You can find all the results from the season here : https://quake.pglesports.com/

By the way, if anyone is trying to post a comment on esreality, and is like me, having an "ip too long" error.
If you're in Firefox, you can disable IPv6 : type about:config in the address bar, then press enter. Then type network.dns and you'll find the value "network.dns.disableIPv6" that you can switch to true, then post your comment, and then you can turn the IPv6 back on if you want (by putting the value back to "false").

If you get IPv6, just go to http://esreality.com/ like a normal person, no "www" in the address. No need to screw with your settings.

that's even better, thanks for the tip man!

maxter fighting

lol it's qc

It's entertaining to watch but to play it's underwhelming.

I would've actually played it because I liked the champion aspect and even the visuals but the feeling felt like I was jumping/moving through mud.

The QC-engine is bad in many ways, some are even measurable like the FPS-limiter (minute 7:37) ...

Since then, QC implemented Nvidia Reflex. That update many people "felt" a difference in aiming, me included, but that was even before enabling Reflex :D Read: most probably placebo, but maybe while implementing Reflex, they changed the frame limiter? (I limit to 275, which is a placebo setting by itself, just to never see it dropping below 250, even if we all know it still produces 40 ms frames sometimes ;))

As LDAT is only available to big YouTubers, no one actually measured anything. I'm shocked you found someone still testing QC 8 months ago, everyone else decided it's dead for years.

And from what I have heard 2nd hand, they fucked up again regarding floaty mouse input regardless of FPS-limiter, but I can't judge it myself 1st hand because I uninstalled QC years ago and like I said, QC is broken in many ways which makes it hard to analyse.
The reason I knew QC is in that video is pretty random, I have a general interest in hardware aswell as best-performance-settings and I am now playing Apex Legends plus CoD Warzone, hence I watched the video and smiled when I got reminded how bad QC is.

Not only reviewers but also large retailers/distributors have access to the LDAT, that is how I got my fingers on it and ran tests with 4 monitors before they needed it back.
I tested in excessive detail (latencies at different zones/latencies at different colors/latencies at all refresh rates) and there was an unexpected but clear winner, which I ended up buying.
LDAT is really easy to setup and run large numbers of reproducible test with it, especially the tailored software is awesome, which makes it even more retarded that basically nobody of the established reviewers uses LDAT in a large fashion.

But still, Nvidia did a massive step in the right direction with the LDAT and the Reflex Latency Analyzer, which generated a bunch of interesting data in the process, like the list of mouse delays (currently 404 down, but basically don't buy Zowie and use wired mode as far as I remember):
https://github.com/NVIDIA/Reflex-Latency-Analyzer-Mouse-Database

a5hun correctly points out that LDAT is still wrong for measuring mouse-to-screen latency because it looks at a single point and can't detect when the frame starts being displayed with vsync off (this causes a variance of full frame time, you end up averaging and always getting incorrect numbers, even if still comparable between products).

But because of ease of setup, I'd like to have one just for comparisons.

Back to QC - floaty mouse is only a side-effect of FPS drops.

Small drops/frame time variance is due to QC being heavily DRAM-bound. I can drop from 300 FPS to 100 FPS by disabling XMP (!), or from 300 FPS to 400 FPS by tuning memory timings. Even then it will stay at 50% GPU/CPU (notice a5hun ran it at 5K resolution to reach 100% GPU on a GTX 1070...). I don't need any more proof than that ;) This is also why new Ryzens suddenly can run QC decently (they have a lot of cache to work around their slow by design IMC). id Software needs to run QC through cachegrind or similar tool, the dependency on memory speed is so strong it would have no issue finding the shitty code immediately.

Before the anti-cheat, QC ran through WINE, but every frame drop was magnified like 10x compared to Windows. Because of how the frame drops behave (you start the game and it's 1 fps, then speeds ups), my suspicion has always been that QC compiles lots and lots of shaders on the fly. Nvidia's shader cache needs to have purging disabled and allowed like half a gig of disk space just for QC :)

Back on the Bethesda.net Forums (which are unsearchable, so I can't cite source), there was a guy running frame time analysis after updates, and he was able to correlate some of the frame time spikes with events from his game recording. Stuff like entering teleporters and respawning caused some of the biggest spikes (along with Slash trail explosions etc., but some were never matched with anything - unfortunately id Software have yet to learn that code profiling tools exist).

And guess what, four years later, you still get flashing frame icon every time you respawn.

And of course QuakeCon stream still dropped to <30 FPS on multiple occasions. They don't know how to optimize computers for QC :)

But you CAN optimize your computer for QC and it will fix the mouse issues. I play with accel (which is FPS-dependent, so even more prone to missing due to the slow frames) and it's fine.

Whether or not players should be forced to optimize their hardware and software for an esports title to even work correctly is another thing... That's the failure of QC.

Not really, because this is exactly what I measured with LDAT and in my previous post meant by writing "latencies at different zones", I took samples at different grid points on the screens from left to right and top to bottom with a more dense distribution towards the middle of the monitors, measuring with LDAT in autofire-mode is damn easy so I ran as much tests as possible before I had to give it back.
After explaining his setup, he even says that he does it aswell and it just requires more samples (1:37...2:41).
It is a difference in target:
He wants to measure the engine-delay before the first signs of response somewhere on the screen and doesn't care about the monitor in detail, that is why he distances his sensor away from the screen and uses the "averaged" brightness change of the monitor area his sensor sees.
I wanted to test the monitor-delays, that is why I also looked into what happens until the pixels reach their stable target status. Instead of having one single box plot entry per setting like him, I had multiple box plot entries (and also distribution densities) per setting: one for every different position that I tested on a screen.
Furthermore, for some tests you can't take the average of an area and must stick to a small point on the screen, for example pixel response (over-/undershooting) curves.
But to be fair, this is a rather theoretical approach, because practically you aim with the middle of the screen where the crosshair sits and it is irrelevant how quick the delay is in the top left of the monitor, that is why I measured with higher density towards the middle of the screens.

That is possible, back when I played QC I had the same problem as toxjq, where my mouse sensitivity seemed to depend on framerate (no accel), the input also felt more delayed than in other games.
I can't comment on the benchmarking rest of your post, I lost interest in QC after I uninstalled it because I hated:
- champions
- netcode
- input delay
- game design
- frame drops
- graphics
- developer
- maps
basically everything and especially the countless bugs:
I don't know what you mean by "flashing frame icon every time you respawn" but I constantly had zombie hallucinations in QC.
At the position where someone died before but after his body already vanished, I spontaneously saw his model with colored outlines lying dead or standing alive there for a split second like a Jump Scare. It was enough time to make me start shooting at those hallucinations, then I always felt like I am a massive retard for wasting my time with QC.
That is why I don't have the slightest clue about QC benchmarks specifically or how to optimise QC in its current state.

:o

I remember when I played it for a short time, it just felt "off" if that makes any kind of sense?

Everytime I closed the program and loaded up Quakelive, Quakelive felt like a superior game in every sense.

Calling it just "off" makes sense, because it is hard to narrow down what exactly makes the game feel so bad.
I even remember that QC made me check if my monitor/mouse accidentally run at 60Hz/125Hz or if my aim dropped in other games because I am getting old, none was the case.
In QC it ain't a single factor, it is a combination of frame dependancy, input/engine-delay, netcode, inconsistent hitboxes/speeds/animations of the champions, what ever console-aim-assist-witchery caused the LG-wiggle-exploit and so on.

I just want to note that our boy Av3k was royally screwed by the scoring system. He won 6-3 in matches but still ended up behind Raisy who's 5-4, because the board is sorted only by maps (there's no points/dollars for match win, only map wins are rewarded).

Same situation on the Americas side - nosfa with 5-4 ahead of DaHang with 6-3. However, in this case it doesn't make a practical difference because DaHang would still be 5th. Av3k's example is worse because he was kicked out of the top 4 that get better seeds.

This was meant to make the season more interesting (every map counts), but really didn't (casters/commentators still put all the emphasis on winning sets/matches, hyped all 1:1 situations and disregarded third map when it was 2:0 already). Maybe the experiment would go better if it was presented differently, but for now I hate it.

it suuuux.... (c) Anarki

Looks like it was the match wins that took priority after all, as Av3k is among the top 8 seeds that have a BYE round in the brackets.

Yeah, they must have changed it.

I approve, but this is the wrong time to do it... Now Raisy's fans will be mad because they were lied to for the whole season ;)

lmao dead game

Wooohoooo finally

HOPE 4 new Wolfenstein 3 and Q1 remake

Remake and add Q1 single player onto QC engine

go anton

stg

bets plz

Liquipedia has the brackets for it, now if i'm understanding correctly the brackets may be invalid here and may not be updated until the 19th, or maybe this is the correct one not 100% sure on that.: https://liquipedia.net/arenafps/Quake_World_Championship/2021

Oh yeah vig. Liquipedia as added by mojo, the bastion saint of seeding tournaments correctly.

lmao

gl to all 24 players

Here's my guess at top 5:

1. K1llsen
2. Vengeur
3. Rapha
4. Cypher
5. Av3k

Challengers: Pasita and Davjs will join QPL, Effortless and Spartie will stay in the QPL.

Surprise performances: Cha1n will make it deep into the brackets, might crack top 5. DaHang and Cooller will get knocked out early. Psygib will beat RAISY and dramiS, and play k1llsen in WB round 3. RAISY will not get top 5.

Dark horses: Av3k and Zenaku. Both have a decent chance to break into top 3.

lol predict as much as you want but rapha is the top dog in real tournament.

av3k mic drop

New blood dominating.

I don't care about QC but I still want Rapha to win <3

Wanting Rapha to win equals wanting the Sun to rise in the morning. Just to rephrase, there's no spice in such a wish, man!

after a decade of cheering for cooller and being disappointed, my spice glands deserve a break

Pity but true. Cooler is good at coolling down people's expectations...

Yeah, but if you aren't cookie cutter sheep and actually think for youself, you'll still find Cooller losing his first game more exciting to watch than autist bot-boy winning 100 in a row.

Lmao

Since QC I only tune in for the grand final, so cheering for cooller is made somewhat difficult in that regard.

what do you mean by bot boy

I don't care about QC but it's still a dead game.

Easy for Rapha :) Stopped hoping Cooller will win something long ago, but I still think he can surprise everyone if he gets in the mood.

Getting 'in the mood' with some abortion like Champions is kinda hard.

Well, you wouldnt know about it, 1,4k elo dueler :)

quake 5 please

quake 5 please

quake 5 please

quake 6 please

quake 3 please

please

plz

quake

have mercy

Quake Role Play please

no quake pls

can't wait, dead or not dead is always enjoyable to watch.

Also, the timing for me is perfect this time. The perfect escape from real world, before September where I will have to deal with my new job, family, covid-19, climate change, a possible new economic crisis (hopefully not) and who knows what else (a war, aliens, zombies?). The last few years made everything seem possible. Always enjoyed this site and quake related games where the perfect sense, accel or finding the best mouse and monitor where the major worries :)

Schedule available here: https://quakecon.bethesda.net/en/schedule/

Summary of QPL streams, all on twitch.tv/quake:

Thursday:
06:00 CST - 08:30 CST - Challengers Europe
08:30 CST - 11:00 CST - Challengers Americas
11:00 CST - 16:00 CST - upper bracket (round of 32 - round of 16)

Friday:
06:00 CST - 08:00 CST - upper bracket ro16 continued
08:00 CST - 11:00 CST - upper bracket quarter finals
11:00 CST - 16:00 CST - lower bracket

Saturday:
06:00 CST - 14:30 CST - from upper bracket semi finals, all the games until lower bracket final
14:30 CST - 16:30 CST - grand final featured on twitch.tv/bethesda

(note: the grand final is supposed to take 1 hour on the twitch.tv/quake stream but 2 hours on twitch.tv/bethesda - I hope for raffles and Bawls chugging! ;))

DId anybody ever win grand final coming from LB with this type of bracket/schedule?

I mean being 1 map behind AND on top of that having only 15 minutes break after a whole day of exhausting games just finishing the LB final, including tiring inverview?

IMO all of the latest finals were very predictable, not only because rapha is a god but also the opponenet is always tired to death and not being able to play top game of BO7 without a proper break.

that is true, but how you want to keep people watching if you introduce a long break after loser brackets final?
you would need to put some other show in between

@Ffleri:

Of course its unfair for the player to get through the Lower Bracket and playing super tired against the other Final player (last time it was tired Cypher vs. relaxed Rapha).
The rules should be changed.
Even this "+1" map advantage is not fair. I dont get it.

With better circum stances (=more time to refresh) Cypher could have won or even playing better at least...

Grand Finals should be fair both players.

Pasita vs Garpy was such a suspenseful series to start things off ! Well done to both players.

btw. wtf ketchup and flee :P

QC casters^^

startet Q1 b4 they were planed or a broken condom >_<

I like how ketchup isnt saying anything and just stares into the camera, proudly wearing his makeup and showcasing his eyebrow game xD

That being said, his casting is okayish, but maybe im saying that out of pity.

DaHanG vs Cooller at what server they are will play, what about ping for both? anyone?

Last time there was an indicator somewhere in the corner, I noticed after like two days of waiting for the score board to show up ;) Hopefully it's there today as well.

Edit: oh yeah, it only says "NA Server", doesn't say who has what ping.

IIRC, for game like the upcoming DaHang vs Cooller, last time they were playing NA-East (that's NY/NJ?) on NA side, and EU-West (London) on the European side, to make stuff more equal. It would make no sense to make Cooller play on NA-West (wherever that is) or to make DaHang play in Moscow.

I believe the rule is that they alternate NA/EU servers where DaHang's map pick is on EU server, Cooller's map pick is on NA server, etc.

C O O L L E R
O
O
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C O O L L E R
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D a H a n G
a
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It's funny how Challengers Europe... relegation matches? I don't know the terms :/ Anyways, those were actually good.

And then I watched sib-davjs and it was like watching me vs melechesh, especially Corrupted Keep it was random people shooting at the sky with rockets like they're celebrating turkeys or whatever those people shoot fireworks for. There was no aim and no thought to be found.

But this rail to air nade was really cute, surely will make its way into day's highlights:

Liquipedia updates with a delay, here's the official brackets:
https://play.toornament.com/tournaments/48773...457406464/

How were the brackets decided?

Cooller no doubt the hardest path, first match vs Dahang and if he won Av3k.

That was decided by Cooller, when he decided to lose 6 matches in the season. He even lost 0:3 to cnz... https://quake.pglesports.com/

However, take note: he won 3:0 vs Spart1e, 2:1 vs Garpy (the only two players who finished below him), but also 2:1 over Av3k. That was his only win vs a player who isn't there only because clawz left and agent was banned ;) So if he was able to win anything after DaHang, it would have been Av3k, right? Clearly the orgnizers stacked the tournament FOR Cooller! (And he still botched it)

No disrespect to Spart1e and Garpy, love these guys to death! But obviously they're not putting the effort right now, they're both basically retired from professional Quake and just playing 3 maps a week in their free time, they're so talented they still give us a good show! But Cooller decided to join them this season and finished 8th.

And he just lost to cnz again, this time 0:2 because bo3 ;)

Hard path my ass.

Rapha free WB every year

You can place rapha on the bottom of LB and he would still go ahead and win the thing. Why waste everyone's time (and skew results!) when instead, you can provide lots of good games of people fighting for the places of 2-24 :)

I stand corrected.

congrats man, you give good arguments and accept when youre wrong

A V <3 K
V
<3
K

Biased brackets ftw. Anyway, good watch so far. k1llsen and vengeurr looking phenomenal.

A V 3 K
V
3
K

A

V

3

C

UNT THAT U R

k1llsen vs Raisy on Ruins was INSANE. av3k vs Rapha almost as much. Up there with the best Quake I've seen in the 2+ decades I've been in this sh*t. I didn't expect much at all from this tournament, but a lot of players are really bringing their A game.

what is this even?

Hint: It starts with S and ends with PARTY

Lmao @ the commentators not knowing about the history between spart1e and rapha

Lmao@ them not shouting SPART1E PARTY at least once

Lmao@ Stoneeh thinking he can judge anything with his significant low skill

Yeah, I was very surprised. Ketchup used to be the guy who always had all the stats back to 12000 BC prepared. I don't know, maybe the site he pulled data from died, or PGL/Bethesda told him to not research games from older Quakes? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former :/

But he mentioned that Spart1e has always been a dark horse of every tournament, so that's good. But really, Spart1e was always the unpredictable guy who could take out anyone, rapha, Cypher, evil, doesn't matter, everyone can lose to Spart1e, and everyone did at one point in time!

But not mentioning that the two played QuakeCon _final_ in 2009 is a sin (also ESWC final, also Spart1e eliminated rapha in some DreamHack IIRC...)

Ketchup, you were my guy! What happened :(

Good point, yep. Ketchups slippin !

Ketchup only knows QC, he did not follow the other quakes, and he is obviously not a Warren Buffet like Genius that digs into those statistics and memorizes them, he is a caster after all :-)

Still butthurt that you never mattered_, and still trying to distract from it by trying to latch on to others. So sad :(

Don't be sad :( Maybe you are right! Or maybe I just like to bait people who were sore losers vs me in-game? :)

ok who the fuck is lethal xd

Some good games tbh, I like all but one of the commentators too which is nice!

I agree, DJ Wheat starts every single sentence he ever says with "yeah, I mean, you know, for example, you know". Massive WTF that this is the star host. Even Flee speaks better English, and he's German or something!

The filler phrases didnt stick out to me as much as they did to you. I thought Wheat was pretty ok with that. OTOH the language of Flee was kinda weird at times, his descriptions were sometimes very convoluted and not on point.

Wheat is good - holds it all together nicely. The coverage and commentating has been pretty good overall - bar one notable exception. Although Ketchup has improved i.e. I no longer have to mute the stream when he's commentating (seriously he used to be horrific, non stop diarrhetic stream of butchered english, just saying things to sound exciting bearing no relation to what was actually happening), he still doesn't cut it for me - but he's clearly made a lot of progress and seems to understand the game better now and has toned it down a little, removing some of his really annoying phrases...

Wheat should be a good fit for the MC position, but I just can't stand that often there's more of "I mean" and "you know" than actual (not filler/mumbling) words in the sentence. I want to punch him in the face. I can probably speak English just as fast as him - I stumble just as often, but perhaps I need to insert "I mean" and "you know" instead of pausing, apparently to you lot it doesn't sound like someone has trouble forming full sentences :)


I think the biggest improvement has been (drumroll) zsx, again :)

You know my opinion, he's the only one from the bunch who actually knows what's happening in the game (the others are play-by-play commentators who know who has what weapons and what's the delay between items), but he used to stall for minutes, especially whenever fortylions opened his mouth :)

He's still easily startled by forty's undecipherable references, nerdy jokes and innuendos, or sudden personal questions out of nowhere :) Two-three stages ago, sometimes zsx would shut up for a minute to process what even happened. Last stage he was quickly moving on if he didn't know whatever forty's joke was (let's face it, no one knows, forty is intentionally making it awkward for everyone :)). This time, he tried to retaliate! :)

It won't be enough for zsx to steal the audience award from Spart1e, but an honorable mention :)

Zsx is idd awesome at his job. But the wheat thing seems more like a personal pet-peeve of yours. It's not your native language, so such things stick out a lot to you, I guess. Plus wheat, I dont know him, even if hes a retard or whatever, he goes back all the way with Quake. That bit of nostalgia should surely warm u up to him imo.

OK, today he was pretty good, none of that brainlag crap, night and day difference! Guess he slept better, or didn't smoke his... wheat today ;)

I enjoyed today way more, even if by the finals I was already zoning out. All I can complain about the final day's stream was all the delays, after 10 hours of watching, they still take 5 minute breaks between maps... Maybe it was for stuff happening on the Bethesda stream, I was watching the Quake stream and forgot I was originally planning to see if there's Bawls chugging and stuff, my bad! :)

I think wheat is a great host though. For me I don't really like lethal, I get the impression that - by the end of whatever point hes trying to make - he's already forgotten how he started his sentence. This means he often ends up repeating himself e.g. a great quote from yesterday was "If he manages to get this frag that'll help turn things around and he can actually start turning this game around" - and it's especially noticeable when he tries to wrap up a game and explain what happened from start to finish - it's just messy and unclear.

Whilst I don't think a good commentator needs to play the game, I think it would really benefit his commentary to actually do that himself too. He's up and down though and occasionally he does really well, so maybe he just needs to slow down as in short bursts he's enjoyable to listen too. He's smiley and cheerful too and that obviously works in his favor, but I think he ought to consider a less is more approach.

It is not my intention to be mean, but if he's going to continue to get hired for every major event I really hope he reflects on this if he reads ESR.

Who did you not like?

I'd put my money on lethal. He's not catching on with the people, it seems. Might be because most of us are white and insecure, and so is lethal, clearly, so theres some projection going on

Edit: Nvm, his diction is so unclear, dude needs to learn to speak. That goes beyond his accent

Dont hate so much bro. Hes not bad, just different to the other casters. He speaks fast and puts a lot of emotion on his casting. Hes like an excited kid speaking faster than their parents can understand.

I think that speaking is an important skill for a caster. You say it yourself, he has the speaking skill of an undeveloped human.

It's not about about hate, amigo.

Wheat is a legend, that's just his style. The question is who the fook is lethal ;S

Some really great matches today! So many close maps.

its nice to see id software providing comfy bedrooms to play in instead of the wobbly tables

So raisy started aim hacking again after a brief pause when it looked like covid was slowing down and there was a possibiliy for a lan final. But now hes back to botting again :(

Sweden YES

How come every time EU vs Americas players face each other in bo3 - if it goes to 3rd map its always EU server? Ain't fair. For example every map that rapha lost was on EU server (seems like he has around 85 ping, but some packet loss if you can believe info from the chat).

It is very unfair!
If you could "save" the configuration of items of a map at any given time in a duel, you could theoretically play one half of a map on an EU server and one half on an NA server. That would make things much more just

that would be way too much of a hustle, however that feature really needs to be added in case of random disconnects etc. - to re-create specific moment


as for ping unfortunately the only solution is LAN currently

in the future starlink/ or some similar tech maybe

I dont think it would be that much of a hustle actually. I mean, demo files essentially record the game state too

You'd need is to save the item configuration, the player stack, and the player position to a file, and upload it to a server. I guess that would require talented programmers tho. And yea, it would also be great for random disconnects.

But yea, LAN is and will always be superior.

living in nyc or boston would have given him better ping to london (there's also halifax but that's in canada) but the problem is those areas are unaffordable af for anyone who isn't a millionaire. if you don't have old america money or an in demand job, you're not living in those areas, so rapha had to play from his home in dallas and that's where the massive ping disadvantage came from. other than garpy, he could probably have played every match on london if he lived in one of those cities.

To beat an in-shape Cypher on high ping vs low ping... Absolute display of class. That's skill RIGHT THERE.

RAPHA RAPHA RAPHA !

Rapha in champ mode - outplaying EU/worlds best even with latency disadvantage. 2 more to go (k1llsen out), but it going to be so tough.

ggs, gratz to Raisy. I don't think Rapha was in his champ mode in this game, seemed like he was "chasing" his win too much. Like av3k in his game vs vengeur.

salty 1hp rapha out <3

WP Vengeur - real champ - HQ stuff

Thanks for the information diegowar, I would have missed QuakeCon without you. :D

7k viewers :/
It seems that Clutch is still retarded.

Thanks to the players and casters for putting up a good show.
But next time please don't show the player's webcam footage after they get fragged, it is well known that clientside with such pings is retarded even without watching them rage, it is just cringy.
Congratulations to Vengeur, wp.

Wow, this thread further proves that mattered_ is an annoying ADHD-kid.

Glad that I could help! :)

The vods has 100k though

True dat, you are such an optimist. :D

Well most Quake players are full-blown adults with lives, so it doesn't surprise me that most have to watch when they have the time rather of spending a full weekend looking at a video game stream. Like myself.

I get your point, but according to you, Quake fans are old and busy, so they can't watch 10+ hours of the stream at once:
One person watches a couple of matches, does something else, watches the rest, does something else again and then rewatches his favourite match.
Voila, one person counts as 3 views, that is why I think counting views is highly optimistic.
I had a more pessimistic perspective, because I took the viewers during the grand final and compared them to the higher numbers of previous years.

I don't know how many viewers they had last year, but it doesn't surprise me if it's lower. All i'm saying is that more is watching quake then the live numbers. I got surprised myself when I saw 100k on each tournament day.

Yeah, I understand your point, the truth is somewhere in between your optimistic and my pessimistic perspective.

congratz venguer, cool kid, nice interview

now I have a new underdog to root for

although I guess he's not an underdog now :th0nk:

Massive congratulations to Vengeur, really happy to see him win. A man sincerely passionate about the game and competing. A true Quaker through and through. Well deserved, and what a show this was!

What a transformation. I can remember 2019 when Vengeur was a beginner with a lot of mechanical talent, but a poor understanding of the game. 2020 he began to develop strategy, which sadly mostly evolved around +back, and as result didn't earn him much recognition. Now he's just an incredibly well rounded Quake player. And won his first QCon deservedly! Congrats - many more to come!

Similar with Raisy. What a transformation. 2019, when I started following QC, I didn't like his playstyle at all - very botlike, practiced, emotionsless. Now he's playing with a lot of heart and a lot of style. Congrats on becoming a true Quake player instead of a soulless E-Sports athlete who just does it for the $$$. You made me a fan. Oh, and if you continue to whoop Rapha every tournament from now on I might just start sending you monthly payments ;)

GG WP!

Congratulations Venguer
good job Raisy.

QC isnt always fun to play but its a good game to watch

100%

Super spectator friendly game

because of the variety in movement options and matchups.
the added utility of abilities also means you can't just +back ratstyle 100% and have to bait/deny hourglasses, otherwise control can swing in opponent's favor.

despite the technical issues and unfortunate choice of engine, the gameplay was refined really well and has a really good balance right now. a true evolution of Arena FPS.

I can't imagine ever going back to something as stale as Q3/QL, even Diabotical and Xonotic have more flavor in gameplay than those.

Agree. However at the same time this has always been Quake's problem really. 1v1 will always be a spectator esport, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, the vast majority will always prefer to watch over play. It's the sad reality of a great game mode.

yeah, 1v1 is super stressful and the blowouts from losing can be really high for most players.

they tried to address those issues with the round based dueling format, where you are never out of a match and the max scoring difference is fixed, but that wasn't good for competitive play.

anyway, casual scrubs like me can enjoy spectating 1v1 while always queuing up for TDM. it is what it is.

PS: 2v2 was also incredibly fun to watch, so maybe they should revisit this in future tourneys..

2v2 was the best to watch AND to play in this game.

It's a tragedy that I can't queue for 4v4 and 2v2 at the same time, worst decision of QC since the decision to release it in the state it was in, for a million dollar tournament.

Interestingly enough, there was a 2v2 community tournament at this QuakeCon, but it was in the middle of the night for me, so I didn't catch that. Anyone knows how it went?

I think you could still make TDM 4vs4 or 3vs3 make work as team mode in QC ... people would definitely watch finals / half finals of that

People watched Sacrifice... this proves they would watch anything ;) But we'll never get playable TDM in QC.

Meanwhile, I was saying what's already available (has rules that work ok, has playable maps) and I can't play it because of atrocious UI design of QC. It's criminal.

I don't think that's specific to Quake, 1v1 is just way too much pressure/stress for people playing casually. Like in SC2 after the initial hype died down when everyone thought they would become a pro, casual players completely bailed on laddering 1v1 even with a good matchmaking system ensuring 50% winrate.

Fact is team modes or coop modes are just way more fun/casual to play, that's why later on they introduced coop commander mode which was hugely successful among casual players.

C A S T E R S
A
S
T
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Some deserved love imo.

Great tournament! ggs wp vengeur!
They did not announce another season like last year, let's see if there will be one.

Great tourney as expected. Really enjoyed it. QC is really nice to watch and probably to play as well, if wasn't dead because of the really slow progress on making it the game it is today.

It is nice to see new names doing well, but also enjoyed seeing "comebacks" from players like spart1e and Av3k. Especially, Av3k's game vs rapha was crazy good and after that, was rooting for Av3k.

The only thing that would had made it even better for me is av3k being more consistent and going even further, if not taking it.

the production and casting was good as well.

ps: one of the things that I might give 10/10 to QC is the quality of its maps. Probably still not many, which isn't bad for me, but each one of them is unique and really enjoyable to watch and play.

ps2: rapha is still the smartest player and if he ever drops bellow top 4, it means the game isn't well balanced and much random. The fact that he was top for all this period, it just proves that they finally balanced and made the game as skillful as a quake game should be.

very nice, congratz

Awesome tournament, saw almost all games. Congrats Vengeurr!

Forgot my account in the 200x's.
I have to admit this game is so much fun to watch. And to see new champions rise - well, amazing! I thought its impossible and the cyphers, av3ks, raphas etc of this world would shoot it between them until the the temperature hits 55 degreee on this plant.

Props to the commentators, you all did a great job and you all should be very proud of yourselves. We all really appreciate it.

Thank you for the many games covered, I did not catch every single one but I caught a lot of them and congratulations to Vengeur well deserved.

I was shocked that avek knocked rapha down to the lower bracket as I don't think he's ever beaten Rapha in any tournament since QL?

I like Rapha, but it was nice to see someone else get the top spot this time around, but he played phenomonal especially against Cypher, how he managed it I do not know so hats off. I felt for him in the Raisy games, but Raisy played like a machine probably could've taken any player out Rapha was just unfortunate to be in his line of sight.

Massive thanks to everyone involved. Even though it was online only, I still really enjoyed it and I'm sure the competitors did as well.

congrats to vengeurr on his first (hopefully not his last) title

thank you to av3k for knocking rapha to LB :)

cypher played awesome, it's obious that his form is getting better

zenaku also played great, and he could challenge top 5 in the near future

i also feel that one of these days GaRpy is gonna shine and surprise everyone

cooller looks like he gave up and he doesn't take this game seriously anymore :(

and i don't know what happened to nosfa this time (?)

great tournament,almost no fails until the very end, which makes this almost the most fail-less quakecon in history

hoping maxter does better next time

highlight games of the tournament:
av3k vs rapha
cypher vs rapha
spart1e vs rapha

great games, hope they do another season

The level was insane!