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What can CS:GO learn from Valorant?

Mush 2020-05-14 05:02:19
  Riot Games’ Valorant has been available in Closed Beta for a month now, and we've come to learn the in and outs of the game's fundamentals. Following the general trend in the gaming world, despite being called a Beta, it feels like a 99% complete game that will undergo very small changes when the official release comes around. It is the first big esports game that the developer has worked on since League of Legends and comparisons with similar titles were plenty, especially so with Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Even though it’s been perceived by fans as a threat, I’d describe Valorant as the perfect opportunity for Valve to make their most successful title even better than it already is. What could CS:GO learn from Riot’s new game?   Similarities and Differences Valorant is a tactical shooter in which players control Agents with different abilities. It mimics CS:GO’s guns, shooting and movement while making the game feel easier and much quicker to get into. The spray patterns are randomized after a few bullets, head hitboxes are more generous and the economy isn’t as punishing as in Valve’s FPS title, allowing teams to buy decent loadouts most of the rounds, even after losing.  Riot’s implementation of hero-shooter mechanics is very subtle. Agent choice does not influence gun-play — every agent has access to the same arsenal of weapons— but it does change the way maps are played, very similarly to utility in CS:GO. While a few Agents have kits that have no comparable impact to Counter Strike’s grenades (Brimstone’s nuke, Sage’s resurrect, Phoenix’s ultimate), most abilities have a tactical role equivalent to Smokes or HEs in Valve’s title. The fact that most of these need to be purchased in the shop at the beginning of every round just makes the comparison more obvious. 
Related: FPS Gaming: How to Be Prepared for Any and Every Shooter You Play
  Akin to the “dumbing-down” of shooting mechanics, the utilisation of abilities in Valorant is much more straight-forward than correctly using Flashes or Smokes in CS:GO. Instead of learning smoke line-ups for each map, you can just pick Brimstone and choose where your Smokes are going to appear by using a minimap. Testing Pop-flashes that are hard for your opponent to dodge and do not hit your teammates is not necessary in Valorant, you can just pick Breach and he will flash through the walls. You can still learn line-ups and specific spots for abilities like Sova’s Recon Arrow or Cypher’s Camera, but it feels more like a bonus and less like a necessity.  Riot’s utilization of CS:GO’s concepts results in an easier and more intuitive way of playing the game. Counter-Strike players will feel familiar with most of the gameplay and, with Valorant being at such an early stage of existence, gunplay is king as no one has learned the ideal utilisation of abilities yet. This low bar of entry does not limit the game’s depth though, since I would expect it to get very nuanced as players master the utilisation of abilities, the maps and team comps around ideal agent combos.  CS:GO is a game that prides itself on its steep learning curve, realism and consistency, so a dumbing-down of base concepts would never be the right change moving forward, but the key aspect which Valorant executes better than CS is intuitive features. Quality of Life Improvements What I see as Riot Games’ biggest success with Valorant, having played a lot of Overwatch and CS:GO, is Quality of Life changes. As soon as I pressed B to open the shop at the beginning of my first round I was mind-blown. Every single ability and weapon you can buy is shown at once, eliminating the need to navigate circular menus that waste half of your screen. If you need someone to drop you a weapon, you can request it with one button press. If you want to buy someone a weapon, you can do so with one button press. Bought a weapon or ability by mistake? Right click it and your money’s back. This is a fantastic system that could literally be copy and pasted onto CS:GO. Valve’s menu has barely changed for more than a decade and it shows, especially after using such a better one in Valorant.  The second feature is something that Counter Strike technically already has, but is only available in community maps and is therefore much less polished than something created by the game’s Devs: a dedicated practice map. When you are in Valorant’s “Play” menu, you will have the option to enter into Practice Mode. This will take you to a dedicated Map that allows you to train your aim against bots or targets — CS:GO’s most similar, albeit much worse, feature would be Aim-Botz, a workshop map— while being able to choose personalize your training (Difficulty, gun-choice, agent-choice) all without needing to load in or out of the game.  This already sounds like an amazing addition, but Riot went even further with it and allowed players to do a seamless transition between this Aim-Training Map and a Bomb-Plant/Defuse simulation Map— something similar exists in CS:GO, but only with players since it is another community map. This transition is made by entering a teleporter and swapping between these two places, also with no loadings or any need to exit back into the main menu. The simulations are not as deep in personalization as the aim-training area, but it can serve as a good extra warm-up and it is just a good extra-feature to have.  This is another fantastic implementation of something Valve knows the community wants (the aforementioned Workshop maps are quite famous) and that Valorant just showed how to do correctly. The last and probably harder feature to implement in CS:GO is the way Smokes work. Utility in Counter Strike does not work perfectly. 
  1. Flashes are the most consistent aspect: they have a different effect in intensity depending on where they blow up in relation to your Line of Sight. 
  2. High-Explosive Grenades have had a few issues with small objects blocking damage when they shouldn’t and other weird problems probably caused by the game engine.
  3. Molotovs and Incendiary Grenades can sometimes feel random with how they spread, especially when that spread has an unnatural delay.
These are mostly minor problems and some of them are being worked on (A new patch just came out addressing some of the issues with HE Grenades), but one of the biggest consistency issues with utility in CS:GO is Smokes. Over the years they have caused performance issues, are inconsistent in their appearance, their fade-away animation is not reliable and they have frequent bugs with other objects like Molotovs allowing players to clearly see through them. Other than these problems, the Smokes are so inconsistent in the way they negate player vision that people just started creating line ups that allowed what are called One-Way Smokes— which means that the player that places the Smoke Grenade can clearly see through it despite being completely hidden to their opponents.  Valorant’s implementation of Smokes is simple: they are like curtains that vary in size and shape but allow the player to know when they are visible or not, with some of them even allowing complete vision inside them. They are intuitive and consistent, you know when you are going to enter or exit the line of sight of players outside of the smoke and they fade away in a much more linear way. The problem is, unlike the previously mentioned features, this one can’t be copy and pasted onto CS:GO due to the realistic visuals of the game. Smokes do not come in all sizes and shapes and they do not act like curtains that you can magically phase through, but Valve could try to implement something that would still feel right in Counter Strike’s aesthetic while being consistent and reliable.  An update to the game that upgrades the engine from Source to Source 2 has been rumoured to be coming to CS and this could be its golden opportunity to make a visual change to the way Smokes work. It has already been used to update Dota 2 and its implementation on Valve’s more recent Half-Life: Alyx shows that the engine has potential and would probably not influence performance all that much.  Riot Games’ new title already seems like a really promising new esport and the panoply of players moving away from games like Apex Legends, Overwatch and CS:GO is a testament to that. A new contender has entered the environment and changes are already being felt, but legacies aren’t built on fragile foundations and Counter Strike’s legacy is one of the most emblematic in esports. Valve’s flagship title isn’t going anywhere, but this new adversary will make the game better than it ever was.  Opinions will always vary, but one thing’s for certain: Competition breeds greatness.
  If you enjoyed this piece, follow the author on Twitter at @Kaaaosh. Images courtesy of Riot Games and Cyrex's Pinterest.
 

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