You’d think an operation would be a great time to be a CS:GO youtuber, but after the
initial excitement there’s been less to talk about than normal! But that changes today
with some unexpected changes to some of our favourite maps.
Dust2’s bombsite B has always been a scary place to rush. But terrorists stood in tunnels
have been given this new broken roof to chuck grenades through. They can use this to flash
into the site, and to smoke pretty much anywhere they please, helped by the many planks and
details they can use to line up their throws from. This will make a B rush less meme-y
and more do-able, given the right equipment and practice. Just be aware that this plank-
and this plank alone- isn’t solid. Although harder for the CTs, they can also
use this update to lob stuff back into the tunnels. For instance, they could flash or
smoke in and then rush from the site to take terrorists by surprise! They have far fewer
options from this update than terrorists do, though- so I’d see this update as one that
makes Dust2 more T-sided. Bear in mind that only the sky between B site
and tunnels has been opened up- those stood at T-ramp won’t be able to use this.
MIRAGE has seen perhaps the most gameplay changes- most I would say favour the T-side.
Like this bench in middle! Stand here and you can peek up to catwalk. Or back up to
where terrorists will emerge from at the top of mid. Or you can use it to self-boost to
window. Or to surprise snipers at A waiting for a peek from a usual position. Or just
to have a nice rest after a long, hard game. I reckon that once you master it, this route
to catwalk could be faster than the alternative. It’s certainly going to shake things up.
The wall at the top of middle has been pushed back. Which doesn’t introduce any new angles
as such but could be used to set up HILARIOUS run boosts to catch snipers at window off-guard.
And by making the entrance wider, it will be harder for CTs to smoke it off.
This trim at B has been lowered, meaning your vision doesn’t shake as much when you run
over it. There’s still a bit of a ramp effect going on but it’s less jarring. This smaller
lip will also improve visibility both ways and will simplify the outline. As far as I’m
concerned they might as well have gotten rid of it entirely.
But it wouldn’t be Counter-Strike without a new bug, and you can now get stuck on this
corner here. There’s a wallbang in palace where this
new doorway is. If you must know, it leads to like, the most pointless corridor EVERRR!
But it really is quite convenient for killing people. Anybody stood in that corner at scaffolding
can be REKT. Snipers in jungle can be REKT. In fact, the only place that’s safe from
it is CT entrance and the bomb plant zone. Much like the changes to Dust2’s tunnels,
only those who take the time to learn it will be rewarded by its new opportunities. Looks
like you’ll need a sniper to punch through. And even when you do, you might not deal much
damage. A headshot with an AWP will still kill in 1, but it will take 4 body shots to
kill an enemy at point-blank through this wall. So if you’re afraid of being wall-banged,
just mix up your position a bit and you’ll be hard to hit.
And it does work the other way, too- CTs can shoot through this spot back through to palace.
Terrorists will be able to hide from this by standing the other side of the central
pillars. And last, Bot Vitaliy shocked the world when
he killed a-gro by anticipating this unusual sightline. So Valve have blocked it up, presumably
to nerf OP-bots. And people abusing the sightline, obviously.
I think that with map updates, Valve makes small changes to them every time a problem
is spotted, but by the time they roll it out to the game they’ve forgotten what they’ve
changed and cover themselves with stuff like ‘various minor bug fixes’. Which isn’t
helpful for me at all- I have to scour the whole map to find them!
What they did announce was that Train’s skybox between Ivy and bombsite A has been
opened up to give terrorists blah blah more opportunities etc. You know what to expect.
They also hinted at visibility improvements and I noticed changes to lighting at the back
of bombsite B- mostly to brighten that super narrow walkway at the bottom of scaffolding.
The drop-down to back of B has also been brightened. Ignore the pigeons in this example. No, seriously,
ignore them. And you’ll see this wall has been lowered. How not interesting! But something
needs to be done with this ivy which is now suspended in thin air almost all the way up.
And lastly I’m going to cover Cache, which I’m kind of sad about. Since the custom
player models were rolled out last year, this map has suffered from poor visibility. FMPone
has gone about the whole map, brightening pretty much everything, removing models, adding
bright trims, and toning back the green-ness of the map. Following this Crysis, the new
Cache is now a Far Cry from how it was at launch. I’d describe it almost as being
half-way back to how the old Cache looked. I’m sure it plays better and that most people
won’t care about these changes, but I think it’s sad for a mapper to have to compromise
so much for reasons beyond his control. Still, good to see the game getting some good
old fashioned changes again, especially as some of these will actually shake up the gameplay!