Arena FPS - Before multiplayer FPS games became slower than molasses.

[Blue Screen of Death]

To start, if this thread has already been made please let me know. Search is broken, and I went back several pages without seeing a thread about the genre of games as a whole.

Anyways, Arena FPS is a genre that's all but dead in the modern era. The closest things we've had to it in recent years were Unreal Tournament 4 (got shelved indefinitely to make way for Fortnite) and Quake Champions (bastard child of Q3A and Overwatch.) It seems like all multiplayer FPS games now are slow as fuck and are obsessed with the idea of having abilities and stupid shit slapped on top.

What's everyone's thoughts on the genre, and its rapid fall from grace as we entered the 2000s?

 

[Blamo]

Woah...
I would say Quake 3 had the core down better, the movement and the weapons were perfect. The scope was really limited.
Unreal Tournament was way more versatile, but less refined overall. But all those game modes and maps. Insane.

I think they were really made with a different philosophy in mind. I think that is why they really complimented each other.

What's everyone's thoughts on the genre, and its rapid fall from grace as we entered the 2000s?

I think console gaming and progression systems really take away the audience from these games.
Counter Strike, Battlefield and Halo pretty much set the direction for multi player shooters.

I think the idea can be resurrected, just it won't have crazy numbers.

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Here's one of the new Arena FPS that's coming out. Has good reviews. https://store.steampowered.com/app/704020/Master_Arena/

 

[Megaroad 2012]

I can fucking wreck people in Unreal Tournament using a dreamcast controller.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

I think console gaming and progression systems really take away the audience from these games.
Counter Strike, Battlefield and Halo pretty much set the direction for multi player shooters.

I was actually thinking about how console gaming had become the focus for many genres around the mid-2000s, and how PC gaming fell by the wayside a little bit.
It's funny that you mention CS and Halo as they're the only two slower FPS games I can play for any amount of time, I think that might rise from them coming out of that similar but slightly later era, and not a lot had been lost yet.

 

[Octo Mullet]

I enjoyed UT more, but also played UT more, because all of my friends back then only wanted to play UT. Lots of good LAN party memories.

 

[Blamo]

I was actually thinking about how console gaming had become the focus for many genres around the mid-2000s, and how PC gaming fell by the wayside a little bit.
It's funny that you mention CS and Halo as they're the only two slower FPS games I can play for any amount of time, I think that might rise from them coming out of that similar but slightly later era, and not a lot had been lost yet.

Also I will ad the death of LAN gaming as a cause for the fell in popularity for Arena Shooters. They made excellent hang out and blast each other endlessly with weird mods and mutators while you eat yourself sick with pizza. lol

I think the closest to that is the couch multiplayer in the Halo series. But that too got replaced by online play eventually.

Arena shooters now, need a proper competitive scene. If you want it to stick. Sadly people do need the skinner boxes with seasons and ranks etc.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Arena shooters now, need a proper competitive scene. If you want it to stick. Sadly people do need the skinner boxes with seasons and ranks etc.

In the current e-sports infested gaming scene, this shouldn't be a problem for a developer that wants to really push it. Like QuakeCon is still a thing, but I guess that's the only MAJOR event I can think of off the top of my head that hosts full on Quake tournaments.

I guess it's just the lack of progression and ranking up and the like that causes people to not continue playing? I wouldn't know, I have a special kind of autism that lets me attach to a game even if there's very minimal progression involved. I'll play the same shit repeatedly.

 

[Blamo]

In the current e-sports infested gaming scene, this shouldn't be a problem for a developer that wants to really push it. Like QuakeCon is still a thing, but I guess that's the only MAJOR event I can think of off the top of my head that hosts full on Quake tournaments.

Also you can make it good streamer bait. You need to catch the kids and teens with their crazy reflexes early on.

I guess it's just the lack of progression and ranking up and the like that causes people to not continue playing? I wouldn't know, I have a special kind of autism that lets me attach to a game even if there's very minimal progression involved. I'll play the same shit repeatedly.

Perhaps there could be continuous updates, contests for content etc. Of course you need to catch an active core audience first.
But yeah, we sure need bots if you just wanna blast things in peace. I don't play multiplayer games because they are stressful... teamgames.
Like beside fighting games everything is a team game... I miss Deathmatch games.

 

[Blasterisk]

2004 or go home

Spoiler: main theme

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Also you can make it good streamer bait. You need to catch the kids and teens with their crazy reflexes early on.

It could work, it has to be able to really pull people in big time.

Perhaps there could be continuous updates, contests for content etc. Of course you need to catch an active core audience first.

In the modern gaming climate, post launch content is a MUST HAVE or your game fails. This is true across the board, bonus points if the game uses a F2P business model to pull in more players.

I don't play multiplayer games because they are stressful... teamgames.
Like beside fighting games everything is a team game... I miss Deathmatch games.

This is why the only competitive multiplayer games I truly fully enjoy playing are fighting games and AFPS. Team games, maybe excluding like CS, annoy me to death.

2004 or go home

UT2k4 has some great maps, I've spent more hours on DM-Rankin than I'm comfortable saying.

Spoiler: Unreal Tournament 2004 - DM-Rankin Theme

 

[SimoH]

Core mechanics, I would say that Quake has aged better tbh. Movement, shooting and most of the things just feel right even nowadays.
I've tried UT a couple of times nowadays and it does feel rather dated although I still think the game looks leagues ahead and I love the many things you can do in it, in comparison. Much more creative. And I say that as someone that basically grew up only playing UT.

Nowadays one of the few games that has managed to scratch the "arena" itch has been CoD MW2019, surprisingly. I know some people say it's too "campy" and slow but it's one of the few games that I've played that still rewards agressive play and movement, and well, it's not a Battle Royale.

It's understandable that the genre has died anyway, since it mostly rewards aim and reflexes and most players aren't really interested in getting good just in those areas.

 

[dreamworks face]

Nowadays one of the few games that has managed to scratch the "arena" itch has been CoD MW2019, surprisingly. I know some people say it's too "campy" and slow but it's one of the few games that I've played that still rewards agressive play and movement, and well, it's not a Battle Royale.

You can really fucking move in MW2019. I wouldn't say it's Quake or UT level movement, but you just have so many movement options compared to most other modern fps games.

Titanfall 2 also scratched that itch, especially in the pilot vs. pilot modes - it was much more like the old arena style shooters than modern games are.

 

[Madre Muerte]

I wish modern shooters were fast paced too, I'd care more about the genre then.

 

[SimoH]

You can really fucking move in MW2019. I wouldn't say it's Quake or UT level movement, but you just have so many movement options compared to most other modern fps games.

Titanfall 2 also scratched that itch, especially in the pilot vs. pilot modes - it was much more like the old arena style shooters than modern games are.

Yeah pretty much, definitely not on the same level but like, makes sense, would be kinda ridiculous if it had the same level of movement. But yeah, it just feels quite satisfying and fluid, and you can either just run around or go full sweat and go slide cancelling, parkouring and doing all kinds of stuff if you want. Definitely welcome, specially since some fps games seem to be even scared to let you jump.

I got too late into Titanfall but I've seen really great things. At least it's a bit nice that Apex got a bit of that but the game still feels quite stiff to move around IMO and getting up to speed (literally) has a learning curve. Also...Battle Royale so yeah.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver]

I always thought that Unreal tournament had way better maps, and I enjoyed it more than quake for it, but quake's high level moves are extremely fun.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Titanfall 2 also scratched that itch, especially in the pilot vs. pilot modes - it was much more like the old arena style shooters than modern games are.

Titanfall 2 really hit hard, I don't know why I didn't mention that in the OP. Good shit to bring that up.

 

[Occam's Spork]

Toxikk is a pretty fun arena FPS. Not a huge playerbase and PC only afaik. It's F2P if you just wanna scratch the old skool arena FPS itch. It's sorta like what UT3 would have been if it was done right.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Toxikk is a pretty fun arena FPS. Not a huge playerbase and PC only afaik. It's F2P if you just wanna scratch the old skool arena FPS itch. It's sorta like what UT3 would have been if it was done right.

I tried Toxikk a few years ago, it's quite nice and I wouldn't have minded if that was the game to take off. I really liked the Hong Kong alley map, or whatever it was meant to be. It was a cool theme for a map in a genre where most of the locations are weird sci-fi locations.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I always thought that Unreal tournament had way better maps, and I enjoyed it more than quake for it, but quake's high level moves are extremely fun.

I completely agree with that, I had plenty of fun with the first two Unreal Tournaments but Quake 1. Something I really liked about it, and I've mentioned this a billion times before, was the asymmetrical nature of the maps. In team based games(like CTF) UT started to mirror half the map to creat an even playing field. Boooooring, In Quake you switched sides so in my opinion it didn't matter if it was a map that heavily favored blue because you would be blue next round and have the map advantage. In (informal) tournaments that meant that sometimes the plan would be to shut the other side down and force a draw, then win the next round, rinse and repeat for how many rounds it is you're playing. Maybe even steal a win because the third time around they didn't expect someone to be dumb enough to go out there and steal their flag.

And then the movement, rocket jumps, grenade rocket jumps... If you really needed to be somewhere and had the health to spare then things became so fast, combined with the air control and grappling hook it was like playing Spider-Man.

UT had some great weapons, the flak cannon is just so good, the alternate firing modes was also a great idea and map mutators were also very fun. It really had some good stuff going for it.