Greetings Champions,

We’ll be deploying an update on 20.12.2018 that includes a new mode: Capture the Flag (CTF), a new map: Citadel, a brand new Free & Premium Battle Pass System with an all new Champion Progression System, a fresh rotation of weekly Arcade Modes, a few Champion + Weapon Balance Changes and more granular graphic setting changes. We estimate the update process will take from 8AM EST – 2PM EST (11AM GMT to 6PM GMT).

New Mode: Capture the Flag

• Two teams face off in a match of Capture the Flag
• Steal your enemy’s flag and return it to your base to score a capture
• Your team’s flag needs to be in your base in order to capture
• A match is divided into two halves, with teams switching sides of the map at halftime
• The team with the most captures at the end of the match wins
• If teams are tied at the end of the match, the team that has the most XP is the winner
• Supported Maps: Burial Chamber, Church of Azathoth, Citadel, Lockbox, Tempest Shrine

New Map: Citadel

Inspired by the popular Quake Live CTF map Stonekeep, we’ve been baking this one in PTS for a while now because we knew that we couldn’t release CTF without the perfect map for the mode: Citadel. This is our most symmetrical map yet, and as such is divided into two halves, Red & Blue with two power-ups spawning in the perimeters of each half! We hope you’ll love the new digs and are looking forward to seeing how you and your new team comps can creatively traverse this new addition to the dreamlands!

Free Rewards System and Premium Battle Pass

We’re stoked to introduce our new free Rewards System and Battle Pass which rewards players for leveling up through their normal play and through daily + weekly challenges. There’s a ton of excellent content here, including this massively cool all-new vanity weapon at level 100:

New Vanity Weapon: Gravedigger

Excavated from an unmarked grave just outside Terlingua, a small Texas ghost town, this ornate fully automatic perplexed assessors. Too advanced for its age and forged from metals of unknown origin.

More details on the new free Rewards System and the Battle Pass:
https://youtu.be/0-7klmtac6I
The in-game economy is going through some positive changes to accommodate for this new progression system. Here’s a shortlist of note:

• Favor removed
• Backpacks no longer for sale
• Chests no longer for sale
• Reliquaries guarantee 1 Legendary item
• Reliquaries sold in quantities of 1, 3, 10
• Reliquary discounts: qty 3 10% off, qty 10 20% off
• Left over loot boxes of all types may still be opened
• Duplicate rates have been extremely reduced in Backpacks, Chest, and Reliquaries
• Can no longer dismantle items in Customization
• Players earn Shards in Battle Pass and Weekly Challenges
• Champions unlocked for Shards (20 shards)
• Champion Progression points 1 Shard each

Have more questions? We've got you covered with this handy FAQ!

Champion Progression System

We’re very happy to finally unveil our brand new Champion Progression System which allows players to have agency over where and how they spend their Shards as every Champion has a linear level progression system. It includes everything from shaders, attachments, lore scrolls and full armor sets; including each Champion’s Elite Mastery Shader + Legendary Set. Rewards have never been clearer or as fun to obtain!

Performance Optimization

Performance improvements including:

• Particle optimization
• Texture resolution optimization
• Updated all video settings for low and medium for various settings
• Improved performance drops seen with Quad Damage
• Optimized Gore performance
• Frametime optimizations

Graphic Options Settings

• More granularity on Graphic Settings (You’ll notice a much larger difference in texture quality/fidelity between Low -> Ultra settings in-game)
• Note: The Main Menu itself is locked a higher setting so don’t judge performance until in a match
• Pro Tip: If you have a <3gb GPU - please select Low Settings and you should notice less hitching and a smoother frame rates
• Let us know about your in-game performance experiences (esp. PCs with lower specs!) in the forums and please include your system specs and in-game name when you do! (Having your in-game name is VERY important!)

Quality of Life Updates

Sound Update

• We reduced the volume of map ambient sounds on all maps by half for a more enjoyable gameplay experience (This was huge for us as we know it’s been one of the most-requested community asks!)

December Playlist Update

November’s Playlist remix gave us a ton of good data on what people love playing the most, so we’re mixing it up again with what modes will be available.

Quick Play Modes

• CTF
• TDM
• DM
• Instagib
• Unholy Trinity

Ranked Modes

• Duel

Notes:

• Instagib and Unholy Trinity have been moved from Arcade to Quick Play to improve MM times by allowing players to multi-select them alongside the core Quick Play modes
• Slipgate and Sacrifice has been removed from Quick Play and Arcade due to a remaining bug that we’re working on, but it will remain in Custom Game
Game Mode Unlocks
• New players will now have immediate access to Quick Play and Arcade, rather than unlocking individual modes as they level-up.
• Ranked play remains locked until Level 10
• In Battle Pass Season 1, all players are reset to Level 1, Ranked SR is reset, players must reach Level 10 before they can unlock Ranked, and players must play qualifier matches to become Ranked
• In future Seasons, while players will be reset to Level 1, they will not be forced to reach Level 10 to unlock Ranked Modes

Bot Support

• Bots will only be present in Match Making lobbies for teams with an average ELO of 1300 & below who are experience long queue times.
• Bots will now only backfill players leaving in team modes and will no longer backfill in Free-For-All based modes.

New Arcade Modes

A brand new way to queue up and play! The Arcade is a weekly rotation of rule modifiers that shake up how you play Quake Champions in fun, different ways. This month we’re introducing two new ones:

AAArena

• BJ only. Infinite Ammo. LG only. Ability available on respawn. AAAAAAhhhhhHHHHHH!

Slide and Slash

• Slash and gauntlet only, trails insta-kill. Ability available on respawn

All Champions

• Champion Roster now ordered in groups of Light, Medium, Heavy
• Delay after abilities, 0.5 to 0.4 sec

Anarki

• 1 hp Health Decay every 0.5 to 1 sec

Athena

• Delay between Grapple Throw and Swing Activation 0 to 0.1 sec

B.J. Blazkowicz

• Dual Wield rate of fire 1.25 to 1.3x

Clutch

• Delay between Barrier Shield and Mining Drill Activation 0 to 0.25 sec
• Mining Drill Radius 0.17 to 0.15

Death Knight

• Fire Trail Duration 2 to 3 sec
• Delay Between Flame Strike and Converge Activation 0 to 0.125 sec
• Friendly fire bug fixed

Eisen

• Scale 1.0 to 1.1
• Head Hitsphere Radius 0.15m to 0.175 m
• Shoulders Hitsphere Radius 0.14 to 0.20 m
• Arm Hitcylinders Radius 0.1 to 0.15 m
• Leg Hitcylinder Radius 0.175 to 0.20 m
• Sentry Turret 140 fov cone to sphere (360 degree targeting)
• Sentry Turret rof 250 to 200 ms
• Sentry Turret no longer blocks item pickups

Galena

• Totem Damage 50 to 40
• Enforced Totem Damage (when she has three Totems deployed) 75 to 60

Keel

• Delay between grenade shots 500 to 400 ms

Nyx

• Ghostwalk Telefrag 100 to 125

Ranger

• Dire Orb Splash/Explosion bug fixed, up to 200 damage was possible (25 fly-through, 100 telefrag, 75 splash). Max damage is now 125 (25 fly-through and 100 telefrag).
• Delay Between Dire Orb Throw and Teleport Activation 0 to 0.125 sec

Scalebearer

• Bull Rush
• From
• 100 > 320 ups
• To
• 50 > 320 ups
• 75 > 400 ups
• 100 > 500 ups
• Heavy Weight
• From
• 100 > 320 ups
• To
• 25 > 320 ups
• 50 > 400 ups
• 75 > 500 ups

Strogg & Peeker

• Peeker Hyperblaster damage 10 to 15
• Peeker Charge damage 50 to 75

Visor

• Ability Activation VO is now heard in third person as a 3d positional sound

Weapons

Heavy Machinegun

• Zoomed Spread 0 to 0.009 m

Nailgun

• Rate of Fire 90 to 100 ms
• Damage 10 to 12

Super Nailgun

• Rate of Fire 110 to 100 ms

Tri-bolt

• Bolt Damage 40 to 35
• Rate of Fire 1200 to 1300 ms
• Max Ammo 20 to 15

Lightning Gun

• Beam Radius 0.13 to 0.12 m

Gameplay

• All items that fall from dead players (shards, weapons, power-ups, flags, souls, stroyent, health) all have physics, falling outward from the origin of the dead player down to the ground
• Fixed an issue where Galena’s totems could damage teammates when exploding
• Fixed an issue where Death Knight could set teammates on fire
• Fixed an issue in Slipgate where players would spawn without full armor
• Fixed an animation issue for Anarki on the post-match podium screen
• Fixed Eisen’s turret so it can shoot at enemy’s downhill from it
• Fixed an issue where the Gauntlet blades would not appear when being used
• Fixed where the Tri-bolt 3rd person Quad effects would not display correctly
• Fixed an issue in Sacrifice where the Soul could appear partially submerged in to the floor
• Fixed an issue where you could see under the match start podiums
• Fixed an issue where major pickup items could spawn inside map geometry
• Fixed an issue in Molten Falls where Ranger could use Dire Orb to teleport below the kill volume

Tech

• Fixed issue that would cause BJ’s audio to play distorted when using active ability
• Fixed occasional crashes that could occur when loading into a match with spectators
• Fixed a hang and crash where players could become stuck in an infinite loading screen after match, and then crash
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading into a custom match with a full party of players and botscrash
• Fixed performance drops that could occur in Church of Azathoth when looking towards the center of the map
• Fixed issue where the Railgun appears to fire rapidly when switching to Lightning Gun
• Fixed an issue where Eisen’s 1st person weapon bob would stop working after switching weapons
• Fixed an issue where performance would drop for a player killed and the attacker
• Fixed issue switching weapons could cause switching weapons with the mousewheel to stop working
• Fixed an issue where Ally Outline Color changes would not immediately take effect
• Fixed an issue where Enable Gore, Show Hit Markers, and Enable Speedometer settings were not saved on game relaunch
• Fixed issue where the game would crash when a player player attempted to create a new account
• Fixed an issue where Blood Covenant would crash on the pre-match podium screen
• Fixed issue when alt-tabbing on a loading screen in custom game on Mystery Sacrifice Blood Covenant
• Fixed an issue where player’s could lose the ability to control the camera with the mouse

UI

[*]Fixed many issues of text running outside of their text fields
[*]Fixed clipping issue for Eisen’s Die Berechnung skin and the Grease Monkey’s Toolkit vanity item
[*]Fixed an issue where a player’s Arcade Playlist Skill Ranking was displaying on the player’s Profile screen as ranking
[*]Fixed an issue where several of Eisen’s attachment buttons would not display
[*]Fixed issue where Champions did not have individual Instagib statistics
[*]Fixed an issue where the Contacts list could become unresponsive
[*]Added missing Slipgate statistics section to Player Profile screen

Economy

• Fixed an issue where the Disruptor would not unlock after purchasing the Winter Esports Bundle
• Fixed issue where players could sell vanity items for Platinum

Tutorial

• Fixed issue of text disappearing too quickly in tutorial

Localization

[*]Fixed issue where Lightning Gun damage displayed incorrectly in Basic

Training

• Fixed missing announcer VO for medals
• Fixed several outdated passive ability descriptions

Bots

• Fixed bots not targeting Eisen’s sentry turret
• Fixed bots possibly entering broken state if they are dead during a round
• transition
• Fixed bots not using Gauntlet in Instagib
• Fixed issue of bots playing according to TDM rules while in Slipgate game mode

Backend

• Searching as a party of 4 in Slipgate or Sacrifice resulted in unusually long search times

We'll see you in the arena, Quakers!