While matchmaking in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is popular, it’s far from perfect. CS.MONEY is here to tell you about three things that could bring it closer to the ideal.
Tickrate
This issue is constantly discussed in the community. There are those against server upgrades — and there are vehemently advocating it. People conduct research, make arguments, and engage in endless debate. These disputes aside, converting matchmaking to servers with a tickrate of 128 is a necessary step towards improving the game.
Today, when every second Steam user has a graphics card no worse than GTX 1060 and a relatively modern processor, it’s no longer possible to claim that “many players don’t even get 100 frames per second in the game.” The players do have 100 FPS, and a doubled tickrate would objectively make the game better.
Another argument in favor of this: all major third-party sites have long been using servers with this tickrate. And they have both resources and users — which Valve clearly has as well. Bottom line: it’s time to double the tickrate!
Transparent Rating
In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive MM, the Glicko-2 system is used to calculate the rating. The system employs a few additional variables to calculate the player’s final ranking and to be honest, the formulas look somewhat overwhelming. But at the same time, the Glicko-2 system is still required to get a specific value.
Currently, the exact rating values and their change after matches are hidden from the players behind the “rankings.” Yet if you have ever played with Gold Nova 3 to Master Guardian II, you know full well how greatly the level of players can differ in a match! So what’s the point of hiding the rating and forcing players to guess when the next rank-up is happening?
The main reason for this is to hide the details of the system’s algorithm. This way, Valve avoids abuse of its weaknesses. We don’t know how much it helps, but it’s hardly a good enough excuse. The lack of visibility only leads to frustration.
The hardest thing to understand here is why the devs didn’t borrow the idea with split “rankings” and the display of the rating values in the profile from Dota 2.
Reset of Points
Rating seasons have become commonplace in session games. Regardless of the genre, whether it be a shooter or a collectible card game, players’ achievements in competitive mode are reset periodically. This trick is required to maintain interest in the game.
There’s a similar feature in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. If you don’t play for a month, the rating will be reset and re-calibrated after the first victory. However, despite the similarity of the results, the concept is very different.
Because there are no rating seasons, many players lose interest in competitive mode. What’s the point of playing the next match if the ranking hasn’t changed for three years now? Given that many other elements change just as slowly (like the map pool or the weapons meta), the point of playing stably diminishes over time.
A periodic reset would shake up the stagnation of the competitive mode and give players a reason to come back to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. And if the devs introduced rewards for successful performance at the end of each season, players’ activity would skyrocket.
And what would you change in matchmaking to make it better?
