Counter-Strike 2 has had ups and downs since its launch in September of last year. The most rampant issue for players was and is cheating and a lackluster anti-cheat. However, players think that cheating isn’t the only problem and have named many other “real issues” in a recent Reddit thread.
The thread, posted on April 22, contained a long and extensive list of issues that have plagued CS2 for months. The original poster, blairxv, cited interpolation (dying when you don’t see the enemy, shots missing or hitting when they shouldn’t), a botched economy with the MR12 system, and general clarity as the primary issues aside from cheating. Valve has been making strides to fix some of these, particularly the interpolation side of things with significant networking updates. The company attempted to address clarity as well by adding a new cl_bob option, though that didn’t prove to be the right solution for many players.
Players in the replies agreed with the issues cited and had tons of their own to add to the list. One of the top replies said how trust is entirely gone from the game due to cheaters. The player base no longer believes in the anti-cheat and will be frustrated and call out legitimate players since no one really knows if the other side is using software. This is a side-effect of rampant cheating and can cause significant harm to the game’s health. Another player said how the overall performance of the game is lacking with frametimes often worse than those in VALORANT, which they claim used to be the worse one in this regard.
User VariousDegreesOfNerd piled on by saying Premier “just sucks” currently. The system’s arbitrary Elo rankings are very poorly designed, the player thinks, and pair highly skilled players with those who are new to the game. Many in the thread are telling others to switch to Faceit for the time being, which some have already done, even though Valve’s intention with Premier was to unify the player base.
But, be it all as it may, one reply is right: If there were no cheaters in the game, all the other issues would be sidelined and no one would be too frustrated about them. Cheaters ruin video games, especially Valve’s. Whether it’s Team Fortress 2, the old CS:GO, or CS2, cheaters can absolutely devastate a game and make people either switch to alternative matchmaking or alternative games altogether. If Valve effectively cracks down and stops giving players 20-word patch notes, perhaps everything else would follow suit. So, as always, Valve—please fix.
