Holiday Spread

Holiday Spread

Today we are shipping a beta version of a new design for shotgun bullet spread, designed to create new situational opportunities and allow more skill to be leveraged in shotgun usage.

The Right Tool for the Job

In CS:GO, weapon recoil creates consistent patterns of bullets. Players can learn these patterns and skillfully place their crosshair to maximize their effectiveness.

But when you fire a shotgun, the pellets that come out simultaneously do so randomly within the cone of fire. They can end up centered directly on the target, or spread far apart. And because the different shotguns all have different sized cones, the only meaningful decision to make is choosing engagement distance.

The new model treats firing a shotgun similarly to recoil, and each shotgun has a unique pattern. For example, here are consecutive shots with the Sawed-Off shotgun:

With skill, players should be able to use their knowledge of shotgun patterns to maximize their potential, using the right tool for the right situation, whether it’s using a wide pattern to clear a room of multiple opponents, a vertical one for holding a corner, or something in between for lurking.

Beta

For the time being, as we collect data and feedback, the new shotgun behavior is on a convar that is defaulted OFF on official servers. You can try it out offline or on your community server by setting the console variable “weapon_accuracy_shotgun_spread_patterns 1.” Give it a shot and let us know what you think.