Shame none of that is going towards UT development and Epic scrapped that project. Considering the state of the new Quake game I guess that's the end for Arena shooters.
Thats what gravitates people towards randomness in games, where skill is taken out of the equation. Then you don't have to practice or actually "be good", you could just get lucky, and thats enough for most people - they aren't looking for challenges in their games, just dopamine kicks, and we are wired enough to get similar effects to chance we get to perseverance and the former doesn't require the hard work.
Arena shooters are alive and thriving. Quake Champions Doom Edition[1] is a miracle mod that is incredible to see and play knowing its running on what started as the first breakout PC shooter of all time. But its not a commercial product. Its a fan game. But its just as good, or better, than what almost any big budget arena shooter could offer, because they are not about spectacle at all, they are about the tightness and responsiveness of the gameplay.
I don't think you understand how either type of games work. You really believe "dopamine kicks" play a bigger role in casual games than in hardcore ones?
More casual games lean on the fact that there are more aspects to derive fun and value from than just being "better" (being "good" is relative) or just overcoming challenge. Skill, practice and challenge all play a part even in casual games, they simply are not such overpowering factors compared to hardcore experiences.
That's how many people feel about the abilities in QC, yet you linked a QC style mod. Are the abilities toned down in the mod compared to how they are in QC?
Why do you think this?
I like to compare arena shooters vs. Fortnite/Overwatch as chess vs. Settlers of Catan. Arena shooters were much more "open play" in the sense that there were few enough game mechanics that you could mostly guess your opponents' tactics and it often came down to execution and minute variations in the gameplay.
The newer shooters add many, many game mechanics that complicate and randomize the game. Overwatch's large stable of characters, for example. This creates a problem where part of your skill is reading matchups from an intractably large number of factors, then executing on it.
I don't consider either to be superior, but the games put emphasis on and reward different skills.
For newcomers this resulted in dying horrible most of the time, all the time.
Not even close to the extent you need to have it for a fast-paced AFPS. Watch some top-level quake gameplay and compare it to top-level Overwatch gameplay, it's night and day. Hell, some OW characters even aim for you or don't need to aim at all to be effective (Winston for example)
>but now there are a host of other mechanical, tactical and cooperative skills to master on top of that
Cooperation sure, OW does put more of an emphasis on teamwork. But as far as mechanical and tactical skill goes I don't see how you can make that argument unless you've never played an AFPS
But the scene isn't as big for those as it is for 1v1, because its already overwhelming trying to track two people operating at peak performance, let alone 8 or 12. Its a niche of a niche.
I wouldn't mind seeing Tribes sledding in more stuff though.
To make up for it here's an article for those interested in implementing Tribes physics with skiing. It's not really just some notion of "friction = 0". https://floodyberry.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/tribes-1-physic...