Valve announces two big changes to Counter-Strike 2: shorter matches, and a new map-specific ranking system
Earlier this year Valve announced Counter-Strike 2, alongside a limited test that invited a small percentage of the playerbase in to smell the roses. Since then the developer has been using the test to, well, test things: rotating maps in and out, adding new features one by one, and generally fine-tuning this thing before the masses descend. And that time is at hand.
A new update brings an overhaul of the ranking system, a change in map length, a reworked version of the map Inferno, and opens up the limited test to a much wider range of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players.
The changes to the ranking system are considerable, with an all-new CS Rating determining where players stand on global and regional leaderboards which refresh each competitive season. This rating will only apply in Premier mode, which is clearly intended as the main competitive focus in Counter-Strike 2, and separate ratings will apply to the non-Premier competitive playlists. The latter use the existing skill rankings and are applied on a per-map basis: so you can be Global Elite in Dust 2, and silver on Vertigo.
On top of this comes a major change to the number of rounds in a competitive match. This has traditionally been 30 rounds, with teams playing 15 each as terrorist and counter-terrorist, with the possibility of overtime rounds in the event of a draw. The CS2 devblog says that over the past decade «we’ve shipped updates to the economy and weapon balance to trim the fat and reduce the number of uncontested rounds in a match of CS.»
The devs reckon that because of these changes competitive matches can be resolved with fewer rounds, and «shorter matches mean players can play more, and more often.» So CS2 is now going to have a maximum round
Read more on pcgamer.com
