How Can You Enjoy a Game You're So Unbelievably Bad At?

I'm talking, of course, about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO for short). I am just really, really bad at it. Part of it is age; I'm no spring chicken anymore, so my reflexes aren't what they used to be...which is not to say they were ever particularly good. Additionally, most of my positive experience in first-person shooters has been in campaign form (Call of Duty, Halo, Borderlands, etc), which is way different from competitive gaming against other human players. You can usually game out AI, figuring out their tendencies, their weaknesses, and, more often than not, a gimmicky way to get past difficult points in the game.

Counter-Strike isn't like that. You're almost always playing against real life opponents with real life responses to everything that happens. Most of the time, they're people who play more games than me, are younger and quicker than me, and know more about the game's strategies than me. I lose more than I win, and I'm often at or near the bottom of the scoreboard. And yet, I enjoy the game. Why?

(Mostly) Good Matchmaking

While some of the game modes (Deathmatch, Arms Race, Casual) bring in all levels of players, CS:GO's competitive matchmaking queues emphasize competitive balance. There are 18 levels in all, listed below (I'm a Silver IV):

As you can see, I'm in the fourth group out of eighteen, so obviously I'm a below average player. But when I put myself into competitive matchmaking, I get matched up against players around my skill level. This makes for interesting, competitive matches, and that makes for a more enjoyable gaming experience.

It's not a perfect system, of course. If you queue up for only a single map, or only very uncommon maps, your queues will often take longer, and the longer your queue time, the more likely the system will put you into a game with players of more widely varied skill levels. They'd rather you play something than just sit in the queue all day. But overall, especially if you're interested in playing any of a few maps, competitive matchmaking is a great way to find similarly skilled players to play with and against.

You Get Better

I don't expect I'll ever reach even the second column above. I don't have the time or youth to be particularly good at the game. But I am unequivocally better than I was. Some stuff is simple enough that the instructions are enough to change your behavior:

• Fire in short bursts
• Grab guns at the end of a round
• Aim for headshots

Some improvements require a little more instruction/experience, like good and bad usage of smokes, grenades, and flashbangs. And of course, learning each of the different guns and finding your own strengths and weaknesses goes a long way towards improving your play. The feeling of playing in games where I know the opponent is actually worse than me is great (albeit rare). And as you get better, you want to play more, which makes you better, etc etc.

The Drops

As much as I'd like to say the first two factors were equally important, the truth is the whole reason I got the game is because of the in-game item drops. A lot of these drops are nearly worthless (the number of nickel skins out there is insane), but some of them sell for a dollar or more. The fact that the game paid for itself within a few weeks was fantastic. Of course, now I've got an inventory worth probably $100, so Valve has gotten their share of my money. But I keep getting more drops, keep defraying whatever costs I incur from operations or investments or simply buying myself a neat-looking gun skin. While competitive matchmaking and my own personal improvement would keep me somewhat interested, it's the drops that will keep me interested in CS:GO for the foreseeable future.

The Professional Competitive Community

There's one more factor that's really drawn me in recently, and that's the explosion of professional CS:GO teams playing worldwide. In case you missed it, there was a huge event in August, ESL One Cologne 2014. Sixteen elite teams from all over the world competed for a $250,000 prize pool, and the event drew massive numbers of viewers on Twitch.tv. I was glued to my computer screen for a great deal of the event, and it reinforced what had been brewing in my mind for a while: I love watching experts play this game. The perfectly timed movements, the strategic use of grenades and flashbangs, and the absolutely insane "trigger speeds" they have is just incredible. If you haven't had a chance to watch two top-tier CS:GO teams clash, I highly recommend it.

So that's that, that's the deal with me and CS:GO. If you want to play with me, my name is GoodPointJoe on Steam. And as I said before, bear in mind I'm a silver IV. So it may be horrible playing with me, if you enjoy winning.