The thing is, is that CS2 replaced CSGO (which at one point was pay-to-play, which means people were required to sink money into a title which is now completely upended), removed a lot of content (whole game modes are missing and there's no plan on adding them back into the new version; maps have been removed, and to an extent some of the customization has been removed), and removed Mac support, which was previously very much supported with CSGO.
They've also changed the game mechanics when it comes to determining when gunshots "register", which has very much changed the dynamic of the game and has vastly raised the bar for casual players to win even a single round.
Further, ranked matches are handled differently now. It used to be that even losses contributed to your initial rank after a couple of placement matches. Now, you must win 10 games before you get a rank. Since placement games (games you play before you get a rank) are more or less randomly matchmade, it means that less skilled players are going to be up against impossibly difficult opponents to the point that even a single win is impossible, thus you're trapped in this unranked loop and will never achieve meaningful matchmaking with people of your own skill level.
Further, "Prime" status was originally a barrier for cheaters since you had to buy it, and it made it such that prime status players were only matchmade with other prime status players. Since cheaters run the risk of getting permanently banned, they'd have to buy Prime over and over again - something Valve betted would be a way to filter out a large percentage of cheaters. However, they started to grant Prime status to people who had leveled up enough, which removed the cost barrier. Since cheaters level up quickly, it's become sort of a moot mechanic now.
And no, Steam won't refund Prime status purchases, which are around $15.
Couple the matchmaking differences with the shot registration differences, the removed content, and the dropping of support, and you have what is essentially a completely unique game that Valve replaced CSGO with.
People are rightfully very upset. Many people bought CSGO for e.g. MacOS support. Now that game has been removed from their libraries with little to no recourse. Steam said they're issuing refunds for a few select Mac users but I've yet to see anyone say they've been granted such a refund.
It's a messy situation that Valve has handled in one of the worst ways possible, learning no lessons from the Overwatch 2 debacle that did much the same thing (and was received equally as poorly) or from Ubisoft's repeated similar behavior.
valve should offer a refund to anyone who has predominantly played on macOS over the last year or two.
other than that, I don't see any issue with what they've done here. maps get added and removed from the official pool all the time, you can still play them on 3P servers if enough other players are interested. and hit registration has been a constant complaint since approximately the beginning of time, hard to take that part seriously...
> other than that, I don't see any issue with what they've done here.
You don't see an issue paying for a game only to have it forcibly removed from your possession?
> maps get added and removed from the official pool all the time
This isn't the official pool (if you're talking about competitive pools), and no it doesn't happen all the time. Valve never removed a map from CSGO, only added them.
> you can still play them on 3P servers if enough other players are interested.
Oh right, community servers. I forgot about that, thanks for reminding me. Community servers are no longer listed publicly in a browser like they used to be. Now you have to google search for servers and connect to them directly via IP and port. They removed that functionality as well.
> and hit registration has been a constant complaint since approximately the beginning of time
Not really. The only time people complained about it prior to CS2 was when they made it server registration to combat cheaters, which introduced a lot of randomness depending on who you asked (nobody really knows how it works, but people could feel a difference at the time). Now they do sub-tick registration which is an approximation function that is being gamed by non-casuals.
Here's a good video on the subject[0]. Ignore the bit about mouse DPI, dude had no idea what he was talking about with that.
They're trying to offer 128 tick-like gameplay without having to pay for the increased compute and network costs of doubling the current 64 tick servers by faking hit registration, which is having an adverse effect.
So it's not merely some "git gud" complaint. It's a very valid complaint over a major change of game mechanics from a previously purchased titled that was effectively stolen away from you.
You should be upset by this. This is not how companies should behave.
They've also changed the game mechanics when it comes to determining when gunshots "register", which has very much changed the dynamic of the game and has vastly raised the bar for casual players to win even a single round.
Further, ranked matches are handled differently now. It used to be that even losses contributed to your initial rank after a couple of placement matches. Now, you must win 10 games before you get a rank. Since placement games (games you play before you get a rank) are more or less randomly matchmade, it means that less skilled players are going to be up against impossibly difficult opponents to the point that even a single win is impossible, thus you're trapped in this unranked loop and will never achieve meaningful matchmaking with people of your own skill level.
Further, "Prime" status was originally a barrier for cheaters since you had to buy it, and it made it such that prime status players were only matchmade with other prime status players. Since cheaters run the risk of getting permanently banned, they'd have to buy Prime over and over again - something Valve betted would be a way to filter out a large percentage of cheaters. However, they started to grant Prime status to people who had leveled up enough, which removed the cost barrier. Since cheaters level up quickly, it's become sort of a moot mechanic now.
And no, Steam won't refund Prime status purchases, which are around $15.
Couple the matchmaking differences with the shot registration differences, the removed content, and the dropping of support, and you have what is essentially a completely unique game that Valve replaced CSGO with.
People are rightfully very upset. Many people bought CSGO for e.g. MacOS support. Now that game has been removed from their libraries with little to no recourse. Steam said they're issuing refunds for a few select Mac users but I've yet to see anyone say they've been granted such a refund.
It's a messy situation that Valve has handled in one of the worst ways possible, learning no lessons from the Overwatch 2 debacle that did much the same thing (and was received equally as poorly) or from Ubisoft's repeated similar behavior.