CAL Round Time

[CSN NewsBot]

With the changes in the money system coming up shortly, the Cyberathlete Amateur League has decided to use the remainder of its preseason matches as an opportunity to test a shorter round time. The round time will now be 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but if you keep in mind the new change that the round timer is disabled when the bomb is planted, you can potentially gain about five seconds in the round time overall. Of course, if you decide to be blissfully ignorant, you still have the right to moan that CAL sucks and we're all going to die because the rounds are getting shorter.



Due to the delay of Wednesday's Steam patch coming out (it's supposed to come out Thursday) it is a safe assumption that the reduced round time is not going to be used in any CAL matches tonight.

CAL Conor: This is only a test. This rule change may or may not become permanent, but we are using the remainder of the preseason to test it. The rule change is as follows: With the new monetary system in place, CAL would like to test a shorter round time of two minutes and thirty seconds (2:30) in order to create a faster, action-oriented match without having to resort to charge-only rules. There will be plenty of time and space for feedback shortly.

[alpha_crusis]

Great, this changes follow the Counter-Strike's changes.

Oh.. I just noticed that in the past few news, it all has a link to the new Public CS Forum.. lol

[xlokix]

i like these changes for one, there's no more 'hide and seek' games with the ct when theres less than 30 seconds on the round timer and because the game is much faster and frankly i was getting tired of waiting 3 minutes for a terrorist team to rush.

[MikeJ]

I think changing the round-time to 2:30 is more of a necessity now than an improvement. Since you can plant the bomb with 3 seconds left on the clock the round doesn't change to hide-and-seek once the timer hits 40. It's basically still 3:00 minutes of game-time if you take into account the bomb timer is 35 seconds. If they changed nothing a round could potentially last around 3:30.

[Supersonic^]

This is good news. Are they changing it for CPL too?



This will encourage faster rounds, and with the money changes aswell, make CS a more spectatable sport :)

[quiv]

"Testing" this for the rest of the preseason... which effectively means Aztec, a much hated map in the league community. Infamiliarity with map strats (since it has been out of the league rotation for a few seasons) combined with this "experiment" are not going to give an accurate representation of how the shortened clock truly affects competitive game play. 99% of CAL matches on Aztec this next week will look like a 10 player pub any way. Too many variables for accurate testing.

[[CyW]-=BigBear=-]

LOL, Valve gives us more time as T to plant the bomb, CAL decides to take the time off again.. What's the point?? Do they want to turn CS in a non-stop action brainless DM game? Looks like it, less & less time for proper tactics or adjusting during a round, and more stupid rushing.. Why don't they just make it 1 minute and play on maps with 1 big open area, all the action you want and no more "boring" tactics..

[Jeruleus]

Don't these changes favor the typical American style of play a lot more than the typical Euro style? Is it a disadvantage to the Euros? Is it fair to the whole community? Valve sind deutschmarks!

[Buddah]

quiv wrote..

"Testing" this for the rest of the preseason... which effectively means Aztec, a much hated map in the league community. Infamiliarity with map strats (since it has been out of the league rotation for a few seasons) combined with this "experiment" are not going to give an accurate representation of how the shortened clock truly affects competitive game play. 99% of CAL matches on Aztec this next week will look like a 10 player pub any way. Too many variables for accurate testing.

I generally don't stand up for CAL, but this time I'll make an exception. Aztec was out for ONE season. Even then it was still common to see teams looking for scrims in the off season for aztec. It won't be that bad.



Now for my rant on supposed CS news sources (ie CSnation, etc, etc,etc) Last big change in CAL that I remember being reported was the unbanning of the shield back in November. Oh how that got a big post and much talk. Oddly enough when CAL did a flip flop and rebanned the shield two weeks later where was this news worthy item. Lost in the Bits maybe or were too many people breathing sighs of relief?

[{O.L.B}Zorro]

LOL, Valve gives us more time as T to plant the bomb, CAL decides to take the time off again.. What's the point?? Do they want to turn CS in a non-stop action brainless DM game? Looks like it, less & less time for proper tactics or adjusting during a round, and more stupid rushing..

The time for tactics remains the same if you reduce the roundtime to 2.30. The change is just that CTs have to beware till the last seconds of the round, and wont go hiding, which is only good in my opinion, keeps it exciting till the very end of a round.

[[CyW]-=BigBear=-]

{O.L.B}Zorro wrote..

The time for tactics remains the same if you reduce the roundtime to 2.30. The change is just that CTs have to beware till the last seconds of the round, and wont go hiding, which is only good in my opinion, keeps it exciting till the very end of a round.

yeah, maybe it's better this way.. Just don't like it when people want to turn CS into a DM frenzy..

[Splatula]

30 seconds doesn't make that much of a difference. It would be more like sudden death during hockey games. There is no advantage to plant at the last second. It's not like you get more money for extending the match by 30secs... and it just gives CTs more time to find you. When you couple this with the new money system, you'll be seeing people actually try to plant earlier and you'll see more coordinated attacks on bottlenecks and bsites.

[ph33r.hell_raiser]

[CyW]-=BigBear=- wrote..

LOL, Valve gives us more time as T to plant the bomb, CAL decides to take the time off again.. What's the point?? Do they want to turn CS in a non-stop action brainless DM game? Looks like it, less & less time for proper tactics or adjusting during a round, and more stupid rushing.. Why don't they just make it 1 minute and play on maps with 1 big open area, all the action you want and no more "boring" tactics..

the time is the same, since its 2:30 + bomb time. Cal only made this change to try to stop people from waiting until 2:55 to plant the bomb, which is lame. As for tactic time, if it takes you over 2:30 to run your strat and plant the bomb , and you seriously need to re-think your strat.