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HEY QUAKE FANS,
We'll be deploying an update for Quake Champions today that will take approximately 4 hours starting at 8AM EST – Noon EST. This is one of our biggest updates to date and adds KEEL as a new champion, the Vale of Pnath as a new Duel Map, Ranked Play, Custom Crosshairs, the Quake 4 Railgun, a ton of balance changes and much more!

If you haven’t already, check out the KEEL Story trailer here:



Also, as soon as the update is completed, it will be the start of a Double XP weekend running until 18.12.17.

WINTER CELEBRATION ITEMS
The Winter Holiday has come to Quake Champions! Players who logs in during December and January will receive free rewards! We have a ton of new holiday items, all of which drop from Backpacks, Crates, and Reliquaries. New Winter items include:

1 Winter 2017 Hat Vanity for each Champion
10 Winter Profile Icons
10 Winter Nameplates
3 Winter 2017 animated Champion Shaders
3 Winter 2017 Weapon Shaders for each weapon

Winter Hat Bundle
This limited-time bundle gives you hats for EVERY Champion. Happy Holidays!

Premium Shader Bundle
This bundle offers 3 new Premium Shaders for each weapon!
Limited time Winter Theme for the Dimension of the Doomed maps, Burial Chamber and Corrupted Keep

NEW CHAMPION
Welcome to the arena heavy weapons specialists Lance Corporal Ben Keel, or at least what’s left of him. Brought back to life thanks to cybernetics and power-armor, Keel is armed to the teeth with two shoulder mounted grenade launchers.

KEEL
RESURRECTED WAR-MACHINE
Health 175
Armor 50/125
Speed 300/480

Active Ability: Grenade Swarm Keel can store and fire up to 5 grenades at a time. Grenades will bounce off the environment, detonating a few seconds later and inflicting splash damage. Direct hits deal 75 damage per grenade. Each grenade refreshes on a 10-second cooldown.

Passive Ability: Stockpile Keel can reduce his ability cooldown by 5% by collecting any ammo box.

NEW ARENA
VALE OF PNATH
ITHAGNAL DUEL MAP Deep within the Netherworld, past the Peaks of Thok, lies this tower of metal and stone. The vault ghouls whisper that the death-maze of sharp angles could only have been hewn from the solid granite by Koth, the Never-Seen Sleeper In Stone. Prepare yourself for the Vale of Pnath.

Designed for Duel and 2v2 TDM, Vale of Pnath is a highly vertical three atrium arena where players will fight for control of both weapons and stack, using the sounds of heavy metal doors to track their enemies movements. Vale provides fun, hectic, and fast paced action for 2 players, but is also available in Custom Game for Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.

NEW WEAPON
VIOLATOR
QUAKE 4 RAILGUN From the weapons depot of Rhino Squad comes the Quake 4 railgun. Mathew Kane brought this beast of a gun back from Stroggos just so you can assess your aim down its scope. How many can you take down in a single shot?

ADDITIONAL FEATURES
New Ranked Play and Leaderboards for Duel
Added Crosshair Customization: one of the most requested Community features
Choose from over 40 different crosshairs and use a slider to choose your color of choice
Chests & Reliquaries now offer guaranteed rarities!
Chests reward at least one item of Rare quality and above
Reliquaries reward at least one item of Epic quality and above
Rune Challenge Animated Champion Shaders
Each champion now has 5 new animated Champion Shaders which you can earn from completing one of four Elder God rune challenges, and the Master Rune challenge.
Added FPS Limiter in Options
Added Teammate X-ray Outlines Option
Enabled load on demand of geometry for further memory optimization

CHAMPION BALANCE
All Champions

+25 Starting Health Points
+25 Max Armor Points
Champions will now gain some speed by holding forward (except Visor who is too stubborn and set in his ways)
Anarki

Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 400 ups.
Bunny Hop added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 500 ups
Max strafe speed has been reduced from 640 to 560 ups
Injection speed duration increased from 3 to 10 seconds
Injection speed boost increased from 1.1x to 1.25x (700 ups)

B.J. Blazkowicz
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 400 ups
Bunny Hop added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 500 ups
Dual-Wield rate of fire increased

Clutch
Forward Acceleration rate of gain increased, to reach its top speed of 500 ups faster
Dodge now resets after each landing, instead of a timed cooldown

Doom Slayer
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 400 ups
Berserk has a shorter range to lock onto target

Galena
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 300 to 400 ups
Bunny Hop added, increasing from the base speed from 300 to 500 ups

Nyx
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 320 to 400 ups

Ranger
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 320 to 400 ups

Scalebearer
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 300 to 520 ups
Scalebearer’s strafe max speed has been reduced from 500 to 480 ups

Slash
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 310 to 400 ups
Max Crouchslide speed has been decreased from 680 to 600 ups

Sorlag
Forward Acceleration added, increasing from the base speed of 290 to 320 ups
Bunny Hop added, increasing from the base speed of 290 to 500 ups

Visor
Increased strafe acceleration, to build speed faster while strafe jumping
Piercing Sight now highlights enemies fully in red, instead of just outlines

Champion Fixes
Fixed issue in Crouch Slide when 1st-person hands animation and audio can remain stuck after slide is interrupted
Fixed issue when some champions may play ability animation and sound effects after their first ability timer had ended
Fixed issue when BJ: Crouch walk posture appears unnatural
Fixed issue for Clutch's Mining Laser secondary ability which stayed in the air if a player died while using it
Fixed issue when Clutch’s Dodge could fail if he touched the stairs
Fixed issued when Doom Slayer could hit with active ability while strafing backwards
Fixed issue for Doom Slayer: Activating Berserk while firing slower weapons delayed bringing up the fists
Fixed issue when champions could play active ability animation twice
Fixed issue when Ranger is able to teleport after Dire Orb has exploded
Fixed issue for Scalebearer ability animation which would break if activated right before landing from a jump
Fixed issue when Some attachments for BJ may disappear from the customization screen after a match

Champion Costumes
Added "Executor" Scalebearer costume
Added "Pack Lord" Sorlag costume

Item Balance
Respawn times of minor items, Small Health and Light Armors, increased from 15 to 30 seconds

Weapon Balances
Improved hit detection for Lightning Gun
Decreased the range of the Gauntlet
Decreased the rate of fire of the Gauntlet

Weapon Fixes
Fixed issue when Gauntlet stopped spinning after each hit
Gauntlet hit detection improvements
Fixed some occurrences where LG bloomed heavily
Fixed issue when shooting RG near the geometry resulted in missing rail SFX
Fixed issue when using scope on RG and switching to another weapon did not cancel RG charge
Fixed issue on DOOM Shotgun for broken reload animations in first person
Nailgun hit detection improvements
Projectile prediction fixes (miss hits after knockbacks)

Tech
Fixed issue with incorrect resolution in borderless when trying to set 4k resolution
Fixed issue where Rate of Fire was impacted by FPS
Fixed issue where Voice Chat was triggered while typing in Match Chat

Network Traffic Optimization
Various Traffic Optimizations Made

Client Performance Improvements
Client outgoing bandwidth optimization
Player jitter fixes
Spectator jitter on steps fixed
Various Client Performance Improvements

Memory Optimization
Reduced frequency of player coordinate calls

Crashes
Fixed numerous crash issues

Maps
New breakables for Cthalha maps
New breakables for Ithagnal maps
Closed space around Pillar in Blood Covenant near Quad powerup allows for blind fire and Dire Orb travel to the space below.
Fixed issue when on Burial Chamber Dire Orb could fly for infinite amount of time
Fixed issue where players spawn facing wall on Lockbox
Fixed issue when portal on Lighthouse had no proper collision
Fixed issue when player was able to pierce level geometry with Dire Orb
Closed geometry holes in Church of Azathoth
Fixed issue on Corrupted Keep where a player could get on top of the statues
Fixed issue in Ruins of Sarnath where breakables were missing in DM/TDM
Improved respawn on Blood Covenant
Corrupted Keep: Player can get on top of the head statues above mega
Urns can be broken with Gauntlet
Fixed issue when spectator saw post-match podium geometry
Fixed issue Blood Covenant: Ranger can toss his Dire Orb out a window and use it to teleport later than intended
Fixed issue Blood Run: Cathedral Chamber: Players can get stuck on ledge near Heavy Armor
Fixed issue Blood Run: Railgun spawn point gives less ammo on pickup than other maps on both its first pickup and additional pickups
Fixed issue Tutorial: Heading for Heavy Armor tutorial reads "Light Armor."
Fixed issue Customization: Ranger's torso attachments disappear from the customization screen after a match

UI
Fixed issue where incorrect level showed in duels battle report

Spawn System
Fixed issue Ruins of Sarnath where Opposing Teams may spawn next to each other in Sacrifice Mode
Fixed issue in Church where Opposing Teams may spawn next to each other in Sacrifice Mode

Razer Chroma
Fixed ability fire and cooldown effect
Various Chroma effects added to gameplay events

Random drop
Added Holiday mood loot box scene
Fixed issues where Loot Box duplicated items were awarding inconsistent amount of Shards
Fixed issue when player did not see shards icon after receiving a duplicate

Misc
Fixed issue where Twitch stream didn't load when selected
Addressed multiple instances of medals not being announced on the HUD
Fixed string that did not have localization when adding player to ignore list
Fixed issue in Customization where Users were unable to sell pieces of a Champion’s Costume or sets if they had Attachments unlocked on them
Fixed issue where Enemy and Ally Outline options did not revert back to default
Fixed issue when Australia and Norway flags were unavailable