Hold onto your gaming chairs, people, because I am about to spill some piping hot tea on the über-cool, extravagantly luxurious world of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or as the cool kids (and adults, mind you!) call it – CS:GO.
As you know, the main thing that distinguishes any professional from an amateur is skill, and this is the most important thing. There’s no doubt that one of the main qualities in eSports disciplines is reaction, intelligence, the ability to analyze the situation and make quick decisions. All this can be developed through diligent training. However, today I’ll cover several tips from pro cs go teams to boost your gaming progress.
Do you want to know about a particular tip? Then use the table of contents below to jump to the most relevant section. And you can always go back by clicking on the black arrow in the right bottom corner of the page. Also, please note that some of the links in this article may be affiliate links. For more details, check the Disclosure section at the bottom of the page.
Here's what we'll cover:
You might think that carving out a successful career in the buzzing world of CS:GO requires the fanciest gear and unmatched skills, but here’s the inside scoop: it’s not entirely about that. Yes, the industry has evolved tremendously, tailoring special peripherals, chairs, and even PC components exclusively for the game.
There is a popular opinion that to play like a professional, you absolutely need the best equipment, such as:
- a keyboard,
- a mouse,
- the system unit itself,
- a chair.
First off, playing at a high level doesn’t necessarily demand a supercomputer loaded with the latest components. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t compete with a relic from the last century, but many professional players have shown that a decent setup, paired with skill and strategy, can take you places.
Speaking of peripherals, did you know that some pro players prefer to stick with what they are accustomed to, even bringing their own mice, keyboards, and occasionally, chairs to big tournaments? It’s a little personal touch in a highly competitive environment, proving yet again that comfort often trumps luxury. Tools like Profilerr allow you to peek into the setups of pro players, revealing that the demand for high-end equipment is more of a myth than a reality.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the booming economy revolving around CS:GO, which has even carved out a niche for virtual luxury in the form of in-game skins. Picture this: the Hardened Karambit, Factory New, pattern 387, also known as the blue gem, was valued at just over $100,000 in 2016. Fast forward to today, and we’re talking about a mind-boggling figure exceeding $2 million! Yes, you heard it right, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a world where even a StatTrak Minimal Wear 661 AK-47 can fetch a price of $400,000.
But, the real kicker here is the kind of earnings players are raking in, even without being at the top of their game. Take Robin ‘ropz’ Kool from FaZe Clan for instance, who bagged roughly $850,000 in 2022. A significant chunk of this came from his salary paid by FaZe, supplemented by prize money and skin sales.
In this realm, personality and entertainment value can sometimes outweigh gaming skills, illustrating that with the right mix of strategy, content, and charisma, you can hit the jackpot too.
But now, let’s gear up and get into those sought-after tips from the pros, shall we?
Tip #1: Setting up your PC
Quite a lot in the game depends, in particular, on the settings of the game itself. However, we are talking not only about in-game settings, but also about what can be changed before launching the game itself. Not many people know about such a thing as launch options. These additional options help to fine-tune the game more than the in-game settings, they change the general configurations of the game.
In CS:GO, for example, you can turn off the screen saver, allowing you to speed up the loading of the game, change the tick rate (the unit of measurement of sending and receiving data from the server per second), enable the old interface from the classic version of the game, force the game to use the mouse settings from the operating system, set the priority and the number of processor cores that the game will use, set the monitor refresh rate, and so on. You must be interested in how to do it. We are going to reveal the details for you!
In games installed in the STEAM system (this applies, for example, to both CS:GO and Dota 2), before starting you need to select the “Library” menu, find an interesting game there, right-click, and in the window, which appeared, select “Properties”, then “Set startup parameters”.
It’s obvious that the most important running parameter for professional players is the screen refresh rate. This is set by the -freq command with a number – professionals set 120. This screen refresh rate allows you to significantly improve the smoothness of the game.
Tip #2: Check your In-game settings
Do not forget about what can be changed directly inside the game. In CS:GO, the settings of professional players are often the same. E-sportsmen prefer to use low settings for graphics, leaving only the shadows drawn high, which makes it possible to see the enemy a fraction of a second earlier. Despite professional monitors with a large screen and high resolution, most CS:GO players use a resolution of 1024 x 768 with black bars, because this way you can focus more on the game, and your eyes do not scatter if you need to look at, for example, the radar.
Tip #3: Pay attention to other details
In addition to the above, for professional CS players, as well as any other pros, it is considered important to adjust the sight. In CS:GO, the main command that is responsible for the appearance of the crosshair is cl_crosshairstyle. This command determines what style of sight will be used. In addition, in the game, you can adjust the thickness, size, and presence of a dot in the sight, outline around the sight and its size, as well as the color of the sight and its transparency. However, there is no unity among eSports players – the sights of professional players are very different, some even change the sight settings several times a week, so its impact on the game is still minimal.
Tip #4: Use special commands
Special command is an opportunity to assign any action in the game to a certain button. And this is really important. For example, every professional Dota player must use certain buttons for all used items. CS:GO players use commands, for example, to buy weapons in the initial stage of the game and to quickly choose the type of grenades. Esports players who have devoted themselves to strategies use them to manage an army and divide it into important key units. Those who play MMORPGs use special commands for those abilities that did not find a place on the main panel, or for those that need to be applied as quickly as possible.
Tip#5 Practice definitely makes perfect
For junior gamers who want to achieve high results in eSports, just playing is not enough. Successful players usually set intermediate goals for themselves, improving one aspect of their game at a time. For example, you can set yourself a goal to develop a habit of glancing over the minimap every N seconds. After a few game sessions, when you already have this habit, you can move on to another task.
The training process of e-sports usually also includes watching recordings of past matches and working on mistakes. Professionals practiced a lot and trained for 1000 hours before they got all these brilliant results.
You definitely need to set your goals and show persistence to become an outstanding cyber sportsman! Innate talent plays a significant role in eSports, but hard training and willingness to go to the end are more important. Just keep practicing your skills and focus on your goals.
Credits: Thanks for the photo to Canva.
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