Counter-Strike 2 Max Round Changes: Thoughts & Suggestions
With CS2 around the corner, there have been some major gameplay changes that people have started to find out in the game files. According to the leaks, there have been reports about new features ranging from a new matchmaking system to a possible change in the map pool to the maximum amount of rounds being reduced. The round format is one of the biggest change that stands out. If it happens to be true then the game would be reduced to 15 rounds per half to 12.
Update: As premier matchmaking was introduced during the beta, it was announced that CS2 would feature MR12 for competitive mode, premier matchmaking and also for professional play.
History
For the longest period of time, Counter-Strike had MR15 matches meaning that each team played 15 rounds per half (MR standing for Max Rounds per half). CS has had tournaments with the MR15 format dating back till 2004. Prior to that, the tournaments did use the MR12 format and when tournament organizers did announce the MR15 they did not make the change instantly however, they allowed teams the option to either play MR12 or MR15 and then slowly transitioned into tournaments being completely MR15.
Round time changes that were suggested when moving from MR12 to MR15 or 18. Source
Recent changes
Valve had already experimented with the idea of having shorter matches as they introduced the short match format in late 2021 which allowed for players to play MR8 matches instead of the MR15 matches allowing for quicker games. However, they did not tweak with the match time, economy or any of the game settings. This left an issue of where a team could easily snowball and have a huge lead and almost be touching distance to the victory as the games’ current economy can be a bit unforgiving especially on the CT side.
Moving forward and thoughts
As of writing this, Valve had just announced the new premier mode introducing leaderboards, per-map skill groups and also the MR12 system. However, they have not made any changes to the economy as they believe that the match can be decided without the extra rounds.
The current economy with the new system may still have some flaws as we have seen teams during pro play having an early lead in the map. If a team wins the pistol and wins against the force buy and/or the gun round then they can easily be up 5-6 rounds. In a MR12 game where teams need to win 13 rounds that would mean winning almost half of the rounds already giving the other team less chances to make mistakes.
Also, with how the economy works for the CT side it can be harder to string rounds together as losing a round early on may reset the economy and would result in having to save for a round or two while the T side builds up the bank and would probably mean having enough money for the whole half.
The shorter format would encourage teams to actually go for the rounds instead of saving but would come with a bigger risk as losing the round would mean having to go for an eco and losing one or two more rounds. We may see teams that managed their economy and saved often may save more but there might be less saving in a 4v4 or 3v4 situation.
Valve will probably be analyzing the data from the beta and make some changes in the near future. One way to fix this would be to tweak the cash that the team receives for winning/losing a round and maybe the cash received when saving can also get a small change. The max amount of money could also be reduced from 16k to something like 10k to avoid the team that’s in the lead building up enough bank to play through the whole half without any issues.
What are your thoughts? Should Valve keep the system as it is or introduce some changes?
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