Counter Strike: Global Offensive received a new update yesterday, implementing a number of significant revisions and improvements.
Leading the patch, a new weapon has been introduced into CS:GO, the R8 Revolver, CS:GO’s first weapon ‘charged’ base weapon which occupies the Desert Eagle loadout slot.
The R8 Revolver is reported to have the same base Damage as the AWP at 115 and can one hit an armoured player to the chest up to 560 units away, while a stomach shot will one hit kill at just about any feasible range (2350 units).
An in depth analysis of December 8, 2015 Weapon Changes and R8 Revolver (Nerfs to the AK-47, M4A4, and M4A1-S) can be found here.
In addition to this, Valve have also adjusted several gameplay settings, such as;
- Competitive Matchmaking times are now 1:55 and 0:40 for round times and C4 bomb times respectively.
- AK47, M4A4, and M4A1-S assault rifle recovery times have been adjusted to reduce the range at which spraying is preferable to tapping/bursting.
- The move inaccuracy for the Elites, Fiveseven, Glock, P2000, P250, Tec9, USP, CZ75a have been increased.
The winter update is arguably one of the largest and most significant updates in the history of the franchise, and will undoubtedly change the way CS:GO will be played in the competitive community.
The full list of patch notes can be found below, or via the official Counter Strike blog post.
Winter Update:
- Slight adjustments to Holiday Cheer.
- Gifts are now available for purchase. Gift leaderboards will be displayed until January 15th.
- Added the Revolver Case.
- Added several new community sticker capsules, currently available as offers.
- Added Service Medals for 2016. Players achieving Global General rank after December 31st will receive the new year’s medal.
R8 Revolver:
- Added a new secondary weapon, the R8 Revolver, which occupies the Desert Eagle loadout slot.
Gameplay:
- In Competitive Matchmaking times are now 1:55 and 0:40 for round and C4, respectively. These are also the new times for CSGO Major Championships.
- Adjusted recovery time on the AK47, M4A4, and M4A1-S assault rifles to reduce the range at which spraying is preferable to tapping/bursting.
- Increased move inaccuracy on pistols: Elites, Fiveseven, Glock, P2000, P250, Tec9, USP, CZ75a.
- Added team timeouts to Competitive Matchmaking, which can be called with a vote. Default is 60 seconds, set by mp_team_timeout_time.
Killer Replay:
- Added new Killer Replay to Casual and Demolition modes. GOTV must be active on the server to enable the feature.
- Menu option Help/Options->Game Settings->Automatic Killer Replay will turn replay off.
- Several convars are available to customize the Killer Replay. Search for ‘replay’ in the console for a complete list.
Community:
- Game servers and GOTV relays not logged in to a persistent game server account with a Game Server Login Token (GSLT) will only allow clients to connect from the same LAN.
- Community servers can now be only connected by their real public IP or their internal RFC1918 address.
- To create a GSLT, visit the GSLT creation utility here: http://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers
- Each GSLT is restricted for use on one dedicated server instance only, and should be passed on command line with +sv_setsteamaccount THISGSLTHERE -net_port_try 1
- Added an option to report servers for misrepresenting players’ inventory and/or rank.
- Game servers will now display their SteamID to an operator’s status request in the server console.
- Game servers with GOTV enabled and GOTV relays that need to support external clients connecting on GOTV port must set tv_advertise_watchable 1
Misc:
- Users’ options are now stored independently in a Steam account-local data folder and can be different across Steam accounts on the same machine.
- Administrators setting up tournament Active Directory logons with Roaming Profiles can create a directory inside the user’s roaming profile storage and expose that location to the game by setting an environment variable USRLOCALCSGO=%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\csgo
- Video options for shadow quality, model/texture detail, effect detail, shader detail, and texture filtering mode can now be autodetected at startup to adjust for multitasking with other background applications. These video options can also be permanently set by the user to remain the same regardless of other background applications detected during game launch.
- Minor sound mix tweaks. First person footsteps slightly quieter, third person footstep volume remains unchanged.
- Highlights and Lowlights now transition smoothly between clips.
- Lowlights will now identify the target using the same visual indicator as the Killer Replay.
Maps:
- Fixed some surfaces playing the wrong footstep sounds in Mirage, Overpass and Train.
- Fixed a DM spawnpoint in de_dust where the player would get stuck.
Steam Controller:
- Made toggle crouch work
- Fixed several bugs
Game State Integration:
- CS:GO’s game state can be relayed remotely, allowing third parties to integrate their services with the game. For example, game state integration was used at the CS:GO Major Championship at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca to present special stage effects (e.g., lighting and pyrotechnics) during a match.
- For details on how to set up your service to use game state integration, visit the wiki page here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Counter-Strike:_Global_Offensive_Game_State_Integration
Servers:
- Added official servers in Hong Kong
What is your opinion of the update? Let us know in the comments below!
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