Spawn changes headline new CS2 update

A slew of modifications to spawns on various maps have rolled out just days ahead of the Americas RMR.

Valve have unveiled a new update for CS2, with the most prominent tweaks coming in the form of changed spawns across a number of maps in the competitive pool. Various aspects of spawns were modified in this update, but the most notable change was the removal of a number of spawn locations on numerous maps, including Inferno, Mirage, and Overpass, on both T and CT sides.

A consequence of this change is the removal of several spawns that provided aggressive opportunities for the defense and offense. Notably, the CT side Mirage spawns closest to Middle, as well as the Overpass CT spawn that offered a fast peek into Middle have been removed. Furthermore, at least seven spawns have been removed from the T side on Mirage.

These particular changes will no doubt need to be taken into consideration by teams set to participate in the upcoming PGL Copenhagen Americas RMR, with numerous aggressive timings and instant smokes being affected by the update.

The removal of certain spawns was not the only change made in that department. Valve have also tweaked the spawns of reconnecting players, guaranteeing that players who were disconnected from a match would "respawn in the spawn point they were assigned at the beginning of the round."

Outside of the modifications made to spawns, Valve also included many bug fixes as well as some slight map changes to Inferno. In regards to the former changes, Canadian commentator Mohan "⁠launders⁠" Govindasamy highlighted potential changes to the consistency of jump height, while others noticed improved framerates, a major talking point since the release of the Call to Arms update earlier in February.

The full list of changes are as follows:

[MISC]
- Spawn position is no longer randomly determined when a player reconnects to a server during freeze time. The spawn point sequence is now configured at the beginning of the map and is saved/restored from round backup files
- In official matchmaking servers, players who disconnect and reconnect during freeze time will respawn in the spawn point they were assigned at the beginning of the round
- On community servers, players who disconnect and reconnect during freeze time will be assigned one of the five spawn positions assigned to the team that round
- When restoring from round backup files (which is recommended in tournament settings after disconnects/reconnects), players will spawn in the positions they were originally assigned at the beginning of that round
- Fixed a bug where players would see a black screen after disconnecting and reconnecting multiple times during a technical timeout
- Fixed a bug where players disconnecting and reconnecting to a competitive match would incorrectly interact with bot spawning algorithm
- Fixed some cases where MVP music would not play or would play over round end music
- Fixed a bug in Deathmatch where kills during warmup would count towards healthshot reward and Zeus score bonus
- Fixed players jumping higher than normal when toggling low framerate
- Fixed an instance of weapon switches sometimes being ignored by the server
- Fixed smoke shadow rendering issues and improvements to perf
- Fixed a bug where the game would crash on Linux while alt-tabbing
- Fixed some cases where a frame rate hitch would occur due to compiling shaders
- Improved behavior when user input does not arrive on the server in time due to packet loss or client frame rate issues
- Adjusted various music kit cues in NIGHTMODE Music Kit box (ISOxo, Knock2, and TWERL and Ekko & Sidetrack)
- Fixed a case where some players in North America would always fail to accept a match on a server in Europe due to SDR choosing an invalid route
- Players who get kicked from official competitive servers for too many suicides will now be issued a competitive cooldown
- Adjusted the logic tracking player idle state to exclude round freezetime and timeout periods
- Chickens no longer interact with dropped weapons
- Sniper scope overlay no longer appears in tool viewports (such as Hammer)

[MAPS]
- Adjusted spawn location priorities for Premier and Competitive game modes in Anubis, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass, and Vertigo.

[INFERNO]
- Fixed community reported gaps in map and Trike model
- Raised plywood at top of Banana to cover head visibility
- Smoothed ground movement in Banana and Bombsite A
- Raised Arch exit towards Mid (or "Raised arch in Arch")
- Removed bench at Arch near Library
- Removed construction cone at Underpass

[WORKSHOP]
- Fix lightmaps being capped at 4k resolution in CS2 Workshop Tools
- Updated sticker inspect to support wear in 0.1 increments to match sticker scraping
- Added roughness texture to foil stickers in the Item Editor
- Updated help system for new sticker features