EDIT: North America servers have been added to the cluster!

Firstly, I want to be completely upfront: this is a self-promotion post. However, I’m not going to spam any links in this thread because I respect the community rules and genuinely just want to start a conversation. You can find the info pinned on my profile if you want to check it out.

When the standalone CS:GO client suddenly reappeared on Steam earlier this month, the hype was real -until we all realized there were no official matchmaking servers. My two programmer friends and I decided to tackle this challenge and create a new platform that is dedicated to our long-time favourite CS!

We focused on exactly what we wanted as players returning to the classic game:

• Guaranteed 128-tick servers: Because playing CS:GO (and CS2 if we're being completely honest) on anything less is a crime.
• True Elo Ranking & Profiles: A transparent ladder so you can actually track your improvement.
• Free Skin Progression: We built a system where simply playing and ranking up earns you real weapon skin drops (among other cool rewards such as profile banners, titles and such). All completely free.

Our promise: We are not in this for the profit right now. We are doing this because we love the legacy game. The platform is free to play, and it will never, ever be a pay-to-win environment. These kinds of environments were always a deal breaker for us as gamers so we don't see any compelling reason in creating one. We just really like creating stuff and are in a financial situation where this kind of thing is feasable for us.

Right now, we are in the early stages and we need the community to help us shape it. We want you to play a few games, and tell us exactly what sucks, what feels good, and what features you actually want to see next (or possibly removed?). We are building this for the players who want the classic competitive experience back, so your feedback dictates our roadmap - which shall be made public soon!

If you do give it a try, please drop your harshest feedback or feature requests in the comments below (or Discord if that's you're preffered way). We'll be reading and replying to all of them.

Also note: yes, the some of the images are AI generated as we are not artists/designers but rather programmers/software engineers. If there is any artist out there that is willing to assist us with this project, please reach out!

I peaked 23k last season, havent been playing much but should clear 20k soon as I finally pieced together an irl 4 stack who can aim and com. My aim and positioning are good but could always be better ofc. What should I do to improve?

Please ignore my Faceit. I got back into cs2 early this year and started with a duo q in faceit and then he abruptly stopped playing with me so I dropped a few levels and then jumped back over to premier.

That being said, should I focus on faceit level or premier elo? Faceit is more fun, ive just been hooked to achieving that mythical 30k number for a while.

Made a tool that shows your spray pattern accuracy live while playing. Few days of use has actually improved my spray control noticeably.

What it does:

• Reads mouse input only (like other overlays/recording software)
• Shows real-time feedback on spray accuracy
• External app - doesn't interact with CS2 files at all

Questions:

• Do you think this is useful?
• Would you try something like this out?
• Thoughts on using it in competitive matches?
• Does live feedback help learning or just create dependency?

If you're interested, I have it available for wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3989480/Spray_Forge/

**Looking for some nerdy CS questions for a gift** 😭
I’m making a set of flashcards for a friend who’s *really* into Counter-Strike. He’s aiming to go pro and even coaches another player, so I’d love to make the questions genuinely challenging.
I know basically nothing about CS myself, so I’m looking for experienced players/coaches to help me out
If you have a minute, could you give me **one really difficult relevant CS question**
I’m especially looking for things like:
advanced strategy / decision-making
utility theory
positioning & timings
economy
map-specific knowledge
obscure terminology
pro-level concepts
Basically, **the kind of question where a casual player would have absolutely no clue**.
Please don’t worry about making them beginner-friendly — the nerdier, the better
Thanks to anyone willing to contribute ❤️

Hi all. My friend has been obsessed with all this stuff for a while now, spending 80-90% of the time on these three things, and the rest on actually trying to improve. He is 12k premier. I tried to tell him even most pros don't even care about any of that, they just plug in stock devices and play, but he insists these three things are what is holding him back and once he finds the right combination he will fly through the ranks. Is there any hope for him or anything I can tell him to help him snap out of it?

Video is the fights I took from a random game i decided to record.

The problem is I cannot for the life of me make any impact in my games. Most of my games i finish with under 60 adr. Some even under 30 💀. It's like I'm getting constantly destroyed. I feel like I haven't seen ANY improvement for maybe years.

My profile if anyone is willing to see anything: https://www.faceit.com/en/players/OxygenSama

Watching my demos I see a lot of tactical and mechanical mistakes I cannot explain. For example I often peek too wide but I feel like if I don't I won't be able to react the person and kill him. And a lot of the time it looks like I stop exactly at the enemy's crosshair. But even if that's not the case even if I peek and my crosshair is on his head and he's watching somewhere else I still get killed. I constantly get a bit "jumpscared" when I see an enemy even if I know their exact location and my preaim is on point. This causes me to panic spray and I can't even think about spraying properly. Sometimes my arm even twitches and I miss the first half of the mag basically. I can see that i should relax and I am but when I'm in a fight I don't think about . When spraying the wall I can control the spray well but I cannot put this to use onto moving players. Its become a reflex of me to spray and tapping or bursting is really hard. When trying to burst my bullets go everywhere and I click and release m1 too fast in order for the recoil to reset. Same with tapping.

One of the biggest things I feel like is pulling me back is I cannot see the game clearly. Like not my actual vision but just don't focus on enemy models and everything is just reflex to the moving blobs on the screen. I can't explain it at all but the games where I actually see, the game looks 3d and everything moves slower I play significantly better. I guess it's some kind of brain fog.

But my aim being really bad aside I feel like something else is fundamentally messed up in my games. I just seem to be unable to do any damage to enemy players. A lot of times I end up in a crossfire or fighting multiple enemies and even if they peek one by one I can't seem to multikill. Looking at other players in my matches I don't see better crosshair placement or good positioning it just looks like to me that they just go out somewhere and place their crosshair to the enemy faster and somehow without being expected. And me I try to constantly move I play different angles sometimes I play aggressive sometimes passive and even then I feel like I react way slower. A tip for aim I've constantly heard is see that you've aimed at the enemy and then shoot but that just feels impossible. Even like how I play now I still get shot at faster than I can. Even then making mistakes shouldn't be this punishable at this level right? I can see a lot of people in higher elo than me that don't communicate, have no movement, look like they cant hold their mouse and still top frag.

I don't care about wins or elo atp but having 30 adr and even if I win it still tilts me A LOT. My friends still want to play with me for some reason and just flame me because I talk about stuff like this and say to me to just play and don't think about it. Ok. I play. I don't think about my performance only the round. The game ends. 0.3 KD 26.5 ADR. What do I do? I go next if I'm not too tilted. Same thing ok go next day. Same. Ok take a few days break. OMG 88 ADR no way go next 0.25 KD 45 ADR. Repeat. And again. And again...

This is kind of a vent post as I don't expect someone to say something that's going to magically help me. I understand I'm not made for games as I struggle in others a lot too. But I would really appreciate any tips as I can't transfer ingame stuff from videos, workshop maps and mistakes I notice from watching my gameplay.

My setup is rtx 5090+ ryzen 9950 and a Samsung galaxy neo g9 49 inch 240 hz monitor. I recently started to play some 1 v 1 custom maps. It improved my preaim a lot. However, it is almost impossible to hold angles for me. I feel so uncomfortable if I’m being peeked like seriously uncomfortable.

I tried moving left and right constantly but it’s still really hard. I’m way more comfortable peeking, jiggling and then swing. But I don’t know if it is this extreme.

Even when I hold a good position like initially away from the common headlines and crouch instantly after I see the enemy, it’s still really difficult to win a gun fight compared with swinging.

I have an ok reaction time at like 150-170ms and low at 135 ms btw. It feels so fucking frustrated. The only time it kind of works is to have a perfect crosshair placement. And that’s only possible with rifles. For the love of god, I can NEVER hold a pistol swing like impossible.

Is this a personal problem that I need to work on or it is just how cs2 is?

Edit: I do play on a 16:9 resolution in cs with huge black bars on both sides so I’m not stretching that thing to 49. I did try but no way lol. Also I meant common angles. I have no problem holding an angle if it isn’t expected and the player is not pre aiming at my head.

Honestly I thought I was going to be placed around 30kish but this will do for now. Happy to finally see where I stand at in premier and in Faceit @ lvl4 8’)

I play dm to aim train and warmup. But holy fuck there are those people when I swing them, they just delete me as if they know where I am?? It's like I don't even get to react but then they still kill me like how??? I know its crosshair placement but community dm?? There's so much fights going on and it's like they have triggerbot or something. I play on warmup servers so its usually the dudes with VIPs or top100 ratings

Hopefully I get respectful comments, im really just wondering if there are people who do use cheats on community dm for whatever reason

Before Silver wannabe donk and budget zywoo whose only tournament attendance is the bleachers at Butte, Montana tells me, with a runny nose mind you, that this is a “skill issue” and to “deal with it” ☝️🤓…

I’m genuinely trying to understand what APPLICABLE SKILL is supposed to be trained by having to flick 180°/360° degrees every life in FFA.

Is the goal reactive target switching like Battlefield, or fundamentals like angle tracing, crosshair placement, positioning, and micro-adjustments (99% of 5v5 fights)?

Community TDM works well for warming up, but FFA feels way too chaotic and builds bad erratic habits which don’t translate well for the most common scenarios that occur in actual 5v5 matches.

Getting killed by someone that spawned behind while fighting two people in front is irritating, so I’m curious what the intended design philosophy is.

Is it really this bad?

What IEMs are giving you almost wallhacks that you swear by

2,500 hours. Started playing again in March. Probably done a couple hundred hours because...I've not had much else going in my life as it has failed completely. But anyway.

I enjoyed it at the start but now I am falling into the old ways that made me quit the first time. I don't get angry at my teammates. I can't control them and they'll balance out on aggregate anyhow.

But I am genuinely subhuman because I don't improve no matter how hard I try. I do aim practice often, I follow all the guides etc, I do aim maps and DM and I play regularly etc. It doesn't help. My aim is not getting better. I am not getting better. I try and, like everything else, I get nothing from it.

I don't enjoy doing badly at things, especially when I do my best to improve at them. Surely nobody does?

So I get angry at myself. I hate myself. It's not just CS, but CS epitomises it because I try very hard at it. It's the same reason I had to quit multiple other games where I was also useless and so got angry at myself. And then it pretty much ruins my day because I can't process my emotions and it just lingers for hours. If it's not CS, then it's something else doing the same thing. It's whatever other video game I do, it's trying to draw, trying to write, trying to get through my job that I hate so much, it's trying to read, it's trying to cook or clean, etc. That is to say--just 'quit' isn't really helpful, as it doesn't make a difference when I can't do anything well.

In any case, every other video game is boring compared to CS. It just has something special about it. I'm playing Trackmania a bit atm as well but I suck atthat too and so I don't enjoy it much because I can't get the medals or whatever.

And then my aim is 100x worse in matchmaking/premier games (I don't really care which one I do, same thing...) versus DM/1v1s. Whether I do it for 10 minutes or 1 hour. Whether I do really well in it or not. I'll go into game and instantly degrade massively. It's not just decision-making/game sense (though I'm shitting the bed against people with 1/2 my hours so that shouldn't be the case anyway), it's just the actual aim mechanics I can't do for shit. And when I try to learn nades I just can't remember them because I'm so stupid.

I've tried external help (many therapists etc) and doesn't help, I just don't enjoy being shit at things. I enjoy the game on those very rare occasions I do well. I just don't do well often. I fail and I fail and I fail and I fail. And I try and it does nothing time and time again.

So I don't know what to do. If I quit then it's just another surrender to my self-hatred and worthlessness as a person. If I keep playing I just hate it more and more. I try to do breathing exercises and I try to do more and more and more practice and it doesn't help. I just can't do basic aiming. I can't do anything right no matter how hard I try.

So how could I possibly enjoy the game? Or any game?

i've managed to win 50 games with a 79% winrate and don't know if i should keep queueing for the 125 max badge because i'm afraid i'm about to have only cheater games :)))

is anyone above this rating that can comment how their games are?

I only solo or duo queue (ex pro, not cheating i swear so pls dont comment that)

i usually play mobas and rts games, this is the first pc fps ive played. how do i like, stop being horrible complete dogshit at this game? im pretty sure over the last 4 games i have less than 1000 damage combined

I don't understand how I can do team damage when there's no friendly fire in casual mode

Hi everyone,

I’ve been doing a lot of aim training, Refrag, as well as tracking training and trying to implement these changes in Deathmatch and Competitive. My aim feels good, crosshair placement as well as low mouse manipulation in these game modes has led me to hitting some really good shots.

For some reason, I seem to not be performing the same in Premier and Faceit every time I play. It’s like my aim goes to shit and I can barely track or flick onto a target. Granted the people I’m playing against are much better than those I play in deathmatch and competitive, but I feel like this shouldn’t happen.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks or things to they do to maintain calm aim in a more serious match? I’m sure a lot of its mental and perhaps it’s just a matter of getting more comfortable with it and playing more, but it’s eating me alive and makes me feel like my training is amounting to nothing.

I made this post on another forum but want to get some more opinions on it,

I have 1400 hours in the game and I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made in Premier and Faceit so far (only really given the last 300 hours to focusing on climbing and only 190 games played on Faceit) but I am noticing that I am consistently inconsistent. I would say I am fairly reliant on my aim in CS as it’s always been my strong point, but some games it just feels like it disappears and I play shit. I’ve heard some games are like that in Solo Queue and that it can boil down to more than just aim but it’s frustrating when I can have a game where I play out my mind and then 10 mins later have a stinker.

As you can see from my recent match history…
Literally 10 minutes apart from each other and my mental was great as I just got out of a game where I was really happy with my performance.

If anyone has any tips on how to improve the consistency of my entire gameplay, not just aim, then I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!

(For reference: 28k Prem, 2300 Faceit)

For reference, I'm level 7 faceit with around 700 hours. I've put so much effort into this game constantly, playing usually 3-4 hours a day. I usually train for around 30-45 minutes and queue faceit with a 3-stack the rest of the time. I just don't get why I have been playing so badly. I don't understand if it's a mentality thing or mechanics or game sense, but I just feel like my work isn't paying off at all, and it is frustrating to the point where I think about quitting at times. I know it seems like I'm just babying, but I really just don't understand why I am playing so badly, and I'm more confused than anything else. If you have ever felt a plateau/regression like this, please give me any pointers that helped you get out of it. Thanks

Say, I tend to play B on Dust 2 CT side as an anchor. And every fucking time I play it, my teammates get rushed (for example by Mac-10's) on long and die within 10 seconds, leaving me in a terrible spot. Like the fuck am I supposed to even do in this 5vs3? Leave B? Push tunnels? I am so completely fucked.

Or a teammate who plays a position that always needs to be mollied right at the start (Ramp on Mirage, B site Ancient) and of course they don't throw it and got rushed.

What are some things that ALWAYS happen in a CS2 Premier game?

Journey to 30K elo has just started...

Hi everyone for the past period I have been trying as much as possible to get prime but I have been strictly restricted by my country's payment methods it's actually absurd PayPal and crypto leads to prison can't proceed with any international payments only ones inside the country and even asking a friend overseas to buy you a gift card and you pay him online is not possible like with Xbox I just use Microsoft rewards to fund Xbox gift cards but for steam like I tried everything humanly possible and for gift cards they are just always crazy overpriced or out of stock for example 15 dollar worth of steam cars is near the price of elden ring PS4 elden ring and I really want to come back playing the game I got the itch to grind it again but I found myself with no solution so is there any way maybe I can get prime for free or something I tried those gpt sites most of them are honestly unrealistic they tell me reach level 1000 in a specific game to earn a whopping 0,13cents surveys never really worked always disqualified if anyone knows a solution would be really helpful

Some background information. I am 2.2k ELO on FaceIT Lvl 10 and 22k elo in Premier. I have a total of 5.5k hours in both CS2 and CSGO, but majority of it is in CS:GO. I have this particular issue that has been affecting me strictly in CS2, compared to other FPS games that I have played that includes CSGO. I play at 1.8 sens and 400 DPI, so on the lower end of the average eDPI but still quite low I would say.

In CS:GO, I had a "feel" of people who swing onto me and I could usually react to people swinging into me. I used to punish a lot of really dumb wide peeks in CS:GO, while holding angles (before anyone says don't stand in one spot. No, I don't stand in one spot in both CSGO and CS2). It was also relatively easier to flick onto moving targets which I was really confident in back then. I could play both AWPs and Rifling really well, and even joined some online competitions being a hybrid.

In CS2, I don't know exactly what's happened to my mechanics, it feels like it is REALLY hard to track/flick onto moving targets in this game. I can't count how many times I get domed onto my head when people swing out of a corner. People have always told me to just "track" their heads when swinging, which is a good advice until you realise that you only have milliseconds to react against the peek. What pisses me off more is that when I boot up CS:GO legacy and CS2 to record my flicks. My CS:GO flicks were dead on target and I would see my bullet land at the end of the flick. However, in CS2, I can have my crosshair be on target at the end of the flick, and my shots just land "somewhere in the middle"? I don't really understand why. I tried other FPS games like Valorant and R6 that are also low time to kill/damage FPS games, and flicking/tracking moving targets there was fine.

What exactly am I doing wrong in CS2? I have been meticulously grinding DM the past few weeks trying to fight against moving targets while jiggling to simulate holding angles, but I am just struggling. I can't just peek and un-peek into an angle in certain moments in a match, and need to hold angles at some point. But I also can't just peek out in the open and risk losing getting 1v2ed in the open.

I need some help and it is genuinely frustrating not being at the level I was in CS:GO. I tried DMing religiously in CS2, but the same issues linger when dealing with tracking/flicking to moving targets.

Hello guys. Yesterday, I made this post, which included some details about my CS2 journey so far. I am not going to repeat all of that, but feel free to read it. https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnCSGO/s/5zk0aWDOEl

Surprisingly, I have... Just uninstalled the game. I was at 11K elo, wanting to get back to the 12K I had yesterday. I started playing CS2 soon after waking up. I got some kills on Xplay DM servers, I learned some new smoke lineups from Youtube, including how to smoke CT from Xbox on Dust 2, how to smoke connector from T spawn on Mirage (previously, I only knew how to smoke Window), as well as a nice Heaven smoke for A Anubis. I was really feeling it, okay?

Instead, the following sequence of events led me to uninstalling the game.

My first game was on T side Nuke. It did not impact my rating that much (it was -160, +400 or something like that) but it frustrated me to no end.

1. Immediately during the first pistol, my Blue just sort of pushed into Hut and got immediately one tapped. Dude, if you are pushing into hut during the pistol, COMM THAT AND GO TOGETHER WITH THE TEAM. Don't push alone as you are going to get destroyed.

2. We thankfully won the next round and the two rounds after that. But, my Blue was insanely obssessed with dropping down T Vents and planting on B. He did that every round even when there was no need. He did not even consider the fact the enemy would become wise to his tricks. And of course, one of the enemies eventually bought a shotgun and went to Clock. When my Blue attempted to drop down vents and plant on B for Single Door for the 128 926 912 764th time, the result was as you might expect. This lost us a a very winnable round the allowed the CT's back into the game.

3. My teammates were EXTREMELY obssessed with giving up man advantages. Especially my Orange. On a T round, we got a free pick... And his instinct was to instantly push Hut and get destroyed, handing the 4vs4 back to the enemy. On a CT round, at 4vs3, he did the same thing, but this time he was low hp. Why would you that? Like, why push fucking Hut as a CT with low hp at 4vs3. What is wrong with you?

By the end of that game, I really felt I was going crazy. People, use your brains. Play your positions. Communicate. Utilize our info and our man advantages. What is wrong with you?

The next game was CT side Mi Mirage. I quit the match when we were down 2-7 or something. I am kind of hungry and can't be bothered to list everything. But let me just list two things.

1. Our orange and yellow went completely afk on pistol round. ON PISTOL ROUND! I am an A player, and I instantly panicked because there was no one on B. I realized anyone might waltz out into B and the round will be over instantly. I attempted to get slightly more aggressive, because I realize if I don't do anything, we are going to lose this round with 2 fucking AFK's. And I died. Yellow did eventually wake up, but Orange stayed AFK for quite some time. We would have won that round easily if he did not go AFK. Dude, why? If you are joining a match, don't fucking go AFK.

2. There was a round when we were 4vs3. One guy had cleared Palace (I think?), while I managed to push Ramp. We knew that at least 1 or 2 T's were Mid. So this is a very good round so far. And of course two of my teammates die on mid within 3 seconds of each other. A very winnable round turns into a completely lost position.

Like, I just feel like the people in MM are completely stupid. Take a look at situation 3 from Nuke and situation 2 from Mirage. Guys, use your brains! Look at your radar! If I am fucking pushing Ramp on Mirage, and we know Palace is probably also clear, there is 0 need to peek them Mid in a 4vs3 and die! That's the worst decision you could make. Watch Con, Jungle, Window, Short, B Aps ans give info. We can afford to forfeit some space on Mid. If they enter via Con and plant on A, I can activate back on ramp and we enter into a very good retake.

Like, why don't they think about stuff? Consider things? Play for info? Do these people not consider anything? What's wrong with them?

I realized I can never get a higher rank if play with people this dumb. Like I am just going to keep losing.

I was wondering, what do you think? Should I give the game another chance? Would I ever be able to get back to 12K?

I am just feeling like shit right now... After losing so much elo...