Quake Live received big gameplay update

dgz

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These new changes have been encapsulated within the default Quake Live ruleset:

New Quake Live Ruleset


* Players may now hold jump to continuously jump.
* Players may now hold forward and jump to 'bunny hop', allowing them to slowly gain up to 2x their base movement speed.
* Introduced Loadouts in select modes; allowing players to select one Primary Weapon (hmg, rl, lg, rg) and one Secondary Weapon (sg, gl, pg, mg).
* Added the command "weapon toggle" to toggle between your Primary and Secondary weapons. Defaults to "f" for new users.
* Unified weapon respawn time to 5 seconds across all game modes.
* Unified friendly fire, disabled across all game modes.
* Added global Ammo Packs, in lieu of weapon specific ammo, where each pack grants you a small amount of ammo for each weapon in your inventory.

* Reduced ammo respawn time from 40 seconds to 10 seconds.
* Added in-world item timers for "major" items, including armors, megahealth, power-ups, and medkit.[/b]
* Items have taller pickup collision boxes, so that players will not miss items as they jump over them.
* Added Power-up Spawn POIs, that appear 10 seconds before a power-up spawns.
* Added Power-up POIs, that indicate when an available power-up is available in the arena.


For players who wish to largely avoid the new major changes, the legacy style of play has been preserved within a "Classic" ruleset. All of our public Duel servers run in Classic mode. Subscribers may host additional classic servers using our "Create Match" feature. This includes the launching of Standard Classic servers, which any player may freely join.

In addition to our major ruleset changes, the following global game changes have been made:

General Game Changes

* Added a new weapon, the Heavy Machinegun (HMG).
* Lightning Gun now does 6 damage per cell across all rulesets, or 120 damage per second.
* New higher resolution font added.
* Widescreen Support for huds (see default huds for implementation examples).
* New in-game UI (menu and loading screens).
* Disabled the pk3 encryption. Paks can now be opened like a zip file; maps load up to 25% faster.
* Added flagstand POIs in CTF.
* Enabled self-kills with an additional 1 second respawn penalty.
* Quad firing sound reduced on high rate of fire weapons: mg, pg, cg, hmg.
* Added damage number indicators for damage dealt, can be customized by various color styles and enabled or disabled per weapon.
* Fixed a bug in that could cause the best weapon selection to fail.
* Machinegun now drops to grant users mg ammo.
* Infected zombies now have air control and can double jump.
* Fixed the CHEATS ENABLED notification on the map loading screen from lagging behind its proper state.
* Reduced the default amount of player movement bobbing.
* Reduced the default amount of damage kick movement.
* By default, don't show weapons you don't have in inventory on your weaponbar.
* By default, bob major items when simpleitems are enabled.
* Prevent broken shader image on crosshair '30', '60', '90', which would equate to crosshair "none" as the cycle repeats.
* Bots now randomly select loadouts, when applicable.
* Greatly reduced multiple pickups prediction errors.
* Removed the option to move to FreeCam while dead in elimination based gametypes.
* The PQL ruleset has been renamed 'Turbo'.
* Stonekeep map layout slightly modified.
* Trimmed out 19 maps will be added back later after being updated. (Arena Gate, Bloodlust, Cobalt Station, Concrete Palace, Dies Irae, Double Impact, Eviscerated, Focal Point, Forgotten, Golgotha Core, Hell's Gate Redux, Hero's Keep, Power Station, Proving Grounds, Sacellum, Solid, Sorrow, Space Camp, Spillway, Terminal Heights, Terminus)


Create Match Features

* Ruleset selections (Quake Live, Turbo, Classic) are all available for standard servers.
* Now support custom values of starting ammo in AD, CA, DOM, and RR.
* Added optional Double Jump physics player movement mechanic.


Arena Changes

* Removed Team Arena Runes from all maps.
* Proxy Launcher removed from all maps.
* Chaingun and Nailgun removed from several maps.
* Heavy Machinegun added to several maps, some depending on ruleset or mode.

As an old guy with 15+ years of Quake service, I have to say these changes are nice. FFA is way more fun now. Just lost an hour in that carnage. Somehow Quake 3 feels even more like an arena now. I mean it.
 
I just might have to start playing this again, it sounds hella fun.
 
No way am I going to start playing Quake again I had my fix in 97-98

Doom 5 or Bust
 
I'd occasionally enjoy a few matches of FFA in QL, but this introduction of loadouts has destroyed the experience for me. A good part of the fun in FFA is being able to use whatever weapon you can get your hands on, but now every fool is running LG+shotgun and it's basically lightning gun arena. Incredibly lame.

I'm just dumbfounded that they tweaked an experience that I've been enjoying for almost 15 years in a way that killed it for me, for no good reason.
 
Sounds like they kept the classic rules if thats what you're looking for; is it not played much? I haven't played in forever, but agree that half the fun of Quake is properly playing the game to get the weapons/ammo you need, and taking down those who outgun you.
 
Again, classic rule set. I don't see a problem in them making it more accessible for people that didn't spend 15 years perfecting their skills as long as those people still have a place to play as well. If they just changed it completely and ditched the classic rules then that would be a problem.

I personally think I wouldn't like the new style at all. Especially the generic ammo, etc. That was a big part of the strategy. Knowing where to grab ammo, guns, etc. However, I'd just hop on a classic server.
 
Still no blood explosions upon rocket impacts or pentagrams?

Pass.
 
I haven't played in forever, but agree that half the fun of Quake is properly playing the game to get the weapons/ammo you need, and taking down those who outgun you.
Pickups are a substantial chunk of the game, absolutely. It's at least 50% of a player's success in Quake-style deathmatch, and some would argue a great deal more than 50%. Start pulling that aspect out and you're left with something more like CS:GO DM. That's not to say that kind of gameplay isn't fun — because it can be — but it's decidedly un-Quake.

That said: there's the classic mode (and there's still, and will probably always be, QuakeWorld/Q2/Q3), so it's no big deal, really. It's only a problem if it becomes difficult to find other classic players.
 
...so it's no big deal, really. It's only a problem if it becomes difficult to find other classic players.

Agreed. From what I read, subscribers can start up a game of either type at will, so this technically shouldn't be a problem.
 
All other games just haven't seemed fun for awhile, but I've been craving some gametime. I figured I'd load up QuakeLive again to see I'd have some fun last night.

I was surprised to find that they'd completely revamped the game. No longer in-browser, instead with a launcher like most other games lately which downloads the game, keeps it up-to-date and then launches it.

Nice new matchmaking option... play now > CTF > and then I was playing.

Only took a few matches before I was ranking #1 in FFA (obviously there weren't any really good players in this match; i'm not good by any means). But it just attest to the fact that the core gameplay is still there if i can jump back in after a couple years and still kick some ass.

The only changes I noticed was the addition of the Heavy Machinegun, which I honestly enjoyed. Much better than the regular machinegun which i always felt was a little too lackluster, though i know that's the point.

Also noticed the floating combat damage, which i meant to turn off but forgot, then played with it and didn't mind it at all. It was actually kind of nice knowing how well my hit landed, and how much health the person probably had left.

I just used the quick matchmaking options, so I'm not sure which mode i was in. It couldn't have been classic, because of the inclusion of the Heavy Machinegun. But there was no primary/secondary restrictions, nor global ammo packs. All the pickups and weapons were there just as i'd expect.

All-in-all, a very pleasant experience was had. Just wish i could have found a CTF game going on the Space CTF map , my favorite map of all.

Well, there's always tonight!
 
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