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Counter Strike: Source weapon pricing change (dynamic!)

Easy_G

Member
http://steampowered.com/stats/csmarket/algorithm.html

PRICING ALGORITHM

Overview: Most of the weapons and equipment in Counter-Strike have had the same prices since the day the game was first released. These prices greatly affect the overall balance of the game. We at Valve know we're not alone in thinking that some of the prices in the game have never been exactly what they should be. (Uh, night-vision?) But rather than tweaking the values ourselves, we thought we'd rather let you decide. Coming soon in Counter-Strike: Source is a new system that sets the prices of what you can buy based on, well, what people are buying.

Starting on October 11th, the prices of weapons and equipment in Counter-Strike: Source will be updated each week based on the global market demand for each item. As more people purchase a certain weapon, the price for that weapon will rise and other weapons will become less expensive.


Gather player purchase data. Each week, the total number of weapons purchased world-wide since the previous week's change is counted. The purchase data is gathered directly from game servers. Every 24 hours, game servers upload a file to Steam listing the quantities of all items purchased over the course of the previous day.

Slice up the Money Pie. The new price for each weapon is based on the total amount of money spent on that weapon. The percentage of money spent on each weapon during the week is used to determine the percentage by which its price moves the next week. So if 10% of all dollars world-wide are spent on the Maverick M4A1 Carbine, then its price will increase by 10%.

A note about pistols. The purchasable items are split into two seperate groups: pistols, and everything else. This is an artificial segmentation of the economy designed to preserve Counter-Strike's "pistol round" -- the early period during which players can not yet afford the game's more powerful weapons. (If the pistols were included in the larger pool of prices, they would often become too expensive to afford during the beginning of a match.) Pistols are also given to players for "free" at the start of each round, which would artificially affect the economy.

Ups and Downs. In order to decide which items increase in value and which ones decrease, we order the list of all items based on the number of purchases for that weapon or piece of equipment for the previous week. We then split that list in half, with approximately 50% of global money spent above the line and 50% below. Items above the line increase in value, items below decrease.

A (somewhat) closed system. In Counter-Strike, each gameserver is its own instance of the game world. Unlike persistent "massively multiplayer" games, there is no open-ended economy. Until now, each gameserver presented its weapons and equipment for sale according to pre-set values which never changed. Now, the prices are dynamic. However, the total default amount of money available for players to spend on each server will be unchanged. At the start of a round, the default amount of money available for each player will remain $800.

It's all up to you. There is a massive community of people playing Counter-Strike, and for the first time the actions of the community are going to affect all Counter-Strike players. We're anxious to see the ways in which the game changes as a result of the global community of gamers exerting their influence. As always, let us know what you think.

So, what do you think? I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but it definitely seems like it could be cool. Should limit the number of m4's, ak's, and awp's used during matches.

There's also this page that breaks down each weapon's price change.
http://steampowered.com/stats/csmarket/
 
Starting on October 11th, the prices of weapons and equipment in Counter-Strike: Source will be updated each week based on the global market demand for each item. As more people purchase a certain weapon, the price for that weapon will rise and other weapons will become less expensive.


I like it... and I dont like it.

I like it because... well its just a cool idea.

What about the losing teams though? Balance is a big deal in pubs. One team dominates so people start switching to that team. Or people will only join the winning team. Now that the better weapons will cost more(price is never an issue when you are on the winning team), it will be a bit harder for the losing team to grab some of the better weapons to even it out.

Whenever I am on the losing team and the team is getting skunked I will save up money for an AK/M4/DE. Now that those are more money it will take more time.
 
I think they have gone too far :S
BTW, this is just Stream not Valve, right?

By the end of third month, Desert Eagle will cost $16000 :lol
 
Joeroll said:
Whenever I am on the losing team and the team is getting skunked I will save up money for an AK/M4/DE. Now that those are more money it will take more time.
I'm hoping we'll see less save rounds. A weaker team would be able to put up a decent fight while not draining their cash as hard. Buuuut as you say, people still want to play with their favorite gun (ak/m4) and they'd end up having to save up for more rounds than under the old system.

Chances are though, if a team is getting beat so bad that everyone has to save up for their favorite weapons, the rounds probably won't be in their favor no matter how much the weapons cost. :p
 
SumGamer said:
I think they have gone too far :S
BTW, this is just Stream not Valve, right?

By the end of third month, Desert Eagle will cost $16000 :lol

QFT. M4 price and DE price are gonna go through the ****ing roof. I also feel sorry for those awpers.
 
It should be an interesting dynamic.

I'm not sure I'd want it in a competitive league though. I wouldn't say an even ground to adapt on would be poor balance, but a lot of folks do want their balance to be pretty extreme and constant.
 
So wait, if this was applied to food Mcdonald's would be gourmet shit by now. Did they think some guns may just be your average McD meal that gets the job done for cheap?
 
I LOVE it!!!



I only play with the Glock, TMP and the M3 shotgun (the most fun you'll get out of the game) so this is a big plus for me :D And about those winning team joiners, I only play on pubs where you can only auto-select the team, and balances itself out with kill:death ratios every other round.
 
WoW valve are really trying to make enemies out of the CS pro community. Im sure they are going to go batshit insane on that. Imo its really cool because ive retired from playing CS seriously and im just playing for fun so strategy has really no sense of importance to me anymore. Less abuse of awp though, might be a good thing. Might induce people to start mastering new weapons too. This sounds cool actually.
 
In my opinion, 1.6 still dominates Source as far as player numbers and competitions go, so Valve might as well try to make Source more interesting so that the people who haven't given it a shot after 1.6 will have something new to see. I think Valve gave up on making Source competitive long ago. And they might still implement an option to turn off the pricing on competitive servers.
 
WARCOCK said:
WoW valve are really trying to make enemies out of the CS pro community. Im sure they are going to go batshit insane on that. Imo its really cool because ive retired from playing CS seriously and im just playing for fun so strategy has really no sense of importance to me anymore. Less abuse of awp though, might be a good thing. Might induce people to start mastering new weapons too. This sounds cool actually.

Yeah, for those of us playing for fun (gasp), this sounds interesting and has some potential.
 
Easy_G said:
In my opinion, 1.6 still dominates Source as far as player numbers and competitions go, so Valve might as well try to make Source more interesting so that the people who haven't given it a shot after 1.6 will have something new to see. I think Valve gave up on making Source competitive long ago. And they might still implement an option to turn off the pricing on competitive servers.

What they should do is just make CS 1.6 with the assets of CS Source (except the maps - the maps need to be the same as the old ones - but with new textures. That's all the pro community ever wanted
 
With DoD:S and CS:S it's clear that Valve wants their games to be 1) fun first .. 2) pretty looking ....... 3)Balanced with an emphasis on teamwork.

They have pretty much shit on the competitive communities in both games. Which isn't a big deal, because that's where most of the elitist, asshole gamers reside. No big loss.
 
actually toxicAdam dod:s is much improved and is fine for competitive play
they've increased the rifle accuracy to the point where I, being better than a load of pub scrubs can destroy them, without being runspammed much

source wars/matches are good now

LOL at this though, its the most random thing they've ever added to cs
how useless
 
tHoMNZ said:
actually toxicAdam dod:s is much improved and is fine for competitive play
they've increased the rifle accuracy to the point where I, being better than a load of pub scrubs can destroy them, without being runspammed much

source wars/matches are good now

LOL at this though, its the most random thing they've ever added to cs
how useless
I think random is the most precise word you could use.

That came out of the blue, I swear.
 
HOW ABOUT SOME NEW F*CKING MAPS!

Seriously, why are they concentrating on superfluous stuff like radar tweaks, and pricing algorithm when there aren't enough official maps?
 
tHoMNZ said:
actually toxicAdam dod:s is much improved and is fine for competitive play

Improved compared to what? Day of Defeat Source whenit was initially released or Day of Defeat 1.3? DoDS is better than when it first came out, but it's still a cluster f*ck compared to 1.3 whenit comes to its weapon balance and diversity. And much like CSS, there aren't enough maps...but hey, at least there's a film grain effect.
 
Some awesome user over on DayofDefeat.net forums made a program that can shoot 10000 shots and produce a spread to analyze.


shotdistest.jpg




Now you can see why people hate DoD:S. Imagine you are pointing at someone in DOD ... more than likely you will hit what you are aiming at. In DoD:S its almost random if you will get a "true" shot. The Cone of Fire is all messeg up.

Also factor in that the hitboxes are MUCH tighter in DOD:S compared to DOD and you can see why this is such a game breaker.
 
ToxicAdam said:
Some awesome user over on DayofDefeat.net forums made a program that can shoot 10000 shots and produce a spread to analyze.


shotdistest.jpg




Now you can see why people hate DoD:S. Imagine you are pointing at someone in DOD ... more than likely you will hit what you are aiming at. In DoD:S its almost random if you will get a "true" shot. The Cone of Fire is all messeg up.

Also factor in that the hitboxes are MUCH tighter in DOD:S compared to DOD and you can see why this is such a game breaker.
Holy shit, that's ****ing horrible.
 
EviLore said:
Yeah, for those of us playing for fun (gasp), this sounds interesting and has some potential.

Because, you know, nobody who plays professionally has fun doing it. I don't play CS professionally but statements like that really bug me.

Anyway, this sounds like it'll really screw up soon. I do like the idea of people using more of the lesser used guns like the galil and famas, but m4 and ak prices are gonna go through the roof. Same with the deagle.
 
I kinda like it :]
it gives more a shop feel to the game with weekly specials, but too bad I can't use my mums strat of buying in bulk when things are on special :p

Now they just need to add the guy from RE4 when you load up CSS to tell you the new weekly prices
 
ToxicAdam said:
Some awesome user over on DayofDefeat.net forums made a program that can shoot 10000 shots and produce a spread to analyze.


shotdistest.jpg




Now you can see why people hate DoD:S. Imagine you are pointing at someone in DOD ... more than likely you will hit what you are aiming at. In DoD:S its almost random if you will get a "true" shot. The Cone of Fire is all messeg up.

Also factor in that the hitboxes are MUCH tighter in DOD:S compared to DOD and you can see why this is such a game breaker.

DoD:S is such a disappointment :\ looks before substance. No wonder Waldo left, they destroyed his game.
 
yes that randomness still exists, and it does piss you off
but you'll find, _most_ kar shots hit at medium range, bar and mp44 kill too, (perhaps not as quickly as in 1.3)
the garand is still laughable though

95% of the pubbers still only use the assault class because they have no skill whatsoever

someone made "prodod", essentially its dod:s with cones of fire just like 1.3
it didn't take off unfortunately :( its out now

the improvement i was talking about was the improvement over dod:s' initial release
its still far behind 1.3
 
Firestorm said:
Because, you know, nobody who plays professionally has fun doing it. I don't play CS professionally but statements like that really bug me.

Anyway, this sounds like it'll really screw up soon. I do like the idea of people using more of the lesser used guns like the galil and famas, but m4 and ak prices are gonna go through the roof. Same with the deagle.

Firestorm ya habibi, no bro thats not what we are saying but you are dealing with the bitchiest of gamers to ever roam this planet. WCG last year held an ONLY CSS tourny for counter strike in order to promote the game. The community bitch and moaned so loud that now , a year after the "incident" wcg is back to 1.6. And since valve took up responsiblity for tweaking CS they have been ****ing it up alot. Remember the long awp delay etc... Plus money management is an INTEGRAL part of CS pro play, poor management can make or break a match FNATIC LALAWLALWLAWLA. Thats why im predicting massive bitching with dynamic pricing. But this is source so nobody cares :P

Toxic is right on target with the dod comments, but ill go further ahead and claim that 3.1 one owns the 1.x versions :P probably wont agree with me on there though :P Btw what gun is that thomspon or mp 11?
 
Like I said, I'm only a pubber for CS so I don't know. I hang around the NdN servers only since they're very friendly and have a little bit of team play. I was referring to the "pro games don't play for fun" mindset that EvilLore has. I have loads of friends who play SSBM professionally and I hate it when casual players say that the pros "don't have fun" playing the game.
 
I'm sure competitive gaming is fun, but I think Valve is smart. They realize that the bulk of people who play Source care very little about competition. They are just playing because they enjoy it. This change should only serve to shake things up a bit. Get people to try out different weapons. Keep things feeling new. I think Valve wants to actually be able to say that Source is more like a sequel of CS then a port. There's just really no need for Valve to keep Source as a competitive game since 1.6 dominates in that field. I'm all for these changes (radar, money, future stuff) as long as they don't completely break the game (in a major way). If it stays fun and fresh, I'll play it.

EDIT: Just please GOD fix the damn hitbox lag! If I get killed after taking cover ONE MORE TIME, I swear. . .I'll close CS:S and wait another hour to play it again. Please don't let it come to that, Valve, please.
 
EviLore said:
Yeah, for those of us playing for fun (gasp), this sounds interesting and has some potential.

I've played 1000's of hours of CS over 6 years for fun, but the random BS in CS:S is far from fun if you have even a moderate amount of skill. Last week I played on a CS:S server for the first time in a year (even with the horrible framerates on my Amd 4800+, Nvidia 7900 setup) and had to leave the server within an hour, because the randomness #hit me to tears. I'd be killing people with shots that had no right to be hitting anything, and missing well timed and placed shots.

How can a game be so skill less, and be fun for lengthy play? It's little wonder the community here in Australia is almost dead. Sure there are 300+ servers running but most sit empty 24 hours a day.

As for what Valve propose, I don't care either way. You should be able to kill with any gun anyway with just a change in tatics. The only problem I see with it is the extra time looking at gun prices all the time to check what you can afford with a limited budget as it'll change from week to week, instead of knowing straight away what you can get at the start of the round with your money.
 
Queeg said:
I've played 1000's of hours of CS over 6 years for fun, but the random BS in CS:S is far from fun if you have even a moderate amount of skill. Last week I played on a CS:S server for the first time in a year (even with the horrible framerates on my Amd 4800+, Nvidia 7900 setup) and had to leave the server within an hour, because the randomness #hit me to tears. I'd be killing people with shots that had no right to be hitting anything, and missing well timed and placed shots.

How can a game be so skill less, and be fun for lengthy play? It's little wonder the community here in Australia is almost dead. Sure there are 300+ servers running but most sit empty 24 hours a day.

As for what Valve propose, I don't care either way. You should be able to kill with any gun anyway with just a change in tatics. The only problem I see with it is the extra time looking at gun prices all the time to check what you can afford with a limited budget as it'll change from week to week, instead of knowing straight away what you can get at the start of the round with your money.

*shrug*, I don't find CSS to be particularly random, as in killing people I "shouldn't" be killing. If I play well I do well.
 
Maybe I've played on some dodgy servers. But with the amount of bitching I've seen from a number of other people I find it hard to put it down to just the servers. Then include the huge decline in the amount of players I've seen over the years, whatever Valve's playing at doesn't seem to be working. A few years ago there'd be servers over here full almost 24/7. Now you have to wait until peak times of the day to find a few servers full.
 
About the randomness and lag >

rate
cl_cmdrate
cl_updaterate
cl_interp


In my case, 25000, 100, 65+, 0.02. Can't hit shit if these aren't tuned to my connection at that point
 
This won't affect the AWP whores. There are just 2, maybe 3 at most in most games. AWPers will probably still be able to purchase their guns at a decent price, while most of the other people will be forced for a few rounds to use weapons they are unfamiliar with, as the M14 and the AK will be expensive.

I guess will have to wait to see how it works.
 
Queeg said:
Maybe I've played on some dodgy servers. But with the amount of bitching I've seen from a number of other people I find it hard to put it down to just the servers. Then include the huge decline in the amount of players I've seen over the years, whatever Valve's playing at doesn't seem to be working. A few years ago there'd be servers over here full almost 24/7. Now you have to wait until peak times of the day to find a few servers full.
It's the case with every fps game out there. We are the seeing the slow decline of their multiplayer popularity. People are into mmorpgs nowadays
 
seems like a very interesting balancing mechanic. no idea if it'll be 'fun' or if it'll work to balance out the game, however... but it's a pretty sound idea in theory.

i don't play CS myself (too many griefers/whiners/swearers/cheaters etc) but i'll be keeping an eye on this.
 
shuri said:
It's the case with every fps game out there. We are the seeing the slow decline of their multiplayer popularity. People are into mmorpgs nowadays

IMO I see it as the companies behind these games fault for this. CS survived years of bad behavior ,cheating etc. And player numbers still stayed high. We all were waiting for a major update to the game but when it finally came years after the original it was a massive disappointment. Where else were people to go for a good multiplayer game and something that's not built on 6 and a half year old tech?

Personally I think Valve got a great product with buying up CS, and only had a few small things to fix with it. But they have gone in and screwed with the game time and again and with CS:S have just about killed what made the original fun and addictive. All in the name of what ? Balance ? Realism ?

As for having to go and play with cmdrates, updaterates the old ex_interp commands etc. I've been playing with them and a whole lot more for a long time now, and as well as being annoying to have to do it in the first place, when it shouldn't be needed. It also has no real guarantee of fixing all the rubbish in the game anyway.

This is all my own take on what's happened, and I truely believe it was Valve that's killed what was once a great game. Well it's only their money to lose by killing their own franchise off.
 
I have only read the bolded parts so perhaps someone could explain how exactly this will work?

The percentage of money spent on each weapon during the week is used to determine the percentage by which its price moves the next week. So if 10% of all dollars world-wide are spent on the Maverick M4A1 Carbine, then its price will increase by 10%.

Because this would basically mean that every weapons price would increase every single week unless nobody bought it all (let's say 1% of all money was spent on the Scout, it would still increase its price by 1% and so on!?).
 
Valve has always tried appeasing the pubbers or weekend warriors that have been playing cs since it went retail. From interp and the netcode in general, to nerfing of gun balance, lack of recoil or gun control needed compared to when I started playing the betas, and the making the game slower (CS:S) the game in general has been made more accesible at the cost of it's greatness. I'm glad I started playing this game on a lan with friends because I don't think after the betas I would have liked it at all considering the amount of hacks and typical amount of pricks that play the game.
 
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