I miss 1.6 and wish I had all of my old clips... Ahh cs how much we've done together

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP4C1...e_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bogZr...e_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6gdK...e_gdata_player

Console FPS gamer (CoD) here looking for some advice on transitioning into the Counter Strike community. (Not sure if it is right for me but looking for thoughts.)

Currently have put about 20 to 30 hours into Source on a Mac. Playing with the standard wireless Mac keyboard and a standard desktop Logitech mouse (my guess is it is a pretty crappy mouse, the Logitech "M-BZ96C"). Have just been using the mouse on the wooden top of the desk, without a mouse pad. Never played with a headset. I haven't changed any of the settings in CS:S besides the mouse sensitivity, but recently I changed one option in the console commands that I believe was supposed to make the game refresh faster (with regards to the server).

In terms of what I've done in-game, I have mainly played in cs_office servers or gun game servers. I usually get owned pretty badly in cs_office servers, but I may have a slightly positive K/D in gun game servers. I wouldn't call myself a consistent player by any means.

Basically just looking for advice from all of you about getting into a game like Counter Strike. The learning curve seems to be pretty steep. What elements of gaming set-up are necessary? Gaming keyboards, mice, headsets? Advice on how to actually configure the game? I'm also looking to learn where to go to get into Counter Strike community. I hear people on various forums talk about how this and that new user must not be very well acquainted with the community, but I really don't know where the community interacts (i.e. the console CoD community seems to interact a lot on various YouTube channels).

Any advice you guys have for a new player like me is greatly appreciated. With the release of CS:GO, I may be one of many new players that know nothing about the game.

Source is aids.

Think of it like this 1.6 is a minimalist yet extremely functional game, nothing more than needs to be there. Source was a remake where they tried to take it more mass market, stupid gui menus, no walling, ****ty ****ty sound engine, lots of stupid weapons ( woo riot shield and discount assault rifles ), cluttered maps filled with stupid garbage just because the resources were there to do it.

CS is a lot like poker on a public server anyway bad players keep playing because they have a chance to kill good players regardless, source pushed it even further in that direction.
( Although thats the premise of most modern FPS games ).

I have no idea if GO is better or worse in that regard, my main hope is that the matchmaking system is similar to dota/lol style and it's easy to get in a good 5v5, replacing the need for irc pickup channels ( which were great as they filtered noobs hard, some even had elo style rankings of their own to balance teams ).

If it fulfills that promise, then I'll probably start playing again - it's hard to find a decent public server in 1.6 or css these days, too many stupid mods and the servers without them are 24/7 dust2 only no awps.

Give me legend of Z, or the old SK passworded servers for members only. <3

so how's this new update?

Riot shields haven't existed since like 2005. 1.6 and source have the same weapons. Maps aren't cluttered at all. Walling? That's just a game mechanic...and a stupid one at that. Sound engine? It's perfect. GUI menu? I don't even know what to say, there are options to change that bro. Fact still remains, a good 1.6 player that has no experience in source won't be able to do anything if he played in a source match with good source players. A good source player with no 1.6 experience won't be able to do anything against good 1.6 players in a match either. The fact that a lot of people who say 1.6 is harder are basing that off of public servers is a joke. This being a poker forum, it's very surprising people would come to that conclusion based on that type of sample size. Ever think that you were playing in a 1.6 server full of good players? Of a source server full of noobs? Play 10 seasons of each game then say which game is easier.

In regards to walling. Have you seen a nuke match in 1.6? The first 50 seconds of the round both teams are just spamming walls...sounds like fun. Lots of stuff is still spammable in source, you just can't get shot through 50 feet of concrete. One could turn that around and argue, "source takes more skill cause you have to expose yourself to the player versus just spamming through walls and hoping to get lucky" but nobody does that because its stupid and only closed minded 1.6 players use it as a reason to why their game is better.

Update is pretty good. Lot's of improvements. Even though I've only played 4 hours of it so far, I don't think that's enough to determine whether it's good or not. But it's definitely headed in the right direction.

I really enjoyed the walling aspect- it added another skill to the game which is good imo.

My favorite was just playing B from the outside on dust2, where I can get 1-2 kills just looking through the double doors and then possibly get another through the wall when they were attempting to plant, dink the guy that picks up the bomb. FELT GOOD MAN

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so I've been spamming walls in GO as well (lol)... am I wasting bullets? what is spammable in GO?

Welcome. The transition from console to PC will be hard and not very forgiving. I will try to answer your questions as much as possible as I have been in and out of the competitive CS scene for the last 10 years.

First in order to improve in this game you'll want the correct hardware. You will want to invest a good mechanical keyboard ($80-150), a good headset ($75-300), a good mouse ($50-80) a good mousepad ($15-40) and obviously a good computer. There is the next option of getting a 120hz monitor which is very common in the competitive scene but that will cost $260+ and it might not be something that people who are just getting into counter-strike will want to make. If you do end up going that route, check out BenQ monitors.

You are correct that this game has a steep learning curve with respect to the best players. It takes years and years of endless practicing to get good enough to play above the lowest levels competitively. If your goal is to just have fun playing in public servers, then you probably don't need to worry about it. In fact, if all you want to do is play on public servers, you probably don't need to invest in a mechanic keyboard, but a decent headset, mouse and mousepad are almost mandatory.

In terms of your settings, the only one that you might benefit from this early is cl_dynamiccrosshair 0. Besides that just keep playing and you'll get better as your hours played gets higher.

The only community that is worth being in is the competitive community. In North America, that is basically ESEA (google that). Like I mentioned in a previous post, it's a subscription based model and your average player has probably at least 3 years of competitive counter-strike under their belt. There you will learn a lot about what it takes to improve fast. But these are some things you can do. Download and watch demos from the best teams. Play deathmatch servers (these are almost always public servers). Play PUG's (pick up games) and try to see what other players are doing. Play scrims to develop your timing and peek ranges. There is still quite a bit of stuff to learn and by no means is this a comprehensive list, but it should get you started.

So first thing I would do is invest in a mouse, headset and mousepad. Then if you have extra money or time, check out the ESEA forums. Finally, just keep playing.

It's a fake skill though. All you need to do is spend time learning where all the spam spots are.

What is spammable in go? Thin metal, wooden doors and most boxes...things that you would think bullets would go through in real life. Spamming through a concrete wall won't work.

I'm basing my comments from being an experienced 1.6 and prior player ( started at beta 5 ), winning online leagues and lan tournaments in the uk.

If you make assumptions.......

Anything having to be learned = skill.

That's like saying position is a fake skill, flashbang placement is a fake skill, etc. The fact is - it's still a skill that differentiates great players from average players.

Have you played source more than just playing in public servers? What online leagues have you won? What does playing in beta 5 have to do with anything? You mentioned really terrible things as to why 1.6 is better than source (riot shield, cluttered maps etc, GUI....lol), but none of them are true at all. It's seems your experience in source is just looking at screenshots.

You think it's fair for lets say...I don't know, a source player to say 1.6 is easy without ever playing competitively?

@Bluef0x, Yes, spamming through walls is a skill. But it's not one that makes 1.6 a more skillful game than source, ducy?

careful, you're talking to THE Solsek, the #1 authority on CS 1.6, Source, and GO.

lol, pretty much. I've played thousands of hours of source and 1.6, both competitvely. I've already logged over 400 hours of GO as well. A lot of people here spouting that one game takes more skill than another game aren't familiar with BOTH games to make that determination. Go to ESEA forums where a lot of people have played both games, and you'll see that not many people share any of the same sentiments from 2006 like some here do.

If anything we can go to the facts.

Best source team beat the best 1.6 team in GO in a match for $1000 (which is actually a lot for the counter-strike community). If the result was flipped, 1.6 players would be shouting from the top of their lungs that 1.6 is the best game ever and source sucks balls. However, since I know both games pretty well, I know that it's quite a small sample size and that both 1.6 and source and insanely difficult games in comparison to modern FPS shooters and that both require different skillsets to be great at them.

1k isn't a lot for the CS community and you're a no-name who's played a lot of CS. You have some valid points given your long cs gaming experience but you're completely overrepresenting yourself and if you haven't noticed, your authoritative stance is pretty annoying and weak.

It's like a .25/.5 player telling us how poker works.

Thank you for being informative. You'd be a lot more fun to converse with if you back off the "I KNOW SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU" attitude. #kthxletsuseksharps

Facts? Like where you pick one topic, make up an opinion and then attack the made up opinion?

Lol @ screenshots comment as well.

You know you're just making a lot of low quality posts because of butthurt that I basically said CS:S is a scrub friendly game? Even 1.6 is a scrub friendly game - thats why it's so popular. CS:S is just more so. I also said I havn't played GO so can't make any comment about it.

People don't like playing 1v1 skill based games - they can't offload responsibility to team mates when things go wrong and not many people accept that it's going to take months or years of getting beat down before they can post even a half decent game against a good player.


conclusion: stop crapping up this thread because of butthurt.

I'm the one crapping up the thread when you bring **** like "source is aids" into it? At least double check some of your facts before you post **** about riot shields or things about the game that never existed or haven't been an issue since 2005. At least I try to bring constructive criticism of CS:GO based on my previous gaming experience in 1.6 and source. Then a lot of people here want to know whether GO takes skill like 1.6 or "if its like source". I simply try to correct those misconceptions. If doing that is wrong, then I am at major fault. Fact still remains, best source team beat best 1.6 team in GO for money. What do you have to say about that?

What if I was one of those people that thought poker took no skill and it was just gambling "against the house"? Would you try to correct me? Or how about NLHE takes no skill since its only 2 cards?

$1k is a lot for 2 day tournament for a game that nobody has played where teams rely solely on their experience in their respective games. Am I overrepping myself? Maybe. I don't play invite CSS or 1.6 for reasons besides my own skill at the game. It's simply that I don't have time to dedicate 6 hours a day practicing when I'm in graduate school. No-namer? I'm sure there are a lot of top-class CSS and 1.6 players that a person who hasn't played competitively hasn't heard of. Within the CS community? There are probably quite a few people who do know me. Maybe you should try getting some facts straight before you post useless fluff like "source is ez".

Another pointless "which game takes more skill" debate.

I once was the one taking part in those debates too. I've played CS since 2001 and when CS:S came out, I tried it and didn't like it (it was different game, movement was different, recoil was different which I didn't realize a the time, I thought game was just broken), I just kept playing 1.6. In every debate I always stayed to my opinion, that 1.6 was more skill game than CS:S and 1.6 players and better than CS:S. What I was basing my opinion on? On some forum posts and articles that I've read and my limited experience in CS:S and of course I wanted to satisfy my ego, I had to be playing game that takes more skill than those CS:S scrubs, right?



At the end of the day games should be about having fun and good time. Even if one game takes more skill than other, so what? It's a game ffs, calm down people.

Never said that walling makes 1.6 more skillful than source, where did you get that from?

Definitely agree with you lenasrokas. I'm not arguing that source takes more skill than 1.6. If you read my posts I'm just saying that both games are hard to play and both use different skillsets because they use different game mechanics. Does that make one game take more skill than another? Probably not because 1.6 players can't just pick up source and dominate and source players can't pick up 1.6 and dominate.

Then dlorc comes in here and posts "source is aids" and uses examples about riot shields, cluttered maps and bad GUI which either was never an issue with source or was removed early on and hasn't been in the game for 7 years. Then he thinks he's played enough source to make a determination that 1.6 is far superior to the pile of crap source is. It's like he works for IGN or something. Plays a game for 5 minutes, then determines if it sucks or is great.

@bluef0x Didn't mean to have it come off that way. You never said it did. That was directed towards the "source is aids" crowd.

someone needs to PM me a beta key

More thoughts on GO...although this is only 10 hours of scrimming and pugging, these are just my initial thoughts.

Huge improvements on sound. You can actually tell where the sounds are coming from now.

AWP has a much better feel to it, although I personally still think you strafe way too fast when scoped. I think the strafe speed is still the same as if you had an AK or M4. In 1.6 and source your speed was significantly reduced when you were scoped which made it a much more balanced gun in competitive play.

M4 and AK have improved quite a bit. The patch note says the AK has more recoil now which is a good thing because the M4 wasn't that good compared the AK before this patch. Now they are a lot closer. Once they add the silencer it will be interesting to see how balanced they are again. The recoil for both guns is much more predictable but it is probably closer to 1.6 in terms of spread.

Flashbangs/other grenades: HUGE improvement. You are no longer blind for 5 seconds. Dodging them has also reduced the amount of time you are blind for. It will take a lot more testing to see if they are closer to 1.6, source or completely different.

My biggest gripe about the game so far is still the color scheme. Everything looks gray and white. It's hard to distinguish a CT/T across the map (lol, more skill right?). In a game that is precise as CS it just feels that there are many imprecise elements. However, they have made significant improvements in this department compared to previous version of the beta. There are players in the competitive scene making new versions of the maps that create contrast between the environment and the player so that will be a good solution if Valve/Hidden Path doesn't do anything about it.

They've also added a lot of useless things like "$/K" and other useless stats on the scoreboard. In addition to that they've added new voices to the radio commands. Throwing flashbangs, smokes, decoy and molotov no longer say "Fire in the hole!". Instead they say other dumb **** like "Flash out!" or something like that.

Thanks a lot for the response.

If I may ask, how much time does it take to become "good" at games like these? I, with a perfectionist nature, can often become discouraged if I am not performing at a high level after hours of play (i.e. a couple 14 hour weeks). I get frustrated and can really trash my self-esteem and my enjoyment level of the game. In addition, I will think I am just not as naturally good as others and will never be as good as them.

You have any benchmark number of hours played to even begin to expect to call yourself a "good" player? Any words of encouragement? It seems to me that the "good" players today were never as bad as me, and in consequence that I will never be as good as them, or that I should be as good as them, even if I am not (from my competitive, perfectionist nature).

Anyway, that was a bit of a release of thoughts that I have had about a variety of different competitive games, include first person shooters. Would love to hear any thoughts any of you have about it.

And I checked out the ESEA website. I was familiar with the name, relating it to a competitive Counter Strike league, but I didn't realize to what extent of a community it is. Without even making an account I can browse some sort of forums; in what ways does becoming a premium member really allow you to interact with the community?

Thanks again for the response already given, and I'm looking forward to hearing more thoughts about anything. All the best to you guys.

How much time does it take to become "good"? It's tough to say, as everyone is different. It's similar to poker. If you spend lots of time seriously studying counter-strike and how to play it, it will take less time than someone who just plays less seriously and gets better over several hundred hours. To give you a little benchmark. I played public servers in 1.6 for 2 years before beginning to even think about playing competitively. I probably played 15-20 hours a week during those years. A lot of that time was a waste and you don't need to go through that. But at the same time you want to have a lot of fun playing the game otherwise the appeal won't last. You can improve individually by playing lots of pugs, reviewing demos of yourself and deathmatching. Finding a team and playing with 4 other plays is a different thing and requires lots of time and effort to improve as a team.

Good players today were just as bad as anyone else. We all started at ground zero. A lot of people just started 10 years ago whereas you are starting today (which is not a bad time to start considering CSGO is coming out in 2 weeks). You can be as good as them. If you want some encouragement, there is a 16 year old dominating the 1.6 invite scene and he's only played the game for 3-4 years? That's very little compared to the people he is playing with and against.

A premium member on ESEA only allows you to play pick up games (PUGS), scrims and matches. It's purely for the competitive scene of CSS and 1.6 (as well as TF2). I wouldn't really touch it until you've got at least a few hundred hours played. It won't be an enjoyable experience when you can't even shoot at the people before they kill you.

If you end up getting ESEA I am more than happy to show you the ropes and get you started on some of the things that I mentioned above. If I were you I would forget source and 1.6 and start playing CSGO when it comes out in 10 days or so. Lots of good players will be bad again because they won't adjust to the new game mechanics (hmmm, doesn't this sound familar) so you'll be learning along with everyone else.

it totally depends on you

do you have much experience with first person shooters? CS is particularly unique imo because of the movement + recoil.

The way I got really good was playing vs like 12 bots on knife mode and practicing shooting for only head shots. 100 kills each gun - master the Ak47, M4A1, and the AWP. If you're going for competitive, then learn how to use the USP, Glock, and Desert Eagle. I'd rank the DE above the other 2 pistols since you'll be using those on save rounds and such. $750 pistol w/the chance of taking out someone in 1 shot w/about 4k worth of equipment. Pretty solid.