The way Valve changed how HE grenades behave in CS2 might kill some of the plays Counter-Terrorists make, according to Ninjas in Pyjamas’ Fredrik “REZ” Sterner.
This is because the HE in CS2 gives a sound cue when it explodes near a player and said player takes damage. This only happened in CS:GO when the player was physically hit by the HE. REZ thinks this subtle change could be abused by the Terrorist team.
“Not a fan of being able to clear positions with HE’s sound queue,” REZ said on Twitter on Oct. 16. “A lot of aggressive spots you take as CT are gonna be extremely risky, since one nade will expose you.”
Even though the CT side is the defensive side, players are required to often go for pushes and gain map control because they can’t simply sit in bombsites and give all the freedom to the T side—especially at the highest level.
Let’s say that the CTs have dominated the Secret position on Nuke in a determined round and the T side is heading there. Instead of having to clear all angles, they can simply throw a couple of HEs to try and detect if one or more CTs are there.
If the Terrorists hear the sound cue produced by the HE, they can force the CTs to reposition in the middle of the round or go and peek them together.
Along with this new HE change, CS2 also brought other new mechanics that fundamentally changed how the game is approached, most notably the way smoke grenades work and the increase of C4 radius.
We are already seeing some pros struggle with these new intricacies during IEM Sydney as they just made the transition from CS:GO.
