- A bug with one of the most common strategic moving patterns in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has cost mousesports a round against FaZe Clan
- The bug was reported nearly two years ago but Valve have not yet provided a solution for it
- Mousesports ended up winning the game against FaZe at the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021, but things could have been very different under other circumstances
Two years after a potentially game-breaking game was discovered in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve have not yet fixed it, costing mousesports an important round during the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021.
Shift Walk Crouch Costs Mousesports a Round
For the past decade, we have been taught that the shift walk crouch movement pattern is one of the mainstays of competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and mastering it could be the difference between topping the frag score and ending up at the bottom.
However, since 2019, the pattern has been associated with inaccuracies which are owed to a bug that Valve have been alerted to but two years from that first report, no development action has been taken against it.
Now, the bug may have interfered with the outcome of a down-to-the-wire duel between FaZe Clan Marcelo “coldzera” David and mousesports David “frozen” Čerňanský during the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021. Were that any other event, it would not matter so much, but the DreamHack competitive leg came with a $250,000 prize pool.
The Issue with the Shift Walk Crouch Movement Pattern
As highlighted years ago, the pattern, which is considered a staple of the gameplay, forces your spray pattern – that is the bullets that you shoot in the first second-or-so after releasing shift – to end up highly inaccurate making it unpredictable and therefore negating any advantage that the community has been putting on the shift walk crouch movement.
The bug was first flagged by u/Zoddom in 2019 and in 2020, another user, u/birkir argued that the issue had not been fixed. Naturally, many professionals started avoiding the move, but old habits die alone.
A recent highlight of the bug was shown in the game between mousesports and FaZe Clan with the two teams tied and pushing for a decisive game. Even though it was frozen who first opened fire on coldzera, his aim was disrupted because the bullets flew in an inaccurate direction due to the shift crouch movement.
That gave coldzera enough time to react and put frozen to rest and essentially secure the exchange. If this had been a final round, mousesports may have lost due to the developers' fault. Even though the team rallied and secured Game 3 and with this the series (2-1), the issue still persists.
Valve would do well to look into what is an essential issue for their game, especially given the strategic relevancy of the shift walk crouch movement pattern, which, despite its potentially game-breaking impact, is still considered one of the most important moves in the game and used by players at the highest competitive level.
One way to start addressing the issue is to look into the work done by u/Zoddom and u/birkir. They seem to have a good grasp of what the underpinning issue with the movement pattern is.
