I went back to CS2 after Valorant. I'm never going back.

(18) I went back to CS2 after Valorant. I’m never going back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2xf43pYTtA&t=49s

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Intro

You probably already know which game you prefer,but I wanted to give an overview here in the big 26.I saw some discussion online of some people saying, that they had only really played Valorant and they were fairly high ranked.So, I wanted to give kind of an overview of the two games.I’m going to be as objective as I can,but my preferences are going to shine through.Ultimately, I did choose to stay on CS over Valorant,but yeah,hopefully this will give you a good starting guide on which one, might appeal to you.

Basics

So, at a very basic level,these games are very similar.They’re both tactical shooters, meaning you mostly have to stop to shoot.You have to manage your economy, you know,you want to be trying to buy, items with your team so you’re not on different, wavelengths as your team members.Generally, there’s an attacker side and there’s a defender side.The attackers want to plant a bomb or a spike, and the defenders either want, to prevent them from doing that, or if the plant does go off,you want to try and diffuse that.Lastly, there’s a lot of similar guns between the two games.AKs, M4s,Ops.You might know them as the Vandal, Phantom,Operator.Yeah, you probably already know all of these surface level things.So, I’m going to jump right into some of the specifics.So, with this being a tactical shooter,you know, you can’t move and shoot.Your bullets are going to go all over the place.You have to come to complete stop and then only then, are your bullets going to be in a kind of complete circle here.

Same thing here in Valorant, if you try and move and shoot,your bullets are going to have this random spread to them,but if you stop moving, you can account for the recoil pattern and keep them in the same, general area.In both games,there’s some kind of SMG, variant, where you can move a little bit, more and be a little bit more, accurate with how you are spraying.Bullets still are a little inaccurate if you look at the wall,but they are a little bit more clumped together.So, you can be a little bit more mobile.Here’s me doing the same thing in CS2, running shooting.You’re still fairly accurate.

Specific Gameplay Differences

This brings me to one of the first differences that I prefer in CS2.I had to turn on some of the known stats for you guys to see, but if you look just above my head you should be able to see this, velocity, stat.So basically you’re showing how fast I’m going, and you can see in my keyboard inputs that, in CS:GO you don’t actually come to a complete stop as soon as you let go, of any of the strafing keys so, you can see as I’m strafing to, the left with A and holding A, as soon as I let go you can see, there’s a little bit of a wind, down time, where I don’t instantly snap to zero velocity.I’m still moving a little bit after I move, and so what this translates to, in the actual gameplay is that, you are not actually, completely, accurate as soon as you let go of the key.You need to counter strafe a little bit, by tapping in the opposite direction, in order to have you come to, a complete stop so that you’re, fully accurate.What this looks like if I strafe to the left here and I.

try and shoot as soon as I let go of the A key I won’t be fully accurate.You can see my bullets have a little bit of variance, but if I do a little bit of counter strafing, these bullets should be completely straight.Valorant has much punchier movement, when you are moving, you come to a complete stop much faster than you do in Counter-Strike.You don’t have to do the same level of counter strafing as you would in, Counter-Strike it’s not really necessary at all.One of the next major differences, in Counter-Strike, is that each gun has its own distinct recoil that you can learn, and subsequently improve on.You can see that pro players, have a mastery of this kind of, recoil control where they’re, able to get pretty deep into, a spray, and instantly transfer to the next guy’s head after they kill someone, because they know where they should be aiming in their in their spray.You can see on this recoil map that, for the AK the spray looks like, something like this where you, pull down you go to the left.

a little and then you go back, to the right, and this is something you can kind of work on.This map is pretty handy it gives you your percentages, for how accurate you are that, kind of thing And you can kind, of work endlessly on improving, this.Compare that here to Valorant where there is a set recoil spray at the beginning, of your spray,but after a certain point that just turns into kind of a random pattern, and you have to just adjust on the fly, to whatever’s happening in front of you.So, you can kind of control,but then after a certain point, um there’s no set pattern here.Um you just have to look at where the bullets are going and hope for the best.The next gameplay difference, that I want to talk about is, how you line up uh different, utility,specifically smokes, um between the two games.Um I’m here on Ascent and I want to show, if you are the smoker for your team in Valorant,you just pull out your little iPad here.Obviously, this differs character by character,um but uh for a lot of characters,

you pull out some sort of screen that looks like this.You pick the spot you want to smoke and then you just throw it down.And then you can come out mid, and you can dodge the upper that’s, sitting there and you can come, up cat.Makes it very streamlined, straightforward,easy to do.If we want to compare that to the analogous situation here in Counter-Strike, where we want to smoke bottom mid so we can go up cat,we have to be a little bit more creative with how we want to smoke this.If we want to smoke the door, um if we don’t really know what we’re doing,we just kind of chuck a smoke, at the door and hope that it, blooms in such a way where, it covers the top.You can see this smoke here didn’t.It’s very common for an upper to sit here and cover the catwalk for situations, like this to try and cover this, gap where Ts want to be running, up cat to take A or just take, map control.So,this leads to a lot of smoke lineups in Counter-Strike where, you kind of need to feel like, a nerd where you need to put.

your crosshair on a specific, spot in order to throw the smoke, off the choke point that you, want to do.Um for example, the smoke that I do to smoke off doors,which is pretty quick and simple, you just come to this corner,you look at this bottom hinge here, and you left click.Um that always replicates the, same smoke every time where it’ll, bloom to the top.Um so that that upper can’t pick you while you’re running up cat.At first glance,you might be wondering why, would I want to take the time, to learn these stupid lineups, in order to throw the smokes, that I can just point and click, to on Valorant.Um but on Counter-Strike, uh,in my opinion,it leads to a bit of a higher skill ceiling where you can kind of um,express yourself, if you could say it that way with nades.Um, where um,you know, different lineups can have different drawbacks,and uh, I think that’s really interesting and cool part of the game.Um, for example,here on mirage, um,

the first lineup that I ever learned on this map was the stairs smoke.Um,the old classic Counter-Strike Go lineup for this was you stand, right here on this ledge,aim somewhere at this gap, and let it fly.Um, this lineup still works in CS2,is very efficient for if you want to smoke stairs here.But, as you can see,it bleeds down into this, uh,sandwich area where if a CT wanted, um,in the chaos of the Ts pushing out of ramp and fighting for the site,they could come here, drop into sandwich,and then all of a sudden they’re in sandwich,and they’re kind of a nuisance where they can, um,fight, and they can fight with the team from an off angle.There have been other smokes that developed for this.It’s cool to see the progression of the nades, and um,it feels like you can really refine, what you like and what you don’t like about the nades.So, one of the very safe nades back here in this corner,you get stuck in this corner here, um,you aim at the tip of this these two, and you throw.

Um, this smoke will land on top of stairs,um, and it won’t bleed down into sandwich in the same way.Um, but as you can see,it has a very high arc, and it takes a little while to land.Um,but it does a good job of smoking, the top of the stairs and not, bleeding into sandwich.My, favorite smoke though for smoking stairs if I’m doing an exec is to actually, come up here, and throw it this way.It’s much faster, um,and you can be ready to enter, into site by plant your gun and, dropping down and running out.You get stuck in this corner, um,and you do a middle click jump throw.So, you hold left and right click at while looking at this dot.Um, and this flies much faster,it lands much faster.It does the same thing where it doesn’t bleed out into sandwich,it smokes the top of the stairs.All in all, it’s just in my opinion a really fantastic smoke,but Counter-Strike, lets you have those opinions on what is What are you throwing?Um Why do you like it better than some others?

Um there’s no one set way to do things.Last thing I want to touch on, are the different uh spawn mechanics, between the two games.Um in Counter-Strike, there are a set number of spawns on each map.Um and this can let you do some different things.For example, here on Ancient,um there’s only five spawns on this map on the CT side.Um so, uh it’s very common for mid players to, uh learn the bottom mid smoke for each spawn.Um so for example, with this spawn,um you look at this specific U here, um and you take a step while you’re shift running and, uh shift walking.Um and that’ll smoke off mid for you.Um and it’s very common to learn that for each spawn on this map on mirage.Um Yeah.Compare that here to Valorant, where you do kind of have a spawn location,um but you are free to move around in a predefined area that is map specific.Um it’s different from map to map,and there are these barriers that prevent you from going outside of the, the predefined spawn location.

This makes the game less spawn dependent,um which can be a good thing or a bad thing.Um and uh you can be ready for fights much quicker.It can speed up the pace of play uh very fast.Um one thing you see that’s very common is if you take, Haven here for an example,um you have this barrier here, and as soon as it drops,you’re going to run out as fast as you can and take this duel.Um and it’s the same on the other side, where um you might be over here,you’re ready to take this fight,you might even be able to hold it on certain maps like here on Haven.Um be ready for this swing.

Roles

Uh the next major thing that I want to talk about is here in Valorant,um the roles that you have in the game are very much laid out for you.You are very much put on rails as to what role you are playing, and how are you going to be impacting the team.For example, there’s a duelist role where say I want to run in,I want to entry, I want to be the guy that’s making a space for my team,you’re going to be picking duelists, where each operator is going, to have their own special abilities, to help you accomplish that role, of running in and taking space, and, um entering onto sites.And the same goes for if you want to uh play smokes,uh each of these heroes have their own unique way of smoking off certain, power positions on a spot on the on the site.You can choose to be a bit more of a supportive player in the sense of, setting up your duelist, for, uh entering onto sites with flashes, and things like that with the, different initiators,the different initiator roles.Um and you can also be gathering info.

There’s a lot of cool unique abilities, um across the different characters of this game.And depending on if you like to kind of lurk around, cover flanks,that sort of thing on attack, or if you really want to lock down a site,um provide support to your team, you can also be um part of the the sentinels.Compare that here to Counter-Strike where, um each player has access to the same equipment,the same utility.Everyone is pretty much on an even playing field.Um you aren’t limited by your character as to what you’re able to do.Um for example,let’s say I have this close spawn and I want to go take a duel fast.Um I’m not necessarily, throwing by just running out and trying to take this duel quickly, and trying to duel players at the top of ramp here.Um if I was a sentinel on Valorant,um that might be a little bit, more of a risky thing to do because, my character is not equipped, to make those kind of plays.This lets uh Counter-Strike be a little bit more free, in what role that you’re playing.

Um let’s say you’re having an off day,you’re not really hitting the shots that you want to be doing.Um if you have been playing the last 500,000, hours of Valorant where you are a duelist,um if your aim is not particularly on that day,you might just have a bad day, overall where you’re not finding, the impact that you typically, see on, your games um because if you are queuing it to duelist,you’re entering on a site and you just can’t hit your shots,you’re not going to be having such a great time.Whereas in Counter-Strike here, if you are not particularly having a great game,maybe you’re not you’re not hitting your shots like you normally do,um you can kind of transition to a different style of role where, maybe you’re not being the entry or the second in.Maybe you’re being more of the support player where you’re throwing more smokes,more support you till for your team.This lets the roles be much more dynamic.It’s not specific, I’m the entry guy.It’s how is everyone playing?

What’s everyone comfortable playing?Um and how can we mold and adapt our team in order to win?One of the common complaints that I see on Valorant specifically, is that my duelist are always baiting,they’re never running in.Um in Counter-Strike,you can’t really have that problem because your teammates can be baiting you.If I’m the last person to walk up into apps,they’re all sitting here and I’m still the first one to go out,maybe they are baiting me, but maybe that’s what they’re comfortable doing.Um and I can adapt and I can play that role of the entry.Where I can jump out of the window here,I can try and spot for enemies that are playing, get right or jail.Um and then my teammates can hopefully come out and trade me.Um I’m not locked into, well,I’m a sentinel, my duelist are sitting here,so, we’re just going to sit here, with our dick in our hands until they decide to do something.The next big thing that is going.

Community & Toxicity

to have a major impact on your, games is the community of either, game.Um and unfortunately,there is a lot of toxicity rampant in both Counter-Strike and in Valorant,um but they kind of take on different forms.Um in Counter-Strike,uh a lot of the toxicity that you’re going to encounter is very straightforward,very direct, and um as such,it’s going to be very glaringly obvious when it’s happening.People are going to be throwing slurs around, people are going to be homophobic,people are going to be anything and everything you might imagine under the sun.Um Valve does not really monitor their chat.And they also don’t monitor the voice comms to, see are these people being mean to, their teammates.If someone is particularly bad and has a lot of voice abuse, reports on their profile,they will show up on the leaderboard as silenced.You can go and remove, that silence from them so you, can listen to them if you want, to hear that kind of thing.But this really doesn’t happen all that often.

It’s only really reserved for people who are like worst of the worst,bottom of the barrel kind of people.Here in Valorant, Riot is much more on top of player communication,whether that’s in the text chat or over voice comms.They monitor that sort of thing and they look for abuse.Anything that Counter-Strike doesn’t do a good job of monitoring for,Riot does a good job of looking for it.This does lead to sort of an underhanded, way of speaking to each other in the game,where people still are being kind of mean to you,but in such a way where there’s plausible deniability.And that’s where the sort of Valorant accent stems from,where people are being very underhanded,but in such a way to make it seem like they’re trying to improve the team,but not really.>> So are we wanting to win around and actually want to win the game or Gekko, gets more than three kills in round one?>> Wait, what did you say?>> Well, how I get [ __ ] immortal one Ascendant players in my game,

but >> Good [ __ ] Gekko literally bought HIS ACCOUNT.>> YIPPEE.>> [laughter] >> 4 AND 14?>> Need a drop.>> Oh my god.>> Balling.>> Didn’t even check the corner, you dumb [ __ ] >> [ __ ] that.Look at the bot.>> He literally caged me off.>> That just runs out of spawn and looks at nothing.>> It is very common in this game and, it can be kind of maddening to have people tell you that you’re stupid, without actually saying, what you just did was stupid.Like it’s not a good feeling to get those kind of underhanded comments.Granted, neither is being told that you’re a slur or anything like that,um,but, it’s just a different form of toxicity that you might encounter in this game.

Skins

Last thing I want to touch on are the skins between the two games.There are a lot of skins that have a lot of overlap between the two games.Um, for example here,um, this is uh,Valorant’s form of the Karambit or Talon knife.Um, looks pretty nice,you know, has the nice effect going on the blade.Um, and you can have some crazy skins for your guns,too.Uh, for example,one of the Vandals that I have is just straight up a dragon, you know,having a an AK that’s just straight up a dragon is pretty cool.Um, you know,it has uh, cool effects for it.Um, where you were shooting,it’s shooting out of its mouth, and then when you go to reload,it’s eating the magazine, you know,there’s um, so many cool skins in this game,um, and it’s just kind of a a a real pleasure to to look at them.Despite what anyone says, skins are pretty important part of the game.You’re going to be looking at, these certain set of pixels on your screen for a lot of hours on the game,

depending on which one you want to dump your time into.Um, and yeah,they’re a cool way to spice up your inventory.One thing that is very clear with the Valorant skin economy, um,if you can even call it that, is that,um, once you buy a skin,it is locked into your account.It’s yours forever, um,and you can’t resell it.You can’t recoup the money that, you dumped into the skin and, do anything you want with it.Once you buy whatever skin it is, you have that skin,that money went to Riot Games, went to John Riot.So, you can see here,I have a couple different um, AK Vandal skins.Um, they’re all pretty cool.These top three are the coolest, in my opinion,between uh, the dragon,the prime, or the the Reaver.Um, they all have very cool animations,um, but if I ever wanted to get rid of,let’s say, the soccer here,I think this is a cool skin, I could do without it.I can’t recoup the money that I dumped into the skin.It’s gone to John Riot, and I’m not getting it back.

The skins here on Counter-Strike are much more muted in comparison.Um, they still have decent vibrancy,but they look pretty nice to look at.Um, but my AK here,the Point Disarray, is probably one of the more, out there skins in my collection.Valve has released some more out there skins as of recently.They’re not nothing too crazy.They still kind of fall within what you would expect for Counter-Strike skins.But they are starting to push the envelope a little bit.For example, if we take a look at my CT skins,for example, my M4.I think there’s a pretty nice M4.You can see it has some nice engravings on it.But overall, the skins just aren’t as crazy.But one of the major benefits, with Counter-Strike skins is that you can resell them.If you buy a skin you don’t like it anymore,you can either sell them directly on the Steam Market and get some Steam, money back to it.So for example here, I could click on my M4,see how much it is worth on the market.So I could recoup that cost back in Steam itself.

Or what I could do is I can pull up an external site.So you can see here there’s skins that are being sold for real money value.You can take the skins that you have and, sell them to these sites or to other people, for above or below the price that you bought them at.So for example,if I want to look at that um M4 Griffin that I had in my inventory,you can see this one here.For a similar price is about 7 to 78 dollars on CS Money.It’s always a little bit less than, what it is on the Steam Market, just due to the nature that you, can pull these funds out and, do whatever you want with it.It’s not stuck within Valve’s ecosystem.I could pull out this money and just put it back into my bank account.There are many different sites that you can sell buy skins from.CS Money being one of them, Skins Monkey.You do need to be careful with whatever site that you’re choosing.Most of the big ones that you’ll hear about, CS Money,Skins Monkey, DMarket,they’re generally okay.

But don’t fall victim to a scam where you’re trading your skins away to, unknown bot and just losing that money forever.In my opinion,this is much nicer than just signing my money away to Steam or to Riot saying,“Here’s my money for a skin.” Um if I want to buy something,I could get that money back.I could put it back into my bank account.Um yeah, overall it’s a nice experience.

Outro

Those are the major differences in a nutshell.Let me know what I missed, uh what you think.Let me know if you’re staying on Valorant or if like me,you are staying on Counter-Strike.Feel free to drop a like if you are a Valorant shill,you hate Counter-Strike with all your guts,or if I missed something that is glaringly obvious, drop a dislike.Um just let me know what you think overall.Thanks for watching.

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