Is the penalty for stopping a new match in Counter-Strike 2 too harsh?

Anyone play a little bit of Counter strike He probably knows the frustration of getting bailed on a teammate early in a match, leaving your team at a disadvantage in the recently launched 4v5. Counter Strike 2 The company is trying to reduce this problem by imposing a harsh new penalty on players who leave the match before it ends. But this system is already sparking angry reactions from players who feel they have been unfairly punished for unintentionally leaving a match.

in CS: Goabandoning the competitive match early It led to a period of “cooling off”. Before you can join a new match. Those periods started at 30 minutes for the first offense and rose to a full week for the fourth offense (one offense was also struck from the count every seven days).

This punishment system moved to closure CS2 beta in recent months but has reportedly been ineffective in slowing extremely high match abandonment rates. series to Popular Posts On the CS: Go Last month the subreddit called for harsher punishments, complaining that “almost every match now has one player leaving… I get it, you didn’t play.” CS For years, you have been hurting because you are losing, but you are wasting everyone’s time if you leave.”

with Full public launch of C2 last weekValve seems to have taken this complaint seriously. Leaving a match early also now results in the player losing 1,000 points ELO rating used in competitive matchmaking. This is a very large penalty, considering that players only get about 100 points for winning a match (against similarly ranked opponents). Under the current system, it can take hours of play to rebuild a ranking loss resulting from a single canceled match.

Unintended consequences?

This type of penalty can be a convenient deterrent for players who might deliberately hurt their teammates’ experience by abandoning difficult matches early. But some players complain that the ELO penalty also applies to postponed matches accidental Causes, including type Game crashes Maybe relatively common In a newly launched online game.

Individual players can also take an ELO penalty if their teammates are random Vote to kick them For any reason – or even for no reason at all. “[This system] It gives way to a lot of power for troll groups,” one Reddit commenter said He said For the ability of four committed players to get an Odd Teammate rating. “I just lost 1000 [ELO points] Because a team member randomly decided so [team kill] Me and start the voting kick,” another Redditor said He added. “They were unhappy about losing due to bad matchmaking. I tried my best to reach 9k+ and was reduced to 7999.”

Then there are situations where players decide to leave due to bad behavior by their teammates. “The last game I was in, there was a duo on my team who decided to harass and distress the entire team just because I was a girl. I ditched them because they were holding us hostage at that point,” one Reddit user books. This player complained that there was no warning that an additional ELO penalty would be imposed for leaving this match. “I happily accepted the 30 minute cooldown, but even in casual matches or deathmatches you are warned that you will lose XP if you abandon the game, but in Premier League you don’t and I’m not sure why,” the player wrote.

There may be other unintended consequences to the new sanctions system, as is the case with some players Already thinking Use ELO penalties to easily create a “Smurf Account” with an artificially low rating to match up with less skilled players. At the same time, some CS2 Players also reported that the remaining players in the 4v5 game They are not allowed to vote on surrender Even when a player’s flaw makes the match seem hopeless.

We are still early in what will undoubtedly be a long life for the competition Counter Strike 2, so Valve can certainly continue to adjust these penalties over time. For now, the new system highlights the difficult balancing act the company faces in trying to enforce good sportsmanship on randomly assembled teams in the online shooter.