Looks like Competitive matches are moving to MR12, among other changes
https://twitter.com/aquaismissing/status/1691661912637907210?t=1ibfeiA2tcfYuxqeNZInZQ
According to Aquaismissing's comb through the update, valve are rethinking the competitive and Premier modes. Here's the tweet text if you can't see it:
Subtle, but significant Matchmaking changes in the latest Counter-Strike 2 update:
- From now on Competitive is first to 13 rounds (including Premier)
- Seems like the devs are getting rid of Short Competitive
- Premier matches will have 20s freezetimes, 1 overtime (the game ends as tie, if you tie the OT) and four 30s timeouts
If these changes are here to stay, I think it would be safe to assume, that esports is going to adapt MR12 as well?
Thoughts?
If this is a response to games getting longer and longer in the pro side, I feel it's not the most subtle way to do it. Also it would have to come alongside changes to the economy, which is what made the matches longer in the first place.
Also, having an OT is nice, but it just brings you back to the 30 rounds of before. You'll still be able to finish 15:15 just as you do now but it'll feel different
Will there be other changes, say to loss bonuses? Breaking will become far more significant because there will be fewer future full buy rounds from which to recover round deficits.
On the flip side, going 12-N and losing a few rounds on the trot will feel far more pressurised because there won't be so many rounds to make up and force OT.
Thinking of the third map of the Katowice final where it was seemingly impossible that G2 could catch up to Ence's lead but they were kind of doing it? With less rounds on the board that game would have been done and dusted before Ence was able to buckle down, win a bloody round and get to 16. That would be your 3-0 grand final folks. Yay?
I have to assume the economy will be reworked or adjusted in some way. It seems sometimes like it takes forever to build up your econ, losing three rounds in a half would significantly impact the ability to come back into a game.
The other side of it is that it might make Bo5 more manageable for everyone involved. I'm sure ence would play slightly differently if they knew at 12-6 they were facing map loss, teams make different plays at 15 because it's about to end and that will transfer over. As long as the economy obeys
Having watched Launders comments I am kind of curious about the effect of having more pistol rounds - in the sense that as he says the maps are designed around full utility usage and guns with certain characteristics, and pistols just aren't suited to execute on that properly so the rounds behave completely differently.
Would we want our economy to become compressed so that there is one pistol round at the beginning of each side to determine a kind of advantage then, from there, there is no significant "breaking" of the economy? Or would we want the opposite, where one break can basically decide the outcome of a side of a map?
The thing about MR15 is that we don't really have to make those decisions because there is always time to recover, especially with the way the loss bonus works. Just the change to MR12 means a team lagging behind might not have enough rounds left to build up max loss bonus for a full buy, and further enhancing the loss bonus compresses the economy as I described above leading to full buys almost every round.
And let's not get into situations like when Valve decides to add a few hundred dollars to the price of an M4 or something like that. MR12 will magnify the impact of every game balancing decision.
It's such a complex topic. If the economy becomes more punishing again, that will compound the MR12 effect of making the games shorter, with bigger score gaps. Matches would probably feel trivially short.
But there's something about the ebbs and flows of CS economy that seem fundamental to the character of the game. Having no breaks, no resets, could become more boring to watch.
I think that is where I am heading in my thoughts. In principle I love the idea that "everybody plays the same game" so I am in favour of the single queue, fixed timeouts approach and I see how that naturally leads to MR12 because much of the player base just does not have the spare time for MR15. BUT ... the economy is the beating heart of CS and losing that ebb and flow - as you describe it - either to steamrollering or to irrelevance will be terrible.
I don't know what the solution is. I would personally fix it by removing pistols (except as default secondarys to avoid reloads), increasing the available cash for round one and rebalancing the rifles for greater variation in cost and performance, then adjust the loser bonus to be bumpy enough to return some ebb and flow to each round. But that is just out there theorycrafting 😁
lau did a video on it, trying to holistically examine the change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1FPWhmv87A
I personally disagree with the change, but can only speak from the pov of a ("casual"/MM) player and viewer.
In my view, each half only becomes interesting during the final couple of rounds where each team had the chance to frisk each other a bit: Get a feeling for how each player on the opposing team behaves normally and under pressure, get an idea for their individual gimmicks (i.e. special weapons, positions or utility they like to play to catch you off-guard) and, if applicable, see what the team's game plan is. Then, you can come up with some counter-plays on the fly and see how they will react. Did they get caught off-guard for once, like you hoped? Did the opposing player predict your counter-play and counter-counter-played you? Did the entire team start playing differently, e.g. start rushing when they were previously pretty late-round heavy?
In my opinion, it's only when these small counter-plays start happening that CS truly comes to life. When a single flash thrown differently can take out the best player on the server and at least create some hope for a winnable round. When an change in strategy made on-the-fly can still salvage an otherwise unwinnable game.
With the shortened game length, I could perhaps see pro CS being played more statically, with a heavier focus on one-off gimmicks and reciting the thought-out strategy, because there simply wouldn't be enough time anymore to really comprened the game plan of each player and the opposing team as a whole.
I'll have to play it to see exactly how it feels, but there's definitely the idea even in matchmaking of figuring out your opponent and their tendencies. There's a chance cutting 3 rounds will feel abrupt and awkward.