botmodeedit: also being defenseless on spawn is one of the dumbest things quake players hold onto for some unknown reason, one of the best things qc ever did was give you the option to spawn with a shotgun or nailgun, and all of the starting weapons are a threat along with your stack.
I think Painkiller is very interesting here: you spawn with rail that 2 shots a fullstack and a melee that can shoot a slow, telegraphed projectile that instakills
Even going 20-0 in duels is still fun because you're actually useful off spawn, and it's difficult to control the entire map with 20s items so you're always going to get some scraps at least