Valve is putting a spoke in the wheels of CS: GO teams again – is it really necessary to ban coaches online?

It’s not the first time that coaches have been restricted

Valve has always believed that the original formula of Counter-Strike is five-on-five battles, and the goal of each tournament is to determine exactly the top five. Until 2016, some teams including Natus Vincere, used the trainer as an in-game coordinator, and this went beyond the concept of CS: GO. The developers intervened and introduced restrictions for mentors: the coach could only communicate with the players during the warm-up, switching sides and within four time-outs of 30 seconds per map. The company explained that without these restrictions, the mentor could have been considered the sixth player on the squad, as he influenced the course of the match too much.

It took a while for the community to realize what had happened, but in the end everyone came to terms and restructured the teamwork. And now, more than four years later, Valve again decided to put the spokes in the wheels and break everything that the teams have been working on for so long and hard.

How did it all start?

In the middle of 2023, information appeared on the network about a bug in CS: GO, which allows an observer of the match from anywhere on the map to watch what is happening from the side. Since the coaches were allowed to watch the match, they could take advantage of this vulnerability and report to their team information about the opponent. As it turned out later, the bug had existed for several years and some members of the scene even tried to report it to the CS: GO developers. However, at that time the problem was not so acute, since most of the tournaments were held in LAN format, where the referees always watched what was happening on the screens of all the participants in the match. During the pandemic, the scene switched to online format, and the issue with the bug became more relevant than ever.

The vulnerability in CS: GO was reported to ESL representatives, and they took this issue seriously. The organizers examined the problem and found that at least three coaches abused the mistake in the game. For this, they received locks for a period of six months to two years.

Later, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) took control of the situation, and the list of violators increased significantly. 34 more coaches received bans, including former NAVI mentor Andrey Andi Prokhorov and Sergey lmbt Bezhanovwho at that time was training forZe… The latter was acquitted and the blockade was lifted, but the others were unable to prove their innocence.

It is sad that even the mentors of eminent clubs, who succumbed to temptation and got what they deserved, were included in the list of guilty. For almost half a year, Valve did not react to the situation and only on January 28 decided to have its say – it prohibited the interaction of the mentor with the team during RMR matches and tightened the bans issued to coaches from ESIC. Now the whole CS: GO scene suffers because of violators, puffing for the mistakes of others.

Valve is the main culprit of the whole situation

Coaches who used the bug are already serving their sentences. For the entire CS: GO community, they became a vivid reminder that in any situation you need to play by the rules, otherwise there can be serious consequences. This was not enough for Valve: they decided to go their own way and simply eliminate those who may create similar problems in the future. No one is trying to justify the guilty, but there is one caveat: a bug in the game is primarily the fault of the developers themselves. They screwed up, didn’t keep track, didn’t fix the mistake for several years, and after the problem gained momentum, they kept silent for several months and then, without warning, struck the entire CS: GO scene. Valve didn’t even apologize for not noticing the bug right away, but simply turned to punitive measures, disregarding the opinion of the community.

Some may try to justify Valve by saying that the developers were too busy with other issues and did not know about the existence of the bug. Another problem of the CS: GO publisher immediately surfaced – the lack of communication with representatives of the professional scene. As it turned out, they tried to report the bug repeatedly. For example, the former coach of the Ninjas in Pajamas roster Faruk pita Pita showed a screenshot from a chat with Valve representatives, where told them about a bug with a camera back in 2018, but never received an answer. He tried to do this again in 2019 and even offered his help, but again did not receive an answer. The funny thing is that in the blog about the ban on trainers, the developers wrote that the vulnerability in the game became known only in September 2023.

After that, Pete criticized Valve for its indifference to the scene and invited the company to follow the example of Riot Games. He showed a screenshot of a channel with members of the professional Valorant scene on Discord, where studio representatives collect reports on bugs, feedback on the game, the scene, etc. I will say more: there are similar channels for influencers and the press, where everyone can share the problem they found in the game, and the developers will react almost instantly. In CS: GO and Dota 2, you can only dream of this. Lucky if a topic with a problem pops up on reddit and Valve pays attention to it.

It is noteworthy that not only the CS: GO scene suffers from Valve’s indifference, but also Dota 2. Players have been waiting for a response from the developers for a long time and do not always receive it. The disputes over the rights of streamers to broadcast matches lasted for years, and only at the end of 2023 Valve deigned to speak out and put forward the rules.

CS: GO developers could have taken other measures

ESIC resolved the bug, the perpetrators resigned themselves to punishment, and on the professional stage everything fell into place. Valve later decided to simplify the situation for itself and in order to avoid such problems in the future, it forbade the coaches to communicate and be in the same room with the squad during RMR matches. Well, mentors now definitely won’t be able to abuse bugs and give tips to their team, but have the developers thought about how this will affect the quality of the game and the CS: GO scene itself? Why not consider other options? For example, you can get coaches to record everything that happens on their screen and conversations with the team. I think you can find some alternative solutions and leave the scene’s ecosystem intact.

The question, rather, lies elsewhere: does Valve need it? Perhaps the company is no longer satisfied with the current influence of coaches on the outcome of the match, and it decided to impose a limitation for the time being only on the time of online tournaments to see how it will work. Or everything is much simpler – Valve is simply not up to the proceedings in the esports scene. Here are new rules for you, now there will be fewer problems with coaches, and then figure it out yourself.

How was the news received in the community?

Most of the CS: GO competitive scene condemned Valve. Some noted that the perpetrators have already received what they deserve and that it is simply pointless to punish the entire community in this way. NAVI coach Andrey B1ad3 Gorodenskiy even put forward a comic theorythat the developers added a bug on purpose to weed out violators.

There were also those who were on the side of Valve. For example, the English-speaking caster Semmler supported the company’s decision. It explainedthat after restrictions since 2016, everyone understood perfectly well that coaches and sixth players were not at all what Valve wanted to see in CS: GO. The commentator Alexander Enkanis Polishchuk also spoke on this issue: he noted that in order to prevent such cases, the discipline should have a “permanent and competent regulator”. The idea is certainly great, but when will it finally reach Valve?

What are the consequences?

After the announcement of the new rules on social networks, the community began to urge representatives of the CS: GO esports scene to unite and oppose Valve. The idea was supported on Twitter by mentors from mousesports, Movistar Riders and Evil Geniuses, managers of Envy and OG. For example, Winstrike Team coach Dmitry hooch Bogdanov wrote the following:

The situation commented caster Alexey yXo Maletsky. He believes that the representatives of the scene are not ready to unite to influence Valve. At the moment, it is not known where all this will lead, whether everything will come together and whether they will be able to reach the developers. Of course, the option is not excluded that everyone will just come to terms with Valve’s decision again. In this case, the company will never understand that communication with the community is a necessary element for the development of the CS: GO and Dota 2 scene.

At least the new rule so far only applies to online matches within the RMR season – other tournament organizers have not yet imposed restrictions on their championships. In 2016, ESL immediately agreed with the new rules for coaches, and later the idea was taken up by other TOs. Perhaps this time it will be different.

So at the moment, representatives of the CS: GO scene have two main options: to reconcile and rebuild the entire team process, or still make Valve pay attention to themselves and learn how to make informed decisions taking into account the interests of all participants.