it felt really strong", but end up at "here is my complicated argument showing why LG is too strong" without actually presenting an honest case. In another world you might focus on ping and packet loss instead of framerate and mouse polling rate...but it's still an arbitrary choice (and the justification comes later).

I can do 300 DPS with the LG at any framerate, on any system. Framerates don't improve accuracy, practicing does (as dimman said). Having a better system might give you more opportunities to be accurate, but the only tool that can *really* do something for you is an aimbot.

You can say "LG is too powerful", or "LG was too powerful in 2008". I can turn around and say "LG is too weak", and what can you do? It's hard to prove or disprove somebody's opinion, so then the thread will devolve into people judging who has more hours played or whatever.

The pitchup and pitchdown limits have a very real effect on the game, on any system with any framerate or mouse polling rate or humidity or whatever you like. You can practice as much as you like, be the world's most honest player, and still the only way to overcome these limitations is to change the default pitchup/pitchdown values like I suggested. Even further: when you increase these limits, people like Milton and vb- have more practicing to do (since they have to aim at a 70 degree angle for real now).

Do you guys see the difference?



Maybe they go for those items because they have to in a given situation? Like, maybe you spawned near the middle of dm4 so you want to get LG. Even if the LG was garbage and RL was way stronger, you wouldn't always walk over to the armor room and get it (that would be crazy!). I don't see people ever go for one gun over the other on aerowalk, for example...you always try to get both of them whenever you can, even if you believe LG is super overpowered.

There's a big difference here; I've never said we shouldn't have matchless servers. It's a completely different matter, I'm all for matchless servers because they don't change the gameplay as having multiple servers with different LG damage/kickback/speed does.

Read your own argument to realize what you just said. Why change it then if it's already inferior to RL?

Maps are usually made with weapon strength and tactics in mind. On dm3 it's _cruicial_ to gameplay that LG works otherwise you're gonna get spawnraped for the rest of the game as soon as the nmy gets lockdown. You need to understand the map and how it's played :-)

If the new tech would be so much better, why does people in general still suck at aiming?

I've been around since '96 just not very active before 2008. My point is that if people could play the game just fine back then (when top players had even better aim) why would there be a problem today? I could play a mix dm3 and get 100+ frags on dm3 on my main qw setup with 100+Hz CRT but I could also do the same on my 60Hz TFT laptop... Cge played on 60Hz TFT and was among the absolute top players. What has changed since then that makes the LG too powerful today? It was just the same back then.

My impression is that people today wouldn't stand a chance against the top teams at 2008. So I'm inclined to believe that since the skill has decreased (no doubt about it actually, 4on4 skills that is), people also don't know "how to play the game" and therefore mistakenly thinks things like LG damage is flawed

GT plays at 85hz. Same as bogojoker.

See? It's like saying "The following people whose names you recognize use the 70 degree pitchup limit as a crutch: ... ... ..."
It doesn't mean anything unless you think what bogojoker does is more important than what the game is like.

I did and it still reads as "LG < RL when no ammo, LG > RL even with less stack". At absolutely no point did I call lg inferior, and I wouldn't.



Maps made in '96 may have been designed for weapon strength / movement in '96, but it is not difficult to understand that things have changed 20 years later.

In my opinion every common duel map that has an lg is dominated by lg (dm4, dm6, ztn, aero). I frequently play against a player regarded as the best rl in the game and it is clear to both of us that lg often wins out. Perhaps the only duel map exception is skull, precisely because cells are so limited. Unsurprisingly, it is rarely played outside of North America so I wouldn't expect many to be familiar with how it plays.

Avoiding the ammo problem, dm3 becomes a poorer example. Clan arena on dm3 is often dominated by lg. One might argue spam rockets win... I can't produce data to go one way or the other.

Is bringing up povdmm4 unfair? What do you think would happen if a player was rl only against a player with lg in povdmm4?



Bringing up one example of a 4on4 map that has almost no cells as your only argument that lg is not powerful didn't cut it for me.

However I agree with you that designing maps with this in mind is a valid approach to limit lg's superiority. At this point in time I'd rather approach weapon rebalancing by tweaking items on the map (something sned brought up previously) then decreasing damage. Changing ammo doesn't change the game senses you've built up over many years. You've been in a situations where you only had 6 cells instead of 12, so you know what you need to do differently. Changing damage involves a lot of relearning that invisible sense of how hurt someone is. Very evident if anyone has ever played with a /handicap. However, both approaches (map and dmg) interest me.

Actually I play at 75 Hz (ASUS VS247H-P) and 60 Hz (laptop). I'm sure I could benefit slightly from better hardware or customization, but I'm happy with what I've got.

I'd never support making changes that aren't supported by a large majority of the community. Based on that criteria...

The community appears to widely support:

Team overlay as a vote rather than a toggle - because few things are more pathetic than a toggle war killing a mix.
A tournament/ladder on seldom-played maps.

The following ideas also appear to warrant adoption (as long as they are optional):

Optional server commands for players to tweak map item layout - whether via custom .ent files or a full-featured item editor.
Optional server commands to alter weapon dmg/reload time - because a decent-sized minority wants this.
Optional server commands for players to change mouse pitch - because a decent-sized minority wants this too.

There appears to be a minority who believe giving players these options would fractionate the community. But most people are probably supportive as long as they are options, and not part of the default ruleset.

Finally, here are the ideas that haven't received much support in this thread.

RIP:

My transient spawn point protection idea. - Damn you all. I still think it's great.
Most Jawn Mode ideas. - Maybe it's just too much all at once?
Air steps.
Team overlay always on/off - The two disagreeing sides seem to cancel each other out.
Cl_idrive always allowed.

----

I guess that's my impression of the community in a nutshell. In my next post I'm going to try to step back and shift this convo to meta-level ideas: the community, the future, these forums, this website, etc.

THAT's what I always say!
from 96' to ~2005 the LG was FUN....

from 2005 to 2008+ it became A NIGHTMARE... (I don't even like 1on1 anymore, BECAUSE OF THE SHAFT WHORES)

But cant you also get good hardware and practice shaft then? The "shaftwhores" arent using an exploit so whats stopping you from using shaft just like them?

I think QW is as perfect as it can get as it is. That's why I'm still playing it, 19 years after my first 4on4. Just my two.

hardware and practice hours :p

From my perspective as a new player, there are two walls to overcome in qw. The movement, and the lg. Studying gameplay won't help in an lg fight, you have to get to a certain mechanical and physical ability. There is no alternative. Well, dm2

I originally proposed these because the features are already in place on servers / clients to use or not use.

FWIW, I heard support for iDrive in this thread and in the real world, where (surprisingly to me) many new players I've encountered were aware of iDrive and using it as they learn QW.