There is hardly a person familiar with computer games who has not heard about the most powerful sniper rifle in the CS:GO world – the iconic AWP. In the game itself, the description of the weapon in question is reduced to emphasizing its lethality and actual effectiveness, as well as an easily recognizable sound that literally reverberates through the entire map. Also, there is one well-established rule regarding WUAs – one shot, one corpse.
On the World Wide Web, you can find a huge number of all kinds of movies, cuts and highlights from ordinary gamers and professional cybersportsmen making unimaginable frags using AWP. This is not least due to the popularity of snipers, who have a solid fan base, whose representatives strive to be like their idols. In addition, the gameplay itself with a sniper rifle appeals to players due to the ability to vary their style of play from round to round, deciding the fate of the match with just one shot.
What has changed?
In order to maintain the right balance in the game, developers periodically have to make changes to existing weapons, improving or worsening their characteristics. So in 2015, a truly devastating blow was dealt to the beloved WUA. The released update significantly reduced the speed of movement of a player with a sniper rifle in their hands. If you switch to the aiming mode, then the player’s avatar begins to move at a snail’s speed.
Most of all, it affected skillful players who profess an aggressive style. Several top snipers of those times expressed their real horror at the innovations at once. But no wave of criticism could change the initial decision of the developers. In their opinion, the patch that was released then was a necessity, because the AWP was and remains an unbalanced weapon and something needs to be done about it. Below we attach an excerpt from an interview with French sniper kennyS right after the end of Dreamhack Summer 2015.
How was it for you to experience all this?
In fact, even then I did not feel very well, I lost confidence, lost my shape. But after I tested the update, I said to myself “No, they’re joking, this can’t be.” It was a very difficult time, but like I said, the more you play, the more you get used to it.
What’s next
Despite any changes introduced to the game earlier, the WUA remains a formidable weapon that can decide the fate of not only a single round, but the entire game. Spectators see it and professional players constantly talk about it. For example, in a recent interview, the current captain of “Gambit” nafanya told Arseniy ceh9 Trynozhenko that it would be a normal decision to leave only 5 rounds in the magazine of a sniper rifle. In his opinion, this would take away the ability of snipers to make an unimaginable number of shots, flashing through all the surfaces on the map.
There is a rational link in this, because the weapon should not forgive the mistakes of both the opponent and its owner. And if every shot is worth its weight in gold, then players will have to more deliberately manage the available resources. In any case, discussions about the balance of the sniper are getting hotter every month, which means that the developers will eventually have to respond and make changes at the request of the gaming community.
