Community reacts: Valve removes Major open qualifiers

31-5-2024 19:55

The latest change to the Major rulebook has caused quite a stir in the space.

ECSTATIC's story cannot be replicated under the new rules

Valve made some significant changes to the Major circuit earlier on Friday, when they announced the complete removal of the open qualifiers in some regions. At the same time, Perfect World, the organizer of the Shanghai Major, announced the dates for the qualifiers and RMRs, which will be all played on LAN in Shanghai, China.

While the latter change has been accepted positively, the removal of open qualifiers for the European and North American regions has been met with a raft of criticism and pushback, with the community even starting a petition to try and reverse the decision.

Open qualifiers removed in raft of Major rulebook changes

The main gripe with the decision is that the Major was previously open to anyone, which is no longer true. People have looked back at the Copenhagen Major, where ECSTATIC, KOI, and HEROIC were among many teams that made it to the main event after coming through the open qualifiers.

Even in earlier times, several teams had advanced impressively far into the Major after starting from the open qualifiers, with Spirit (PGL Antwerp 2022) and MOUZ (IEM Rio Major 2022) both making it to the semi-finals.

Many people have theorized that cheating is the reason for the change. Previous online qualifiers were clouded in controversy as many teams got disqualified due to unfair play, but community figures have expressed their disappointment at the way Valve is handling this matter.

Other community members have spoken about the impact this will have on the calendar and how it can lead to player burnout as teams will fight for every ranking point available across the season.

Despite the majority of the reactions being negative, some have sided with Valve, saying that they understand the reasoning and that the change is a step in the right direction.

It's a good change honestly, people are short sighted

2024-05-31 19:55

18 replies

0/8 try better next time

2024-05-31 20:02

Explain the long term vision then.

2024-05-31 20:15

2 replies

valve's ranking gets tweaked and improved over time and teams that should be in majors get to go to majors

2024-05-31 22:21

1 reply

valve's prize pool ranking. hsg fe invited to chinesee closed qualifier by playing and winning every female tournament/cash cup in asia 🗿🗿🗿🗿

2024-05-31 23:21

basically ruined the opportunity for any new orgs to join cs in hopes of playing the china major. Can valve decide if they want to make the asian scene bigger or not, removing open, means that every chinease kid having a dream is now not gonna be able to dream. So let me just ask you. In what way other than less cheaters is this a "good change" in the long sight?

8 replies

Or, they can play in the qualifiers of other events, if they are good enough, they qualify, and if they can perform well throughout the year, they get invited? Why are people acting like there is now 0 chance for new teams to enter into the scene, all it means is that can't just fluke through a qualifier or cheat etc

2024-05-31 20:19

7 replies

I agree with most of what is said, but can we agree that it should only have been implemented once the partner system is gone? I know asian teams are not as affected+ they still have open qualifiers so no chinese kids dreams are ruined yet to help counter rolade. Just now all EU and Americas teams with a partnered slot get free/unfair/preferential points over others for the first cycle of this system (regardless whether or not they are good enough either way)

2024-05-31 20:31

3 replies

I can see your reasoning but I do think this is a better system than what we had previously, regardless of partner system or not

2024-05-31 20:48

So in your eyes a team of OGs caliber is justified to get invited to the closed/RMR eventhough they can't hit the broad side of a barn if their life depended on it? Falcons just gets a free pass to RMR eventhough they barely beat a single opponent since their inception (bar Katowice)? At that point the system is less fair than half invites hald open or whatever the distribution for closed quali was

2024-05-31 21:28

falcons did ok at betboom recently, OG truly are shit lol

2024-05-31 21:36

But that's only supposing there will be open qualifiers to other events... No more partner system just means that there could be no deal between orgs and TOs, but they will still mostly work with invites, simply because it makes them more money to invite Faze and Navi directly than to ask them to do an open qualifier + when would they do it? It's super long to do an open qualifier with round of 1024 etc... I see your point, if every tournament is Open, then it's fine if Major aren't, but most of the tournaments will still be invites only or with invite qualifiers Valve knows it's super hard to do an open qualifier, how could they expect one to happen for every tournament in the calendar...

2024-05-31 23:12

maybe because we don't live off cs and we don't have time or means to play a whole year of Open qually , but we make mix teams and prepare 2 months before major

2024-06-01 00:16

you grind two months for the major and then you disappear -> you don't deserve it. go grind the whole year like every normal team, show consistency and there you will be invited to the major. Ex Ecstatic for example would have been invited to the major this year because they were ranked high enough (despite them telling you otherwise), so even a tier 3 team can still make it. If major invites are based on ranking and ranking is based on open tournaments, then that is in some way an open qualifier for the major, just emphasizing consistency, no flue teams and less cheating. another valve W

2024-06-01 09:46

Basically major is going be the only "closed" event, valve is going to obligate the orgs to be an open tournaments, and then with the results of your team during the year you can be invited to be on the big event with the best teams of the all tournaments tier1. It's the reverse of the system, now is going to be more open but, your team have to be better, not in only one qualifier, you have to be good on many qualifiers during the year.

2024-05-31 21:20

How is that not better for the game though? Instead of teams just fluking in / cheating in or whatever, now the best teams of the year all get to get together and play each other, I think the most important tournaments of the year shouldn't be able to just be fluked in, it ruins viewership, teams underperform who never should have made it that far which make for poor matches too, it is far better if teams who want a shot at the major have to perform in other events too

2024-05-31 21:22

Yes yes, i didn't say that its not better, i prefer this type of invites, its not a direct invite for money, is invite for level, and this do the qualify for the major more difficult.

2024-05-31 21:30

Bait uses to be believable

2024-06-01 02:24

your free to believe what you like

2024-06-01 02:49

Volvo clueless...

2024-05-31 19:56

horrible change and removes the magic of majors

2024-05-31 19:58

cringe af

2024-05-31 20:01

unfortunate

that ecstatic post is just dishonest shit, they would just go through different way, also movistar, probably with more comfort

2024-05-31 20:03

Idk. Open Quals are part of what makes the Major a Major and not just another Blast or ESL Pro League. Just add a Super Intrusive Anti-Cheat or something.

2024-05-31 20:04

5 replies

Just work with ESL and faceit. or demand for Major Qualifier a "Kernel AC" like Valo if people think this might help. Options are there

2024-05-31 20:12

They could just make a partnership with Face It so all open qual matches are played on their platform. How hard can it be? Or would it hurt Valve's ego too much to admit that their "anti" cheat is trash

2024-05-31 20:51

Yet Valo has a big cheater issue right now. So much for an intrusive kernel level AC

2024-05-31 20:52

I just say they could make an AC only for major tournaments. And that could be more strict than for normal players. They also could use it to test it etc. Actually, this would be a great idea.

2024-05-31 21:46

idk why they are not using faceit ac

2024-05-31 20:24

sign the petition

frankly, I think this should’ve been done in 2025. Not now. At least let the Shanghai major be the last major with open qualifiers and then remove them.

2024-05-31 20:05

I loved the Cinderella story. A team that doesn't get paid, doesn't play full time, and has a hard time bootcamping makes it through the Open Qualifier to Major. It was the dream of us normal players and the reason we loved Major and CS. What if a team that once played against you in a small online tournament could qualify for Major? It was a really great story line.

Give qualifiers to faceit and cheaters problem solved

2024-05-31 20:08

Very sad

Valve games become pay2win. No team that has zero money will have a fair shot. BNE Story would never happen with Valve Ranking.

2024-05-31 20:13

BNE were 44th in HLTV global ranking I think they would make it in Valve EU ranking, same as all teams I saw named anywehere, these underdog stories just dont happen man

2024-05-31 20:18

Valve and HLLTV Ranking work differently, so it's far away from sure that they would have made it.

2024-05-31 20:35

So they announce an end to close circuit leagues and events.... to then make the major a popularity contest Big teams go to big events and get a massively inflated ranking from participating (ie current nip and fnatic) while having 0 meaningful runs/results

Instead of making a decent AC remove the little things left that used to make the game great.. At this point i guess the community should fall back into the 1999 era and start a real counter strike game with no dickheads running the show..

2024-05-31 20:16

Why did they remove it exactly? Can someone explain to me?

2024-05-31 20:22

Because PGL Major Open qualifiers had a lot of cheaters... So, because Valve/Perfect World don't have a effective Anti-Cheat, they decided to not host open qualifiers...

#35

That's something Perfect World doesn't want. They want a full tournament organized by them to showcase China's power. Any other TO would, at least, think about it.

2024-05-31 21:07

Wow thats dumb. Also thank you for telling me

2024-06-01 01:13

because they dont know how to fix cheating in open quals

If this is true I'm going to stop following the competitive scene

naah. Majors will just become more irrelevant but it wont ruin the scene. Eventually someone will just take the stick and make their own Major

no one's ever going to be able to make their "own major". Unlike other tournaments, major still holds something which are stickers. Immortalizing the players' names forever in the game and providing revenue as a bonus.

2024-06-01 03:01

When you have no will of making efforts towards fixing the problem, the easiest way is to cancel the whole thing.

2024-05-31 20:33

I swear GabeN is doing everything he can to ruin CS bc DotA is dying

2024-05-31 20:34

People saying that this decision was to prevent cheaters from playing in open qualifiers are moronic. Like everything else in the world, it's about money.

2024-05-31 20:38

hell yeah it's about money. it's about the money Valve stand to lose if everyone abandons the game over the cheating. the last open qualifiers were a wake up call for Valve. they don't want more press like this: dotesports.com/counter-strike/news/pgl-c.. so they are hitting the panic button. they cannot or will not stop the cheating but they can stop nonamers from entering the tournament. this is another shoddy bandaid on CS's grievous wounds, like all the little tweaks to the game while major performance problems stay unaddressed and cheaters have turned any ranking system into a joke.

You haven't been watching for that long if you think this last major was any worse in terms of cheating vs all the others.

2024-05-31 22:11

I've been watching most of the big tournaments since ~2015 but I never paid attention to the more behind the scenes stuff like qualifiers before the last couple years, that's true.

2024-05-31 22:24

So now majors are just another blast/esl tournament... Many good players were first noticed when playing open quals for major

2024-05-31 20:59

Counter strike 1.6 was released back in 2003. I really believe that 21 years isn't not enough to make a decent AC.....

2024-05-31 21:26

good, its been a long time coming. this will slow down these fluke runs who got the easiest opponents.

2024-05-31 21:33

One of the worst decisions valve has made in the last decade, or even more. The biggest problem in the scene currently is the lack of anticheat... Instead of fixing the existing problem, they are closing their eyes for the 100th time and they are "fixing" it in their own way, which isnt the correct one. I'm actually starting to hope that Microsoft[or anyone else] buys valve, because I don't think valve deserves the title of their games anymore. They keep fucking up every possible thing about the game, which I never thought was possible.

2024-05-31 21:43

Microsoft buying Valve? Ah, yes, this is the delusion why we all come to the hltv forums for. Chefs kiss.

2024-05-31 22:14

4 replies

Well, no idea what happened to the offer that Microsoft was putting up together last week... at least didn't see anything go public yet.

2024-05-31 22:34

it was fake. some random blue check mark made a tweet then everyone just believed it

2024-06-01 06:10

Uhm... Maybe, but I dont think so. It wasnt a hltv only thing, i saw some posts from a really trustworthy sites and blogs that wouldnt post things just like that... but who knows.

2024-06-01 06:20

it was sourced from a twitter account that just randomly tweeted 80.lv/articles/no-microsoft-is-not-buyin.. x.com/tomwarren/status/17934390081873840..

2024-06-01 06:38

Good change

2024-05-31 22:13

Imagine people still cheats in counter strike, its 2024 bruhh..

2024-05-31 22:45

Wouldn’t be surprised if this has something specifically to do with the major being in Shanghai as opposed to running open qualifiers just being difficult for a lackadaisical, apathetic company like Valve to run. I’m sure it’s a bit of both. Bad move to get rid of open qualifiers.

2024-05-31 22:58

People thinking that now the major is somewhat closed don't understand the system. If you are a random team, you now have to go to a tournament to earn points and if you have enough points you get the invitation. A closed system would mean that only a few selected teams picked by valve got the invitation, which is obviously not true. Now only the consistent team will get tot he major, no more flukes and less cheaters. Another Valve W

2024-05-31 23:33

Deserved rektered for the decision!

2024-05-31 23:37

It’s funny that people compare it to Valorant - no no, Valorant is partnered, it’s very different to the majors even with open quals removed. So that’s a moot comparison.

2024-05-31 23:41

I can accept there being no open qualifier to the extent there has been now, where all the randos can participate. But I do think they should at least have like 256 team open qualifiers for every actual pro players who have tournament experience that year to have their chance. So that you wouldn't be completely fucked if team just decides to remove you two months before the major.

2024-05-31 23:50