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Counter-Strike Goodbye December 22, 2003 Jakub WarSpite Wojnarowicz |
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Summary: My on-again, off-again love affair with CS has come to an end. Though I've forsworn the game before, every time I've returned it's been like rediscovering my first love all over again. CS, I might love you, but you're like the ex-girlfriend who let herself go. It's time to say goodbye. You've always had special meaning for me, so pardon the incoherent rambling as I vainly try to decipher what went wrong this time, why I didn't have fun, and why I'll be playing CoD, Enemy Territory and Battlefield 1942 (once the 1.6 patch comes out.)
 Revelations | Page:: ( 1 / 5 ) |
About myself
Before I start about Counter-Strike, I’d like to explain why, despite my complaints about it over the years, it’s been the dearest multiplayer game to my heart. Sometimes I’ve played it publicly, other times it’s been my dirty little secret – whenever I was too vocal about a patch I didn’t like, I’d quit but secretly fire it up again. Except, after a prolonged absence, I find myself wondering why I feel no joy in my recent return.
God, in his infinitely cruel sense of humor, made me a natural at learning any game - up to a point. Within a few hours, I’d be better than 80% of the people who owned it for weeks. This incredible talent was balanced-out by the fact that once I got to that certain point, say the 95th percentile, I’d be unable to improve no matter how much practice I put in. That 95th percentile sounds impressive, until you consider just how many clueless noobs there are out there. Counter-Strike is the exception to that – I’ve rarely ever been able to take even 3rd place on my team. It permits me the joy of feeling that my practice matters, that I can continue to get better – which is more important than being the best on a server but with the knowledge that any truly good player could whip my ass.
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Moreoever, at FiringSquad, being the 5th best is sort of like being an Airborne Ranger at a gathering of Delta Force troops. To give you an example of how things worked, I’ll relate my NetQuake experiences with Kenn “D5-Spear” Hwang, a clanmate of Thresh’s. Kenn was probably the second-best Quake player at FS/GX, though many an argument could be made for James Yu (but they never fought it out to the best of my knowledge.) (Brandon has informed me that Lyle "Cross" Fong was in fact likely the second-best, and he'd know better, having spent quite some time at the home office :) -ed.)
Before I go on, you have to understand one thing about Quake, and NetQuake in particular – it exaggerated skill levels like no other game before or since. A memorable quote of Kenn’s is that “if you can’t maintain a 20:1 on DM6, you’re not even twice as good” – or something to that effect. Whereas going 15-3 in Q3A is quite dominating, in Quake, that’s a close match. The game offers absolutely no forgiveness for any mistakes, any lack of reflexes or strategy. Something as simple as missing the timing on the red armor or megahealth can instantly double your opponent’s odds, and if he gets the frag and follows it up with control of the armor, health and weapons, you’re meat. On the other hand, all the armor and health in the world will also do you no good unless you can dodge and deliver damage as effectively as the next guy.
Playing Kenn
I’ve played about ten one-on-one matches with Kenn in my life, most on a LAN at the old Gamers offices, some over the internet. The typical outcome on DM6 is along the lines of 100:0. A few times I might get a frag or two in while he’s warming up at the start, but he’ll whittle me down to 0 or even the negatives by forcing grenade or rocket suicides. On DM4, the score is about 100 to -40, when he felt generous enough to end it quickly rather than force suicides. I didn’t like to play much DM4 with Kenn.
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In all fairness, the original Quake is by far my weakest; I didn’t have a computer that could play it at anything resembling a decent speed until 3 months after Quake II came out. At the time of the matches with Kenn in 2000 and 2001, I’d probably rank 3rd or 4th on a 16-player DM server. My natural talent took me far along in the game, but I never really appreciated all the subtle nuances, and how the slightest difference of skill in one area could turn into dominance, until my conversations with Kenn on the subject.
But isn’t this article about Counter-Strike? Yeah, we’ll get to that shortly.
SIDEBAR: My one and only good moment against Kenn in Quake was a prediction shot when coming into the grenade launcher room. I was on the ground and just knew Kenn would be waiting for me on the ledge at the top, so I fired off a rocket into his face. He still fragged me, but played more cautiously for a minute after that, until he realized it was just a fluke.
| Meet my love | Page:: ( 2 / 5 ) |
Duncan
Duncan. Duncan… he was a pest on the old boards.gamers.com forums, an annoyance par excellence. If you’ve ever seen Rushmore, you’ve probably got as good an idea of who Duncan is as you ever will. When Counter-Strike first came out, he’d spam the boards with screenshots of it, of him going 44-2 on cs_siege or cs_assault. When asked what the game was like, he’d explain how realistic it was – terrifyingly realistic to those of us who grimaced when comparing the fast, lethal Quake with the slow, plodding Quake II.
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The FS and GX staff didn’t dislike CS initially because of it being different, but because it was taking games in the wrong direction. Rather than highlighting skill levels, it diminished them. What was this nonsense about bullet spread and recoil? Sniper rifles being more powerful than the railgun, which was partly responsible for the slow pace of Quake II? Loud footsteps, crouching? This was anathema to anyone who savored the fast pace of Quake. So, publicly, we laughed at him.
CS beta
Regardless, Duncan’s temptations got to me first. Perhaps because I was the least hardcore, with the least to lose, I downloaded the CS Beta. It was probably beta 3, though I might have caught the tail end of 2. My memories of the game were that weapons were horrible imbalanced – there really was no reason to use some guns at all. That would be fine in a game like Quake where controlling weapon spawns was a strategic necessity. The other guy could have the nailguns as long as you kept control of the rocket launcher, shaft and, depending on your foe, grenade launcher. But a game in which you spent money you earned by fragging and winning, having useless guns? Seemed like such a waste. The maps weren’t particularly good either, and people quickly figured out the most efficient ways to beat them.
And yet, despite all these problems, I found myself hooked. CS rewarded skill in its own way, with money (not to mention not having to waste time in observer once you died). It forced players to co-operate on public servers with the objective system, so you’d see a semblance of strategy develop even with raw recruits. The challenges were quite different, having to manage recoil and remain stealthy. Sure, the game might not identify individual differences of skill very well, but it was “fun”.
Being incredibly driven at the time, popping out two or three articles per week, I couldn’t play as much CS as I might have wanted to, yet I followed the steady progress from the earliest betas, through the highs of the mid-betas, to the gradual standardization with the release of 1.0. My fondest memories stretch back to beta 4/5, though 7 ranks highly as well.
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Most of FS and Gamers staff were playing by 6, and GX-The Romero was already a local legend when beta 7 came around, an AWP whore without comparison, but he showed his Quake roots by being a lethal close-quarters fighter. And yet, many have quit by now. There seems to have been a growing feeling of dissatisfaction with the pointlessness of the patches, the lack of direction. Version 1.0 was a grave disappointment, not because it was terribly worse, but it was the official final version, and added nothing nor was markedly better than some of the betas. Most additions to CS since then have felt rather whimsical, while the changes strive more and more to bring the guns to a boring parity.
SIDEBAR: I didn’t particularly like 1.4, for no reasons I could place.
| Starting again | Page:: ( 3 / 5 ) |
Steam
I’d made abortive attempts to install Steam when it first came out, with the disastrous results that seemed almost typical. However, a few months had passed so I gave it another shot – only to find out that the two Half-Life CD keys I already owned were not acceptable by Steam, for whatever reason. Inquiries to tech support went unanswered for almost 2 days, so I went off to the store, picked up another copy of the complete Half-Life collection and had a perfectly smooth installation of Steam.
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Steam, this time around, wasn’t so bad. I still have problems convincing Counter-Strike to change gamma and brightness; it likes to ignore the settings. Steam is a moderately useful application, but hardly worth the hassle so far. I don’t see any benefit as a gamer and in fact I imagine it’s quite a pain for those without permanent internet connections. To have to be online to play singleplayer is a ridiculous demand; if anything this requirement will popularize cracks and hacks among mainstream gamers who don’t have broadband – especially once Half-Life 2 comes out. I understand and respect Valve’s concern about the terrible toll that piracy takes on sales, but every security measure so far has been beaten by hackers, for Steam it’s only a matter of time.
First impressions
Before CS I’d been playing a ton of Call of Duty, and in the months before CoD, I was a veritable Enemy Territory addict. To this day there is no game better at balancing arcade action and realism, as well as differing classes and weapons, than ET. Call of Duty has its problems but is a very crisp experience. It feels very much like a fresh, invigorated Counter-Strike. The imbalanced weapons are part of the fun, though the sniper rifle really does need to be toned down.
The transition from these games to Counter-Strike was sort of like going to Duke 3D from Quake, without all the quirky weapons that made Duke fun. CS is a wholly more primitive experience on every level, and while this isn’t necessarily bad, it is depressing to see how little progress has been made from 1.0 to 1.6. It’s not so much a matter of the technology involved as of design. Counter-Strike simply isn’t the best at what it does anymore. Everyone will always look back at Quake for the ultimate deathmatch venue, that most merciless test of individual skill. Not so with CS; it’s clearly fallen behind.
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Nothing has overtly changed – oh sure, there are riot shields, a few new weapons and silly names for the weapons, but the core gameplay hasn’t changed. And yet, the experience feels totally different and wholly inferior. The first five minutes, first hour, first day of my renewed acquaintance with CS struck me with a profound disappointment – the first such disappointment in my CS life. It’s not frustration at the changes or anger at my loss of skill, but a certain sadness that CS has been eclipsed.
SIDEBAR: CS is the one exception to my natural ability; it takes me a long time to re-learn the game.
| Is it bad | Page:: ( 4 / 5 ) |
What’s wrong?
The time I’ve invested into CS has always been spread around here and there, I’ve never binged on it as I have with other games and so I’ve never gotten sick of it. However, that also means my memories of any specific time are rather poor. I couldn’t tell you whether the AK had better accuracy on beta 4, 7, version 1.0 or 1.6, even though it’s by far my favorite weapon (and, naturally, the one I complain about most.)
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So, any arguments about whether or not CS would be better the way it was “back then” would be completely unreliable. I know I enjoyed it more then, but I’ve also been exposed to many more games since, and the community has had time to mature (relatively speaking). I could no more tell you the specific reasons why I found my latest stint with CS disappointing, than I could explain why I have a weakness for girls of average build with light brown hair, hazel eyes and a broad smile.
It could be argued that the balancing changes over the various patches have turned it into a perpetual stalemate with minimal ability to discern skill levels. Once someone learns the places to be, the rather basic combat tactics such as remembering to aim for the head, there’s only one thing left. There are no prediction rocket shots, no skillful dodging in combat, no control of item spawns, no routes to run and no real requirements to aim – just learn your gun’s abilities, when to burst, auto or to realize you’re outgunned by your opponent. The only skill in CS is the mind game, anticipating your opponent’s moves. That’s the most important ability in any multiplayer shooter of course, but it’s not a good reflection on the gameplay when it’s the only trait of any significant effect.
Then again, maybe it’s not even a gameplay mechanic at all. Perhaps it’s just that everyone’s learned the maps like the back of their hand, they know exactly where to expect ambushes or possible rushes. Perhaps it’s just that everyone’s gotten good enough, and the best players have hit the skill ceiling and are unable to pull further away. However, given that I got back to a 1:1 frag ratio within 2 days, after months of abstinence, makes me doubt that everyone is suddenly much better than they were a year ago.
The fact is, there seems to be a certain unhappiness with CS as it stands and the direction it’s heading. There are those who are severely irritated with the inability to break out individually, and then I’ve hit several servers where anyone over a 4:1 ratio with at least 30 or so frags is booted, on the assumption that anyone that good must be cheating – contrast that with what were routine 40-5 romps in beta 3. Heck, on some servers I’ve been on, admins automatically kick anyone using the riot shield.
CS has an obsession with balancing weapons; any weapon that’s powerful gets nerfed. Take the AWP for example. It has always been a problem weapon – it allows the most incompetent player to get at least one frag per round, but on the other hand it was the only showcase weapon for those with real reflexes and aiming skill (of course, it also rewarded those with absolutely no other skills other than reflex and aim).
SIDEBAR: Thresh plays CS, that’s part of the reason that sparked my return.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 5 / 5 ) |
Final thoughts
When I think about comparisons to Quake, which exaggerated differences in skill, it seems like CS is a victim of its own design. It’s a dedicated team game that forces a certain parity among players, in order to prevent anyone from breaking a match single-handedly. In order to prevent those extremely competent players from doing so, it limits the effect of skill. Aim and movement are rudimentary and the game punishes aim when you’re moving. Any time a weapon appears which can dominate despite these limitations of skill (like the AWP used to), skill begins to matter. Suddenly, miniscule differences in reflex and accuracy counted, and to a certain extent, so was the ability to avoid fire at long range. But the problem is that that’s not a very wide selection of skills; moving unpredictably and having good reflexes and aim were mere basics in any other game. So, rather that continue to permit skill disparity, the AWP was nerfed. I don’t mourn its loss, particularly, but simply use it as an example to highlight how the design of CS is self-defeating. Any gameplay mechanic that permits some players to stand head and shoulders above others, is immediately suspect and fixed.
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I know I’m going to get a billion emails and messages, containing flames, challenges, and rebuttals to the argument that “there is no skill” in CS. But I’m not saying there’s no skill, just that skill gets little opportunity to showcase itself. As I said earlier, once you learn the basics, all that’s left is the mind game and that simply isn’t all that much.
Is CS, then, a game for the lowest common denominator, where anyone can get a few frags and no one can dominate? It didn’t start out that way, but it seems to have evolved to that position. Then again, I thoroughly enjoy Call of Duty multiplayer even though the skill ceiling is arguably even lower.
Perhaps my disappointment is due to the community taking a turn for the worse? It seems like every second person cries “hax hax” now, and the voice chat gets abused more than it should. The occasions are relatively rare, but if there are several voice users, particularly on a server with team damage, the pissing matches can erupt suddenly and last for several rounds. Even as a hardened first-person shooter fan, I have difficulty believing how quickly a few immature people can ruin a server.
But all that doesn’t matter. This isn’t a scientific report or a deep analysis that took me weeks of intense trial and error and observation to put together. My point is that for the first time in years, after so many betas and so many thousands of rounds of dust, aztec, vegas, office, assault, inferno and siege, CS is no longer fun. Whether it’s simply been surpassed by the more realistic, crisper Call of Duty, the better-flowing Enemy Territory, the gigantic Battlefield, or if it’s balanced itself down to the lowest skill ceiling outside of EverQuest, is beside the point.
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No matter how I look at it and what arguments or excuses I try to find, the inevitable conclusion is that CS is over the hill – or in stronger terms, it sucks. I started this article angry at the current state of affairs, wondering what was different and wrong, and how to fix it. Now, I just feel sad. I don’t know what is wrong or what is different (if anything) and certainly not how to make it better. It’s been fun, the most fun anyone could hope for, and it’s all been free. But all good things must come to an end. It’s time for new games.
Terrorists win.
SIDEBAR: This really is the end, to my best gaming friend.