Before watching, I'd bet on skill floor and no progression. Call of Duty constantly buzzing with new ranks, unlocks, badges, etc created a feeling of acomplishment that could take weeks or a month to feel in an arena shooter.
Progression is definitely another factor. Newer multiplayer games have a frequent reward system that keeps players coming back for more, whereas in the past, your sense of progression and reward was from your skill of the game.
and once there is nothing more to unlock u see how shit cod actually is @ChucksSEADnDEAD its basically carrot on a stick gaming, but once u remove that u see that its just however shoots first wins because the TTK is like ZERO and not to mention the aim assist and the INABILITY to disable crossplay. yeah id rather get my ass handled in arena shooters
I will say, I played a bit of Quake II recently to try the new update and I have to say, it wasn't too sweaty. I do believe a large part of why these games are perceived as sweaty is just that they have low player counts filled with only the most hardcore. When the player count is higher the experience is noticeably more chill. I think these games actually have a pretty low skill floor to get into, but that floor is just often artificially raised due to low player counts. If you go onto an MW2009 match, you'll also have a pretty brutal experience but that's just an inevitable result of the game being old. I'm not certain that inaccessibility would necessarily be an issue for a new Quake game if one came out today. As for why COD overtook Halo. Part of it is the ease of killing yes. But it's also important to note that after Halo 3, the next 3 Halo games were ODST, Reach, and 4. All of which were controversial in different ways. ODST while well remembered now was considered overpriced at the time. Reach while amazing made some decisions that alienated some of the fanbase. 4 doubled down on some of the controversial decisions of Reach alienating even more. Part of it was also just some people preferring the gritty atmosphere of COD which was considered fresh at the time. So in this I'm also a little hesitant to say that accessibility was a huge issue.
The paradox that Arena Shooters face is that the concept and barrier of entry is simple but almost no one seems to be getting into them. Options for shooters are another thing too. We have way more of them now than before instead of the cod and halo killers we had all the time, and that also impacts the growth of Arena Shooters. Speaking of Call of Duty. It was a popular alternative that casual players found to have enjoyed more, Modern settings, fast time to kill, faster movement made it seem like the next step forward for arcade Shooters. ODST was fine because it expanded on Halo 3 while still keeping the same formula intact. Reach and 4's change felt like an evolutionary response rather than a natural one. Call of Duty took over and they wanted to be like them. I'm glad that they stopped with Reach to be honest. Bungie knew when to stop.
@@brokenportals Yeah it's a messy situation. I think one potential solution I've thought of that doesn't compromise the equals starts of arena shooters is to just offer more low stakes content. By that I mean solid singleplayer and coop experiences (such as horde modes) as well as more goofy gamemodes that allow people to get used to the game in a more low stakes environment. As someone who grew up more on Halo and got into Doom and Quake later on... I can say that a huge part of why I got into Halo was because of playing coop campaign with friends or messing with forge maps and things like that. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing a new Quake game that comes built in with Defrag as a gametype to get people used to the movement tech of those games or other content along those lines.
This seems to get missed a lot. If you time travelled back to 1999 and played Quake 3 Arena you would have a completely different experience to what you have now. You'd see very little players strafe jumping and rocket jumping all over the map like you see if you jump into Quake Live today. Remember back then most people were still using a ball mouse on the free mouse pad that came from the computer shop so they couldn't even aim well if they wanted to. The skill ceiling was much lower and everyone was starting at the same level. Quake 3 does have a massive skill ceiling, far higher than any modern competitive FPS, but at the same time with modern match making you could easily ensure that casual gamers never have to get ROFLstomped by pros. I think the biggest barrier to entry is the game modes and the lack of single player. What most arena FPS have in common is a lack of a proper single player campaign and lack of casual game modes. Unreal Tournament 2004 did a great job by introducing vehicles and massive maps to the game, however it's hard to get casuals interesting in a game with no proper campaign when other games of that era such as Halo, Call of Duty and Half Life created such epic set pieces in their campaigns. There's a reason Halo took the crown as the arena FPS king in the mid 2000's and that's because it had campaign, split screen multiplayer and co-op. It was very easy to introduce new players to the game, plus the larger maps had vehicles which gave casual players a chance. Halo Infinite could still carry the torch if 343 didn't do everything in their power to sabotage themselves through stupid decisions and they still have a small chance to redeem themselves if they continue adding good content to the game. Quake Champions or UT could just as easily revive the genre if they provided the same. There's no reason an arena FPS can't have vehicles and still be a great competitive duel game.
Halo was just a sign that there were other options, and most of the crowd eventually moved onto those, while Quake developed competitively. The standards changed overtime, for better or worse which would also affect the scene entirely. Battle Royales are also facing an eventual decline too thanks to the rise of Extraction Shooters, which seem to fill both pve and pvp needs all in the same map. @@Pyroteq
As a person who grew up on Quake and UT. You nailed it. I didn't know why, other than Fortnight killed off UT4 before it was finished past Alpha. In search of a UT4 replacement, there is a game that combines UT with Portal called Splitgate. It looks great, its smooth. But it was chaos. The arenas are tight, and its a lot of weapons firing everywhere, getting killed and not know where. I only played it for a day. Many people comment it's fun for a few matches. The most popular game modes for UT2004 and UT4 are team-based. The maps are bigger than arenas DM. With UT2004, you usually got your main loadout within a few seconds - called Onslaught, you had vehicles. And as you say, you can relax for a while, see what your team needs. UT4 has Blitz, a one-way CTF style. But people really wanted Onslaught brought back. Thanks, For explaining why people left Arena-type games. I miss the old games thou. And slow shooters still feel, slow.
Fortnite didn't kill UT4. Epic did. It was a management decision to abandon UT for the new, increasing popular, more accessible, Battle Royale games. Epic had the money to develop BOTH, but chose not to do so, probably because they decided the UT player base wasn't large enough to warrant their continued efforts.
@@GonzoTehGreat Yes to both. If not for fortnite taking off, Paragon and ut4 development would have continued. Too bad ut4 didn't make it till at least the beta or release stage. Paragon had a pretty large user base. But overall, from their data and what we also know. Battle arena games are not the thing right now, maybe not ever again. Tons of money that epic made. They could have easily afford to finish out ut4. As a business decision, being that it money would never make them money. It's sadly logical. Ut4 is still very playable today. Another year could have done wonders to allow the fans to add better tools to make custom characters and maps. If few maps are still being made even today.
@@TexasCat99 Agreed. 👍 However, I still think Epic should've completed UT4 anyway and released it, but announced they wouldn't be supporting it unless there were enough players. This would've allowed them to recoup some of their development costs, but keep the community happy, whilst diverting most of their efforts to Fortnite. Instead, they abandoned it. 😠I've not yet played Fornite, but they've ensured I never will.
I would like to say that the issue isn't the skill cap of quake, it's rather that it has no new players. If CSGO had no new players it will have the same issues. If quake had new players, they will face each other and the learning process wouldn't feel very dreadful. How do we attract new players to that genre without diluting it? It is beyond me.
I think the main thing that nobody seems to do a good job of with any competitive game, is elements you just have to know, as opposed to elements you have to get good at For example, in arena shooters, you just have to know that you're supposed to camp and guard weapon and item spawnpoints, even better if you can work out a pattern or routine to keep getting the best stuff over and over. This is something a new player can't possibly know, or even if they do know, they still have to learn and memorize the item locations on each map. This is bad design. People are winning on something other than skill. New players pick up on this on some level, sense they're being cheated, and rightfully quit. It's an arbitrary floor to get into the game that just proves absolutely nothing competitively, yet it makes all the difference between winning and losing It's like all the veteran players are hiding in a little clubhouse snickering to themselves because they know a key secret and they know they're getting wins they don't deserve And when you play like you're "supposed to" often the game loses all its fun, because you're just following a pattern mindlessly
I’d say that I don’t agree w u, take Fortnite for example, there are timings to consider, and some of very limited loot that definitely gives an advantage if you manage to capture it and fend off the opponents. It’s just that time pace of the game is different and after you die you start again with the same opponent in the same match instead of starting from scratch. Map/weapon/power up control is a crucial element in many games, net even limited to fps, let alone arenas
Thanks a lot man! Halo definitely had an impact on the scene at the time. It could have been a great gateway for people to get introduced to the arena shooter genre. But it was never really marketed that way other than being a mass appeal shooter. It was the gold standard shooter for consoles until call of duty took off with 4.
Surprised you didn't mention Team Fortress Classic, which is also a good example: -Insane skill ceiling, the bhoping + wall strafing + conc jumping makes all fast paced games look like child's play. -No progression other than getting good at the game -As with older games, the small community is very skilled, which creates an effect that ends up making the game harder for newcomers, since there is no matchmaking, new players can't put up with such good players and realize they will need YEARS of training to get on a reasonable level. It's so sad to see once very popular games not being played at all. I guess the long term reward aspect of it is the opposite of what games are now (not saying games now don't take skill but they create palpable progress through different means other than movement/aiming/map knowledge.
You just gained a subscriber. You nailed every single point in this topic! I have been playing arena FPS on and off for about 10 years. Learned how to strafe jump, bunnyhop, rocket jump, crouch slide, plasma climb, you name it, and was actually happy when Quake Champions came out because of how it tried to stand out. It would have even less players today if it was just a remake of Quake III. The genre really needs to change with accessibility in mind, while still maintaining most of what makes an arena shooter awesome. I think good in-game tutorials would help a great deal in introducing people to its mechanics. Not everyone is willing to watch TH-cam tutorials on movement tricks and map control.
Quake Strafe jumping is much more obscure and difficult for beginners than anything in the UT series. UT had dodge on double tap and double jump, both of which are intuitive and easy to learn, but no weird key combinations or movement.
Attitude and mentality play a big part. Back in the 90s, skill based games were just the norm, because they weren't designed with crutches in mind. You had a crosshair in the middle of the screen, and your bullets go where the crosshair is aiming. If you missed all of your shots, it was because your aim was bad. Games like that tended to increase movement speed to compensate for the more skilled aimers. These days, penalities are introduced (random spread etc) to prevent the best aimers from dominating the poor aimers, in an attempt to normalise the skill gap. Players from that era had no crutches, so it was either learn to play, or quit. And games that go down that route often lose new players who lack the mentality to dig deep, learn to play, 'git gud' etc, as they would rather just go play whichever game panders to them and gives them rewards for bad play. And this has a lot to do with society, once we started teaching kids it is okay to lose, and everyone gets a medal for participation etc, it created a generation of adults who give up at the first hurdle rather than knuckling down. And with so many gaming options available, it allows them to choose the games that are easy for them, so they can pretend they are good players. And yet, no amount of crutches changes anything. There was a game called Section 8: Predjudice years ago, that hit upon the brilliant idea of giving everyone an aimbot on cooldown. The bad players still finished at the bottom of the scoreboard, because the good players used cover, whereas the bad players were always out in the open relying on their aimbot to get them kills.
Cope. Major modern FPS multiplayers that are successful, have competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches. You've just drawn up a strawman to beat down, congratulations on shadow boxing against 'Section 8: Prejudice". The irrelevance of arena shooters is simple, they're simple minded and boring, no one wants to play them with vastly superior options available for free on the market.
@@Davos-st8ok "Cope. Major modern FPS multiplayers that are successful, have competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches. You've just drawn up a strawman to beat down, congratulations on shadow boxing against 'Section 8: Prejudice". " Hardly a strawman, given that I was making my own points/thoughts and not actually responding to any given point made in the video. Secondly "competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches" sounds very dumb, given that the crutches are built in to the game design regardless of playing ranked or casual. More often than not, you have to work around the built-in crutches at higher level, rather than utilise them to your advantage. Unless of course, said crutch is overpowered (take Winston in Overwatch for example). Pro players used him because he was OP, they didn't like using him, because he wasn't fun to play. I used Section 8 as an example, of what happens when you think adding a crutch to your game will actually do, because the end result is the always the same. The pro players end up on top, followed by the good players, followed by the button mashers. Make a game hard or make it really easy, the end result is always the same, because attitude and mentality are the key differences between pro, good and bad players. The willingness to stick it out, learn to play, git gud etc, is the difference between good players and bad players. The difference between good players and pro players, is natural ability and the willingness to go the extra mile to take your play to the next level. A fun conversation you can have with the old skool pro arena shooter gamers, is where do they stand now, now that they are old, have families and responsibilities etc, and can't play as much. Because they still have the knowledge, the skills, the experience, the drive to win, just not the same sharpness, the same reaction speed etc. And yet, they could still easily humilate a cocky Fortnite or Call of Duty player, because those gamers never had the skills in the first place, they never needed them in dumbed down games that gave them crutches to rely on (by crutches I mean, slow movement speed, big hitboxes, low TTK, rng spread etc).
@@zalamael Winston? What about Winston? You're talking about a tank role, which is a strategic role and not a mechanically oriented role. Again, drawing up a strawman. DPS players at the highest levels are the most mechanically skilled, there's no crutches. The "old school players" are simply too bad to hang in modern fps games, because they're just not as mechanically skilled as the younger generation. They're washed. Their brains have ossified. That's the reality. Old school players can't do anything in Fortnite, because its one of the most mechanically demanding games ever, with an incredible demand on cognitive processing speed. They'll get shit on by teenagers. Sorry to burst your delusional bubble.
@@Davos-st8ok "Winston? What about Winston? You're talking about a tank role, which is a strategic role and not a mechanically oriented role. " Nice way to tell me you are a simplteton without actually having to admit to it.
@@zalamael No argument of substance detected. Ad hominem detected, hallmark of someone who is cornered and feeling desperate. Now let me just do a quick search and look up the best quake player and how great his mechanics are. Ah found him, Rapha. Let's see these leet mechanics of his in Overwatch. Hmmm..he's plays like a plat player...All those years of grinding in Quake to be this mediocre in Overwatch... Arena shooter bros love jerking themselves off when literally nobody gives a fuck about their fabled LEET mechanics which never impressed anyone to begin with.
Arena shooters want you to get trashed until you git gud. The feeling of overcoming such adversity is sooo satisfying, but not all casuals will put up with it, because arena multiplayer shooters don't incentivize much on the multiplayer side as opposed to single player
New games give casuals the ability to get a kill here and there, via ultimate abilities for example. Arena games are very fair and unforgiving, that's why you need to actually get good to earn the kill, which is what dissuades the generation of gamers that are used being spoonfed. There is a reason why new games die as fast as they come out. If you want fast food don't complain about the quality.
Can't wait for some arena shooter that's like Call Of Duty; killstreak rewards, deathstreaks, and perks. Maybe even an arena shooter that's like Battlefield, where military usable vehicles are involved.
@@ArjunTheRageGuy If I remember right, you gain points which are then spent on resources… for example you can launch artillery. So it’s not killstreaks exactly, but getting kills and completing objectives gets you points. But thats why I said it “kinda” exists.
I think another problem, espacially with the esport side, is the lack of monetisation. CS, Dota heck even Rust they all have ingame markets with skins that cost rela money, some type of gambling system that addicts the players, betting on tournaments and even having those skin and gambling sites having sponsor logos on esport players shirts. This also kinda solves the player count problem as in Arena FPS low amount of players mean only the veterans are left which make newcomers run away after they have to fight someone way above their skill level but if you have some kind of drop system with cases like in CS and not have it bind to skill but randomisation or playtime you'd have a number of 'players' that are not there to play to game but are there to grind those cases and those 'players' end up becoming stepping stones for the newcomers who finaly have opponents around their skill level to play with and learn the game through playing.
Biggest reason is the skill ceiling it's so high. Games like CSGO, you good the same corner in the same corridor on the same map every single time. Arena shooters are far more dynamic.
Although COD4 was huge, Halo 3 was still the most popular xbox live game and didn't really get took over until MW2 came out. By that time, franchise fatigue had set in and H:Reach with the loadouts, bloom, armor lock etc had completely turned off a lot of the community which id argue was a massive reasoning for the shift. Halo CE and 2 actually had quick TTK's with the utility weapons but the average TTK was much slower. Although the slower predictable movement as you said made it a lot more easy to understand and power weapons like rockets, shotgun and sniper helped as they are also easy to understand. Ironically enough H5 and Infinite went a lot further into being arena shooters with the faster, more nuanced movement and their populations dropped off a cliff. Obviously there was content drought reasons behind both games dropping in player count, but i had friends that were lifelong halo fans dropping H5 because they couldnt get a grip with the movement and harder to use utility weapon which prolonged the TTK.
Agreed on 5 and Infinite. I found them to be the best compromise so far for an arena shooter thats not too slow or fast. Splitgate is another game I forgot to mention. It's true that H3 was still huge, but Cod4 sowed the seed for the eventual downfall.
Think of Mario Kart. Now imagine Mario Kart if the guy in first place could get stars/lightning bolts/bullet bills/golden mushrooms and actually had a BETTER chance of getting those items than everyone else. Then imagine if Mario Kart didn't acknowledge the existence of mini-turbos, didn't tell the player how to do them, and didn't have graphical effects for them so a new player would see everyone going faster than them for seemingly no reason at all. Then imagine if Mario kart stopped having distinctive tracks and every new course was just a variant of Mario Raceway or Baby Park. And then they stopped adding new items (because you don't really need items besides the trinity of green shells, banana peels and mushrooms!) And then they replaced all the characters with generic Shyguys, Koopas and Toads. And then they got rid of grand prix and battle mode, because what they REALLY wanted you to play were 1v1 50 lap races. Then imagine if every Mario Kart game since the Gamecube had something wrong with it like bad framerates or bugs or no features, or if they just came out at really bad times, or if they simply didn't bother telling people a new Mario Kart game even came out. Would you really blame people for wanting to play Gran Turismo instead?
I know people that have only 1 game installed, and that they are playing it for over 20 years with their friends and they don't play anything else. Arena shooters used to be places for having fun, meeting people, make new friends. Then the tournaments started and those who had time practiced all day long. But even then, the Pros didn't mixed with the newbies, they had their own server with their own people. I think it was in Quake 3 when I saw this change. Pros ripping everyone until the server was empty, and they saw that as an achievement, even if it was against first time players. Then Counter strike was out and had the same problem. Pros massacred new players, all the tryhards selected the same team so they didn't kill each other. Because one Tryhard characteristic is that not only they are bad winners, but bad losers too. If they start dying then they rage quit because they cannot accept that one person that is not on their level can kill them. Matches stopped being friendly. I saw with my own eyes how TryHards went from server to server annihilating everyone until all servers were empty. I'm a Quake 2 Veteran and when they released the remastered I was so happy, I went to play and saw a little bit of everything, but I also saw new players that just have fun even though they sucked so bad. When I see those players I don't try to play at my best. I lower my skill or leave the server so they can have fun. Because everyone went through that. Having a kill while you suck is an experience, and if you win a match it's just another level of happiness. Maybe I'm an idealistic idiot, I'm the one who respects a railgun duel for example... I don't switch to the shotgun for the easy kill once the other took a railgun hit. Also, there have to be a separation between those who play all the time and those that want to unwind after school/work. Even in ranked games there is smurfing so the tryhards create a new account just to play with people with less skill so they can boost their ego (because they don't want to lose rank in their main accounts or don't like or accept defeat) I think the problem is cultural. That's why I play online games as soon as they are released because that's the only time everyone is almost at the same skill and it's the most fun you can have.
I think that's just the ripple effect of competitive play. Even games with a casual foundation like Fortnite can become try hard city and it's no longer casual. Good thing about the game though as well as counter strike is the side of custom content, where there are game modes that are more casual and you don't have to worry about your rank.
>Cannot take your time at all Typical chicken and egg problem. With enough players this goes away. An onboarding method that isn't chucking all players into a small map and letting them fight is needed - this could be single player even though you seem to think this isn't feasible. With a healthy playerbase, bad players can play together and good players can play together. DOTA would not be popular without its huge playerbase, allowing players to play with others around their skill. If you removed 95% of DOTA players and left the top 5% who have been playing for decades a similar thing would occur. With enough players most of your perceived problems disappear. Getting those players is the first step. >Fast ttk Quakeworld has fast ttk. As does ut99. afps can have fast ttk, but q3 onwards leaned into slower. I agree on this point and it is a big part of why CS gained popularity back in the day. Top level quake duels where fights last minutes are not the baseline for ttk. >dislike epic for canning ut4 As a ut player from way back I am not sure I do. The direction they were taking it was quite uninspired and I am almost glad they killed it rather than pressing on. It was good they were trying to change it but evident they did not have the vision to do anything great. Unfortunately. Finally this doesn't really cover the why of the decline, more the problems they face to become popular/retain players. There was a playerbase back in q3 days (the options were quake or unreal if you wanted to play online FPS), so getting into it was less a chore than it is now. CS, players wanting "real" weapons alongside the lower ttk of modern shooters is a huge part of why the decline happened.
Thanks for taking the time to offer some insight. It was an oversight on my part regarding quakeworlds and ut's time to kill. But the majority of the arena shooters that would come later would adopt q3s template, and in effect, that cemented the idea of what an arena shooters supposed be. And well, there are other options now that satisfy fast paced movement, but in different ways that you may or may not like. The declining population was a result of other options popping out of the woodwork. Bringing up DOTA 2 was just showing that people do like complex games, but they have to be allowed to play at a pace that's comfortable for them and the game does allow that due to its downtimes between fights or when you're farming. As for UT4, keep in mind that we were looking at an alpha stage. The potential for it was there and had the best likelihood for success at the time. But to scrap it up was in a way, pissing on their legacy. They could've made that and their money with Fortnite, satisfying both parties. Real weapons weren't really the issue. Halo was incredibly popular in the console shooter market in the 2000s and its a sci fi game. I suppose marketing comes into play though. A Quake Reboot could revitalise things but that depends on the how. I don't wanna see anything like quake 4, but something similar to 1 with the cosmic horror vibes.
@@brokenportals >But the majority of the arena shooters that would come later would adopt q3s template, and in effect, that cemented the idea of what an arena shooters supposed be. Yeah even epic did it with 2k3 onwards. I think it was a misguided attempt to level the playing field, so weaker players did not get instantly destroyed instantly by better players, yet it achieved the inverse, allowing better players to always eek out a win against lower skilled players while removing the ability for lesser players to slaw better ones in one hit. Couldn't we consider Q3 the last "big" one, not much that came after has made any in roads. As you said they are all derivatives. >As for UT4, keep in mind that we were looking at an alpha stage. Sure, I guess at least they tried to make something that was more "new player" friendly with flagrun. I agree that it had the best likely hood of success and was pumped when the process started. >Bringing up DOTA 2 was just showing that people do like complex games Yes I agree, but if DOTA2 had 5% of its current playerbase it would have the same issue we have in afps - new players can never learn. Having enough players and some sort of matchmaking allows stratification of playerskill so the lower tier players can play at their own pace. >Real weapons weren't really the issue. They played a part and the alternatives had them (CS and later COD) and inadvertently through ttk while trying to make things "realistic". We can see that players liked this/wanted it as they started playing those games. I don't think Q3 having faster ttk Great content btw, looking at your post frequency you are a machine. I also like how you went big picture and didn't get caught in the weeds of "new players can't time" that is common in afps circles when discussing this.
If you go by Q3's definition, sure. But the speed was reduced for the sake of accessibility during the early days of console gaming. People are used to experiences like titanfall and apex nowadays but that wasn't the case at all in the 2000s. Halo still has the spirit of an arena shooter while still making some compromises for console players.
I think main reasons of decline is: 1) arena game mode - you spawn with weak gun and must run first for weapons. Unlike in cs, ow, tf2 where you spawn ready for action. QC have all different game modes now but didn't had them on launch, which may scared some new players. People like to have fun on servers with infinite money in cs, or infinite goal time, with voice chat for both teams. 2) they are outdated, QC not outdated but it launched bad. New afps need to be in top shape and comfortable to use: if you casual here fast match making, if not here server browser and lobbies. QC's match making search can last 5 min, where game match last 10 min, you can't even play with same party again. May be design of usual fps can be cause but i'm not sure, i like aliens, mutants and sci-fi, not tumblr fortnite style. AFPs difficulty scaring new players just not true. Games like OW, TF2, apex have big list of weapons and skills each with its own quirks. In fortnite you need to build burj khalifa in 3 seconds and be able to navigate inside it. COD players can kill you with knife that ricocheted 15 times. CS have spread patterns, ppl spend time learning it but complain to afps with 11 weapons which most of them have 100% accuracy, come on. Movement being hard is not true. When you strafe jump in quake? When you move through corridors, during firght its regular wasd with jumps. Strafe jumping takes 15 min to get on rails and after that you can use it in game and become better and better. In UT you have more jumps, but that it. I like afps because you can carry freaking arsenal of weapons, not 1 rifle,1 puny pistol and 2 greandes. Big ttk means you using your weapons more and fights not about who shot first.
I don't understand how Quake 3 still has the reputation that it does. Every attempt at reviving it has failed, and there are other old multiplayer games that have done a much better job of staying relevant (CS 1.6, Brood War, AOE2, Melee, 3rd Strike). Quake 3 was a dodo bird, not a T-Rex.
Fighting games make room for different skill levels and can be enjoyed casually, so it doesn't have the problem Quake does. CS 1.6 is simple but hard to master. Brood War and AOE 2 have dedicated communities, but the genre itself isn't as popular as it used to be, thanks to LoL. At the end of the day, Quake just lacks a lot of things that people want in multiplayer nowadays. People seem to be getting their fix in other types of shooters or genres that offer more player interaction and immersion. Arena Shooters are still great, but they're limited.
@@brokenportals MOBAs did a number on RTS, but RTS games are still pulling numbers that arena shooters would kill for. The state of AFPS is so dire that we now live in a world where Nintendo is better at making multiplayer shooters than iD Software.
The problem with most modern games is the predatory progression system. Toxic no-life veterans can now ruin new players matches by simply having better gear unlocked… or P2W whales by paying for faster progression. More casual players need to consider playing milsims, but with an open mind (throw run n gun tactics to the side, until they grasp basics).
Young people dont understand that the campaign serves as a tutorial for playing arena deathmatch against other players and these games largely came out at a time before matchmaking so you had years to hone your skills in the campaign, then local co-op, then matchmaking is introduced. There also was not a skill based algorithm so you would only match with randos. Sometimes you fight a noob thats never played and sometimes you fight an invincible death machine.
For sure. But people were able to adapt to it easier back then because that's all there was besides Counter Strike, Ut, and Halo. Even then, you still had to learn how to hold your own.
If you're interested in playing a third person multiplayer shooter similar to Halo called Red Faction Guerrilla let me know. We install a mod that adds new characters, has custom maps, and balances weapons
You can still play Heroes of Newerth unofficially through Project Kongor. The point i was trying to make was that people do like challenging games. But even still, there has to be a delicate balance between complexity and accessibility. Population and community also have a huge impact on it too.
true, alot of newerth was pretty toxic especially with vote kick system. community is indeed important and ur right a balance is needed sounds alot like thanos@@brokenportals
The reason the AFPS died is because it is actually poorly designed. In CS new player would get shit on even harder if you have only 400 people playing it on average who were all hardcore players. They would go 0-16 every game. The difference is the gameplay is far more varied and well thought out, thus its more enjoyable. High TTK doesnt increase the skill ceiling. it actually lowers it, in a game like quake if you are in a 2v1 you have to match 2 people for DPS over a long period of time to get a kill. Even a player half your skill in a game with a long TTK can damage you. In CS you can rip an inferior players head off before he can even move his mouse.
@sirdetmist3204 That's a fair point with the ttk. For what it was, afps did have a good design. They just never grew out of their comfort zone while the industry evolved, and people developed new tastes.
@@brokenportals Did they have good design or what it just the most basic design? When you think about it all they are is a map, some guns, some armor and some health. Nothing much more to add to that.
@sirdetmist3204 This was at a time when multiplayer had a simpler framework. Modern practices to keep people hooked wouldn't be realised until later. Halo took the same concepts and made it more accessible. Was popular for years until the early 2010s. It's basic now, but it was good back then. Good design doesn't have to always equate to being complex. You can have a basic design that's still good if polished and focused to a t. Some of the best games out there have simple designs.
@@brokenportals I dont know if more accessible is the right term. It slowed it down and removed enough skill the make it playable on a controller. Even the shield system really is designed to make headshots matter less for a large portion of gun fights. But were those design choices or just the easiest thing to do? I would argue that picking up weapons around the map is poor design. If me and you are in a 1v1 on Quake and you keep getting spawns that put you closer to a mega or closer to a vital weapon than I do. Right away I am at a disadvantage through no fault of my own. That is bad design. When you make map design that puts so much emphasis on this you get extreme inherent imbalance and it sucks. Lets say I need health, and my team mate who has loads takes the mega. I then die to the next person I see. That is bad design because I have to compete with my own team mate for resources. CS which is the same that killed the AFPS got around this by basically tying weapons to an economy and you get a stronger economy the more you win. And you cant gain any health back during a round so you arent competing with your team for anything.
@@sirdetmist3204 Team play has never really worked well for Quake in my opinion, Duel is where you get the best possible experience. One player might get an initial advantage at the start but it eventually stops mattering, both players have the same opportunities for resources once the layout and spawn time is memorized. That's where map awareness and resource control comes in. Halo was pretty accessible, basically set a new standard for console shooters afterwards. Arena Shooters appeal more to a niche crowd that like a simple but straight to the point deathmatch/duel experience. Seems like you prefer team-based shooters with balanced loadouts, and that's fine.
luckily quake 3 and unreal tournament games have bot support, so if people stop playing multiaplyer you can always spend a few hours playing some bots, still fun and exciting. Unreal and quake 3a devs where ahead of their times adding bots. shame most games these days have no bot support, making multiplayer dead after a few years and no way to experience the game because no bots.
Its just an old genre, that's really it. if think you think about it, other mainstream games are hard as well but at the same time games like CSGO or Fortnite or call of duty provides newcomers with ample enough power to take down even someone with more than 100 hours or whatever. My friends daughter took down a player on fortnite just by being in the right spot at the right time. I'd imagine right away in a setting like Quake? that little stunt wouldn't fly at all. A duel on an arena shooter is so punishing that if you die and your opponent takes the lead and with their current inventory? you pretty much become a rabbit who must slay the wolf nowadays on call of duty 1v1's both players have their weapons no matter what loadout it is and all it takes is who saw who first. nothing else matters
Another important thing about csgo too is that you can still contribute to the team even if you're not really getting kills. Not to mention more casual game modes, and custom servers providing other options for players.
@@brokenportalscorrection on my end so CSGO has upgraded or transitioned to CS 2. But yes, counter strike has workshop maps and resources for players to play and experiment outside of causal or ranked games. Fortnite has other games modes and player created content to sink your teeth in and that game is almost like a player one meta verse of some sort where now it’s got rocket racing, Lego survival, and some music festival game mode where it’s like guitar hero gameplay. Arena shooters do not have that luxury so that’s another hard sell for me to even mention say, Quake champs to any of my friends imo
@Racoon4432 CSGO was ported to the Source 2 engine, which means CS2 is pretty much CSGO. Agree on the points regarding custom games. Fortnites sandbox allows for a lot of game modes and even entirely new titles using Core Games. It's the only reason I'd ever play it.
Fighting games are older yet it's still one of if not the most competitive genre of video games out there more so than shooters. It's not exactly that it's old but rather it lacks support, fighting games have a dedicated community supported by the devs whereas Arena shooters don't get the that treatment that's why they faded over time.
@jj4cx423 Fighting games are competitive but are far better in introducing casual players than arena shooters. And each fighting game is unique, something that is a problem in the arena shooter genre. You can enjoy fighting games casually and still have fun. Arena shooters in their current state, are for thrive or die players.
For me the problem is.... lack of variety. People just sweat so hard on deathmatches, capture the flags, clan arenas over and ove AND OVER. Especially in Quake. Nobody from long time players wants to play the game modded to be sometbing different. To the point that majority of most interesting mods for... Quake 3 (for example) just collect virual dust on the websites they are archived on... or by some miracle are played once a... 2 weeks? Once a month? A year? UT is in slightly better due to mutators hence why i always recommend it more to new players that start their journey with arena shooters. There is just more variety there. Like with Halo custom games... As for singleplayer stuff... i kinda disagree with the examples you brought. Especially doom eternal. When i played it i felt FORCED to use all the advanced tech simply because... if i don't then i die. Just like with multiplayer games. I can't just play it in my own pace. I have to play how devs want me to play and not how i want...
To clarify on the single player examples. You can set your own pace to learn the game. In multiplayer it's generally the opposite because the game evolves from player skill and discovery of techniques. This is why I brought up Fortnite, if you're not playing the game regularly it's going to be different from when you first played it, and if you were a competitive player you're pretty much fucked if you take any breaks. On the account of Doom Eternal it may not be your thing at the end of the day. Doom 16 is more forgiving in comparison. But even then, you can scale the difficulty to something that gives you more breathing room to adapt. In multiplayer, especially in Arena Shooters, it's adapt or die, there are no other options in the long run. Speaking of Halo, Halo Infinites multiplayer is the closest thing to a populated arena like game atm. It's actually really good now and there's much more content and forge included. Also, they finally added infection :)
@@brokenportalsas for halo infinite i feel like it will soon start to suffer from the same problems that arena shooters have. At least in matchmaking (not sure about custom games because game freaks out everytime i try to join one). I literally cannot play at my own pace. I feel like i have to run like i had adhd or something like everyone else does in this game. I think i may become one of those "sprinting doesn't belong in halo" type of guys 😅
That's just the nature of multiplayer. It changes and evolves as long as there is a community. One person discovered quickscoping, everyone started doing it afterwards. Same goes for all the movement tech in quake. People usually adapt to new strats or plays all the time in a multiplayer environment. @@hurykles99
Before watching, I'd bet on skill floor and no progression. Call of Duty constantly buzzing with new ranks, unlocks, badges, etc created a feeling of acomplishment that could take weeks or a month to feel in an arena shooter.
Progression is definitely another factor. Newer multiplayer games have a frequent reward system that keeps players coming back for more, whereas in the past, your sense of progression and reward was from your skill of the game.
and once there is nothing more to unlock u see how shit cod actually is @ChucksSEADnDEAD its basically carrot on a stick gaming, but once u remove that u see that its just however shoots first wins because the TTK is like ZERO and not to mention the aim assist and the INABILITY to disable crossplay. yeah id rather get my ass handled in arena shooters
@@svn0782uhhhhhhhhh
You know that CoD isn't the only modern FPS in the world, right?
@@svn0782or if you don't care about the fake dopamine flooding from pointless items
I will say, I played a bit of Quake II recently to try the new update and I have to say, it wasn't too sweaty. I do believe a large part of why these games are perceived as sweaty is just that they have low player counts filled with only the most hardcore. When the player count is higher the experience is noticeably more chill. I think these games actually have a pretty low skill floor to get into, but that floor is just often artificially raised due to low player counts. If you go onto an MW2009 match, you'll also have a pretty brutal experience but that's just an inevitable result of the game being old. I'm not certain that inaccessibility would necessarily be an issue for a new Quake game if one came out today.
As for why COD overtook Halo. Part of it is the ease of killing yes. But it's also important to note that after Halo 3, the next 3 Halo games were ODST, Reach, and 4. All of which were controversial in different ways. ODST while well remembered now was considered overpriced at the time. Reach while amazing made some decisions that alienated some of the fanbase. 4 doubled down on some of the controversial decisions of Reach alienating even more. Part of it was also just some people preferring the gritty atmosphere of COD which was considered fresh at the time. So in this I'm also a little hesitant to say that accessibility was a huge issue.
The paradox that Arena Shooters face is that the concept and barrier of entry is simple but almost no one seems to be getting into them. Options for shooters are another thing too. We have way more of them now than before instead of the cod and halo killers we had all the time, and that also impacts the growth of Arena Shooters.
Speaking of Call of Duty. It was a popular alternative that casual players found to have enjoyed more, Modern settings, fast time to kill, faster movement made it seem like the next step forward for arcade Shooters. ODST was fine because it expanded on Halo 3 while still keeping the same formula intact. Reach and 4's change felt like an evolutionary response rather than a natural one. Call of Duty took over and they wanted to be like them. I'm glad that they stopped with Reach to be honest. Bungie knew when to stop.
@@brokenportals Yeah it's a messy situation. I think one potential solution I've thought of that doesn't compromise the equals starts of arena shooters is to just offer more low stakes content. By that I mean solid singleplayer and coop experiences (such as horde modes) as well as more goofy gamemodes that allow people to get used to the game in a more low stakes environment. As someone who grew up more on Halo and got into Doom and Quake later on... I can say that a huge part of why I got into Halo was because of playing coop campaign with friends or messing with forge maps and things like that. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing a new Quake game that comes built in with Defrag as a gametype to get people used to the movement tech of those games or other content along those lines.
This seems to get missed a lot. If you time travelled back to 1999 and played Quake 3 Arena you would have a completely different experience to what you have now. You'd see very little players strafe jumping and rocket jumping all over the map like you see if you jump into Quake Live today. Remember back then most people were still using a ball mouse on the free mouse pad that came from the computer shop so they couldn't even aim well if they wanted to. The skill ceiling was much lower and everyone was starting at the same level. Quake 3 does have a massive skill ceiling, far higher than any modern competitive FPS, but at the same time with modern match making you could easily ensure that casual gamers never have to get ROFLstomped by pros.
I think the biggest barrier to entry is the game modes and the lack of single player. What most arena FPS have in common is a lack of a proper single player campaign and lack of casual game modes. Unreal Tournament 2004 did a great job by introducing vehicles and massive maps to the game, however it's hard to get casuals interesting in a game with no proper campaign when other games of that era such as Halo, Call of Duty and Half Life created such epic set pieces in their campaigns.
There's a reason Halo took the crown as the arena FPS king in the mid 2000's and that's because it had campaign, split screen multiplayer and co-op. It was very easy to introduce new players to the game, plus the larger maps had vehicles which gave casual players a chance.
Halo Infinite could still carry the torch if 343 didn't do everything in their power to sabotage themselves through stupid decisions and they still have a small chance to redeem themselves if they continue adding good content to the game.
Quake Champions or UT could just as easily revive the genre if they provided the same. There's no reason an arena FPS can't have vehicles and still be a great competitive duel game.
Halo was just a sign that there were other options, and most of the crowd eventually moved onto those, while Quake developed competitively. The standards changed overtime, for better or worse which would also affect the scene entirely. Battle Royales are also facing an eventual decline too thanks to the rise of Extraction Shooters, which seem to fill both pve and pvp needs all in the same map. @@Pyroteq
As a person who grew up on Quake and UT. You nailed it. I didn't know why, other than Fortnight killed off UT4 before it was finished past Alpha. In search of a UT4 replacement, there is a game that combines UT with Portal called Splitgate. It looks great, its smooth. But it was chaos. The arenas are tight, and its a lot of weapons firing everywhere, getting killed and not know where. I only played it for a day. Many people comment it's fun for a few matches.
The most popular game modes for UT2004 and UT4 are team-based. The maps are bigger than arenas DM. With UT2004, you usually got your main loadout within a few seconds - called Onslaught, you had vehicles. And as you say, you can relax for a while, see what your team needs. UT4 has Blitz, a one-way CTF style. But people really wanted Onslaught brought back.
Thanks, For explaining why people left Arena-type games. I miss the old games thou. And slow shooters still feel, slow.
Fortnite didn't kill UT4. Epic did. It was a management decision to abandon UT for the new, increasing popular, more accessible, Battle Royale games. Epic had the money to develop BOTH, but chose not to do so, probably because they decided the UT player base wasn't large enough to warrant their continued efforts.
@@GonzoTehGreat Yes to both. If not for fortnite taking off, Paragon and ut4 development would have continued. Too bad ut4 didn't make it till at least the beta or release stage. Paragon had a pretty large user base.
But overall, from their data and what we also know. Battle arena games are not the thing right now, maybe not ever again.
Tons of money that epic made. They could have easily afford to finish out ut4. As a business decision, being that it money would never make them money. It's sadly logical.
Ut4 is still very playable today. Another year could have done wonders to allow the fans to add better tools to make custom characters and maps. If few maps are still being made even today.
@@TexasCat99 Agreed. 👍 However, I still think Epic should've completed UT4 anyway and released it, but announced they wouldn't be supporting it unless there were enough players. This would've allowed them to recoup some of their development costs, but keep the community happy, whilst diverting most of their efforts to Fortnite. Instead, they abandoned it. 😠I've not yet played Fornite, but they've ensured I never will.
17 minutes to simply say skill issue
I would like to say that the issue isn't the skill cap of quake, it's rather that it has no new players. If CSGO had no new players it will have the same issues. If quake had new players, they will face each other and the learning process wouldn't feel very dreadful. How do we attract new players to that genre without diluting it? It is beyond me.
I think the main thing that nobody seems to do a good job of with any competitive game, is elements you just have to know, as opposed to elements you have to get good at
For example, in arena shooters, you just have to know that you're supposed to camp and guard weapon and item spawnpoints, even better if you can work out a pattern or routine to keep getting the best stuff over and over.
This is something a new player can't possibly know, or even if they do know, they still have to learn and memorize the item locations on each map. This is bad design. People are winning on something other than skill. New players pick up on this on some level, sense they're being cheated, and rightfully quit. It's an arbitrary floor to get into the game that just proves absolutely nothing competitively, yet it makes all the difference between winning and losing
It's like all the veteran players are hiding in a little clubhouse snickering to themselves because they know a key secret and they know they're getting wins they don't deserve
And when you play like you're "supposed to" often the game loses all its fun, because you're just following a pattern mindlessly
I’d say that I don’t agree w u, take Fortnite for example, there are timings to consider, and some of very limited loot that definitely gives an advantage if you manage to capture it and fend off the opponents. It’s just that time pace of the game is different and after you die you start again with the same opponent in the same match instead of starting from scratch. Map/weapon/power up control is a crucial element in many games, net even limited to fps, let alone arenas
This no different to any multiplayer game. There's always a learning curve involved.
Best video I've seen on this topic. I like how you were nuanced when talking about where something like Halo falls in all of this.
Thanks a lot man! Halo definitely had an impact on the scene at the time. It could have been a great gateway for people to get introduced to the arena shooter genre. But it was never really marketed that way other than being a mass appeal shooter. It was the gold standard shooter for consoles until call of duty took off with 4.
Surprised you didn't mention Team Fortress Classic, which is also a good example:
-Insane skill ceiling, the bhoping + wall strafing + conc jumping makes all fast paced games look like child's play.
-No progression other than getting good at the game
-As with older games, the small community is very skilled, which creates an effect that ends up making the game harder for newcomers, since there is no matchmaking, new players can't put up with such good players and realize they will need YEARS of training to get on a reasonable level.
It's so sad to see once very popular games not being played at all. I guess the long term reward aspect of it is the opposite of what games are now (not saying games now don't take skill but they create palpable progress through different means other than movement/aiming/map knowledge.
I mentioned the game in a video I did on Half Life.
You just gained a subscriber. You nailed every single point in this topic!
I have been playing arena FPS on and off for about 10 years. Learned how to strafe jump, bunnyhop, rocket jump, crouch slide, plasma climb, you name it, and was actually happy when Quake Champions came out because of how it tried to stand out. It would have even less players today if it was just a remake of Quake III. The genre really needs to change with accessibility in mind, while still maintaining most of what makes an arena shooter awesome. I think good in-game tutorials would help a great deal in introducing people to its mechanics. Not everyone is willing to watch TH-cam tutorials on movement tricks and map control.
Quake Strafe jumping is much more obscure and difficult for beginners than anything in the UT series.
UT had dodge on double tap and double jump, both of which are intuitive and easy to learn, but no weird key combinations or movement.
Attitude and mentality play a big part. Back in the 90s, skill based games were just the norm, because they weren't designed with crutches in mind. You had a crosshair in the middle of the screen, and your bullets go where the crosshair is aiming. If you missed all of your shots, it was because your aim was bad.
Games like that tended to increase movement speed to compensate for the more skilled aimers. These days, penalities are introduced (random spread etc) to prevent the best aimers from dominating the poor aimers, in an attempt to normalise the skill gap.
Players from that era had no crutches, so it was either learn to play, or quit. And games that go down that route often lose new players who lack the mentality to dig deep, learn to play, 'git gud' etc, as they would rather just go play whichever game panders to them and gives them rewards for bad play.
And this has a lot to do with society, once we started teaching kids it is okay to lose, and everyone gets a medal for participation etc, it created a generation of adults who give up at the first hurdle rather than knuckling down. And with so many gaming options available, it allows them to choose the games that are easy for them, so they can pretend they are good players.
And yet, no amount of crutches changes anything. There was a game called Section 8: Predjudice years ago, that hit upon the brilliant idea of giving everyone an aimbot on cooldown. The bad players still finished at the bottom of the scoreboard, because the good players used cover, whereas the bad players were always out in the open relying on their aimbot to get them kills.
Cope. Major modern FPS multiplayers that are successful, have competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches. You've just drawn up a strawman to beat down, congratulations on shadow boxing against 'Section 8: Prejudice".
The irrelevance of arena shooters is simple, they're simple minded and boring, no one wants to play them with vastly superior options available for free on the market.
@@Davos-st8ok "Cope. Major modern FPS multiplayers that are successful, have competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches. You've just drawn up a strawman to beat down, congratulations on shadow boxing against 'Section 8: Prejudice". "
Hardly a strawman, given that I was making my own points/thoughts and not actually responding to any given point made in the video.
Secondly "competitive ranked modes that aren't designed around crutches" sounds very dumb, given that the crutches are built in to the game design regardless of playing ranked or casual. More often than not, you have to work around the built-in crutches at higher level, rather than utilise them to your advantage. Unless of course, said crutch is overpowered (take Winston in Overwatch for example). Pro players used him because he was OP, they didn't like using him, because he wasn't fun to play.
I used Section 8 as an example, of what happens when you think adding a crutch to your game will actually do, because the end result is the always the same. The pro players end up on top, followed by the good players, followed by the button mashers.
Make a game hard or make it really easy, the end result is always the same, because attitude and mentality are the key differences between pro, good and bad players. The willingness to stick it out, learn to play, git gud etc, is the difference between good players and bad players. The difference between good players and pro players, is natural ability and the willingness to go the extra mile to take your play to the next level.
A fun conversation you can have with the old skool pro arena shooter gamers, is where do they stand now, now that they are old, have families and responsibilities etc, and can't play as much. Because they still have the knowledge, the skills, the experience, the drive to win, just not the same sharpness, the same reaction speed etc.
And yet, they could still easily humilate a cocky Fortnite or Call of Duty player, because those gamers never had the skills in the first place, they never needed them in dumbed down games that gave them crutches to rely on (by crutches I mean, slow movement speed, big hitboxes, low TTK, rng spread etc).
@@zalamael Winston? What about Winston? You're talking about a tank role, which is a strategic role and not a mechanically oriented role. Again, drawing up a strawman. DPS players at the highest levels are the most mechanically skilled, there's no crutches.
The "old school players" are simply too bad to hang in modern fps games, because they're just not as mechanically skilled as the younger generation. They're washed. Their brains have ossified. That's the reality.
Old school players can't do anything in Fortnite, because its one of the most mechanically demanding games ever, with an incredible demand on cognitive processing speed. They'll get shit on by teenagers. Sorry to burst your delusional bubble.
@@Davos-st8ok "Winston? What about Winston? You're talking about a tank role, which is a strategic role and not a mechanically oriented role. "
Nice way to tell me you are a simplteton without actually having to admit to it.
@@zalamael No argument of substance detected. Ad hominem detected, hallmark of someone who is cornered and feeling desperate.
Now let me just do a quick search and look up the best quake player and how great his mechanics are. Ah found him, Rapha. Let's see these leet mechanics of his in Overwatch. Hmmm..he's plays like a plat player...All those years of grinding in Quake to be this mediocre in Overwatch...
Arena shooter bros love jerking themselves off when literally nobody gives a fuck about their fabled LEET mechanics which never impressed anyone to begin with.
Arena shooters want you to get trashed until you git gud. The feeling of overcoming such adversity is sooo satisfying, but not all casuals will put up with it, because arena multiplayer shooters don't incentivize much on the multiplayer side as opposed to single player
So basically the fighting games of shooter games
New games give casuals the ability to get a kill here and there, via ultimate abilities for example. Arena games are very fair and unforgiving, that's why you need to actually get good to earn the kill, which is what dissuades the generation of gamers that are used being spoonfed. There is a reason why new games die as fast as they come out. If you want fast food don't complain about the quality.
Can't wait for some arena shooter that's like Call Of Duty; killstreak rewards, deathstreaks, and perks. Maybe even an arena shooter that's like Battlefield, where military usable vehicles are involved.
It kinda exists actually.
Enemy Territory Quake Wars 😂
@@RandomFandomOfficial does it have stuff like killstreak rewards tho from call of duty?
@@ArjunTheRageGuy If I remember right, you gain points which are then spent on resources… for example you can launch artillery.
So it’s not killstreaks exactly, but getting kills and completing objectives gets you points.
But thats why I said it “kinda” exists.
@@RandomFandomOfficial so just scorestreaks?
I think another problem, espacially with the esport side, is the lack of monetisation.
CS, Dota heck even Rust they all have ingame markets with skins that cost rela money, some type of gambling system that addicts the players, betting on tournaments and even having those skin and gambling sites having sponsor logos on esport players shirts.
This also kinda solves the player count problem as in Arena FPS low amount of players mean only the veterans are left which make newcomers run away after they have to fight someone way above their skill level but if you have some kind of drop system with cases like in CS and not have it bind to skill but randomisation or playtime you'd have a number of 'players' that are not there to play to game but are there to grind those cases and those 'players' end up becoming stepping stones for the newcomers who finaly have opponents around their skill level to play with and learn the game through playing.
Biggest reason is the skill ceiling it's so high. Games like CSGO, you good the same corner in the same corridor on the same map every single time. Arena shooters are far more dynamic.
Although COD4 was huge, Halo 3 was still the most popular xbox live game and didn't really get took over until MW2 came out. By that time, franchise fatigue had set in and H:Reach with the loadouts, bloom, armor lock etc had completely turned off a lot of the community which id argue was a massive reasoning for the shift.
Halo CE and 2 actually had quick TTK's with the utility weapons but the average TTK was much slower. Although the slower predictable movement as you said made it a lot more easy to understand and power weapons like rockets, shotgun and sniper helped as they are also easy to understand.
Ironically enough H5 and Infinite went a lot further into being arena shooters with the faster, more nuanced movement and their populations dropped off a cliff. Obviously there was content drought reasons behind both games dropping in player count, but i had friends that were lifelong halo fans dropping H5 because they couldnt get a grip with the movement and harder to use utility weapon which prolonged the TTK.
Agreed on 5 and Infinite. I found them to be the best compromise so far for an arena shooter thats not too slow or fast. Splitgate is another game I forgot to mention. It's true that H3 was still huge, but Cod4 sowed the seed for the eventual downfall.
Think of Mario Kart. Now imagine Mario Kart if the guy in first place could get stars/lightning bolts/bullet bills/golden mushrooms and actually had a BETTER chance of getting those items than everyone else.
Then imagine if Mario Kart didn't acknowledge the existence of mini-turbos, didn't tell the player how to do them, and didn't have graphical effects for them so a new player would see everyone going faster than them for seemingly no reason at all.
Then imagine if Mario kart stopped having distinctive tracks and every new course was just a variant of Mario Raceway or Baby Park. And then they stopped adding new items (because you don't really need items besides the trinity of green shells, banana peels and mushrooms!) And then they replaced all the characters with generic Shyguys, Koopas and Toads. And then they got rid of grand prix and battle mode, because what they REALLY wanted you to play were 1v1 50 lap races.
Then imagine if every Mario Kart game since the Gamecube had something wrong with it like bad framerates or bugs or no features, or if they just came out at really bad times, or if they simply didn't bother telling people a new Mario Kart game even came out.
Would you really blame people for wanting to play Gran Turismo instead?
I know people that have only 1 game installed, and that they are playing it for over 20 years with their friends and they don't play anything else.
Arena shooters used to be places for having fun, meeting people, make new friends. Then the tournaments started and those who had time practiced all day long. But even then, the Pros didn't mixed with the newbies, they had their own server with their own people. I think it was in Quake 3 when I saw this change. Pros ripping everyone until the server was empty, and they saw that as an achievement, even if it was against first time players.
Then Counter strike was out and had the same problem. Pros massacred new players, all the tryhards selected the same team so they didn't kill each other. Because one Tryhard characteristic is that not only they are bad winners, but bad losers too. If they start dying then they rage quit because they cannot accept that one person that is not on their level can kill them.
Matches stopped being friendly. I saw with my own eyes how TryHards went from server to server annihilating everyone until all servers were empty.
I'm a Quake 2 Veteran and when they released the remastered I was so happy, I went to play and saw a little bit of everything, but I also saw new players that just have fun even though they sucked so bad. When I see those players I don't try to play at my best. I lower my skill or leave the server so they can have fun. Because everyone went through that. Having a kill while you suck is an experience, and if you win a match it's just another level of happiness.
Maybe I'm an idealistic idiot, I'm the one who respects a railgun duel for example... I don't switch to the shotgun for the easy kill once the other took a railgun hit.
Also, there have to be a separation between those who play all the time and those that want to unwind after school/work.
Even in ranked games there is smurfing so the tryhards create a new account just to play with people with less skill so they can boost their ego (because they don't want to lose rank in their main accounts or don't like or accept defeat)
I think the problem is cultural. That's why I play online games as soon as they are released because that's the only time everyone is almost at the same skill and it's the most fun you can have.
I think that's just the ripple effect of competitive play. Even games with a casual foundation like Fortnite can become try hard city and it's no longer casual. Good thing about the game though as well as counter strike is the side of custom content, where there are game modes that are more casual and you don't have to worry about your rank.
>Cannot take your time at all
Typical chicken and egg problem. With enough players this goes away. An onboarding method that isn't chucking all players into a small map and letting them fight is needed - this could be single player even though you seem to think this isn't feasible. With a healthy playerbase, bad players can play together and good players can play together. DOTA would not be popular without its huge playerbase, allowing players to play with others around their skill. If you removed 95% of DOTA players and left the top 5% who have been playing for decades a similar thing would occur.
With enough players most of your perceived problems disappear. Getting those players is the first step.
>Fast ttk
Quakeworld has fast ttk. As does ut99. afps can have fast ttk, but q3 onwards leaned into slower. I agree on this point and it is a big part of why CS gained popularity back in the day. Top level quake duels where fights last minutes are not the baseline for ttk.
>dislike epic for canning ut4
As a ut player from way back I am not sure I do. The direction they were taking it was quite uninspired and I am almost glad they killed it rather than pressing on. It was good they were trying to change it but evident they did not have the vision to do anything great. Unfortunately.
Finally this doesn't really cover the why of the decline, more the problems they face to become popular/retain players. There was a playerbase back in q3 days (the options were quake or unreal if you wanted to play online FPS), so getting into it was less a chore than it is now. CS, players wanting "real" weapons alongside the lower ttk of modern shooters is a huge part of why the decline happened.
Thanks for taking the time to offer some insight. It was an oversight on my part regarding quakeworlds and ut's time to kill. But the majority of the arena shooters that would come later would adopt q3s template, and in effect, that cemented the idea of what an arena shooters supposed be. And well, there are other options now that satisfy fast paced movement, but in different ways that you may or may not like.
The declining population was a result of other options popping out of the woodwork. Bringing up DOTA 2 was just showing that people do like complex games, but they have to be allowed to play at a pace that's comfortable for them and the game does allow that due to its downtimes between fights or when you're farming.
As for UT4, keep in mind that we were looking at an alpha stage. The potential for it was there and had the best likelihood for success at the time. But to scrap it up was in a way, pissing on their legacy. They could've made that and their money with Fortnite, satisfying both parties.
Real weapons weren't really the issue. Halo was incredibly popular in the console shooter market in the 2000s and its a sci fi game. I suppose marketing comes into play though. A Quake Reboot could revitalise things but that depends on the how. I don't wanna see anything like quake 4, but something similar to 1 with the cosmic horror vibes.
@@brokenportals
>But the majority of the arena shooters that would come later would adopt q3s template, and in effect, that cemented the idea of what an arena shooters supposed be.
Yeah even epic did it with 2k3 onwards. I think it was a misguided attempt to level the playing field, so weaker players did not get instantly destroyed instantly by better players, yet it achieved the inverse, allowing better players to always eek out a win against lower skilled players while removing the ability for lesser players to slaw better ones in one hit. Couldn't we consider Q3 the last "big" one, not much that came after has made any in roads. As you said they are all derivatives.
>As for UT4, keep in mind that we were looking at an alpha stage.
Sure, I guess at least they tried to make something that was more "new player" friendly with flagrun. I agree that it had the best likely hood of success and was pumped when the process started.
>Bringing up DOTA 2 was just showing that people do like complex games
Yes I agree, but if DOTA2 had 5% of its current playerbase it would have the same issue we have in afps - new players can never learn. Having enough players and some sort of matchmaking allows stratification of playerskill so the lower tier players can play at their own pace.
>Real weapons weren't really the issue.
They played a part and the alternatives had them (CS and later COD) and inadvertently through ttk while trying to make things "realistic". We can see that players liked this/wanted it as they started playing those games. I don't think Q3 having faster ttk
Great content btw, looking at your post frequency you are a machine. I also like how you went big picture and didn't get caught in the weeds of "new players can't time" that is common in afps circles when discussing this.
@@brokenportalswait, so you are saying that they should have dumped a shitton of money, just to make happy an extremely small community? LoL
The speed of halo as well as other aspects I think disqualify it as a true arena shooter. More a sandbox shooter with arena elements.
If you go by Q3's definition, sure. But the speed was reduced for the sake of accessibility during the early days of console gaming. People are used to experiences like titanfall and apex nowadays but that wasn't the case at all in the 2000s. Halo still has the spirit of an arena shooter while still making some compromises for console players.
I think main reasons of decline is:
1) arena game mode - you spawn with weak gun and must run first for weapons. Unlike in cs, ow, tf2 where you spawn ready for action. QC have all different game modes now but didn't had them on launch, which may scared some new players. People like to have fun on servers with infinite money in cs, or infinite goal time, with voice chat for both teams.
2) they are outdated, QC not outdated but it launched bad. New afps need to be in top shape and comfortable to use: if you casual here fast match making, if not here server browser and lobbies. QC's match making search can last 5 min, where game match last 10 min, you can't even play with same party again.
May be design of usual fps can be cause but i'm not sure, i like aliens, mutants and sci-fi, not tumblr fortnite style.
AFPs difficulty scaring new players just not true.
Games like OW, TF2, apex have big list of weapons and skills each with its own quirks. In fortnite you need to build burj khalifa in 3 seconds and be able to navigate inside it.
COD players can kill you with knife that ricocheted 15 times. CS have spread patterns, ppl spend time learning it but complain to afps with 11 weapons which most of them have 100% accuracy, come on.
Movement being hard is not true. When you strafe jump in quake? When you move through corridors, during firght its regular wasd with jumps. Strafe jumping takes 15 min to get on rails and after that you can use it in game and become better and better. In UT you have more jumps, but that it.
I like afps because you can carry freaking arsenal of weapons, not 1 rifle,1 puny pistol and 2 greandes. Big ttk means you using your weapons more and fights not about who shot first.
I don't understand how Quake 3 still has the reputation that it does. Every attempt at reviving it has failed, and there are other old multiplayer games that have done a much better job of staying relevant (CS 1.6, Brood War, AOE2, Melee, 3rd Strike).
Quake 3 was a dodo bird, not a T-Rex.
Fighting games make room for different skill levels and can be enjoyed casually, so it doesn't have the problem Quake does. CS 1.6 is simple but hard to master. Brood War and AOE 2 have dedicated communities, but the genre itself isn't as popular as it used to be, thanks to LoL.
At the end of the day, Quake just lacks a lot of things that people want in multiplayer nowadays. People seem to be getting their fix in other types of shooters or genres that offer more player interaction and immersion. Arena Shooters are still great, but they're limited.
@@brokenportals MOBAs did a number on RTS, but RTS games are still pulling numbers that arena shooters would kill for.
The state of AFPS is so dire that we now live in a world where Nintendo is better at making multiplayer shooters than iD Software.
The problem with most modern games is the predatory progression system.
Toxic no-life veterans can now ruin new players matches by simply having better gear unlocked… or P2W whales by paying for faster progression.
More casual players need to consider playing milsims, but with an open mind (throw run n gun tactics to the side, until they grasp basics).
Young people dont understand that the campaign serves as a tutorial for playing arena deathmatch against other players and these games largely came out at a time before matchmaking so you had years to hone your skills in the campaign, then local co-op, then matchmaking is introduced. There also was not a skill based algorithm so you would only match with randos. Sometimes you fight a noob thats never played and sometimes you fight an invincible death machine.
For sure. But people were able to adapt to it easier back then because that's all there was besides Counter Strike, Ut, and Halo. Even then, you still had to learn how to hold your own.
Damn! My recommendation is filled with opposite opinion for some reason after this video.
If you're interested in playing a third person multiplayer shooter similar to Halo called Red Faction Guerrilla let me know. We install a mod that adds new characters, has custom maps, and balances weapons
Will have a look into it eventually. Thanks for the suggestion.
Also, if you're providing links in your comments, TH-cam automatically deletes it iirc.
@@brokenportals I'm not. Trying to tell you about the Faction Files website
@@brokenportals So there the link for the group is on the front page
@vincegenuit222 I see. Thanks, I'll look into it at some point.
also dota 2 is hard? but heroes of newerth is THE hardest moba to play, the skill ceiling is a cliff its that hard, i think its shut down now though.
You can still play Heroes of Newerth unofficially through Project Kongor.
The point i was trying to make was that people do like challenging games. But even still, there has to be a delicate balance between complexity and accessibility. Population and community also have a huge impact on it too.
true, alot of newerth was pretty toxic especially with vote kick system. community is indeed important and ur right a balance is needed sounds alot like thanos@@brokenportals
The reason the AFPS died is because it is actually poorly designed. In CS new player would get shit on even harder if you have only 400 people playing it on average who were all hardcore players. They would go 0-16 every game. The difference is the gameplay is far more varied and well thought out, thus its more enjoyable.
High TTK doesnt increase the skill ceiling. it actually lowers it, in a game like quake if you are in a 2v1 you have to match 2 people for DPS over a long period of time to get a kill. Even a player half your skill in a game with a long TTK can damage you. In CS you can rip an inferior players head off before he can even move his mouse.
@sirdetmist3204 That's a fair point with the ttk. For what it was, afps did have a good design. They just never grew out of their comfort zone while the industry evolved, and people developed new tastes.
@@brokenportals Did they have good design or what it just the most basic design? When you think about it all they are is a map, some guns, some armor and some health. Nothing much more to add to that.
@sirdetmist3204 This was at a time when multiplayer had a simpler framework. Modern practices to keep people hooked wouldn't be realised until later. Halo took the same concepts and made it more accessible. Was popular for years until the early 2010s. It's basic now, but it was good back then.
Good design doesn't have to always equate to being complex. You can have a basic design that's still good if polished and focused to a t. Some of the best games out there have simple designs.
@@brokenportals I dont know if more accessible is the right term. It slowed it down and removed enough skill the make it playable on a controller. Even the shield system really is designed to make headshots matter less for a large portion of gun fights.
But were those design choices or just the easiest thing to do? I would argue that picking up weapons around the map is poor design. If me and you are in a 1v1 on Quake and you keep getting spawns that put you closer to a mega or closer to a vital weapon than I do. Right away I am at a disadvantage through no fault of my own. That is bad design. When you make map design that puts so much emphasis on this you get extreme inherent imbalance and it sucks.
Lets say I need health, and my team mate who has loads takes the mega. I then die to the next person I see. That is bad design because I have to compete with my own team mate for resources.
CS which is the same that killed the AFPS got around this by basically tying weapons to an economy and you get a stronger economy the more you win. And you cant gain any health back during a round so you arent competing with your team for anything.
@@sirdetmist3204 Team play has never really worked well for Quake in my opinion, Duel is where you get the best possible experience. One player might get an initial advantage at the start but it eventually stops mattering, both players have the same opportunities for resources once the layout and spawn time is memorized. That's where map awareness and resource control comes in.
Halo was pretty accessible, basically set a new standard for console shooters afterwards.
Arena Shooters appeal more to a niche crowd that like a simple but straight to the point deathmatch/duel experience. Seems like you prefer team-based shooters with balanced loadouts, and that's fine.
0:10 what game is that?
Severed Steel.
@@brokenportals thanks
9:45 my god ı've never thought ı'd see someone that has the exact same reason for hating fortnite as me.
luckily quake 3 and unreal tournament games have bot support, so if people stop playing multiaplyer you can always spend a few hours playing some bots, still fun and exciting. Unreal and quake 3a devs where ahead of their times adding bots. shame most games these days have no bot support, making multiplayer dead after a few years and no way to experience the game because no bots.
also honerable mention to the call of duties that have bot support like black ops and a few more i think.
Its just an old genre, that's really it.
if think you think about it, other mainstream games are hard as well but at the same time games like CSGO or Fortnite or call of duty provides newcomers with ample enough power to take down even someone with more than 100 hours or whatever. My friends daughter took down a player on fortnite just by being in the right spot at the right time. I'd imagine right away in a setting like Quake? that little stunt wouldn't fly at all.
A duel on an arena shooter is so punishing that if you die and your opponent takes the lead and with their current inventory? you pretty much become a rabbit who must slay the wolf
nowadays on call of duty 1v1's both players have their weapons no matter what loadout it is and all it takes is who saw who first. nothing else matters
Another important thing about csgo too is that you can still contribute to the team even if you're not really getting kills. Not to mention more casual game modes, and custom servers providing other options for players.
@@brokenportalscorrection on my end so CSGO has upgraded or transitioned to CS 2. But yes, counter strike has workshop maps and resources for players to play and experiment outside of causal or ranked games. Fortnite has other games modes and player created content to sink your teeth in and that game is almost like a player one meta verse of some sort where now it’s got rocket racing, Lego survival, and some music festival game mode where it’s like guitar hero gameplay.
Arena shooters do not have that luxury so that’s another hard sell for me to even mention say, Quake champs to any of my friends imo
@Racoon4432 CSGO was ported to the Source 2 engine, which means CS2 is pretty much CSGO.
Agree on the points regarding custom games. Fortnites sandbox allows for a lot of game modes and even entirely new titles using Core Games. It's the only reason I'd ever play it.
Fighting games are older yet it's still one of if not the most competitive genre of video games out there more so than shooters. It's not exactly that it's old but rather it lacks support, fighting games have a dedicated community supported by the devs whereas Arena shooters don't get the that treatment that's why they faded over time.
@jj4cx423 Fighting games are competitive but are far better in introducing casual players than arena shooters. And each fighting game is unique, something that is a problem in the arena shooter genre. You can enjoy fighting games casually and still have fun. Arena shooters in their current state, are for thrive or die players.
For me the problem is.... lack of variety. People just sweat so hard on deathmatches, capture the flags, clan arenas over and ove AND OVER. Especially in Quake. Nobody from long time players wants to play the game modded to be sometbing different. To the point that majority of most interesting mods for... Quake 3 (for example) just collect virual dust on the websites they are archived on... or by some miracle are played once a... 2 weeks? Once a month? A year?
UT is in slightly better due to mutators hence why i always recommend it more to new players that start their journey with arena shooters. There is just more variety there. Like with Halo custom games...
As for singleplayer stuff... i kinda disagree with the examples you brought. Especially doom eternal. When i played it i felt FORCED to use all the advanced tech simply because... if i don't then i die. Just like with multiplayer games. I can't just play it in my own pace. I have to play how devs want me to play and not how i want...
To clarify on the single player examples. You can set your own pace to learn the game. In multiplayer it's generally the opposite because the game evolves from player skill and discovery of techniques. This is why I brought up Fortnite, if you're not playing the game regularly it's going to be different from when you first played it, and if you were a competitive player you're pretty much fucked if you take any breaks.
On the account of Doom Eternal it may not be your thing at the end of the day. Doom 16 is more forgiving in comparison. But even then, you can scale the difficulty to something that gives you more breathing room to adapt. In multiplayer, especially in Arena Shooters, it's adapt or die, there are no other options in the long run.
Speaking of Halo, Halo Infinites multiplayer is the closest thing to a populated arena like game atm. It's actually really good now and there's much more content and forge included. Also, they finally added infection :)
@@brokenportalsas for halo infinite i feel like it will soon start to suffer from the same problems that arena shooters have. At least in matchmaking (not sure about custom games because game freaks out everytime i try to join one). I literally cannot play at my own pace. I feel like i have to run like i had adhd or something like everyone else does in this game. I think i may become one of those "sprinting doesn't belong in halo" type of guys 😅
That's just the nature of multiplayer. It changes and evolves as long as there is a community. One person discovered quickscoping, everyone started doing it afterwards. Same goes for all the movement tech in quake. People usually adapt to new strats or plays all the time in a multiplayer environment. @@hurykles99
@@brokenportals welp.... i guess i am just too stubborn for that... heh...