‘Holding here.’
CS:GO isn’t trying to be realistic, but we can agree that it IS trying to be competitive.
Even in the gamemodes where it really shouldn’t be.
So when the character models don’t match up with their hitboxes, that’s a problem.
It can work against that player, if a bit of their model sticks out too far and gives
their position away, especially when another character model stood in that same spot wouldn’t
have done. Or it can work in that person’s favour,
like when somebody shoots at a pouch on their side, or a shoe on their bum, thus wasting
ammunition and inflicting zero damage. Because that’s clothing, and not a person.
I’ve seen all sorts of ludicrous arguments defending this sort of thing because it’s
realistic or whatever, but like I said before- Counter Strike isn’t realistic. Counter
Strike is competitive. You see an enemy and you shoot at them. You don’t have time to
waste thinking about whether that bit of them you can see is or isn’t going to inflict
any damage. It’s a game of muscle memory and flick shots. And sure, reward headshots
with more damage than a leg shot. But don’t have shots that don’t inflict any damage
at all. I don’t know if you’ve ever joined a custom server without downloading any of
the custom models, but it’s surprisingly difficult to hit an error message, BECAUSE
it’s so much bigger than its hitboxes are.
In the old days, we complained a lot more about hitreg. And Valve responded by updating
their hitbox models years ago to better represent the shape of the character models. Before
that point, they were represented by hit-BOXES. Now they’re more like… hit-SAUSAGES. An
excellent, logical change that I think has made the hitreg significantly better.
It’s just a shame about the character models. I covered the default models back in 2017.
I’ll link to those videos in case you’d like to see them, because they are still relevant,
and I made some good points in them. For instance, I argued it was better to hit a near-miss,
than to miss a near-hit. In other words: I want for the hitboxes to be BIGGER than the
character models. But ideally they would be the same size.
So despite improved hitboxes, incongruencies still happen. Several default T models skip
leg day, and so their hitboxes are about twice the thickness of their legs.
The CT’s tend to wear baggier trousers and oversized helmets or silly-shaped hats which
stick out a lot further than their head hitboxes do. Headshots are so important in this game!
They really should try to line up here more than anywhere else.
So it surprises me that all of these new custom models for the game try their best to deviate
so greatly from their hitboxes! Check out Lieutenant Rex Krikey, also known as Diver
Variant C. I can’t see a bit of his body that DOES line up! His hat is about twice
as wide as his head. He’s got gear on his back, gear on his front, his legs stick out
too far in both directions and he’s got some oversized flippers dangling from his
buttocks. When this monstrosity takes you by surprise,
you won’t be thinking about specifics. You’ll see this outline and you’ll shoot at it.
Just a shame that all of this will miss the target.
I’ll be honest, when I saw the new scuba-diving gear strapped to their fronts, I thought it
was a smart move. If you have a model like this professional, you can instantly imagine
many situations where their bag will give away their position. But when the gear is
strapped to their chest, by the time that’s poking out from around the corner, their arms
and weapon are already so it’s not such a big deal. Ideally, you don’t want stuff
to be poking out at all, but protruding from your chest is better than sticking out behind
you. But how many times do you catch enemies off-guard
like this? Every time I run into them, they’re facing right at me and have already landed
3 shots. So as long as stuff doesn’t stick out to the side then maybe it isn’t a big
deal- -oh.
Cmdr. Davida 'Goggles' Fernandez, or as I like to call her, Diver varianta, has an oxygen
tank that sticks out from both the front AND from the side profile. Nice going Valve. Really
good of you. People can pay £4 for this covert grade skin. I’m not sure if it’s pay to
win or pay to lose, but it’s definitely pay-to-betray-your-hitbox-outline.
Other offenders include the medic, who straps his gear to his back, and this Brazilian soldier,
whose celery sticks are one jump away from ending up all over the ground.
But who cares what I think? Nobody complained about the guys with the floppy hats on Dust2,
we didn’t care when the uniformly dressed teams were done away with in Shattered Web,
so we’re getting what we all deserve with these oddly shaped, flipper-wielding custom
characters and all the added confusion they bring to the table. So I hope you’re happy.
The game may be competitive, but it seems there’s still room for detailed maps, rainbow
guns and the teenage anarchists on Office getting assistance from Rambo.
I’ll leave this video with one of my inspired suggestions: If CS:GO is in need of another
game-changing update in the future sometime, then I’d like to see them make all the character
hitboxes 25% thicker than they are already. Then we can wear as many oddly shaped hats
as we want.