CS2 Fixes Legs, But Players Are Left Disappointed by Latest Update
Counter-Strike 2 finally received a major update. It's just a shame that most of the changes are minor, and the new battle pass has severely annoyed players.
Valve missed the anniversary of its premiere, but Counter-Strike 2 has received a rather substantial update. This is the biggest patch for the game in several months, if only in terms of the number of changes introduced to the second CS.
The creators have not forgotten about the game, but it cannot be denied that the recent updates were rather modest hotfixes, sometimes with literally single map or interface corrections. We will also find such changes in the latest update, but there are also some new features. Only not the ones that players were hoping for.
Under-appreciated armory...
For Valve, the biggest change is clearly adding the Armory, a battle pass available to CS2 players with a Prime account. Each Armory Pass includes 40 reward tiers in the form of special credits, which can be used to purchase an assortment of Armory items, including over 100 weapon skins and "charms" that can be used to decorate weapons.
The problem is that the players aren't particularly excited about the Armory Pass. They notice with cynical frustration that they have to purchase a pass several times (paying 16 dollars for each) to have a chance (yes, a chance) of getting the desired skin. At most, skin traders can rejoice, who – as fans point out after a certain interaction on X – are not particularly interested in the gameplay (via Reddit).
The mood of players is not improved by the option to remove "charms"... for an additional fee. It should be added, however, that the situation is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the purchase of this accessory gives the buyer three free charm removal tools. So the fee only matters when we buy a weapon with an "charm" from another player.
...and good, but modest changes (and errors)
Player frustration is compounded by the fact that beyond skins, the patch doesn't really change enough. Yes, the list of changes is long, but a lot of space on it is taken up by "fixes" related to the personalization of items.
The patch also includes various fixes, but these are mainly minor improvements. It's enough to say that in the "Gameplay" section we have one, rather small change related to grenades. The same applies to the network code.
Nonetheless, there is a certain fix which - according to the players - significantly affects the gaming experience. This is about fixing the leg animations. It looks much better than before (more like what we know from CSGO), but it also increases the "readability" of the gameplay - now it's easier to figure out what the player's character model is doing (which users have been complaining about for a long time).
Nonetheless, it says a lot that this is probably the most important actual change in yesterday's patch. Meanwhile, players have long been counting on much more: better anticheat, new maps, performance improvements, etc. A week ago, fans were irritated that the first anniversary of Counter-Strike 2' launch slipped Valve's attention.
Worse still, the October patch added a bunch of bugs to the game. And we mean literally into the game: the infamous yellow "ERROR" sign has been spotted on CS 2 maps by many players. It looks funny (causing a lot of nostalgia among GMod and Source Film Maker fans), but the players are not amused that even such a modest update further spoils their fun.
On a side note: lines have also been spotted in the update code that are supposedly related to the new Half-Life. The same ones that already appeared in Deadlock.
