Greetings Champions,

Today's update 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 performance optimization.

New Mode: Capture The Flag (CTF)

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 highest 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 Reward System and Battle Pass

We're stoked to introduce our new Free Reward 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 dangling carrot 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.

Now for dat animated infographic:

ICYMI - Here's a recap of a bulk of the changes live in this patch in video form:

Or if you'd rather read about all these exciting changes, check out this article here.

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

Annnnnnnd you can find an FAQ to hopefully cover the bulk of your lingering questions here.

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. The grind has never been clearer or more rewarding!

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 when you do!

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 ask)

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:

We ended the Duel and 2v2 Ranked 2018 season to make room for kicking off 2019 with a brand new Duel season

We're looking at adding more modes into Ranked Play in the future, but are leading off the new year with the most quintessential Quake mode of all: Duel

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

Notes:

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:

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

Server Selection Updates

Removed the following servers:

Portland, OR

Tokyo, JP

Johannesburg, ZA

ICYMI - Dreamhack Winter Invitational

Don't Forget to Order a Quake Champions - Scalebearer Edition!

In case you missed it, check out every intense match from the three day event: Dreamhack Winter where the best Quake players in the world were there competing in 2v2 and Duel for a prizepool of $200,000! Catch the full recap in an article here.

This awesome bundle features a hand-painted, 12” tall Scalebearer statue, the Champions Pack and an exclusive Oni Skin! Full details on how order from anywhere in the world here.