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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is going through some changes, as Valve attempt to deal with the bad actors now it's free to play with big changes to non-Prime accounts.

Prime, for those unaware, is a type of account status for CS:GO, given to all when CS:GO went free to play to enable a special matchmaking pool for Prime users. Additionally, you could pay for Prime or earn it through playing it.

Now though, there is no free path to Prime to help deal with "bad actors". On top of that, Valve has introduced Unranked matchmaking. New players will no longer gain XP, drops or skill groups as all of those are exclusive to Prime Status players. If free players buy Prime in the next two weeks, Skill Group and XP progress will carry over but after that it seems it will vanish. Hopefully then, this will seriously slow down bots and give less incentive for hackers as they cannot just spin up a fresh account and mess with everyone - unless they pay.

So now Unranked mode will offer Competitive, Wingman, and Danger Zone with skill-based matchmaking but they won't earn anything. Prime players can also jump into Unranked if they wish, where their Skill Group will not be affected and there's no lobby Skill Group restrictions.

What do you think to these changes?

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8 comments

Pikolo Jun 4, 2021
That's a monetization change, not a cheating prevention change.
einherjar Jun 4, 2021
Prime is too cheap to prevent cheating that way. But it will reduce it a small bit perhaps.
aukkras Jun 4, 2021
QuoteWhat do you think to these changes?

They don't matter when CS:GO doesn't run due to this bug: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2659
fagnerln Jun 4, 2021
I never understood why non-prime become prime for free.

This bypasses a barrier that can filter the players.

In order: VAC > Prime > Trust. VAC is a joke, Trust have issues and Prime was free.

Yeah, the price will not prevent the cheaters, but for sure, a lot of them can't afford alternatives accounts.
1xok Jun 4, 2021
Quoting: aukkras
QuoteWhat do you think to these changes?

They don't matter when CS:GO doesn't run due to this bug: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2659

CSGO has been crashing for months when I plugged in my Competition Pro (USB).
Liam Dawe Jun 4, 2021
Quoting: aukkras
QuoteWhat do you think to these changes?

They don't matter when CS:GO doesn't run due to this bug: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2659
Sad to hear that.

Runs fine here with this launch option:
Quotegamemoderun %command% -nojoy -novid
(Disabled gamepads as they make it crash, remove videos and gamemode for speeeeeed)

Takes forever to load though, always has on Linux.
a0kami Jun 4, 2021
I was going to comment on the Linux playing unreliability of CSGO, but ended up ranting about the full thing.
I guess it just broke my heart.

Spoiler, click me
CSGO has been working unreliably for a long time on linux. (at least it's native on linux but well...)
Crashes because of gamepads, occasional permanent lags during gameplay, alt-tab'ing take it to its knees...

And while I understand they got make money out of it, it's just a massive printing money machine, all their new content is timed exclusive and scarce so they get players with FOMO, they had operations and even a battle-pass but they can't even keep up to it, not to mention lootboxes and overprices keys. And now a monthly subscription for gameplay analytics they have anyway and came for free in most fps game 10 years ago ?!
Oh and by the way, when it got released it was just a re-skin of CSS but (free) mods and custom servers were turned into (paying) market items and lousy official game modes.

They've removed great original maps for no reason other than they overhauled their engine, so maps were maybe slightly incompatible. Which makes impossible to fulfil achievements on the stand-alone game, you have to download those through the workshop and, launch with bots, pray you'll get the map you're looking for or bring the console.

I'm offline farming the last few achievements I have left and I'm f****ing done with any multiplayer game from Valve until HL3.
DamonLinuxPL Jun 4, 2021
Quoting: aukkras
QuoteWhat do you think to these changes?

They don't matter when CS:GO doesn't run due to this bug: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2659

From what I see in this bug topic, it affects mainly Arch and derivates distros (like Manjaro). Also some people say Glibc 2.33 is to blame.
But some people on Ubuntu after updating GLIBC from 2.32 to the latest version 2.33 (which would be defective) say the game is still running.

Also it still works for me on OpenMandriva Cooker (tested also on Rolling release). Both with Glibc 2.33 and no crash at all. Maybe it is not related to c library but for somethings other. Maybe arch packaging issue or maybe arch carry any broken patch... Hard to say for now.


Last edited by DamonLinuxPL on 4 June 2021 at 12:43 pm UTC
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