There's a grey area in CS:GO, that lies somewhere
between legitimate play and cheating. I'm
talking about scripts, where you get the computer
to do stuff for you to make your life easier.
This could range anywhere from buying weapons
at the press of a button -which I think we'd
all agree is okay- all the way to autofire
and bunnyhop scripts.
It's easy to see why this can be controversial-
it gives players an advantage. I've covered
this before in previous videos and have even
used them myself, using a script that makes
me run forwards, jump and then throw a grenade
perfectly every time so all I have to do is
to get into the correct starting position
to pull it off.
The real question is, where do you draw the
line? What counts as cheating, and what's
simply making the most of little advantages
that, if you don't use, somebody else will?
A number of mice, for example, have an auto-fire
button and many more can be programmed to
help to spam the jump button to help you to
bunnyhop across the level. Are these devices
supposed to be banned by Valve? How would
they even enforce this?
I suspect that tournaments will ban the use
of certain scripts, but in online play it'll
probably remain a free-for-all. People are
going to continue to use them unless Valve
does something about it.
In my opinion, they should. But instead of
banning the use of scripts, we need to see
WHY people use them and whether they are,
in fact, a sign of broken game mechanics.
If people need a script to throw a certain
grenade, then perhaps that's because the jumping
system is inconsistent. If bunnyhop scripts
help us, then maybe -once again- it's CS:GO's
jumping mechanics that need changing. If Valve
really wants to counter scripting, they need
to remove the advantage that these scripts
give us. We need to see them as a symptom
of an underlying problem with the game.
Take autofire, for example. You'd think it
would give you a huge advantage, but it rarely
does because of the way accuracy works in
the game. In fact, with most weapons we deliberately
try to limit how much we shoot- though I find
the tec9 is an exception and is currently
super fun to use in autofire mode. Which probably
says more about the tec9 than it does about
autofire.
I think the same principle should be applied
to grenade throwing binds. They don't exactly
take away from the skill- you still have to
research and memorise these throws, after
all- but they do remove the luck element.
Why should there even be this random aspect
to it in the first place? A few weeks ago,
Olofmeister from Fnatic asked for jump scripts
to be banned and Reddit agreed. But I don't
see that as a proper fix- those looking for
the advantage will still find ways around
it.
For cheating, Valve has VAC to act as a deterrence,
but I don't think they need to go that far
to deal with scripting- since it would catch
out a lot of potentially innocent users. We
should see the use of scripts not as a cheat,
but as a sign that the original game isn't
automating a function that should be. Anders
raised a good point- he said that they should
make non-scripted jump throws consistent so
that, with practice, anybody could rely on
them. This would both render scripts obsolete
and would improve the game at the same time!
Everybody loves seeing a cool smoke. Valve
simply needs to make learning scripts more
hassle than learning how to do the same things
without them. And if that results in a play-style
that doesn't fit in with the theme of CS:GO,
then what's it doing there in the first place?
And the same applies to bunnyhopping- the
ultimate grey area. Anybody who says they
can pull it off every time is lying. There
is a skilful element to it but also way too
much luck involved in landing even a handful
of consecutive jumps. Scripts - and worse
- are just begging to be used! Valve have
already majorly nerfed bunnyhopping when compared
with Source. I say that they should either
do away with it entirely, or make it easier
for somebody willing to practice bunnyhops
to be able to do it without these aids! Hopefully
this can be resolved without destroying bunnyhop
servers. I don't see why they should be caught
in the crossfire of something that isn't theirs
to deal with.
But back to competitive, it's simply asking
for trouble to have a feature like bunnyhopping
in a game, then expecting people using Overwatch
to determine whether they think it's automated
or not. I dread to think of how many false
positives there have been from this system.
It's a sign of broken game mechanics (and
a fussy audience) and the problem isn't going
to go away until Valve changes how the game
works.
