No CS:GO match can be imagined without smoke grenades. But these grenades pose a lot of problems. For instance, smokes can be “one-sided.” The CS.MONEY blog is here to try and figure out if there’s a problem with smokes and if so, how it can be solved.
How does a smoke grenade work?
Both sides can buy a smoke grenade for $300. Each player can only buy one smoke in every round of the match.
After a smoke nade is thrown, it goes off and releases a cloud of smoke about seven meters in diameter. The cloud blocks the view, but it’s semi-transparent at the edges of the coverage zone. The duration of the smoke effect is a trifle above fifteen seconds.
The smoke grenade extinguishes Molotov flames and is instantly triggered when it comes into contact with them. Fun fact: the smoke grenade is triggered by contact with the surface, so it always does land — regardless of distance.
One-way & floating mid-air
At first glance, the smoke is a great expendable. While it costs only 300 bucks, it can help cut an enemy sniper off or block passage to a plant site. At a closer inspection, however, you can see the pitfalls. The most notorious one is called a one-way.
The term refers to a smokescreen through which enables a partial view from one side. There are one-way smokes on every competitive map. They can be very annoying since even top players don’t know all the possible one-way smokes. This has affected the outcome of numerous professional matches. The impact on regular matchmaking cannot be overestimated either: the number of matches amounts to thousands of encounters.
The next trick is much rarer: we’re talking about a smoke floating mid-air. The trick itself is extremely simple to perform. You only need to throw a smoke grenade at a character standing in Molotov fire. If thrown correctly, the smoke grenade will go off on contact and the cloud of smoke will hang over the ground.
Both one-way smokes and smokes hovering mid-air give a significant advantage when used correctly. At the same time, neither of the two tricks requires any particular skills — you only have to memorize some simple “landmarks” or just practice a couple of times with bots. For a competitive shooter, that’s not very cool.
Do you like getting CS:GO news in our vibe?
What are you waiting for? Hit subscribe!
How do the rivals handle this?
In Valorant, smoke grenades function differently. Instead of a smoke cloud, these “grenades” are essentially opaque spheres with clear-cut boundaries, with visibility inside the sphere preserved. These smoke screens work in a much more curious and honest fashion.
In Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, another competitive shooter, two methods were employed to solve the one-way problem. The first is the mechanics of the smoke cloud itself: it creates significant visibility interference at the slightest contact. If you make even a single step inside, you got zero visibility.
The second method is the design of the maps. Namely, all maps in the game are designed for scenarios where enclosed spaces get assaulted, such as a biker bar, an airplane, a bank, or other locations with targets inside buildings. As a result, it’s almost impossible to create situations where smoke floats mid-air or leaves a convenient gap for aiming.
However, both shooters do offer small loopholes. In Valorant, the grenade can be thrown onto high crates. In this case, the sphere will float above the ground. If you step back far enough or create a height difference, you can see your opponent’s legs from the other side of the smoke sphere while remaining completely hidden.
In Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, you can perform a similar trick with Capitão. This character wields a crossbow that can shoot smoke bolts. In rooms that are high enough, the bolt can be shot under the ceiling. Much like in Valorant, you can see the enemy and stay covered by clouds of smoke because of the perspective change in the distance.
Should we expect fixes?
Yes rather than no. The devs have already encountered problematic smokes a few times in 2019. That year witnessed a minor scandal around the appearance of an icon on the radar before the clouds of smoke were completely dispersed.
A few years before that, in 2015, the developers changed the way smoke works so that you can’t boost inside the cloud or create a one-way anywhere you wish.
Both one-ways and floating smokes can be fixed. Actually, enthusiasts have already done this. For example, ZooL showed “realistic” smokes in CS:GO. It worked out pretty well. Still, Valve will most likely wait for another grenade scandal on the pro scene to finally fix the two smoke problems.
If you liked this post, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. There’s a special field for that a little above. Also, don’t forget to use these tricks in-game while you still can. They’re completely legal and don’t violate Valve’s fair play guidelines.
