Cooper “TruckLover86” Phelps, an American semi-professional Counter-Strike player and prolific streamer, hit a clip on Nuke that shows exactly how frustrating the subtick system is in CS2.
While it’s an impressive Ramp hold, when the first shot is slowed down, it reveals that absolutely nothing you see on your screen is connected to the kill. TruckLover hit a fadeaway shot that went right into the blue box on his screen. Somehow, the bullet curved, Wanted-style, into his opponent’s head, earning him one of the more fraudulent kills in high-Elo CS2‘s short history. To his credit, TruckLover smoked the final two players, dropping the bomb and effectively ending the round before it started.
The new subtick system was meant to replace the divide between FACEIT’s 128-tick servers and CS:GO‘s matchmaking 64-tick servers. The intent, according to Valve, was to eliminate the need for higher tick rate servers altogether and unify the experience across all Counter-Strike game modes and matches. Unfortunately, the new system is a mess right now, with players across all skill levels reporting movement delay, dying behind cover, and shots that should’ve hit completely missing.
It was always going to take Valve some time to perfect the new system, but the arbitrary summer release of CS2 seems to have caused them to ship something that isn’t totally ready. The LAN build for competitions will likely be fine, but anyone competing or playing online is just going to have to suffer the growing pains of the new system until it’s improved to a satisfactory level.
Once it’s fully operational, subtick is going to change the way that Counter-Strike is played online in a positive way and unify a fractured community. Until that happens, expect to die to something profoundly stupid or to get some very fraudulent kills.
