Earlier this week, Slothsquadron released v2.0 of his Weapon Balance Mod, a project
he’s been casually working on since its initial release WAYYYYYY back in 2015.
A few days later, Valve rebalanced several of the weapons in CS:GO. Coincidence? No,
probably not. The timing of this update, as well as the sorts of changes they’ve made,
hint that they’ve at least SEEN what Slothsquadron has suggested. These changes address similar
issues to what he pointed out, but approach the problems in different ways.
The SG553, after being under-used for years, suddenly saw its popularity boom when Valve
dropped its price. Since then they reverted the change to its price but its popularity
remained. With this update, it’s firerate dropped from 666RPM to 545 – a huge drop,
transforming it from one of the faster firing rifles to being the slowest. This drastically
reduces the amount of damage per second this gun can deal. Its saving grace has always
been its 100% armour penetration, yet even with this the new update has reduced its damage
per second down below that of the AK47. But still comfortably above the AUG.
This slower firerate does mean it has more time to recover after every shot, resulting
in a smaller recoil pattern which will be easier to cancel out with mouse movements.
So actually, it will probably be easier to control the spray of this gun now than ever
before. But what you won’t be able to do is to get the accuracy back that this gun
was once known for, as it has been reduced across the board. I did a series of one-taps
from a range of 2048 units, and the results show how much accuracy has been lost. Unscoped,
the SG553 is now only slightly more accurate than the AK47 and while scoping helps it is
no longer as laser accurate as it once was. It’s like they’ve taken out what was good
with this weapon, and made it behave far more similarly to the AK instead.
Sloth states that while he did recommend a reduction in damage output, Valve’s changes
are a bit more drastic than his. He concludes that while this gun now deals less damage
per second than the AK47, it’s still a good gun for its accuracy and scope but at $300
more than the AK, these changes have transformed it into a niche weapon that may not see much
use.
The AUG was previously very popular, being quite a lot like a CT-equivalent of the SG553.
However, after being nerfed several times, its popularity has waned. As Sloth pointed
out, one of its biggest flaws was its poor unscoped accuracy, and it has been greatly
improved with this update...though at the cost of reduced accuracy when crouching and
scoped. What this means for the weapon is, whereas before the AUG was only good when
scoped in, it’s now almost as accurate when unscoped, making it a more versatile weapon,
more similar in use to standard rifles like the M4.
It’s been over a year since the M4A1-S received its last buff increasing its magazine size
from 20 to 25 and since then...it has remained much less popular than the M4A4. Valve could
improved the M4A1-S in a number of ways. SlothSquadron personally suggested a higher rate of fire
and better accuracy when removing its silencer at the cost of slightly less damage per bullet.
But Valve has simply dropped its price from $3,100 to $2,900. In other words: this gun
is accepted to be the worse of the two, but at least now you can get it for cheaper.
Slothsquadron didn’t think there was much wrong with the deagle in its former state,
other than how long it took for its accuracy to recover after you’d landed from a jump.
He planned to improve the jumping and landing accuracy, up to a similar level to other guns
such as the AK-47. But Valve has chosen to improve it even more than that. The gun now
possesses incredible jump accuracy and will recover after landing almost immediately.
This has done more than just fix the landing problem- this has transformed the deagle into
one of the most accurate jump-shoot weapons in the game! Say hello to the new scout. And
expect a lot of silly looking frag montages with this gun coming shortly. Slothsquadron
thinks they went wayyyy too far with this update.
When it comes to the Tec9, Slothsquadron felt that it was overshadowed by the CZ, so he
improved its repeat-firing accuracy, but only when you’re stood still. Valve also made
it a lot more accurate when repeat-firing, but even when moving. I don’t know how many
of you remember the days of Olof pwning people with his run-and-gun tec9 sprees… but they
could soon be here again. Run towards your enemies spamming the fire button and you’ll
stand a good chance after these latest updates to the tec9.
And lastly, the bizon. Slothsquadron comments that its large magazine size would be fantastic
for engaging multiple enemies at once, but because it was SO weak, it rarely saw use
in competitive play. So he simply increased its damage to be more like some of the other
SMGs. Valve hasn’t increased its damage, but they have made it penetrate armour better.
Which has a similar outcome really, though unlike Sloth’s change, won’t make it better
against eco rushes. Damage-wise it’ll behave similarly to the MP5 up-close, but damage
still drops off faster than any other SMG at range, so the bizon will still best be
used as a close-range spray and pray device.
So did Valve copy Slothsquadron? The timing of this update kind of suggests they might
have been… inspired by him. And the changes they’ve made are similar, at least on the
surface, though there are a few he finds questionable. He thinks the Tec9’s changes are too powerful
and that it’s at risk of returning to the overpowered run-and-gun device that it was
in the early days of CS:GO. And he thinks they’ve gone too far with
the deagle, too, and that the sweetspot probably lies somewhere between how it was before and…
now. As seen posted on the CS:GO subreddit… Valve, please fix.
And also check out the rest of Slothsquadron’s weapon balance suggestions. He has covered
far more guns than have been changed here. He suggests improving the burst fire modes
for the Glock and Famas, improving accuracy when silencers are removed, increasing the
damage of the Dualies, and improving the M249 across the board. Links in the video’s description.