Hello, Quantum League community!

Now that the first stage of the open beta is over we wanted to give you an update on the current plans for Quantum League.

First of all, we wanted to thank you again for joining and providing us with your feedback. As you know, QL is a new concept and we need your help to make it the best game we can make. The feedback that we’ve got from the Open Beta has been priceless.

For the first two years of development, Quantum league was an experimental project with a very small team working almost in the dark. Since we started the closed beta program a small yet super supportive and dedicated community started to grow (we love you people!). Those early supporters were the ones who proved to us that the value that we perceived in this innovation was actually real.

Now, after running the first stage of the open beta the game has reached a larger, broader and much more diverse audience. Of course, this brings a new set of challenges as we try to make the game more accessible. But this time, we will be supporting our decisions on data and suggestions generated by you: the people who will bring life into The Time Paradox Shooter.

With that said, here is a brief summary of some of the things that we will be working on.
There’s a lot to be decided yet but we can share at least some of the things that we are thinking about. Just in case, let me clarify that some of these items may change as we continue to develop the game:

The data is clear: to begin with we need to focus on 2 areas of interest:

1. Player onboarding
   
2. Weapon feel & balance
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Quantum League is a very new and unique game that bends the formula by changing some preconceived notions of your typical FPS (looping time, continue playing while dead, reviving your own self, overtime to name a few).

After the Open Beta, it was very evident that our onboarding is still not up to the challenge, even when we covered the basic mechanics in the tutorials and training videos, newcomers were still not ready to face an actual Quantum league match. It was too much, too fast and that frustrated a lot of people.
Even though overhauling the tutorials was always part of the plan, we believe that that’s now enough. Anyway, we don’t want to bog people into endless videos and singleplayer training missions. We want people to learn the game by facing other players, but do so step by step.

That said, we are thinking about creating a New “Minor League” for newcomers. Where new players engage each other in combat in specially designed arenas that have a simplified rule-set (for example no reviving health packs and no overtime). This way, players can start to learn the core time-traveling FPS mechanics first and we can introduce the more advanced mechanics after, once they are ready to face the pro leagues.

A great shooting experience is one of our design pillars for the project alongside meaningful (as in not gimmicky) time travel mechanics with time paradox consequences. Even though the time travel mechanics present some restrictions in what we can do with the weapons (to give you a couple of examples, we can’t have hitscan weapons because of the bullet-time effects at the end of each loop and we can’t add knock-back effects to explosions as the movement would not be the same the next loop if such explosion was prevented.)

In any case, there is quite a bit that we can do to continue improving the weapons. The data proves three very important things: the SMG is the most used weapon to an extent that may prove that is a little OP, the grenade launcher is proving too difficult to control and the Laser Gun doesn't seem to be powerful enough or useful in many situations.

For the GL and the Laser, we plan to do quite a bit of a rework. We will update you on the progress of this as we are comfortable with our results.

In terms of feel, there’s some people that stated that our weapons are not packing the “punch” that you are looking for in an FPS. This implies a broad range of tiny improvements in terms of animations, camera effects, visual effects and sound effects.

The good thing is that our weapon code, tools, and systems are very advanced and capable of supporting all of these improvements. It’s just a matter of time, effort and love! We hope to provide you with the best gunplay possible!

If you have been paying attention, there is a hidden message in this post. A couple of times we referred to the Open Beta as the first stage of it. This is because we have decided that we will run -at least- another Open Beta test before venturing into Early Access!

In terms of our roadmap, there is a lot that we are working on besides the items mentioned here., Sadly, this post is starting to get too long so you will have to wait until our next update to know more about what’s coming!

We will try to keep you posted about our development progress as often as we can. So don’t forget to click on that follow button here on Steam, follow us on Twitter and join our Discord channel.

Discord: http://discord.gg/quantumleague
Instagram: quantumleagueofficial (https://www.instagram.com/quantumleagueofficial/)
Facebook: Quantum League Game (https://www.facebook.com/quantumleague/)
Twitter: @quantumleague (https://twitter.com/quantumleague)
Webpage: https://quantum-league.com/

Finally, we wanted to say that we at Nimble Giant are deeply concerned about the Covid-19 pandemic. in order to take care of our team and their families, we will start to work remotely beginning next week. We hope everyone around the world starts to take the measures necessary to fight this thing and save as many lives as we can.

Please, try to stay at home, take care of yourselves, play some games, and stay tuned! There is much more to come!

- The Quantum League Dev Team

Hey there everybody!

As you all know, we decided to run an Open Beta Test to gather feedback so we can make Quantum League the best FPS we can make, with the help of the game’s community.

We are already fixing many of the issues that you reported and adding a lot of your suggestions to our backlog.

In order to continue improving the game we need some more precise information and that’s why we came up with this survey! If you have played the Beta please fill out this form. We need as many responses as possible to make it statistically accurate and relevant.

The survey is focused on the overall gameplay experience, learning curve, weapon feel, balance, and the usual demographic questions to learn more about our players.

If you participated in previous surveys please do so again, we will really appreciate it!

Just so you know, the information is confidential and you will remain anonymous.

Click here to fill it out!

Hey, fellow time travelers! We just wanted you to know that we’ve been reading all your feedback with care because the Free Open Beta has exactly that purpose… to know what you think so that we can improve Quantum League!

So, in the spirit of making this the best game ever, we launched a new update that contains:

- New map in rotation!
For the last weekend of the Open Beta, we wanted to give you a taste of what’s in the pipeline in terms of new maps to play in, by swapping Overpass for CHRONOS, which is another “Point Capture” mode map with a very different experience from Quantum Arena. For those who still wanted to play Free For All, the Overpass map is still available in the Custom Match list.


- Switched Matchmaking criteria to prioritize ELO.
Now that everyone has had time to play and become familiar with the game, for the final weekend we’re prioritizing ELO over account levels for matchmaking, in the hopes, you’ll find more balanced & challenging matches.

- Balance change: Reduced SMG headshot multiplier from 2.5x to 2.0x.
While we have received a great amount of feedback on weapon balance during these last days, the only clear-cut actionable we’ve found is that the SMG damage output for players who are able to consistently land headshots was a bit higher than we expected. There were other changes we considered but we realized that they were changing the game in unpredictable ways, so we decided to hold off on them for now.

- Chat can now be disabled from the in-game options menu.
We realize that we shipped the beta without any tools to protect or report abusive players, and we’d like to apologize if you’ve had a bad experience during a match. We’re making it so you can silently toggle the chat from the options menu for now. We’ve also made plans to improve on this important aspect before release. We love the community that has grown around QL during the Open Beta and we want to make sure it remains a place where good sportsmanship and respect are valued.

- QOL updates
Fixed some cases where enemies weren’t visually highlighted in the HUD.

• Fixed some barrels hitting you through walls.
  
• Made it so that the timeline widget (bottom center) changes color immediately at the end of a loop to indicate who had the scoring advantage.
  
• Fixed a condition that prevented you from getting the Health Orb if you were standing on it while it recharged. Now, if two players are standing on the Health Orb while it charges, whoever was first to get there will receive it.

IMPORTANT REMINDER! There will be level transfers to the full game, which means that everything you win and play will still be there once we launch Quantum League in Early Access!


Check out the new changes and let us know what you think. Don’t forget to review Quantum League on steam and to wishlist the full game here!

Today we launched the Free Open Beta and, in the words of Quantum's Lead Designer Balthazar Auger, "it's a great opportunity for players to test their skill and experiment with the time loop mechanic."

So in this spirit, we invite you to join the game! Click here to play 1v1 and 2v2 mind-blowing matches by battling within a time loop, tactically teaming up with your past and future selves in this fast-paced competitive FPS!

You can try out different game modes like Death Match and Capture the Point, at the same time as you try our ou characters, weapons, maps, and skins!
The game will be free to play until March 2nd! So, the clock's ticking... will you be part of the League? 

Wow, it’s been a long time since our last update.
They’ve been a long time coming, but we’re finally ready to introduce our first tutorials to the world! We believe that “less is more” when it comes to learning how to play an online game, however, and as a result, we’ve focused our efforts in smoothing out the first contacts with the time loop mechanic on one hand, and on the other giving players contextual hints during regular gameplay of smaller mechanics they might’ve missed.

You will find the following Tutorial / Practice features in this update:

• “Training” button added to the main menu
  
• First-time tutorial flow (skippable)
  
• Interactive tutorial and videos
  
• Shooting range level: play without a time loop in a dedicated level and test out all weapons
  
• Practice grounds prototype: play a capture point mode against harmless dummy bots
  
• Contextual gameplay hints which will slide in from the right (on by default)
  
• A setting to disable said hints in the Options menu 😉

If you introduce new friends to the game, do let us know if these new features help their understanding of the game! We’ll be bringing improvements and polish to these in the near future.

We messed around with guns again
Ok, I know we’ve been over this many times in the past, but we’ve gone back and tweaked a bunch of things regarding the SMG and pistol mostly, and fixed minor things on the Sniper and Shotgun. The GL and Laser will get some love in the next update.

The big changes are:

• Rewrote how patterns work to make them more reliable. SMG and Pistol have new patterns.
  
• Lowered spread in many shooting scenarios. We realized we were being too punishing to people who moved and shot at the same time, hurting the dynamic nature of gunfights.
  
• Made pistol more accurate when not focusing
  
• Lowered the pistol’s headshot damage multiplier (Pistol headshot damage is now 40)

The smaller, nicer changes are:

• New muzzle flashes applied on Sniper, Shotgun, SMG, and Pistol
  
• Reworked the bullet trails to be smoother in slow motion
  
• Tweaked the camera shakes and kicks to make shooting feel more fun

Player Profile section
Some of you old-timers may remember that we used to have leaderboards ranking people over their MMR numbers and a Win/Lose ratio based value. We brought these back as part of the brand-new “Player Profile” section, in which we’ve also folded the Match Replays (now “Match History”).

The leaderboards show the top 100 players for a given metric and your own position in the case you (like me) are not in the top 100 of anything.

In-game HUD Major Surgery
We sat down to think long and hard about our on-screen info during a match, and reworked nearly everything:

• The round clock is now at the bottom of the screen. This is a bigger change than it may seem tbh, but we believe it’s more visible there.
  
• We’ve reworked the active clone health bar area, to show the full health status of all of your clones.
  
• In 2v2 matches, you can now see the current health bar and clone status of your teammate as well.
  
• Reworked the visuals of the overhead indicators to make them clearer and less intrusive.
  
• Reworked the objective area of all game modes. The top of the screen is now the official objective area, separate from the timer/timeline displays.
  
• We’ve added portraits and names for players in a match at the screen’s corners.
  
• Added a compass pointing you to the nearest active health orb when you get desynced.
  
• Reworked the weapon selection widget, we now show the status of the sidearm as well.

It’s a lot! We sincerely hope you like it.

Misc stuff!

• We’ve merged the character customization and play buttons into the “Play Lobby” screen. Select your desired game mode from the menu above the “ready” button
  
• Added a “League Status” widget in the main menu sidebar
  
• Added a “News” widget in the main menu sidebar
  
• You can now change the viewport FOV in the Options screen (between 80 and 104)
  
• Cooler music for the Player Intros

Known Issues

• While in party, matchmaking might fail randomly. We’re still looking at why, your reports in this area will be very appreciated.
  
• A tutorial item called “Arena Features” cannot be unlocked. (We haven’t done it yet)
  
• Leaderboards might not load sometimes, changing tabs will fix the problem
  
• Selecting a weapon while in-game moves the view upwards sometimes
  
• Devs-Community Tournament is stuck in space-time limbo

Don't forget! We can make your wishes come true if you Wishlist in the link below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1227800/Quantum_League__Free_Open_Beta/

You read that right… In a few weeks Quantum League’s Free Open Beta will go live for a limited time! We thought it would be cool to share the game and give everybody an opportunity to try it out so that you can tactically team up with yourself in THE time paradox shooter!

It will be the time for you to sample the game by choosing between characters, trying out some cool weapons and awesome maps in 1v1 and 2v2 fast-paced matches!

So wishlist now in the link below so that you don’t miss it! You’ll be playing before you know it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1227800/Quantum_League__Free_Open_Beta/

Stay tuned!

On Friday, our Lead Game Designer, Balthazar Auger, posted a description of Quantum League (alongside a very short game play video) on the r/gamedev sub Reddit.

Fellow developers (and also curious gamers browsing the sub) seemed to be really excited about the idea behind the game and also about the level of execution at this stage of development. The post reached more than 2.4k upotes in 24hs!

In his post, he explains some of the design decisions and the difficulties that the team has been facing, creating a multiplayer First Person Shooter where time travel mechanics actually have meaningful consequences.

He also talks about the kind of strategic and tactical game play that emerges from adding perfect information to the arena shooter formula: as players are in a time Loop, they can use their knowledge of what will happen in the future to really change the timeline to beat their opponents.

Other team members joined the discussion to respond to some very interesting game design related questions. We can't wait to show you more!

Follow this link to read the whole post:
r/gamedev Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds!

If you missed our Quantum Athlete Recruitment Trailer last week Don't forget to check it out below to learn more about the game's unique mechanics:

Match Replays (BETA)
Did you ever play an awesome match but forgot to record it? Did you ever wonder how your opponent pulled off that crazy move? Enter match replays!

A temporary “Replays” item has been added to the main menu. From here, you’ll be able to see a list of the recordings of the last matches you played. By selecting one of those, you’ll be able to view the full replay of that match.

The UI controls of the replay are still very much placeholder while we work on the proper experience, but we really wanted to put this tool in your hands early.

Main Menu changes
We are in the process of changing the design and layout of the menus. The most visible changes at the time are:

• Nicer background gradient and lighting
  
• Reworked character customization screen
  
• Characters now have facial animations and are not as cross-eyed as before!

Please note however that this is only the start of our work in this area - expect many more improvements in this area in the coming updates.

Quantum League ladder fixes
We’ve found the missing league rank! It was hiding behind a bug 😊. It should now be accessible to the most skilled amongst you.

We’ve also fixed the leaderboards being flooded with players with a zero score. Now players in the board will all have played at least once.

Map rotation
We’ve added Overpass to the main map rotation! We’ve seen the data of some of you testing it out and decided it was time to bring it even more under the spotlight. All feedback on how to improve levels is welcome!

Basic pings
We’ve added an early version of pings to the game! Currently they are super basic, because we couldn’t agree on how tey should behave within the timeloop. Do they stay until the next cycle? Should they sta until you dismiss them? We don’t know!

If you would like to try it out, pinging the world is currently set with the Middle Mouse as default (rebindable)

Other changes & improvements

• Made slides more slidey
  
• EAC integrated into the game client (please report any technical issues you may encouter!)

Halloween is just around the corner!

We wanted to celebrate this event with everybody by doing a key giveaway.. So next week stay tuned on our social networks (especially Twitter @quantumleague).

From everyone at Nimble Giant we hope you enjoy this spooky celebration!

Slide is available! To slide, sprint forward then crouch. Sliding provides a short burst of speed and can be useful in many situations.

There are many other improvements and additions in this, including CHRONOS's return to the public queue, and the addition of Overpass to the Custom match list. Server region balancing has been greatly improved, which should translate into better ping times overall.

Additionally, we've made improvements under the hood to improve clone action replay stability, so that things that happen stay happened!

The full changelog is here: https://quantum-league.com/blog/changelogs/2019/10/17/slide.html

As always, we hope you enjoy this update, and report back on any issues!
Don't forget to wishlist!