CS: GO's latest update wipes game balance

The addition of the R8 Revolver turned Counter-Strike: Global Offensive into Counter-Strike: Wild West, but the developers changed their minds in time.

Two days ago, on December 9, the developer of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve, released a new patch that added a new weapon to the game - R8 Revolver.


R8 Revolver in the game

Revolvers in CS waited a long time, since the time of Half-Life. Those who played in the multiplayer mode in HL remember how “creepy” and effective weapons in skillful hands were the local revolver. This time, Valve decided not to change traditions: the new weapon, the R8 Revolver, based on its damage characteristics, accuracy and cost, literally put an end to all other pistols, and, for some players, generally to any other weapon.

Why does the R8 Revolver put an end to gaming balance? Answer: its characteristics.


Comparison of the characteristics of AWP - the strongest weapon in the game before the patch on December 9th and the new R8 Revolver

As you can see from the image above, for $ 850 you could get AWP without an optical sight and with less ammunition. Compensated for the lack of optics, according to the developers, with the “cowboy” shooting mode except for the main one, when you get rid of the cocking delay (~ 1 second) and get shooting with the Desert Eagle accuracy and speed and the lethal force of the same AWP.


The same gif in webm format and higher quality.
Two shots - four corpses.

However, Valve changed their minds and released a mini-update last night , in which they reduced the characteristics of the new weapon:

In today's update for the R8 Revolver, we made some changes to bring the new gun in line with other types of weapons in the game: damage, armor penetration was reduced, accuracy was reduced and now it takes more time to shoot.

Comparison of the characteristics of the updated R8 and its alternative - Desert Eagle The

new version of the revolver is less accurate, plus the damage reduction will now not allow killing the enemy in the chest from any distance (before the mini-patch R8 did 102-108 damage through the body armor, like AWP). Similar company actions were expected. The MLG eSports League, for example, after the December 9 update, refused to hold the next CS: GO competition on a new patch, indicating the absolute imbalance of the new version. According to the charter of the tournament, the games will be held on the old version of CS.

Valve says that balancing the R8 will take time, as it used to be, with the M4A1-S rifle and Tec-9 and CZ75-Auto pistols (the latter was generally a $ 500 mini-machine gun with 24 rounds in an enlarged magazine and automatic firing mode, even pro-players and organizations wrote petitions about changing it).

But the actions taken by the developer do not cancel the fact that their lack of foresight and the desire to collect “live” statistics from the players led to the fact that the most popular competitive online shooter of the planet for two days turned into a parody of the Wild West, because to cope with the skillful cowboy ”was possible only with the help of AWP or hit in the head from AK before he cocked the trigger before firing.