Bethesda and id Software have released a brand new update for Quake Champions. According to the release notes, the Quake Champions January patch revamps the hit detection system and adds Private Messaging, 3rd person spawn animations, voice chat voice activation and Champion Difficulty Visual Indicators.
In addition, this patch brings balance tweaks to almost all characters, feature traffic optimizations, fixes mouse sensitivity only being able to be adjusted by increments of 0.25, and allows players to leave from ranked warm-up.
The Quake Champions January update also packs some tech improvements. id Software has fixed an issue that caused some players to crash to desktop when launching the game, an issue when Spectator experienced a jittery camera if the player they were spectating was running very high fps, and an issue where player could experience extra inputs moving champion with high FPS.
This patch will be auto-downloaded from Steam the next time you launch its client, and you can view its complete changelog below.
Quake Champions January Patch Release Notes:
NEW HIT DETECTION INTEGRATED
Phase 1: (NOW LIVE) Weapon hits are now detected client-side on our new capsule based hit skeletons, validated server-side. More details in our upcoming Dev Diary video
Phase 2: (TBD) Move Champion Ability hit detection to the new capsule skeletons
FEATURES
- Premium Weapon Shaders added in Reliquaries only
- Private Messaging added
- Voice chat voice activation added
- 3rd person spawn animations added
- Champion Difficulty Visual Indicators added
CHAMPIONS
- Fixed issue for Keel’s ability which caused FPS drops
- Fixed issue when sometimes DOOM Slayer was missing punch animations
CHAMPION BALANCE
ANARKI
- Starting Health 100 to 75
- Max Armor 75 to 50
Injection
- Cooldown 40 to 60
- Duration 8 to 10
- Health Bonus 1 to 3
Movement
- Max Speed 560 to 600
- Air Control Acceleration Reduced
- Enabled Crouch Ledge Grabbing
- Removed Forward Acceleration
- Removed Bunny Hop Acceleration
B.J. BLAZKOWICZ
- Max Armor 75 to 100
Dual Wield
- Increased Weapon Rate of Fire
- Cooldown 48 to 45
- Duration 5 to 7
CLUTCH
Mining Drill
- Damage 5 to 7
- Drill Radius 0.12 to 0.1
DOOM SLAYER
Berserk
- Targeting Range 1.4 to 1.5
GALENA
Unholy Totem
- Cooldown 30 to 25
- Damage 75 to 100
Movement
- Base Speed 300 to 310
KEEL
Grenade Swarm
- Self-Knockback 1.0 to 1.5
NYX
Movement
- AirAcceleration 1.2 to 1
- Bunny Hop Added
RANGER
Dire Orb
- Explosion radius 3 to 3.5m
- Damage 100, with falloff
SCALEBEARER
Bull Rush
- Increased damage from Bull Rush & Heavy Weight
- 25 dmg > 300 ups (Bull Rush Only)
- 50 dmg > 400 ups
- 100 dmg > 500 ups
- 150 dmg > 600 ups
SLASH
Movement
- Air Accelerate 1.1 to 1
- Forward Acceleration 0.7 to 0.5
SORLAG
Acid Spit
- Acid Spit Damage 25 to 30
- Spit Knockback 0 to 5
- Acid Pool Damage over Time 7 to 10
VISOR
Piercing Sight
- Cooldown 43 to 40
- Duration 5 to 7
MAPS
- Winter holiday décor removed
- Fixed issue on Blood Covenant where player could get stuck on jump pads using high speed movements
- Fixed more issues for falling out of the map after using Ranger’s Dire Orb on multiple maps
- Improved issues with incorrect respawns on Blood Covenant in TDM
- Fixed issue when time zone was incorrect for sent messages
UI
- Fixed mouse sensitivity only being able to be adjusted by increments of 0.25
- Fixed misaligned PiPs for Clutch vanities
TECH
- Fixed an issue that caused some players to crash to desktop when launching the game
- Fixed issue where closing client using the exit button resulted in an error
- Fixed issue when Spectator experienced a jittery camera if the player they were spectating was running very high fps.
- Fixed issue when the ‘Play Now’ button could be locked when a player left a match
- Fixed Premium shaders that appeared low res in main menu
- Further traffic optimizations
- Fixed spike on victory podium screen
- Fixed issue where player could experience extra inputs moving champion with high FPS (phantom jumping)
RANKED
- Fixed issue when players who completed placement games had rating in all scoreboards
- Nameplates now have SR rating on them
- League icons are now synchronized with what’s shown on post-match sequence
- Fixed issue where player could receive negative rating for a win in Duel
- Leaving from ranked warm-up should now work correctly
WEAPONS
- Fixed issue when weapons with shader applied did not have quad vfx
- Fixed issue with broken sfx when player first spawns into training
LEADERBOARDS
- Fixed issue in Leaderboards where the Game Type: Duel was not capitalized
- Fixed issue when Leaderboards button did not work if player was in the first page
- Fixed issue while changing league there was no correct change sequence
- Increased the amount of leaderboard pages supported
- Removed blank last page from leaderboards
LOCALIZATION
- Fixed issue where Brazilian-Portuguese was not localized on Steam and displayed only in English
- Various Localization fixes made
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Wish the game’s hybrid engine also supported VULKAN API. My RX 480 GPU would surely benefit from this, lol.
When’s this game going to be released and will it still be F2P?
The game is coming out of Early Access this year.
This game is pure poo poo
That Anarki nerf noooooo D:
Still a joke.
Anarki nerfed harshly. He had to be nerfed, no doubt. But nerfing his stack by 50 points (reversing the universal stack update for him alone while everyone else gets to keep the extra 50 points) and his ability with a 50% longer recovery, that’s brutal. I guess they wanted to make sure that the meta would move on from him for a while so other champs got play-time. But I worry that after they realize they overnerfed him they’ll go right back to making him OP again.
BJ buffed hugely, both his stack (25) and his ability (significantly!). I predict BJ will be one of the top 5 if not top 3 in duel this patch. His stronger ability alone will make him worth playing in duel. I’m skeptical of this buff, I agree he needed a slight buff but to his survivability (stack or movement), not to his damage output.
All of the other changes are either good or neutral, except Sorlag. Sorlag did not need a buff, especially not to her acid attack. Kill time in the game is generally deemed too low still. They need to stop buffing champs that do alright and instead continue nerfing champs that stand out too much. We need longer, more skillful fights and Sorlag represents the opposite of that. She’s a cheese champ, she hides around corners and hits you with the acid attack and rockets simultaneously to basically instant kill you. Duel will see her replace Anarki now. All the Anarki players are just going to play Sorlag instead. They might have played another light champ (Nyx or Slash) if those hadn’t been nerfed as well. Sorlag has air control and was already part of the top 3 once before so the experienced QC players will probably go back to playing her mainly.
There’s more good than bad in this patch but as always it is just not enough. Where’s the fundamental change to the duel system? Where’s the fix for the highlighting (not sure if they even acknowledge that it’s broken)? Where’s the general performance improvement? Where’s the fix to input lag due to fluctuating performance (input should be done separately at 500+ Hz, not per frame)? By Quake standards this game continues to be unplayable.