Great for new players and veterans alike. Simply choose your weapons and go kill things until you don't feel like it anymore. This is a great mode for getting accustomed with new maps, learning how different guns operate, or warming up a bit before you jump into a competitive match.

A streamlined implementation of the classic arms race mod from previous games. You start with a weapon and advance a level every time you get a kill. The first player to get a kill with the golden knife (the last level) wins the round. This is also a very good game mode for beginners, as you'll quickly learn the faster and more basic gameplay mechanics here due to how rapidly you go from dying to jumping right back into the fray, while still being forced to think somewhat tactically by being forced to use certain weapons.

A sort of hybrid between a condensed and streamlined version of classic counter-strike and a simplified arms race. Both teams have a ladder of weapons to advance up, while the game is still divided into rounds that are won by either eliminating the other team or detonating/defusing the bomb. Good for intermediate players who want to get more accustomed to the larger game mechanics but not wanting to dive into a full competitive game just yet.

A good mode for beginner and intermediate players who are interested in getting into competitive play but don't want to be yelled at for not knowing the finer details just yet. The teams are larger, allowing you to blend in and be terrible without being noticed. There's also less emphasis on economic planning as everyone is automatically given armor and a helmet while the CTs also get defuse kits.

This is what most people think of when they think counter-strike. CS:GO features a ranked matchmaking system allowing you to team up with your fellow goons and compete against a team of similar skill. While the ranking system allows players of all skill levels to enjoy this mode, you should try to only enter lobbies with players who are a similar rank to you. If you're a new player, entering a lobby with veterans will probably result in you playing against veterans, and you won't have a very good time, although you'll definitely learn quickly. Same goes if you're a veteran with a new player; you'll often find yourself having to pick up the slack or losing rounds despite doing well yourself.



New players will typically find themselves in the lower silver ranks. At this level teams typically lack coordination and effective communication while individuals are unfamiliar of how to effectively use their weapons. Near the middle ranks the teams start displaying organized tactics, although their timing is often off while individuals, despite being fairly competent, will still regularly make poor decisions. The top ranks are reserved for teams who are almost at the point of working as a single entity, communication is short and effective, while individuals are regularly making good shots and have a very developed situational awareness.

A mod developed by our very own astr0man. This gamemode has 10 goons elect two team captains, who then pick teams. Once teams have been picked, they'll be pitted against each other in a match using the competitive rules with a few small modifications. Players of all skill levels are welcome!

Many complex or detailed things are often times reduced down to single words out of necessity due to the high speed nature of this game. I'll be going over the more common topics, but please don't be afraid to ask your captain what you should be doing if you're in doubt.

If you're coming from a game more oriented towards consoles like Call of Duty or Halo, you're going to have to break a lot of bad habits when it comes to gun play. The most effective weapons in this game require a finesse that controllers simply can't provide. While you're first getting accustomed to the game, always always fight the urge to lay on the trigger. Do not spray. Ever. Fire a small burst, regain your aim, then fire another. There are more advanced strategies that will allow you to get even better later, but for now, always fire in bursts.

Once you're comfortable with firing without spraying... you should go back to spraying! However spraying in this game isn't like any other FPSs. Here's a great writeup on it by our buddy Slime: CS:GO Recoil Mechanics

Another important thing to keep in mind is that firefights are often extremely fast in this game, oftentimes over before you even know it's happening. Very small slivers of time can end up making a big difference in a firefight, so it's important to be efficient as possible at all times. The #1 rookie mistake in CS:GO is players keeping their crosshairs in the ground, ready to pull up whenever an enemy appears. This is incorrect. I understand that keeping the crosshairs down allows you to see better, but not only does it take time to pull the crosshair up (bad), its also a large distance to cover in a short amount of time which will cause you to be much less accurate once you do finally reach the enemies head. Also, if your opponent is aiming properly, i.e. keeping his crosshair where he expects YOUR head to be, you'll likely be dead before you can even squeeze a shot off. Keep your crosshairs up!

Also: DONT CROUCH! Well, you can, but it's like spraying. It may improve your aim but it will place your head into your center of mass (bad) and also immobilize you (very bad) Break the habit first and play without it entirely. Once you can play without it you can bring it back in. This is easily the most common newbie mistake that we see.

If you're playing with a competent team and you know the map the great majority of enemies should be appearing inside your field of view if not very close or already under your crosshair. Because of this you gain much more by having a low sensitivity, improving your aim in these scenarios, than having a high sensitivity which allows you to respond to being flanked. If this advice seems wrong to you because you're being flanked often enough that keeping a higher sensitivity makes sense, your primary concern should be improving your situational awareness and tactics as that will have a way larger impact on your overall skill. Some goons, including myself, argue that lowering your sensitivity FORCES you to keep your crosshair up and use proper positioning, as you can no longer use insane twitch shooting as a crutch to prop up lazy playing.

Generally you want it to take over ten inches to turn 360 degrees. Yes you read that correctly. Yes your sensitivity is WAY too high.

Also be sure to select 'Use Raw Input' in the options. Most operating systems have mouse acceleration turned on by default which will screw with your aim. Having a 1-1 interpretation of your movements is significantly better.

Use this tool to find out what your 360/sensitivity is: http://www.notalent.org/sensitivity/sensitivity.htm

A lot of this game revolves around knowing where exactly the enemy is. Learning the names of all the locations on maps will let you communicate much more effectively with your team. Failure to communicate enemy players locations can cause your team to react to situations too slowly, but miscommunications can lead to disasters. For an example of what a disaster looks like, watch minineo shoot me in the back of the head after I fail to hear his location called out by a teammate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weybw27aMPE
_{There are a ton of mistakes made by the T team in this video, see if you can spot them all!}

Here are some of the more popular maps. You don't need to know these 100%, but you should be at least have the gist of it: http://thegoshow.tv/map-call-spots/

There were some words here but Daeno's are better:


Daeno posted:

Warning! Effort post approaches!

STARTING ROUNDS

Pistol round: Wide variety of builds here, some buy chest armour, some buy kits and grenades, others buy dualies or whatever their favourite pistol is. There's not really much of an advantage buying another pistol on the first round, some people are just more comfortable with other guns. There's certain situations where it helps, but as a new player I would just mix in a grenade or two, or get some chest armour. Getting used to using the starting pistol is an important skill toi have.

2nd round winning side: Usually winning side players buy whatever cheap mop-up gun they favour, so except to see SMG's and shotguns here. Lately some losing sides have been grabbing full armour and armour peircing pistols such as the P250 and the five-seven, so at higher skill levels you should mix in some cheap armour piercing AR(assault rifle) such as a galil or famas. Put one at each site.

2nd round losing side: Never buy nothing, always buy atleast a P250. A P250 can one-shot headshot a player will full armour at close range, same with a five-seven, but that is more expensive and only CT-side. Sometimes you should mix in full armour with your P250 buys, as this can catch a full-smg/shotgun team off-guard, severely money-loving them.

3rd round: There are more scenarios that can occur here, such as if the winning round 1 team lost round 2, etc etc, but usually the 3rd round is similar to round 2, in that the losing team of rounds 1 & 2 have to save again, so they can afford a full buy on round 4. Be careful though, if the Terrorist team planted the bomb in rounds 1 or 2, they can usually afford a full buy of AK + Armour, even if they lost both rounds.

NORMAL MID GAME & LATE GAME ROUNDS

NEVER BUY ANYTHING IN THESE ROUNDS WITHOUT LOOKING AT YOUR TEAM'S MONEY FIRST

Full Money buys: Typically you see 3 weapons, AK, M4/M4A1-S, and AWP. This is because the 2 main rifles have the best value for their cost for each side, as far as accuracy, shooting power, etc. And the AWP of course for it's one shot one kill power. Most other purchases are considered gimmicks, but some players really feel better with an AUG, or like to use an autosniper for example. The bad part about relying on vanity weapons is that they are more expensive, if you are spending another 500 or 1000$ on a rifle that you feel more in tune with, in the long game you'll have a round or two where you can't afford a rifle, because of that AUG or SIG(lol) purchase you made earlier in the game. This is why I always buy an AK or M4A1-S, simply the best bang for your buck, and you'll have more money in the future.

As for the AWP, since it costs almost double than a typical rifle, be mindful of your money when you purchase it, as powerful as it is, it could leave you broke next round, when your teammates are full buying and you have to get a pistol+armour just to keep up.

Half buys/Watch your team: Usually if one player on your team has a massive amount of money and other players are broke, he/she should be buying weapons for teammates, but when you can't buy out for all teammates, or if a couple teammates saved weapons from last round, you should communicate as a team and decide if some players should force buy a pistol + armour, or galil/famas + armour. Knowing when to do this is tricky, but becomes more clear with experience.

Eco Rounds:Rounds where almost all of you are broke. Similar to starting round 2, but usually you have more money to play with. If you are CT side, make sure atleast 1 player on each bombsite has bought a kit. Always Always Always atleast buy a P250. If you get the jump on someone with a P250, you should be able to kill them, thus earning you a free gun. Mix in some grenades if you can afford them and still full buy next round.

Grenades: Grenades are essential and you should be forcing yourself to buy them and use them, even if you are terrible with them, as you will get better with time. Just don't blind your teammates. Smoke grenades are amazing in CS:GO, especially compared to the smokes in source and 1.6. Two smoke grenades thrown by 2 players defending a bombsite can lock it down for most of the round. Similarly, smoke grenades thrown by attacking players can section off parts of bombsites, making them much much easier to take. For example, smoking off CT spawn when taking A site from Long A on dust 2 makes life much easier for T's, as you won't get sniped from there, and pushing the remaining players in A site is way easier.

Flash grenades are also must-buys, and knowing when/where to use them is somewhat of an art. There are many video guides on youtube on where best to use them, as well as other grenades, so I would look up those for references, watching better players use them on GO TV or spectating in a Goonman helps too. Force yourself to use them when taking sites, defending after the enemy has flashed, etc. You will get better.

As for HE, Decoy and Fire Grenades, they aren't as good. HE grenades are almost as good as Flash and Smoke, but their use is sometimes map dependant. Decoy grenades are cute, and distracting, but most good players won't be fooled. Molotov/Fire Grenades are pretty much a more expensive smoke grenade, locking down an area for a period of time.



Hope that helps a little with knowing what and when to purchase things. Communication is key, your money is not your own, treat it as a pool of team money and always buy atleast a P250.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIQoai9sqpQ

The pistol round is the first round of every half in a competitive game. Both teams have very little money and the outcome of it sets the inertia that can last the rest of the half. It is very important! Because everyone has very little money and the outcome is so important, how you spend those precious few bucks can become a deciding factor later on. Here are some tips:


• Never save on the pistol round. You want as much of an edge in this round as possible and should always spend as much as you can.
  
• No one can afford a helmet. Because of this you shouldn't worry about buying either the desert eagle or p250, as they will have a very limited advantage here.
  
• If you're CT, make sure one or more people on your team have a defuse kit, as bomb plants are very common in the pistol round and you'll definitely need it.
  
• You'll find a personal preference on either buying grenades or a vest. What's important is that you choose one or the other AND YOU DO NOT SAVE.

One of the best signs of a very good player is effective grenade usage. A well placed smoke grenade or flash bang can completely turn the tide of a round and should never be underestimated. It'd be difficult to go into full detail on proper grenade usage here, as there is a lot to it, but when you're playing you should keep an eye on how better players use them. You'll see some really clever strategies.

As for a quick run-down though, keep this in mind:


• It is significantly easier to see INTO smoke than it is seeing OUT of smoke. This makes smoke grenades great defensive tools as you'll be able to see an enemy a few precious moments before he can see you. This is also why YOU DO NOT RUN THROUGH SMOKE^{_{until you know you can}}
  
• Flashbangs can be tossed *over* walls and buildings. Also their effect is based on both distance from detonation and whether or not it detonates within line of sight. This means its possible to chase a flash into a room while running backwards. The flash will detonate at your back, only blinding you slightly while everyone in the room will be more impacted. Obviously watch someone else do this before you try this at home.
  
• Frag grenades are best used as a 'parting shot' tossed into an area where you know a wounded enemy is.
  
• Be very careful when throwing any grenade. It takes time to switch back to your weapon so getting caught in the open with a grenade in hand is a death sentence. The only reason a grenade should be equipped is if you are about to throw it AND you have an escape plan (nearby cover) should an enemy poke out right when you pull that pin.
  
• Here are a bunch of good nade spots

If you are defending a position, just because you aren't killing people RIGHT NOW does not mean you aren't helping. One of the hardest things many new players have is getting over deathmatch habits drilled into you from so many other games. While fast paced, there are often extended periods of tense waiting, where patience is key. Once you're more familiar with the game you'll learn when it's okay to push, or when you should abandon your position and fall back. In the beginning though, just hold.

If you're new, you're going to need the assistance of your team. Going lone wolf will almost certainly result in you getting killed, contributing little to nothing. Stay with your team, and pay attention to any calls your captain makes. If he tells the team to fall back, it means fall back NOW, not 'just wrap up whatever it is you're doing we can wait don't worry'. If he says to push, you push NOW. Well coordinated teams will beat individual star-players any day.

This one is a bit more difficult for new players, but it's probably the most important. One of the best fundamental strategies in this game is outnumbering your opponent in a gun battle. By doing this, your opponents will have too many targets to fire at, while your team's fire will be concentrated. If you see a teammate run around a corner and begin fighting, you should be immediately running out to help. If there is only one enemy around the corner, he now has two targets to kill in the time it takes those two targets to take one of him out. Pretty solid advantage huh?

Hearing faint and subtle sounds is often times very important in this game, and I've seen many rounds lost because a player couldn't hear over his dead teammate blabbing away. Socialize using the keyboard when you're dead. Also, DO NOT GIVE COMMANDS WHILE YOU'RE DEAD. There's nothing more frustrating to veteran players than being deafened with bad advice by a bottom-fragger when he's trying to concentrate. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up shut up.

Sound is very important!

This means your team is hurting financially, and needs to sacrifice a round in order to get back up to fighting shape. Saves need to by coordinated with the team so that everyone will sacrifice a round at the same time, so that everyone will be up to fighting strength at the same time. This is very important, as a team that consistently has one or two team members saving individually each round will result in being consistently outgunned. No good! If you hear a team member tell you to save, it means do not buy anything for that round!

This can also mean throwing the match that's already in progress, in order to keep the loadout you have between rounds. The best way to do this is to find out where the enemies are and run and hide in the opposite direction. When to do this will be difficult to judge for beginners, your captain will probably make the call for you.

Modifying what your team purchases when you know the other team is saving, usually after they lose the pistol round. This usually means buying sub-machine guns in lieu of rifles for two reasons: sub-machine guns are extremely effective against unarmored targets, arguably more effective than rifles, and if you get killed, the other team gets a gun which is ineffective against your armored teammates.

It is the last round of the half or match, and saving will not be beneficial as any money at the end of the round will be lost. Everyone buys to their fullest potential. That Negev is looking pretty sexy huh? No, don't feel bad for buying it. Go ahead, it's alright. This is where it's ok to be reckless with your money.

A coordinated push for the entire team, aiming to overwhelm a few outnumbered defenders. This is not the time to have second thoughts about your mortality, get in there!

A slow and surgical advance, where the team will slowly feel for any holes in the defense and rush through it, or will create a hole itself by a player quickly popping out and taking out a defender.

Split up the team and attack an area from multiple locations. The strategy makes it harder for enemies to defend since the targets are spread out.

Either the defense is putting up too much resistance or a teammate has cleared out the other site. If you hear rotate it means you should be heading to the site called out, usually through alleys thought to be most likely safe. Get there ASAP and set up a defense.

The player calling is either sure the bomb is heading into their site or the site has already been taken. You need to get to the site as soon as possible to help your team retake the site and secure the bomb.

Camping an area you know the enemy will be moving through soon in order to ambush them. You should avoid doing this if you're new but you should always be paranoid when moving between sites. This is also why accurately calling out enemy movements/numbers when you're killed. If your teammates know that all the enemies are in the A site, then anyone rotating from B will be able to move much more quickly. Alternatively, if they know there are one or two guys out there unaccounted for, it will be much more difficult to catch them by surprise.

A teammate has killed the bomber and secured the bomb. Whatever you are doing can be dropped as you head to the bomb and help your team defend it until the timer expires.

Shooting at targets through a wall.

For anyone having workshop map downloading issues (where it just hangs at UGC Download 0.00000000000000 forever) try deleting anything in your steamapps/common/Counter-Strike Global Offensive/csgo/cache folder.

This happens because CS:GO is considered a "communications activity" by Windows, which tries to decrease the sound so you can hear your dumb team mates. Go to the Sound control panel in Windows, click the "Communications" tab, and set it to "Do Nothing" to fix it.

Go in console and type mm_session_max_ping 100 (or whatever your preferred max ping is). If you're in Australia or somewhere with few servers, this may just lead to you not finding a game, but for the civilized world it should keep you from getting matched with servers on the other side of either ocean.

You either have VSync on in the game graphical options or in your graphics card's control panel.

A few possible reasons:

• For "sluggishness" or mouse lag, there's a good chance you have VSync enabled, either in game or in your graphics card settings. Turn it off and see if that helps.
  
• Your mouse may be using Windows' built-in mouse acceleration. Use the "raw input" mode in mouse settings and see if that helps.

cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 1
rate 128000
cl_cmdrate 128
cl_updaterate 128
cl_allowdownload 1
cl_downloadfilter 0
ds_get_newest_subscribed_files

// buy binds
bind f1 "buy p250"
bind f2 "buy p90"
bind f3 "buy famas; buy galilar"
bind f4 "buy m4a1; buy ak47"
bind f5 "buy awp"
bind f6 "buy flashbang"
bind f7 "buy smokegrenade"
bind f8 "buy hegrenade"
bind f9 "buy molotov; buy incgrenade"
bind f10 "buy vest"
bind f11 "buy vesthelm"
bind f12 "buy defuser"

Yes! Please do not use the default crosshair!

Once again, our buddy Slime provides: Console Command & Variable Reference Sheet

If you don't mind running friendly executables strangers give you then check this out

... fun?

Necc0 fucked around with this message at 01:22 on May 31, 2014

• Section 1: General tips
  
• Section 2: Buys
  
• Section 3: Maps (including default CT setups and default T plant spots)
  

1. DO get a microphone and use it.
   
2. DON'T aim at the ground.
   
3. DO keep your crosshairs at head level at all times (see also: tip #2).
   
4. DON'T move and shoot at the same time.
   
5. In general, DON'T crouch. The only real exception to this is if you are trying to surprise someone during a quick peek, or if you are in a point blank spray or something. 99% of the time crouching is useless. The reduction in recoil while crouching is negligible and provides no real-world benefit (the dynamic crosshairs are lying when it says crouching makes you more accurate).
   
6. DON'T crouch-walk ever.
   
7. DO tap/burst fire. You should never be firing more than 2 or 3 rounds at a time unless someone is right up in your face.
   
8. DON'T spray. Spray control is an important part of counter-strike but for new players there are much more important things to learn. Once you are proficient at aiming and burst/tap firing you can start to work on your spray control.
   
9. DO stutter-step. Tapping the opposite movement key from whichever direction you are going brings you to a halt faster than just releasing your movement key. This means that in a firefight your movement pattern should be something like "AAAAAAD *shoot 2 bullets* DDDDDDA *shoot 2 bullets* *repeat until other guy is dead*"
   
10. DO listen to your teammates, especially when they are better than you. Sometimes this means putting up with someone yelling at you. Don't get mad and bitch about it over voice chat, and don't be passive aggressive about it and ignore whatever they just told you that you did wrong. Just get over it and move on, and don't make the same mistake again. Obviously there are times where the other guy is legitimately just being an rear end in a top hat, but more often than not it's just a veteran player being frustrated by a newbie mistake, and it's nothing personal.
    
11. DON'T block your teammates. This means that if someone is peeking through long doors on dust2, you should not stand right next to them. You don't need 2 people peeking the same corner at the same time. Just go do something else.
    
12. DON'T push through smoke.
    
13. DON'T switch spots. This is only applicable to CT side, and it means that if you call that you are playing catwalk/short A on dust2, you will play catwalk for the entire half. This does not mean you can feel free to just go and try to pick mid randomly the next round just because you picked up an AWP. If you want to pick mid then fine, just say so during the buy period and make sure that whoever was previously playing mid knows to swap with you and play cat instead.
    
14. DO buy and save with your team.
    
15. DON'T make bad/generic sounding calls. If you are defending long A on dust2 and you get rushed, don't immediately yell "ALL LONG A" on voice chat. If you see 3 people, say "3 long A". If you see 4 people including the bomb carrier, say "4 long A with bomb." There is a huge difference between "everyone on the other team" and "only 4/5 members of the other team" when making calls. It only takes 1 guy lurking B tunnels to wipe out 3 or more of your teammates as they rotate with their knives out because you called "all long A" over voice chat. Likewise, if you hear a bunch of footsteps in B tunnels, don't just automatically assume this means they are going to rush B. Just call "steps B tunnels".
    
16. DON'T rotate as CT until someone calls bomb. Just because your teammate playing long A got killed and saw 2 terrorists there it does not mean they are actually hitting A and that it is OK for you to rotate. Note that this is not a blanket rule, in some situations you might want to rotate early. For example, it is common to play 2 CTs in B site on inferno. If one of your teammates in A is killed early, it is generally OK for one of the B players to rotate to A even if they haven't seen the bomb yet, since one player can still relatively easily hold B site alone. However, in this situation both B players need to be aware of what is going on, so make sure you say "hey <other guy> I am rotating away from B" over voice chat.
    
17. DON'T needlessly push in situations where you don't have to. For example, if you are CT and your team has a 3v1 advantage and the bomb down, JUST SIT ON THE loving BOMB. Don't go out and try to find the last T because there is absolutely no reason to. You get absolutely no benefit from killing the T player, especially because if the timer runs down the T gets $0.
    
18. DON'T enter a site/push a corner/peek an awper one by one. You want to make entries as a team and a group. Going in one at a time is just inviting the other guys to get a bunch of easy kills.
    
19. DO buy kits. Seriously if you are CT side and I see you leaving spawn with at least $400 and no kit I will just TK you.
    

• T-side: $3700/per player (cost of AK + armor)
  
• CT-side: $4100/per player (cost of M4A4 + armor, M4A1 + armor would be $3900)
  

• P250/CZ (1 hit kill even through a helmet at close range)
  
• Five-seven (CT only, 20 round mag and a 1 hit kill even through a helmet at close range)
  
• Deagle (really only useful if you are a 1-deag pro)
  

• Armor + decoy
  
• Grenades
  
• Tec-9 + grenades (if you are Fat Lou)
  

• Kit + grenades (either 2x flash or 1x HE or 1x smoke). It is a good idea to have 1 kit per site on CT pistol rounds.
  
• Five-seven (acceptable due to the 20 round mag which can be useful, and since T's will sometimes have armor)
  
• Armor + decoy (armor is a lot less common for CT side pistol)
  

astr0man fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 22, 2014

Push El Burrito fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jan 14, 2014

Daeno fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jan 14, 2014

lizardhunt fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jan 14, 2014