The massive swell of players returning to CS:GO in the wake of the CS2 announcement has subsided and the game’s competitive matchmaking mode has easily been hit the hardest.
Whether it’s the players who gave up trying to get CS2 access by playing on official servers or it’s the players who don’t want to bother playing CS:GO until the highly anticipated sequel/update releases, the game’s player base has taken a dip in recent months, although it still easily holds the top spot among games on Steam.
This inadvertently has led to a severe quality drop in ranked matchmaking due to an influx of cheaters and smurfs. Due to the lower quality, the number of participating players has dropped, meaning the matchmaking has to reach into more distant ranks to put lobbies together.
The above image is from a North American lobby, with the winning team consisting of two Legendary Eagle players, two Gold Nova Three players, and a Silver Three player. The opposing team featured a Gold Nova player and a Global Elite player.
Related: CS:GO players say game has hit an all-time low, hope CS2 will fix it all
This has been a recurring theme in competitive matchmaking regions across the world, not just North America, but it’s an indication of a bigger quality concern with matchmaking overall. Many issues have been talked about at length by the community: more cheaters and smurfers, inconsistent play across multiple skill groups, and rank resets that completely destabilize the ecosystem.
Those problems have now accumulated and reduced the number of people wanting to play competitive, which has led to this latest problem. The quality of CS:GO matchmaking is likely to continue deteriorating until CS2 launches. But if the sequel comes out with some of the same issues listed above, then it will be a rocky launch, to say the least.
Published: Aug 11, 2023 11:09 am