Played a few rounds last night, the first time I've played CS in a few years at this point. I really like the new look to everything. It's very colourful and bright, and easy to read players...
Played a few rounds last night, the first time I've played CS in a few years at this point.
I really like the new look to everything. It's very colourful and bright, and easy to read players against maps. Some newly opened pathways in the revamped maps that open up some interesting options.
The audio is a fantastic upgrade. The 3D audio is insanely good, and I like all the new weapon sounds. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like you can turn it off, 3D audio is the only audio option and the game makes it clear up front that you are supposed to play it with stereo headphones. It's well worth it.
There's so many more customization options across the board, and I really like how they've implemented in-game windows for the graphics and crosshair settings so you can see the changes live.
The performance is very good too. I've got older hardware now but I can still pull 90+ fps average with max graphics and 4x MSAA on 1080p, where I'd have about 150 fps in CSGO.
I was playing CSGO leading up to the release of this game, and got into the beta a few weeks ago. The improvements are massive, and going back to CSGO after trying the beta for a bit really...
I was playing CSGO leading up to the release of this game, and got into the beta a few weeks ago. The improvements are massive, and going back to CSGO after trying the beta for a bit really highlighted the changes in stuff like audio and graphics.
I really like the new smokes, being able to refund weapons during the buy period in case I realize I made a bad purchase, and the new setting where the crosshair moves when you shoot to show you how the spray pattern works, which really helps me understand sprays.
Certain Counter Strike mechanics were obscure or weird because "it's a video game, and this glitch/limitation is what people are used to, so it's part of the game." See: certain grenade setups needing to bounce off the skybox, needing to use the developer console to set up certain useful keybinds instead of them just being built into the game. CS2 revised lots of stuff and made it make WAY more sense and be overall better, such as those grenade setups having in-world walls to bounce off instead of an invisible wall, and jump throwing grenades is now a skillcheck where you throw a grenade at the right moment instead of a random keybind.
I'm just wondering why CS2 doesn't have CSGO's party modes like Arms Race/Gun Game or Flying Scoutsman yet, the only one they have is Deathmatch. Where'd the other ones go? I also don't like the new rule where you can't play competitive as a 4-man party, only 1-3 or 5 players. 4-man sucks for the solo queue guy since the 4 are in a Discord call not talking to him, but geez does it SUCK not being allowed to play because too many of my friends are online, so we have to guilt a fifth person to get on, split the group, or have someone sit it out. Four people is the most common amount my group is able to get online any given time so this has really sucked for us.
Huh I haven't tried competitive at all yet to even notice that (gotta get that aim back up, so it's just deathmatch on repeat for a while). I hope they add all the other modes back soon, I imagine...
Huh I haven't tried competitive at all yet to even notice that (gotta get that aim back up, so it's just deathmatch on repeat for a while). I hope they add all the other modes back soon, I imagine it's due to having to upgrade all the maps by hand. I know they spent a while upgrading the competitive maps one by one up to and during the beta. Maybe now that it's out, they'll focus on them and get them back up.
Looks like some solid upgrades from what I've seen from CS:GO vids/streams. My friends group never got into it for a couple of reasons, so I'm wondering if those will be addressed. The barrier to...
Looks like some solid upgrades from what I've seen from CS:GO vids/streams. My friends group never got into it for a couple of reasons, so I'm wondering if those will be addressed.
The barrier to entry for the main game is rather high. The strategies and skills necessary were often opaque and the experience was very rough for new players. Part of this may just be inherent to the game mode, as we found the same thing with Valorant.
It was difficult to play in a group with varying levels of skills. We were specifically looking for a group game to replace overwatch - and it may simply be that CS is not the right genre for that. But basically it was difficult to find a match that was fun/interesting for both our better players and our less-skilled players.
Might have to suggest it to the group and see if CS2 works for us. We've been really struggling to find a group game since overwatch died.
Valve actually invested a lot of time and effort into this! As I mentioned to TheJorro, they tweaked a lot of stuff that used to be hidden features or technically exploits as more formal mechanics...
Valve actually invested a lot of time and effort into this! As I mentioned to TheJorro, they tweaked a lot of stuff that used to be hidden features or technically exploits as more formal mechanics in the game. The spray pattern mechanic, where gun recoil is the same every time and you have to memorize it, is now represented more clearly with a setting to have the crosshair move as you shoot to show where the bullets are going. Grenade jump throws, which used to be a keybind you needed the developer console to make, is now a skillcheck where you just throw the grenade during a jump with the right timing. Spots where grenade throws relied on invisible walls now have in-universe walls to bounce off of. That kind of stuff really makes the game easier to understand.
I doubt this is an easy issue for ANY competitive shooter to solve... For what it's worth, my friend group has a very wide variety of skill levels, and we play together. It's probably worth giving CS2 a shot to see if it works for you guys. I personally find that lower skill players can pretty easily contribute to a team thanks to the structure of CS, where there's perma death and no healing, so if they damage someone for 20hp and they call out where they found the enemy that killed them, maybe also spectate their teammates to call out enemies or sounds a player missed, that honestly contributes so much more than, say, a bronze level Genji in OW rushing the payload, doing 50 damage to a tank who's being healed by Mercy, and dying.
Definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. Its probably worth looking at based on that alone. This one I'm not sure about - as you say, its hard to do for any competitive shooter. The...
Valve actually invested a lot of time and effort into this! As I mentioned to TheJorro, they tweaked a lot of stuff that used to be hidden features or technically exploits as more formal mechanics in the game. The spray pattern mechanic, where gun recoil is the same every time and you have to memorize it, is now represented more clearly with a setting to have the crosshair move as you shoot to show where the bullets are going. Grenade jump throws, which used to be a keybind you needed the developer console to make, is now a skillcheck where you just throw the grenade during a jump with the right timing. Spots where grenade throws relied on invisible walls now have in-universe walls to bounce off of. That kind of stuff really makes the game easier to understand.
Definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. Its probably worth looking at based on that alone.
I doubt this is an easy issue for ANY competitive shooter to solve... For what it's worth, my friend group has a very wide variety of skill levels, and we play together. It's probably worth giving CS2 a shot to see if it works for you guys. I personally find that lower skill players can pretty easily contribute to a team thanks to the structure of CS, where there's perma death and no healing, so if they damage someone for 20hp and they call out where they found the enemy that killed them, maybe also spectate their teammates to call out enemies or sounds a player missed, that honestly contributes so much more than, say, a bronze level Genji in OW rushing the payload, doing 50 damage to a tank who's being healed by Mercy, and dying.
This one I'm not sure about - as you say, its hard to do for any competitive shooter.
The solo genji trickling into the enemy team wasn't usually a problem with our group. Those without the mechanical skills for headshots in a FPS could easily contribute to the team by playing tanks, supports, or even characters who are more ability focused than aim-focused (say torbjorn or mei). And then the more advanced players could "handicap" themselves by playing heroes they were less familiar with or more technically challenging or had more risk/reward mechanics.
Its one of the reasons why we tried Valorant - as the "hero" shooters tend to do well in that regard. Unfortunately the CS format didn't mesh well for us then. Perhaps it will work better for us with CS2.
I don't blame you for bouncing off Overwatch; enshittification comes for every game eventually. I am also looking for a good group game, perhaps I can convince some of my friends to play CS2 and...
I don't blame you for bouncing off Overwatch; enshittification comes for every game eventually. I am also looking for a good group game, perhaps I can convince some of my friends to play CS2 and see how it goes. I'd suggest Vermintide 2 if you want something you can play with a 4-person party, I've gotten back into that lately since they added a ton of new maps and there's a new class coming out soon.
I'll have to take a look. Unfortunately our group is 5-6 regular players, so 4 player games only work when people are busy or not interested in the game.
Vermintide 2
I'll have to take a look. Unfortunately our group is 5-6 regular players, so 4 player games only work when people are busy or not interested in the game.
Theres a whole bunch of things, but for my group... Shutting down OW1 servers with the release of OW2 mean that you can no longer play the game you paid for. OW2 was overpromised and...
Theres a whole bunch of things, but for my group...
Shutting down OW1 servers with the release of OW2 mean that you can no longer play the game you paid for.
OW2 was overpromised and underdelivered in a way that makes it clear cashgrab and re-monitization of existing content rather than a sequel. The PVE experience that was to be the core of OW2 was completely gutted. And the PVP experience ended up being not a huge update, after years of no updates for OW1.
OW1 was a one-time purchase with cosmetic lootboxes - the least offensive of microtransactions. OW2 is free, but with aggressive microtransactions like free+paid battlepasses.
New heroes are available in the battlepass significant earlier for paid users. The free battlepass may be beyond casual players.
You can now purchase skins directly rather than gambling via lootboxes - which is probably fine if you were spending money on lootboxes to get a specific skin. But now it takes months to purchase a skin via currency (from what I've heard - not sure the current state) or purchasing it directly for a high sticker price.
Ultimately, OW1 felt like a labor of love - with devs who loved the game. OW2 feels like a corporation squeezing money from IP while minimizing dev work. Lots of promises that were broken or forgotten about. Less specific to overwatch, but blizzard had a lot of internal problems with sexism/harassment that came out around that time - which further contributed to us not wanting to support OW anymore.
Dang, that's really sad to hear. I haven't palyed OW since peak popularity days (think pre-mercy rework) but always had an absolute blast with my friends I absolutely hate this new trend towards...
Dang, that's really sad to hear. I haven't palyed OW since peak popularity days (think pre-mercy rework) but always had an absolute blast with my friends
I absolutely hate this new trend towards free-to-play, but as long as people keep giving these corporations money it will stick around :(
This is basically the same thing that Counterstrike 2 has just done. Except it seems like OW2 might be more similar to OW1 than CS2 to CSGO. OW2 just switched from 6v6 to 5v5 and tweaked a few...
Shutting down OW1 servers with the release of OW2 mean that you can no longer pay for the game you paid for.
This is basically the same thing that Counterstrike 2 has just done. Except it seems like OW2 might be more similar to OW1 than CS2 to CSGO. OW2 just switched from 6v6 to 5v5 and tweaked a few heroes not unlike many previous updates have. Does anyone miss 6v6 specifically that much? I love the change to 5v5. Most of the heroes I play regularly have gone through major reworks in the past within OW1 and barely got touched (or had huge improvements like Mercy's new movement options) in OW2 so I haven't felt strongly about the hero reworks.
OW2 was overpromised and underdelivered in a way that makes it clear cashgrab and re-monitization of existing content rather than a sequel. The PVE experience that was to be the core of OW2 was completely gutted.
This seems like over-focusing on arbitrary labels since OW2 is free and OW1 did cost money. This would make a lot of sense if OW2 was a new purchase.
I feel like negative views of Overwatch 2 are much more influenced by the perceptions of Blizzard and it not being the new thing any more than anything specifically about playing the game.
I loved OW1. The fact that they made OW2 a free "update" is what annoys me the most. I can never play the game I paid for again. I'm guessing this was by design because they didn't want a...
I loved OW1. The fact that they made OW2 a free "update" is what annoys me the most. I can never play the game I paid for again. I'm guessing this was by design because they didn't want a fragmented user base.
I've tried OW2 many times, I just don't like it as much. Can't really articulate why. If I could go back and play OW1, I would, but they took that choice away from me.
Off the top of my head, locking new characters in the battle pass, no skin drops because they removed the random loot boxes (mixed blessing really), moving from 6 to 5 players to all but ensure...
Off the top of my head, locking new characters in the battle pass, no skin drops because they removed the random loot boxes (mixed blessing really), moving from 6 to 5 players to all but ensure you get wiped with a bad team, mandating certain roles and amounts so you're always forced to play classes you don't enjoy in order to get matched with a game, the ugly UI constantly pestering you to spend money on the cash shop a'la CoD...there's a lot.
I didn't know it was out yet. I was never huge into CS, but Source 2 looks absolutely amazing from the screenshots so I'm interested to take it for a test drive.
I didn't know it was out yet. I was never huge into CS, but Source 2 looks absolutely amazing from the screenshots so I'm interested to take it for a test drive.
I've never really played CS but I've watched some competitive matches online. I'm more of a single player person, so I doubt I'll ever give it another try but looking at the trailer the smoke...
I've never really played CS but I've watched some competitive matches online. I'm more of a single player person, so I doubt I'll ever give it another try but looking at the trailer the smoke physics look really cool, and could probably change how the game is played.
As a... obsessed Counter-Strike player, the performance has been underwhelming (less FPS, which is understandbly lower, more the frametime variance, which is far too high for someone with a...
As a... obsessed Counter-Strike player, the performance has been underwhelming (less FPS, which is understandbly lower, more the frametime variance, which is far too high for someone with a mid-level 20202 computer), and I can see I'm not alone looking at reddit.
Played a quick game of Wingman after not having touched CSGO for a few months and I love the new look. I’m also sorta surprised by how well this runs on Linux, easily getting 60+ fps at 1440p...
Played a quick game of Wingman after not having touched CSGO for a few months and I love the new look. I’m also sorta surprised by how well this runs on Linux, easily getting 60+ fps at 1440p albeit with the default settings. Just needed to add a launch flag to get audio working. It feels like a nice update to CSGO, might try getting back into this game for the casual play
Played a few rounds last night, the first time I've played CS in a few years at this point.
I really like the new look to everything. It's very colourful and bright, and easy to read players against maps. Some newly opened pathways in the revamped maps that open up some interesting options.
The audio is a fantastic upgrade. The 3D audio is insanely good, and I like all the new weapon sounds. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like you can turn it off, 3D audio is the only audio option and the game makes it clear up front that you are supposed to play it with stereo headphones. It's well worth it.
There's so many more customization options across the board, and I really like how they've implemented in-game windows for the graphics and crosshair settings so you can see the changes live.
The performance is very good too. I've got older hardware now but I can still pull 90+ fps average with max graphics and 4x MSAA on 1080p, where I'd have about 150 fps in CSGO.
I was playing CSGO leading up to the release of this game, and got into the beta a few weeks ago. The improvements are massive, and going back to CSGO after trying the beta for a bit really highlighted the changes in stuff like audio and graphics.
I really like the new smokes, being able to refund weapons during the buy period in case I realize I made a bad purchase, and the new setting where the crosshair moves when you shoot to show you how the spray pattern works, which really helps me understand sprays.
Certain Counter Strike mechanics were obscure or weird because "it's a video game, and this glitch/limitation is what people are used to, so it's part of the game." See: certain grenade setups needing to bounce off the skybox, needing to use the developer console to set up certain useful keybinds instead of them just being built into the game. CS2 revised lots of stuff and made it make WAY more sense and be overall better, such as those grenade setups having in-world walls to bounce off instead of an invisible wall, and jump throwing grenades is now a skillcheck where you throw a grenade at the right moment instead of a random keybind.
I'm just wondering why CS2 doesn't have CSGO's party modes like Arms Race/Gun Game or Flying Scoutsman yet, the only one they have is Deathmatch. Where'd the other ones go? I also don't like the new rule where you can't play competitive as a 4-man party, only 1-3 or 5 players. 4-man sucks for the solo queue guy since the 4 are in a Discord call not talking to him, but geez does it SUCK not being allowed to play because too many of my friends are online, so we have to guilt a fifth person to get on, split the group, or have someone sit it out. Four people is the most common amount my group is able to get online any given time so this has really sucked for us.
Overall CS2 was an amazing upgrade.
Huh I haven't tried competitive at all yet to even notice that (gotta get that aim back up, so it's just deathmatch on repeat for a while). I hope they add all the other modes back soon, I imagine it's due to having to upgrade all the maps by hand. I know they spent a while upgrading the competitive maps one by one up to and during the beta. Maybe now that it's out, they'll focus on them and get them back up.
Looks like some solid upgrades from what I've seen from CS:GO vids/streams. My friends group never got into it for a couple of reasons, so I'm wondering if those will be addressed.
Might have to suggest it to the group and see if CS2 works for us. We've been really struggling to find a group game since overwatch died.
Valve actually invested a lot of time and effort into this! As I mentioned to TheJorro, they tweaked a lot of stuff that used to be hidden features or technically exploits as more formal mechanics in the game. The spray pattern mechanic, where gun recoil is the same every time and you have to memorize it, is now represented more clearly with a setting to have the crosshair move as you shoot to show where the bullets are going. Grenade jump throws, which used to be a keybind you needed the developer console to make, is now a skillcheck where you just throw the grenade during a jump with the right timing. Spots where grenade throws relied on invisible walls now have in-universe walls to bounce off of. That kind of stuff really makes the game easier to understand.
I doubt this is an easy issue for ANY competitive shooter to solve... For what it's worth, my friend group has a very wide variety of skill levels, and we play together. It's probably worth giving CS2 a shot to see if it works for you guys. I personally find that lower skill players can pretty easily contribute to a team thanks to the structure of CS, where there's perma death and no healing, so if they damage someone for 20hp and they call out where they found the enemy that killed them, maybe also spectate their teammates to call out enemies or sounds a player missed, that honestly contributes so much more than, say, a bronze level Genji in OW rushing the payload, doing 50 damage to a tank who's being healed by Mercy, and dying.
Definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. Its probably worth looking at based on that alone.
This one I'm not sure about - as you say, its hard to do for any competitive shooter.
The solo genji trickling into the enemy team wasn't usually a problem with our group. Those without the mechanical skills for headshots in a FPS could easily contribute to the team by playing tanks, supports, or even characters who are more ability focused than aim-focused (say torbjorn or mei). And then the more advanced players could "handicap" themselves by playing heroes they were less familiar with or more technically challenging or had more risk/reward mechanics.
Its one of the reasons why we tried Valorant - as the "hero" shooters tend to do well in that regard. Unfortunately the CS format didn't mesh well for us then. Perhaps it will work better for us with CS2.
I don't blame you for bouncing off Overwatch; enshittification comes for every game eventually. I am also looking for a good group game, perhaps I can convince some of my friends to play CS2 and see how it goes. I'd suggest Vermintide 2 if you want something you can play with a 4-person party, I've gotten back into that lately since they added a ton of new maps and there's a new class coming out soon.
I'll have to take a look. Unfortunately our group is 5-6 regular players, so 4 player games only work when people are busy or not interested in the game.
Off topic, but could you elaborate on the enshittification of Overwatch?
I have not played any OW2
Theres a whole bunch of things, but for my group...
Ultimately, OW1 felt like a labor of love - with devs who loved the game. OW2 feels like a corporation squeezing money from IP while minimizing dev work. Lots of promises that were broken or forgotten about. Less specific to overwatch, but blizzard had a lot of internal problems with sexism/harassment that came out around that time - which further contributed to us not wanting to support OW anymore.
Dang, that's really sad to hear. I haven't palyed OW since peak popularity days (think pre-mercy rework) but always had an absolute blast with my friends
I absolutely hate this new trend towards free-to-play, but as long as people keep giving these corporations money it will stick around :(
This is basically the same thing that Counterstrike 2 has just done. Except it seems like OW2 might be more similar to OW1 than CS2 to CSGO. OW2 just switched from 6v6 to 5v5 and tweaked a few heroes not unlike many previous updates have. Does anyone miss 6v6 specifically that much? I love the change to 5v5. Most of the heroes I play regularly have gone through major reworks in the past within OW1 and barely got touched (or had huge improvements like Mercy's new movement options) in OW2 so I haven't felt strongly about the hero reworks.
This seems like over-focusing on arbitrary labels since OW2 is free and OW1 did cost money. This would make a lot of sense if OW2 was a new purchase.
I feel like negative views of Overwatch 2 are much more influenced by the perceptions of Blizzard and it not being the new thing any more than anything specifically about playing the game.
I loved OW1. The fact that they made OW2 a free "update" is what annoys me the most. I can never play the game I paid for again. I'm guessing this was by design because they didn't want a fragmented user base.
I've tried OW2 many times, I just don't like it as much. Can't really articulate why. If I could go back and play OW1, I would, but they took that choice away from me.
Off the top of my head, locking new characters in the battle pass, no skin drops because they removed the random loot boxes (mixed blessing really), moving from 6 to 5 players to all but ensure you get wiped with a bad team, mandating certain roles and amounts so you're always forced to play classes you don't enjoy in order to get matched with a game, the ugly UI constantly pestering you to spend money on the cash shop a'la CoD...there's a lot.
I didn't know it was out yet. I was never huge into CS, but Source 2 looks absolutely amazing from the screenshots so I'm interested to take it for a test drive.
I've never really played CS but I've watched some competitive matches online. I'm more of a single player person, so I doubt I'll ever give it another try but looking at the trailer the smoke physics look really cool, and could probably change how the game is played.
As a... obsessed Counter-Strike player, the performance has been underwhelming (less FPS, which is understandbly lower, more the frametime variance, which is far too high for someone with a mid-level 20202 computer), and I can see I'm not alone looking at reddit.
Played a quick game of Wingman after not having touched CSGO for a few months and I love the new look. I’m also sorta surprised by how well this runs on Linux, easily getting 60+ fps at 1440p albeit with the default settings. Just needed to add a launch flag to get audio working. It feels like a nice update to CSGO, might try getting back into this game for the casual play