The latest update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has added two separate competitive preferences, allowing for longer or shorter ranked matches.
As part of Operation Riptide, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players will now be able to choose whether they’d like to play a short or long competitive match. Shorter matches have a maximum of 16 rounds, while long games will have a maximum of 30.
The patch notes for this update outline that players will now have “the option to select a preference for match duration in competitive matchmaking”, though players can also opt to have no preference.
Over on Twitter, the official Counter-Strike: Global Offensive account clarifies that “your Competitive Skill Group is on the line in both versions”, meaning that both queues will affect your rank in exactly the same way.
Competitive is now available in two lengths on official servers: Short (MR16) and Long (MR30). And your Competitive Skill Group is on the line in both versions.
— CS:GO (@CSGO) September 22, 2021
Before this update, the standard competitive match for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was set at a standard 30 round battle. As closer matches could end up taking a considerable amount of time to resolve, these MR16 matches offer a more time-friendly approach to the competitive side of CS:GO.
This option moves the game a little closer to Valorant, in which teams only need to win 13 rounds to win as opposed to the 16 needed in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive‘s standard competitive matches.
Operation Riptide has brought a variety of other big changes to the shooter, including a dramatic change to the Dust 2 map that stops attackers from sniping defenders as they move to B-site at the start of a round.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive patch also reduces the amount of vision players retain after death, slashing it down from three seconds to two. The silenced M4 has also been buffed to do more body damage, while the Deagle will now do less (though headshots are still an instant kill).
In other news, Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny is leaving Blizzard, following several other high-profile departures.
The post Valve adds shorter comp games to ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’ appeared first on NME.
