Esports
The most iconic map in Counter-Strike history is back in the competitive map pool, but renowned caster James Bardolph thinks that bringing it back in this state wasn’t the best idea.
There’s been no doubt that the last year or so of Counter-Strike has been one of the best when it comes to the pro scene. We have seen more teams win major events than ever before, the storylines have been incredible and the level of play has somehow continued to improve. But one thing has been missing. The most iconic CS map of all-time has not been played at a pro level, and the scene has never really felt right without Dust2 in the map pool.
But now that period is over, as Valve have decided it was the right time to take Cobblestone out of rotation and bring back Dust2, albeit with a few changes from the last time we saw it in the pro scene. There’s no doubt that quite a few teams were pretty happy with this change, as Cobble was one of the least played maps in the pool, but for some, the new look Dust2 isn't the saviour that promised to bring back a more diverse map pool. One of those people is CS:GO caster and creative director at FACEIT, James Bardolph.
“I'm not a fan [of Dust2] unfortunately,” says Bardolph. “I'm glad it replaced Cobble, I will say that, because I think you have to look at it from two different perspectives. One is the playability of the map, and the other one is the viewability of the map, and you have to have a compromise.”
“I think that of the current map pool, previous to Dust2 coming back in, I think that Cobblestone was the worst map from a spectator's point of view. So I'm not sad to see that disappear, but Dust2 coming back in, I have some issues with this.”
For years, Dust2 was one of the most consistently picked maps in the CS:GO scene, and the rework hasn’t really changed that much in terms of layout, with a lot of the changes seemingly being cosmetic. A few people were disappointed with how little has changed, but in theory at least, it should have meant that the map could come back into the rotation with no issues, as everyone already knows how to play it. However, some of the changes, despite seeming small, can cause some big issues.
“If you look at the old Dust2, if you look at catwalk towards A, you could see there were some design features with visibility in mind where I think the wall on catwalk is white up to and above head height, and then above that, you have a kind of sandy colour,” says Bardolph. “So the [player] models contrast better on the background. But a lot of that has been removed.
“Also around the B site, there are a number of issues. If you look at the headshot box, at the back of B, if you're standing from car, for example, and you're looking at the headshot box, depending on which model is there, it's very difficult to identify if someone is even standing there.”
“The same can be said for the box outside of the big doors; if someone is standing behind there, I think it's maybe the bald guy, if he's standing behind those boxes, you can only see his head, and if you're by CT or double doors looking over there, you almost can’t see him. So there are significant visibility issues. I have emailed those to Valve. I know that they've sent them to the team who are working on Dust2. So to see it in the map pool without it being attended to, I don't really understand why that's a thing.”
Of course, issues like this will be quite frustrating for the pro players, but the chances are that outside of a few situations, these kind of issues won’t have that much of an impact on the viewing public. After all we can usually see the player outlines on the HUD. But that isn’t all that has changed in the new Dust2. New areas have been added, corners have been tweaked and boxes have been moved. It’s not as drastic as some map reworks, but there are a few key changes and it feels like a lot of them haven’t worked out too well, or at least we haven’t discovered how they should work.
“I think they've made changes for the sake of changes, so that the game play is different,” says Bardolph. “For example, if you think of short in mid, it used to have a curved wall on the corner, so you could bounce a flash bang into short, so if somebody's up the stairs, you could pop flash them. They removed that, just so the game play is different, which I understand, but I think it took too much away. I feel like the gameplay won't really change too much. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I just don't feel like it would be very engaging.”
There are clearly some issues with Dust2, but we haven’t really seen the pro teams get their hands on it just yet, so we could end up being surprised by how different it ends up being. But what we won’t be seeing is anymore of Cobblestone, which made way for the reworked Dust2. Many people feel like Nuke should have been removed instead, as it’s generally the least played map, but for Bardolph, removing Cobble should make for a much more interesting viewing experience.
“With the current design of [Cobble], it's very limited what the CTs can do, and it's very difficult for them to get any information, it's very risky to try to flank someone and the design of the map doesn't really allow them to do much,” says Bardolph. “So at most, in most games, you might see somebody smoke the back of plateau and molotov the left hand side and take that area for a while, but beyond that, you're not really seeing the CTs do much but wait.”
“So there's a lot of standing around, and I feel like if you look at most other maps, the CTs can make more aggressive plays. So I just feel like in that sense, there isn't a lot of movement. Sometimes even physically, and so I think it can be somewhat stale from a viewer experience. Obviously the numbers might not say that because they have the Dragon Lore drops as well, but ultimately I think that other maps are more exciting in the map pool.”
The big talking point is if Dust2 should have come back, or if something else should have been tried. Bardolph suggested getting some more community made maps into the rotation, which would be an interesting proposition after the success of Cache, but he’s pretty confident that Dust2 is not the best option.
“I don't think Dust2 is the one,” concludes Bardolph. “We'll see how it plays out. I'd love to be wrong in that respect. I also think performance-wise as well, I mean, it seems to be pretty bad at the moment. So there's a lot of question marks around Dust2 for me, but it's coming into map pools pretty quickly, as we have seen from ESL's announcement. So we'll see how it plays out, I suppose.”
It will certainly be interesting to see how this does play out. During the final months of the old Dust2 being in the pro map pool, a lot of matches did feel very stale, with teams running the same strats they had been for years. This new rework will certainly prevent that for a while, but it remains to be seen how exciting the map can be when the pro players are on it – stay tuned.
