ptkovsky
Valve Corporation, a North American video game developer and publisher from Bellevue, Washington, recently released a new patch for one of its esports titles — Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The recent update of the game introduces a lot of changes to the FPS title, including an entirely new operation release, which is titled as Riptide.
The Valve’s patch also implements various fixes, new maps, modes, usability tweaks, and different balance updates.
The update will shift the CS: GO meta and will definitely impact the team‘s strategies, player’s vision of the title, and the future of the esports matches and tournaments on the competitive and professional CS: GO scene.
This article introduces brief patch analysis and lists some of the community reaction.
The full changelog of the patch is available blow:
[ OPERATION RIPTIDE ]
Introducing Operation Riptide, featuring new maps, new missions, and new ways to play your favorite game modes! Activate an Operation Riptide Pass and complete your missions to earn rewards including all new agents, weapon collections, stickers, and patches.[ GAME MODES ]
Added:
Private Matchmaking Queues
– Generate a Queue Code and share it with your friends to create a private Premier match on Valve servers
– Or, select one of your Steam Groups and play a match exclusively with other members of that groupShort Competitive
– Added the option to select a preference for match duration in competitive Matchmaking: Short (MR 16), Long (MR 30), or No Preference.Deathmatch
– Added the option to select Classic Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch (first team to 100 kills wins), and Free-for-all Deathmatch (all players are enemies).Demolition
– Reduced max rounds to 10 and eliminated half-time team swap.
– Reduced round time
– Adjusted weapon progressionArms Race
– Adjusted weapon progression
– Players now receive a health-shot after three kills[ GAMEPLAY ]
– Grenades can now be dropped just like weapons.
– Vision after death reduced from 3.0s to 2.0s (vision by headshot reduced from 1.0s to 0.5s).– Deagle
— Reduced body damage– M4A1-S
— Increased body damage– Dual Elites
— Reduced price to $300– Ballistic Shield
— Added the Ballistic Shield heavy weapon to the buy menu, currently purchasable by CTs in Casual Hostage map groups.[ MAPS ]
– County has been added to official matchmaking in Danger Zone game mode.– Basalt and Insertion II have been added to official matchmaking in Competitive, Casual, and Deathmatch game modes.
– Ravine and Extraction have been added to official matchmaking in Wingman game mode.
– The following maps are no longer available in official matchmaking: Grind, Mocha, Pitstop, Calavera, Frostbite.
Dust2:
– Slight visibility tweak from T spawn through mid
– Improved visibility into B back site from upper tunnelsInferno:
– Made gate at top of banana solid
– Revised 1v1 layout
– Minor bug fixesAncient:
– Increased size of plantable area in both bombsites
– Fixed bullet penetration on plywood surfaces
– Further optimizations
– Added 1v1 arenas
Patch analysis
The new in-game operation update introduces new rewards for completing the proposed challenges, such as newest weapon skins, new agents, stickers, badges, and other valuable loot.
Besides that, there are more quite impactful changes to the CS: GO gameplay itself. Lets talk a little bit about the actual changes implemented by the recent patch.
Modes
One of the first interesting additions to the Valve’s FPS is the introduction of private queues mode. The mode is available for play specifically on Valve servers’ matchmaking.
To play in this private mode using Valve servers, users must generate specific codes, which can be used by either their friends or even members of the specific group on Steam.
The next quality of life addition is the introduction of short competitive matchmaking mode, where players can select the desired mode of either short or long game, which will be played till 16 rounds of 30 rounds, respectively.
The other new options change the preferences for the title’s deathmatch modes. Users can choose from classic mode, TDM with fraglimit, and also DM FFA mode.
There were also other minor changes implemented to other game scenarios, such as demolition and arms race modes.
Balance updates
In-game balance tweaks, introduced in the recent update, include some other interesting changes to the game’s arsenal.
Grenades and Vision
For instance, one of the most exciting updates of the patch is that players can now drop their grenades, simply as they used to drop their rifles, pistols, shotguns or SMGs.
Players, who died during the round, can now see a little bit less before their vision goes away entirely.
Deagle and M4A1-S
One of the most interesting updates in the patch came from balance tweaking of one of the game’s popular weapons, such as Desert Eagle and M4A1-S.
These two devices got slightly changed in the recent update.
First of all, the Counter-Strike franchise’s most iconic pistol — the Deagle, now does less damage when the shots connect with the body’s hitboxes of the enemy models.
In contrast, one of the title’s most controversial additions to the game got buffed — the M4A1-S rifle, which fires slightly more accurately than its original version, and also features silencer and 25 bullets in the magazine.
The CTs firearm now does more damage when hitting the body of the opponents.
The silenced M4A1 modification was added in the game in August 2013, and has been balanced numerous times since, including pricing tweaks, damage characteristics, recoil patterns, and changes in reserved ammo capacity.
Dual elites and shield
Another weapon in the game — Dual elites, got their price reduced.
The other very interesting addition to the title is a returning in-game device — a ballistic shield.
The CTs exclusive was known as a tactical or riot shield back in the CS 1.6 days. It was one of the few items added from the Condition Zero version of the game.
In the older title of the franchise, the shield was added as the result of the patch, which was released in January 2003.
The shield in CS 1.6 could be used on any maps, and thus, the usage of the item was usually prohibited in the competitive play.
Following from the previous experience, the CS: GO developers enabled the defensive item for CTs, but only in the casual mode on maps with hostage rescue scenarios.
Maps
There were some new maps added to the game, such as County, Basalt, Insertion II, Ravine, and Extraction. These maps are available in different game modes. Also, some older maps were removed.
Speaking of the maps, one of the most interesting additions to the current patch are some tweaks for one of the most popular maps — Dust2 and Inferno.
On the first map, which is one of the most iconic settings in the history of the Valve’s franchise, the mid area was slightly changed, balancing and improving visibility for the attacking side. Other map updates include various bug fixes, banana objects tweaks, and some cosmetic layout changes.
The third and final map, which was updated in this patch, is the newer one on the list of competitive maps — Ancient. The Aztec-style-inspired location got its long-awaited optimizations, including changes in its bomb plant locations, which were slightly increased.
Community reaction
The CS: GO community was really excited about the recent announcement of the new patch release.
Some of the CS: GO professionals and competitive scene activists also commented on the patch.
s1mple
Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev — one of the best CS: GO players in the world, the superstar AWPer playing for the CIS team Na’Vi, from Ukraine, said on his Twitch stream that the update might ruin the balance on some maps.
According to s1mple’s thought process, in some cases, the Terrorist side can now more effectively fake or attack the plant location with multiple grenades dropped.
Kostyliev mentioned B plant position on Mirage, where the T side can smoke kitchen and B, and the attacking players can then flash the plant numerous times.
dev1ce
The other person who recently expressed a desire to comment on the changes, was Nicolai Reedtz, known to the public as dev1ce.
The superstar Danish AWPer, voted numerous times as top 3-5 player in the world since 2015, played for many EU teams, including world’s best organizations, such as Copenhagen Wolves, Team Dignitas from US, Team SoloMid, who have one of the most popular LoL teams in the world, the mighty Danish superteam Astralis, and recently joined Swedish legends Ninjas in Pyjamas.
The famed Dane stated that the changes are always welcomed, but they could have been implemented earlier, not right before one of the main tournaments of the year — The PGL Major Stockholm 2021, a Major LAN championship with 24 teams, featuring $2,000,000 prize pool, which will be held from October 26 till November 7 in Sweden.
seized
A similar opinion towards the newly implemented grenade drops mechanic was expressed by the professional CS: GO player, former Na’Vi team captain, Denis “seized” Kostin.
seized stated that the update came in right before the start of the other upcoming and important IEM series tournament — the IEM Fall 2021 event, the last RMR event before the Stockholm Major.
smooya
One of the opportunistic comments came from one of the best United Kingdom‘s professional CS: GO players, Owen Butterfield, better known as smooya.
The popular 22-year-old esports figure competed for UK organizations such as Team Endpoint, CeX, Radix eSports, exceL eSports, Epsilon eSports from Belgium, BIG from Germany, Chaos Esports Club and c0ntact Gaming from United States, and also Movistar Riders originating from Spain.
smooya stated that, in his opinion, the Riot Gaming’s competitor — Valorant, acted as one of the main forces, leading to the current drastic changes in the CS: GO meta. Butterfield believes that the positive effect of the confrontation can last for many years to come.
SPUNJ
One of the popular and highlighted opinion leaders, who commented on the changes before the release of this article, was Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill.
A former professional player himself, the Australian, who now also works as a commentator and analyst, competed for various organizations in CS: S and CS: GO since 2008. Burchill is famous for previously being a part of, for instance, the Australian organization Renegades.
The 32-year-old appreciated the Dust2 mid changes by the North American game developer. SPUNJ tweeted that the reduced vision of the Terrorist side base is nice, and it can potentially impact the way the map will be played.
There is also a popular opinion among the CS: GO community that due to the recently changed vision for the attackers, the arcade mid and dark play on Dust2 in the beginning of the round from the safety side will have more potential impact on the results of the rounds.
NiKo
One of the community’s members, who initially did not like the update, was arguably one of the best players in the world, a partly Serbian professional CS: GO player from Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as Nikola “NiKo” Kovac.
Kovac started his career in CS 1.6 and recently competed for top teams, such as G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and mousesports.
NiKo made a short statement in his Twitter post that he is not the biggest fan of the recent change in the grenades mechanic.
ropz
The team mousesports rifler, one of the most talented young faces on the professional CS: GO scene from Estonia — Robin “ropz” Kool, expressed an opinion, that the newest Valve’s patch will completely change the competitive meta of the title.
Kool is excited that the Valve’s update will bring more new and potentially very cool things to the Counter-Strike gameplay.
FaZe analyst
One of the other CS: GO community members, nicknamed Viacheslav “innersh1ne” Britvin, is an esports journalist and an analyst for the FaZe Clan organization.
innersh1ne worked in esports as an analyst before, competing with teams such as GamerLegion and mousesports, before he eventually joined the North American multigaming esports organization originating from the Call of Duty franchise.
The Russian analyst was quite satisfied with Valve’s work on the recent update.
Britvin expressed an opinion, that the meta of the second round in the game will most certainly change. After one of the teams loses the first round in the game, they will be forced to act differently, he said.
It is known that the pistols such as the Deagle and P250 are one of the most used devices during the eco buys in the competitive environment.
The analyst predicted that after the Deagle nerf, the option of the force buy will be more carefully assessed by the losing team.
During the third round, the analyst expressed an idea to buy inexpensive, and now also more impactful due to the buff, M4A1-S devices for the entry fraggers, and drop grenades to the players with more supporting roles on the team.
However, in this case, the supporting safety players, who are likely left without rifles, will have less firepower and impact on the round, partially because of the Desert Eagle nerf.
In this situation, the opposing T side is going to be less impacted due to their AK or Galil purchases.
MSL
The other very active commenter on Twitter was the 26-year-old Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen. He is a popular figure in the esports community, the in-game leader and rifler, and arguably one of the best captains on the international Counter-Strike scene.
Lauridsen started his professional esports career in 2011. MSL played for multiple Counter-Strike: Source and Global Offensive teams, such as Copenhagen Wolves, Reason, Team Dignitas, North, Rogue, OpTic Gaming, and South.
Lauridsen stated in his Twitter post that there is no need to change the backbone of the Counter-Strike’s gameplay process. He said that one of the CS player’s valuable skills was to be able to evaluate the amount of utility used by the opposing team.
MSL stated that, for example, on the Overpass, there is now no particular need for the A defenders to rotate their positions to use smokes for their teammates in places such as monster.
One of his other examples was when attackers on Inferno previously went towards the B side and used their utility, the A part of the map was more open for the defenders.
According to MSL, now there is much lower potential risk and punishment for using the utility around the map to fake, gamble, gain additional advantage and map control.