Valve has released an update for first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that eliminated an overpowered new weapon.
The weapon in question was the R8 Revolver, which drew criticism from the Counter-Strike community due to being insanely powerful.
A thread on Reddit discussing the winter update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive contained a significant number of comments on how crazy the R8 Revolver was. With an in-game price of $850, which is just $150 more expensive compared to the Desert Eagle handgun, the R8 Revolver's power was too much for the price tag.
"The addition of the revolver has broken competitive CS and nothing short of changing the gun beyond recognition or removing it will fix that," wrote a Redditor, adding that the gun's range, accuracy even while moving and capability to kill opponents in one shot is what made the R8 Revolver overpowered.
With the update, the gun is no longer the severely imbalanced weapon that it previously was. Valve, in a blog post, even admitted the mistake of releasing the update with the R8 Revolver at its original state.
"While it typically takes more time to generate enough data to drive an update (and gameplay updates are always a bit disruptive), in this case it's clear that we got the damage wrong and can respond immediately," said Valve, stating the legitimate concerns that it received from gamers.
According to Valve, the R8 Revolver was fixed and brought to a power level in line with the other weapons available in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive through a reduction on its damage output and increasing the time that the handgun takes to fire.
Valve, however, added that it could take several attempts over a long period of time to be able to set stable values for new weapons such as the R8 Revolver, with the company stating that it will monitor the usage of the weapon and re-adjust the R8 Revolver's specs when needed.
It was a good thing that Valve fixed the R8 Revolver right away, as ESL pro gaming VP James "Kennigit" Lampton revealed that the season 2 finals of the ESL Pro League will not be played using the latest patch for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive due to changes to gameplay and weapons, without specifically mentioning the R8 Revolver.
