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Somewhat related and tangential to the thread, does anyone have an idea why CS feels so different compared to other FPS games? Despite playing the game since my

Somewhat related and tangential to the thread, does anyone have an idea why CS feels so different compared to other FPS games? Despite playing the game since my school days, I’m still about as good/bad as ever. Encountering an enemy gives roughly a 50% chance of me dying. However both in single player fps games (COD/far cry/GTA etc) as well as other multiplayer games (only COD to be honest) the game feels much more forgiving. It’s a weird thing from a game design perspective for me. One possible reason could be health regeneration but that ought to affect enemies as strongly too.

noelwelsh 2y ago
COD is designed to have a low skill ceiling, so casual players can feel like champions. For example, it has crazy high aim assist. See https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareII/comments/ykdqhs/aim_assist_isnt_overpowered/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareII/comments/ykdqhs/aim... So you don't need much actual skill at aiming. Plus weapons generally have huge magazines relative to the number of shots needed to kill people, so you can spam fire and will usually get a kill. CS is designed to basically be the opposite.
- eternityforest 2y ago
  Which is off because CS Go runs on anything. It's one of the very few FPSes I've ever played since so many seem to require a graphics card. But it's not exactly all that enjoyable unless you have great coordination and reaction time.
Buttons840 2y ago
More casual shooters might have auto-aim, especially on console. CS is very fast and twitchy compared to more mainstream shooters. Also, CS has recoil that moves you cursor / aim point. Other games might only have bullet spread. It's an interesting decision whether or not recoil should extend to UI elements like cursor position, in CS it does. One result of this is skilled players can move their cursor just right and counteract the recoil, potential putting every bullet on target like a laser beam, but I don't think any human can fully realize that potential.
sdwr 2y ago
CS feels more punishing? I think the answer is a combination of factors. - TTK (time to kill) is very, very low. Without a helmet, all pistols 1shot headshot from <= medium range - Accuracy while moving is reduced - The default mode is 5v5 no respawns - No gamification rewards (unlocks, killstreaks) to distract from the pain of dying This all works together to make the game feel more "precise" and less "fun"
jdietrich 2y ago
Time to kill. In most FPS games, a single shot does relatively little damage. A typical weapon in Apex Legends or CoD takes about 0.8 seconds to take a player down to zero health. If you're losing a firefight, you'll often have the chance to retreat, heal and re-engage unless your positioning is very poor. In CS, many weapons are capable of killing in a single shot and most are capable of a kill in less than 0.1 seconds. If you carelessly blunder into the crosshairs of a player with good aim, you'll probably die before you've had time to react. This is a deliberate design decision, because it raises the skill ceiling. You can get away with errors in positioning and game sense at a lower level, because your opponents are likely to have poor aim; as the standard of aim improves at higher levels of play, tactical errors are punished with increasing severity.
omnimus 2y ago
Besides what everybody says there is also slight difference between engines in terms how they behave. I used to be “progaming” going on tournaments in quake 3 and then COD1 and 2. They are all on same quake engine and feel very similar with different timing. The way of the counterstrike source engine feels is different in a way i never fully absorbed. Also the gunplay is different you might have the pure aim (aim at target and click) but im CS you have to compensate for the each gun and really know them. In quake it basically shoots where you point no matter if you are running or in middle of a jump. Other games have aiming down the sights. That is a lot more forgiving and transferable skill than in CS.

noelwelsh 2y ago

COD is designed to have a low skill ceiling, so casual players can feel like champions. For example, it has crazy high aim assist. See https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareII/comments/ykdqhs/aim_assist_isnt_overpowered/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareII/comments/ykdqhs/aim... So you don't need much actual skill at aiming. Plus weapons generally have huge magazines relative to the number of shots needed to kill people, so you can spam fire and will usually get a kill. CS is designed to basically be the opposite.

eternityforest 2y ago
Which is off because CS Go runs on anything. It's one of the very few FPSes I've ever played since so many seem to require a graphics card. But it's not exactly all that enjoyable unless you have great coordination and reaction time.

Buttons840 2y ago

More casual shooters might have auto-aim, especially on console. CS is very fast and twitchy compared to more mainstream shooters. Also, CS has recoil that moves you cursor / aim point. Other games might only have bullet spread. It's an interesting decision whether or not recoil should extend to UI elements like cursor position, in CS it does. One result of this is skilled players can move their cursor just right and counteract the recoil, potential putting every bullet on target like a laser beam, but I don't think any human can fully realize that potential.

sdwr 2y ago

CS feels more punishing? I think the answer is a combination of factors. - TTK (time to kill) is very, very low. Without a helmet, all pistols 1shot headshot from <= medium range - Accuracy while moving is reduced - The default mode is 5v5 no respawns - No gamification rewards (unlocks, killstreaks) to distract from the pain of dying This all works together to make the game feel more "precise" and less "fun"

jdietrich 2y ago

Time to kill. In most FPS games, a single shot does relatively little damage. A typical weapon in Apex Legends or CoD takes about 0.8 seconds to take a player down to zero health. If you're losing a firefight, you'll often have the chance to retreat, heal and re-engage unless your positioning is very poor. In CS, many weapons are capable of killing in a single shot and most are capable of a kill in less than 0.1 seconds. If you carelessly blunder into the crosshairs of a player with good aim, you'll probably die before you've had time to react. This is a deliberate design decision, because it raises the skill ceiling. You can get away with errors in positioning and game sense at a lower level, because your opponents are likely to have poor aim; as the standard of aim improves at higher levels of play, tactical errors are punished with increasing severity.

omnimus 2y ago

Besides what everybody says there is also slight difference between engines in terms how they behave. I used to be “progaming” going on tournaments in quake 3 and then COD1 and 2. They are all on same quake engine and feel very similar with different timing. The way of the counterstrike source engine feels is different in a way i never fully absorbed. Also the gunplay is different you might have the pure aim (aim at target and click) but im CS you have to compensate for the each gun and really know them. In quake it basically shoots where you point no matter if you are running or in middle of a jump. Other games have aiming down the sights. That is a lot more forgiving and transferable skill than in CS.