We can only assume that Valve are reserving their Number 1 Source 2 Half Life 3 Christmas
Special Counter Strike Update for sometime in December, because this latest update only
contains changes to 2 of the community-made maps. But some of these changes are significant.
Let’s investigate. FMPone, ever the perfectionist, continues
to change Subzero. There is no longer a door leading from hut
to bombsite B. This will radically alter how the site plays after a bomb has been planted.
There aren’t a lot of places for people to hide on the site itself and all remaining
entrances to the site are from roughly the same kind of direction.
People will still be able to hide in the hut itself, but its walls have gotten thicker
and you’ll require a sniper to wallbang through into site.
The other HUGE change has been made to middle, which has now been opened up to A site. This
completely changes how this part of the map plays! And I like it. Mid snakes around several
times, eventually leading to bombsite A. And the bottom entrance to vent has gone completely.
Looks like FMPone took his sign literally. Here’s a before and after, showing how the
vent has been simplified into a one-way option for terrorists.
The vent can now only be reached from near T-spawn, with 2 one-way drops leading down
to bombsite A. It would take 3 players to boost back up the other way again!
These crates in the drop at A have been removed, simplifying the area and removing a hiding
place.
And what’s with this ‘water eating guns’ update? I thought it referred to this bit
here, where weapons could land in places where they can no longer be retrieved. But it actually
means something else. Dropped weapons used to disappear under the
water’s surface, making it a nightmare to locate them. But they’ll now eerily ‘float’,
still visible. They can still get dropped places they can’t be retrieved, though.
And the soundscapes have been adjusted. CT spawn now features wind and water sounds that
it didn’t previously, for example.
Now onto Biome’s updates, which are even more sizeable! Its middle area has changed
extensively. It’s now double the width, giving terrorists a lot more room down the
left to explore. But graze freely, they shan’t. Because rather than 2 routes that end up leading
to the same doorway, CT’s now have a raised look-out area with which to snipe up middle
from. This is kind of a big deal. You will have
to totally relearn this part of the map as both sides. The look-out is a powerful spot,
though snipers up there will have to pay attention to red door- or should I say, SQUEAKY, as
terrorists pushing this area could otherwise catch them off-guard.
There are red crosses on the walls -possibly to line grenade throws up with? But these
fade out at the distance while those in old mid do not.
I also noticed the map’s locations have official names now! We won’t have to rely
on Reddit’s questionable suggestions any longer.
Top of mid has also changed, with a vent added to the right-hand side. Seeing the radar overview
close-up will demonstrate the change best. I’ll now show this as a side-by-side if
you were a terrorist rushing from Short A to mid. The vent itself is hidden from mid,
but the trade-off is that breaking the vent will reveal your location to any nearby CT’s.
Back to short A again, the sight-line between ‘main hall’ and outside has been obstructed,
limiting the information that CT’s can gather from pushing up to this point. That’s right,
people. It’s no longer short A, it’s MAIN HALL.
‘Fixed boost with visibility glitch on A long’ could mean many, many things. The
map was aggressively optimised with invisible stuff everywhere which would make stuff pop
in and out of view as you flew about, though I couldn’t find any playable spots where
this was an issue. This update HAS, however, rectified an issue I had with long-A in my
recent contact point analysis of the map. I found that, for CTs in particular, grenades
would bounce off an invisible wall above this corner here. This is no longer an issue at
all. And I guess yeah, it stops a visibility glitch on this corner as well. In fact, this
update fixes pretty much EVERYTHING I covered in my contact point analysis video.
The map’s maker, jd40, has torn a hole in his beautiful biome just for me, which will
let terrorists nade from their spawn into mid earlier than before.
CT’s haven’t missed out either: at first glance it looks like it’s been made harder
for them to grenade into middle! But that’s not the case: previously there was an invisible
wall here that grenades would unfairly bounce off of! At least now you can see the wall
and if your grenades bounce off this… it’s because you threw a bad grenade.
In fact you can see almost the whole biome if you get up high enough. Before, distant
areas would be aggressively culled. This has been replaced with high-up walls, which serve
3 purposes: first, optimisation, second, they’ll help players to line grenade throws up with.
And third, they don’t feel so cheap when they block your grenades, compared with the
old version’s invisible walls everywhere. And a perk for me is that it will make flybys
on this map a helllololot easier to do. The catwalk leading from terrorist spawn to
long A was always a bit pointless, as it took longer to do than the other route did. It’s
now been blocked off from one end, making it even more useless for rushing! I’m happy
this spot remains as it’s pretty and has become an even better spot for CT’s to hide
at at the end of a round. You can no longer plummet off to your death.
Shame. The crates at arch have been extended, removing
a little campy spot that used to exist down the side of the crate in the old map version.
And it’s now possible to jump from B up into heaven by jumping on this railing, then
this new crate here and then over the gap, a spot nicely known as ‘hell’.
Just be careful: if you hide in this corner here, you’re hidden from attackers from
heaven, but jumping will bounce you off the side.
Plus there’s a horrible join just here between the floor props.
And while the patchnotes claim a visibility glitch at long A has been fixed, I found another
if you stand at CT and look across to long A. The curb props fade out wayyyy too early.
So yeah, Biome has had a lot of changes, many of which render my contactpoint analysis video
obsolete. But I don’t care about that. It’s always nice to see a map maker who cares about
his creation. Here are my contact point analysises for both
of these maps. Which, as I’ve said… will now need changing.