general. Do they have to be balanced? It's important to understand that it's a very big

topic that everybody will have different opinions on, depending on why they play and follow

the CSGO scene. To demonstrate this, watch Thorin's video for a different perspective.

Firstly, what is the definition of 'balanced'? In his video, Thorin considers it a balance

of the map-pool as a whole, rather than of individual maps! He argues that since different

professional teams have unique play-styles, balancing is more about having a variety of

different map styles to choose from and a fair way of picking them, so that each team

can play to their strengths and their opponents' weaknesses.

I wouldn't even have imagined it from this perspective! However, for this video I'm going

to remain boring and consider it from a more traditional, 'per-map' basis where I consider

'balanced' as having equal potential to be won on both CT and the T-side. Any match is

naturally balanced by switching teams half-time. This doesn't say anything about the map itself

though, since using this logic, any layout is 'balanced'! To get around this, I see it

as a game of two halves and consider a very one-sided map to be wasting up to half of

its potential. When designing a map, I feel that the focus should be on designing a layout

that showcases the skill of the players, both as a team and individually. It feels horrible

to be cheaply killed by a sniper half a mile away, or from not looking the right way when

entering a bombsite with hundreds of corners. A map that I consider to be very balanced

is Dust2. As a terrorist, when I die, it's generally because I was out-played by the

other team. On Nuke, on the other hand, it's normally because the enemies are all camped

out in obscure positions and there's no chance of a fair fight when up against similarly

skilled opponents. Each side has to bring value to a match. And

sure, everybody loves the easier side. People play CSGO, craving the next epic ace or situation

where they single-handedly hold off an entire team until support arrives. This happens all-too-often

on CT-side, where the enemies have to come to you.

But remember that for every kill you get, another player has died and has to sit out

for the rest of the round. From his point of view, it's no fun if he did everything

right but the map itself was against him and instead he's reduced to being just a target

to reward the other team with points, money and clips for frag-montages. Some people will

point out that the beauty of a map like Nuke is that every victory for the terrorists means

something! Sure enough, it does. It often means that the CT side made a big mistake

or that some fluky, risky strategy paid off. That's not about skill! That's luck. Once

the next round begins, even if the terrorists have enough money for everything they want

to buy, the map is too CT-sided to make much of a difference. The outlook remains bleak

for that round, even if it means that they'll probably win the game in 20 rounds' time.

Add to this the unpredictable nature of the pistol rounds and you'll often see matches

determined by how the first couple of rounds of each side play out. It's wasted potential

and for every exciting match played on Nuke, there are a hundred more where it plays out

in a predictable, boring fashion. Now I'm not saying that each game should have

8-7 scores for each half. There will inevitably be matches where this doesn't happen. But

I feel that if you average every game out, a good map should come to about 50-50. Here

are some graphs created by Valve from the data that they've collected from popular CSGO

maps. And here they are, ordered by balance. If you had to rank the maps from favourite

to least favourite, is it similar to this list? If so, you probably enjoy playing on

balanced maps! But these findings are further complicated

by how different tiers of play result in different balances. For example, the highest skill levels

are most likely to win the first 3 rounds as terrorists, but are then less likely to

win the remaining 12 rounds. From this you can conclude that the higher

the skill level is, the more advantage CTs have once they've got enough money to defend

properly. Since the majority of the rounds are played out in this state, it's fascinating

to see that the balance in this situation is closest for Dust2. In fact, it's only ever

been beaten by Overpass for balance (and since then the map has become CT-sided), so Dust2

remains the most consistently balanced map for all skill-levels.

And remember that this data is collected from matchmaking. The pro-level teams will be above

this again and I would expect to have even more of an advantage on CT-side if the trends

continue. Tactics will no doubt have more of a role to play as you move up into professional

tiered matches but on a personal level, they have a natural advantage when in a defensive

position. Thorin's arguments for one-sided maps made

sense to me when I watched his video but, with hindsight, I don't see how the points

don't also apply to balanced maps- if not more so! For example, he brings up the case

of TSM VS NIP on Nuke. They both have history of having a strong CT-side on the map and

yet NIP managed to win the first 3 as terrorists. They lost the remaining 12 rounds of the half,

only to then pull it back and win once they were on CT. He uses this as an example of

how two strong CT-sided teams should battle it out on a CT-sided map, where they display

their mastery on the stronger side by locking the map down and denying the other side most

of the rounds. It certainly makes the rounds where terrorists

manage to win more exciting. But I feel that it devalues the rest of them, both to play

and to watch since it's usually filled with slaughters as the terrorist side fails one

rush after another. I feel it's wrong for the outcome of a match to be determined by

so few rounds- especially notoriously random pistol ones. Victory in CSGO should be a delicious

and delicate combination of a number of factors, like skill, economy, team-work and so on,

like a well-made meal. When a map is so one-sided I think it puts too much emphasis on one element.

If CS:GO is a roast meal then Nuke is a plate full of potatoes. Yes, they're nice, but you

need to leave room for everything else. As T-side, even a strong team with a good economy

and tactics doesn't give them a good shot at winning the round! It's infuriating.

Compare this with balanced maps. Every round is equally important and winnable if the teams

do the right things, unlike Nuke where it's easy to see the outcome half an hour before

we reach it since victory is all-too-often decided from the random nature of the pistol

rounds. When the map is balanced, it opens up a lot more opportunities for the teams

to play in their own style, rather than sticking to an over-powered, tried and tested CT defence

that you can't do much about, even if you're prepared for it. In fact, I'd argue that a

balanced map gives CT-sided teams MORE room to shine: surely that would be better testament

to their ability than simply trouncing teams on a CT-sided map? 15-0 as CTs on Nuke? Well

done, you stuck to a tried-and-tested defence on the easier side. 15-0 on Dust2? Incredible!

You successfully gauged your opponents' attacks and countered them.

Balanced maps give teams more options, more counters and in my opinion, a higher skill-ceiling.

It's about understanding the opponent and devising a counter-strategy, rather than just

being good at CT-side and choosing CT-sided maps and losing on ones that aren't.

That's right. I think that balanced maps have the potential to have a higher skill-ceiling.

With one-sided maps, once the tactics, counter-tactics, counter-counter-tactics of the map are done,

what determines the winner boils down to the ability of the players and the map's natural

biases. If both teams are ridiculously talented then it's the positioning that plays a big

part in who will win. I see a biased map where one team has limited options as being like

a chess board where some pieces are missing from one of the sides. In low-level games,

this won't matter that much, but in higher ones, even a mere pawn can make a big difference.

Let's look at the skill-ceiling in balanced maps instead. I still love the map but people

are saying that Dust2 has become stale. Is that because it's too balanced? I don't think

so. It just isn't complex enough. Just because a map's balanced, doesn't mean it's good!

Here's one that I made in 2 minutes. It's balanced. Doesn't mean it's fun to play. The

difficulty is that it becomes exponentially more difficult to balance maps as you add

more to them. This isn't helped by tactics that may be thought up for the map in a week,

month or years' time. What I don't like is people confusing complicated, one-sided maps

as 'having a high skill-ceiling'. It's just bad map design.

Enough of this, let's get to my conclusion. Ultimately, Valve chooses what happens. They

have things of their own to balance: CSGO's success depends on pleasing a number of different

audiences, ranging from the newbies and case-openers, all the way to good players and professional

leagues. And they, with their infinite wisdom, have decided to remove Nuke from the main

map pool. I suspect that they wanted to give their new

Train map a chance to be tested and that they chose Nuke to go since it has consistently

scored the lowest in terms of round outcome balance, has had the fewest successful bomb

plants and more rounds with all terrorists being eliminated than any other map. And perhaps

these factors have knock-on effects, like fewer people being interested in the map and

therefore poorer spectator stats for Nuke matches and twitch streams. I know that I'm

less likely to watch a totally one-sided match than, say, a close Inferno game where the

balance tips every couple of rounds. So in conclusion, map balance is a touchy

subject but I want more balanced maps and think that they benefit the game as a whole,

both to watch and to play.