Nearly perfected is an oxymoron, whereas perfection itself cannot exist from human ability in Quake. There will always be room for marginal improvement given the current state of the game, though it's unnecessary to seek. If it were still thriving, more popular, robust with competition, then the next standard might yet be realized.

In short, semantics aside, the game is at its pinnacle with no further progression on the horizon.

I'd say as long as decent people keep playing the (meta) game will progress.

Not really, the best players of today are on the cusp of getting, shall we say older where its not going to be possible to keep up that level of play and once those guys go, I don't think you'll ever see a group of better players for a LONG time as those players had the BEST possible growing conditions.

They started at the right time and were the right age.
There was a group of them to push each other.

But once they get to their late 20's they'll start dropping like flies and while you might get some new blood in, they won't be on the same level. even if they are perceived as being so because there is no one better playing.

People forget all of these top players have been playing since they were kids, the same game, or type of game for 10-15 years, many travelling the world doing so.

I can't see that happening again for a long time in high end FPS.

I don't believe it. I think this is the only logical thing I've seen from you. Baby steps.

You forget that most of the metagame is map-specific.
If one could say that we've reached kind of a stalemate on dm13 or ztn (when it's concievable that someone like cypher plays "the perfect game") new maps like Sinister and Cure have yet so much to show.

The skill level is ever increasing in every kind of competition. There isn't a ceiling for anything, at least that we have encountered in any activity thus far.

QL's top players still can get better and better in every aspect of the game, as they always have. Watch a game from 2008 then one of last month. Of course they would improve faster if there were more competitions, and of course the level can momentarily go down if the best players retire or aren't practicing hard due to lack of LANs (maybe 2011-2012 was the peak?).

Secondly, as games' metagames (not skill level of players), competition wise I'd say the pinnacle in this 'arena' subgenre were Q3 duel -whether OSP or CPMA depending on your preferences- and QW TDM. In those the strategies, aim and whatnot mattered the most and both were very solid for determining what players were the best.

I would consider it like a mathematic limit, the limit is perfection.

I think we have barely scratched the surface to be honest. Someone could definitely program a more advanced AI that would give pros a run for their money. Not necessarily all aim simply more control. Not that the two are directly comparable, but one of the best chess players of all time lost to IBM's Deep Blue. It was an extraordinary thing to see.

Firstly the deep blue thing was suspect. I would not read too much into it, secondly, if I was an AI guy, I would be supremely more confident of programming a more effective chess bot than a quake bot.

There isn't a quake bot that would rattle any pro or decent player.
or probably even me and I have not played proper FPS for 8 years.

Without abusing aim, reaction time and the way it processes opponent position data, programming such a bot would probably be harder to do than passing the Turing test and if it did it by abusing any of the above its victory would be as worthless as me 'beating' usain bolt at the next olympics on a motor bike.

I personally think the gap between human and AI is small, AI would HAVE to acknowledge it was created by humans, and humans would have to acknowledge they have become better via technology.

So I don't even see it as an us and them thing any more.

The AI beating you isn't supposed to have much significance. The only purpose is for it to be a challenge. Speaking as a programmer I see much room for improvement. It could for example analyze your history, weapon usage and accuracy to counter you. Knowing how to play against different styles alone would be a leap in the right direction.

It could for example analyze your history, weapon usage and accuracy to counter you. Knowing how to play against different styles alone would be a leap in the right direction.

I guess it depends on what you want: a realistic bot that plays similar to humans, or a bot designed to win (which would just abuse perfect mechanics). Chess isn't really a fair comparison I think because there is no mechanical element (and computers already dominate humans in chess).

Perfection would consist of getting plasma and doing 100% accuracy (maybe plasma ammo would replace RA / MH in terms of importance even!!!!1111), where as the current playstyles are far far far from that.

Or something.

philosophy itself is better than a specific philosophical thinking in quake definitely.

better aim leads to more basic meta :(

There is no metagame in quake.

How do you figure?

This game has only one ceiling: Technical one.

The netcode, game code, projectile travel time, lag on input/output - this determines the barriers.

That said, the beauty of online fast shooters lies within human ingenuity.

I remember how all oldschools in older quakes always complained: There's nothing more to be done. And yes, in a way we have beaten Quake. i won't even mention DeFRaG or CPMA where all tricks, angles, bugs were found and exploited to the death. The times were tweaked so hard that beating them is nigh impossible. The same went for strategy and tactics.

So we can safely say that old Quake is in standstill from strategical/tactical point of view. There are simply no other options in some cases that the ones already found out and perfected to the death.

It's like with every other game; take chess for example. All is known, all is written in annals of great masters and scientists who tried to capture their magic on board. Strange situations still happen ebcause it's a game between sentinent beings that make mistakes and are under influence of an immense amount of variables. But the rest is the same.

So unless the game changes, the tactics and strategies will remain the same or nearly the same.
The only thing that may change is skill level in general - but that is unlikely as modern generation is actually dumbed down by new FPSs.

Quake is a very punishing game when played seriously. Punishing because it exploits all your errors and your team's as well. That's why pubs in CTF/CA/TDM often suck so hard - in a team game that is played seriously all teammates must be tuned to each other and represent equal skill level. Otherwise it's a laughingstock of a game that can be entertaining and even funny at times, but won't yield any results useful for improving yourself.

So no, there's nothing more to be done. Actually I fear for a backwards trend - debilitation and retardation of skill level in QL. i remember us in 90s - people trained 8 hours a day to get perfect aim, get the trixjumps correctly, get the fastest cap route or time items.

How many teenagers dedicate yourselves to the game so completely right now?

I did. Then I got my priorities straight.

strategy - yes, you cant get better than cypher

aim - nope, but i doubt it will actually rise, considering the lack of young motivated players

Seeing how one player (Evil) completely changed the current metagame, I'd say theres a long way to go.

But in reality, I dont see this game evolving much further, as there are no new unique players such as cypher, rapha or the mentioned russian, who'd push it forward.

Perfecting the meta is an oxymoron. The meta game is always changing by definition in a balanced game like Quake, because it's nothing more than players reacting to the dominant strategies on a large scale.