https://www.cybersport.ru/counter-strike-go/articles/valve-pochemu-ancient-zachem-zamenili-train-i-kakie-karty-mogli-dobavit-v-sorevnovatelnyi-pul-cs-go

Why did Valve remove Train?

The first question that almost all CS: GO fans ask is: “Why did Valve decide to remove Train from the map pool?” Most likely, this happened due to matchmaking statistics. On average, Train (on Valve’s official servers) is played by 6-10 thousand people, while Mirage, which has not radically changed since 2013, is played by up to 120 thousand people a day. Since Train was the least in demand among players, replacing it was the most logical decision, despite how much the old Counter-Strike loves this legendary map.

On the professional stage, the situation is similar. Statistics shared CS: GO streamer and caster under the nickname Voo. He reckoned that Train was in seventh and last place in popularity among the top 10 and top 30 teams. This indicator is higher only in the sample from the top 20: there Train was in sixth position, and Vertigo was in seventh, which practically does not change the situation.

In addition, Train needed some balance adjustments. According to statistics from HLTV.org, 54.7% of the rounds were won by the defense on average, while this figure for the attack is 45.3%. From this it becomes obvious why Valve took on the reworking of the map.

Will Ancient be able to become “his” in the card pool?

Ancient was added to CS: GO along with Operation Broken Fang in December 2023. Fans immediately remembered the legendary de_aztec, which has a similar visual style. Despite the interesting design, not everyone liked the concept of the card. For example, commentator Alexey yXo Maletskiy then noted that Ancient was absolutely not suitable for a competitive mode, and also pointed out problems with the balance.

Ancient is simply awful for the competence. The textures are cool, jungle, water, bridge, beautiful, but the gameplay is stupid. Why is it so difficult to make a strategically balanced map? Take the same Tuskan or Kesh with Dust as a reference, stretch the textures and that’s it!

– yXo (@ yxo7) December 5, 2023

Almost six months after that, his opinion on this matter has not changed.

If now the professional community swallows this change in the map pool, then nothing will save us. Ancient is a card that is not suitable for competitive mode. Decision makers clearly don’t understand the competitive scene.

– yXo (@ yxo7) May 4, 2023

The card was not very popular in matchmaking. On average, 3-4 thousand people have played on Ancient since the release. Of course, there are those who have never visited this map, but only heard about it or seen it in the matchmaking list. Ancient’s esports meticulousness has never been studied by anyone, so the teams have a lot of work to do.

Will the card be in demand on the professional scene? Let’s look at the example of Vertigo, which was added to the pool in 2019. In tournament matches, teams often still ban her. According to statistics, among the seven competitive maps over the past two years, Vertigo was the least popular. Initially, most professional players did not welcome the appearance of the map, and many still want to get rid of it, although Valve tries to balance and refine Vertigo based on the wishes of the players.

At the same time, users were able to get used to Overpass, although initially a wave of criticism hit the map. In 2018 and 2019, she was in the top 5 of the pool in the competitive scene. In matchmaking, Overpass is in fourth place in popularity, which is also a good indicator. This confirms that Ancient may well take root in the competitive card pool, but still, at the moment, it is not ready for tournament matches and requires careful refinement based on feedback from esports players.

Valve to work on Ancient

First of all, developers will need to do optimization. Even on powerful PCs, players noticed a significant drop in FPS in some locations on Ancient, which is an important factor for CS: GO.

In addition to optimization, Valve will need to think carefully about map balance, but for this the developers will need game statistics. For this reason, Ancient will not be included in the card pool of the upcoming RMR series tournament – this is necessary so that the developers have time to collect the necessary data in matchmaking.

Naturally, the first time on Ancient players will encounter bugs. One of them has already been shared by NAVI sniper Alexander s1mple Kostylev: you can see your opponent through the gap, but in its place is an invisible texture, which makes it impossible to kill the enemy. It will also take time to identify and eliminate such errors.

First bug found by @electronicCSGO pic.twitter.com/F8r4PoCe7z

– Sasha (@ s1mpleO) May 4, 2023

Players also noticed problems with the skins of some characters, which are poorly visible against the background of the environment on Ancient. Here Valve will either have to work on the lighting and color scheme of the map, or change the shades of the operator skins, thus risking ruining the situation on other maps.

What other options were there to replace Train?

To freshen up the map pool, Valve could add Aztec, which visually resembles Ancient. It has been familiar to players since the Counter-Strike beta and has been redesigned for Global Offensive. In 2017, the map was removed from CS: GO due to low popularity and insufficient balance, promising to rework and return, but things are still there.

Another option could be Cobblestone. This map has played many legendary matches in the competitive scene, but in 2018 it was sent back for revision. The updated version was shown during the Halloween event, but the players criticized the result of Valve’s work, and she never returned to matchmaking. The further fate of Cobblestone is unknown.

What about Cache? She was one of the most popular maps in the competitive CS: GO scene. In 2015, Cache was in the lead, in 2016 it dropped to the second line, and then, before being sent for processing, it was consistently in the top 4 in terms of peak frequency in the professional scene. In October 2019, an updated version of Cache became available for download from the Steam Workshop. One of its developers said that the attack side had a slight advantage in the current version, which is why it was decided to change it, but it was not returned to the Cache card pool even after the update.

For several years, Counter-Strike fans have been waiting for the Tuscan remaster, and in April the map was added to the Steam Workshop. It is still being finalized, and there is still no exact information about its future. Nevertheless, Valve could wait until the end of work on Tuscan and please players with the return of the legendary map – in that case, the flurry of criticism would clearly have been weaker.

If the CS: GO developers wanted to refresh the pool with a completely new map, then Anubis could be an excellent option. She appeared in the shooter in the spring of 2023 and has garnered many good reviews on the Steam Workshop since that time. The rating of the map in the Steam Workshop is 5/5, but Valve for some reason decided to remove it from matchmaking, and instead, Apollo and Engage add Grind and Mocha.

From the old maps, Italy or Assault would perfectly fit into the competitive pool, which could diversify the gameplay of the scenario with the planting of the bomb and the release of the hostages.

It is always difficult to get used to innovations, but it is possible. Even if most of the CS: GO community opposes changes, Valve never reconsiders their decisions, so it’s worth breathing out and at least giving Ancient a chance. Ultimately, after feedback and player statistics, we can get a great map that will give us a lot of cool new highlights.