The new CS:Source Weapons Market

trogdor9

Valve is adding a dynamic weapons pricing feature to CounterStrike: Source.

Pricing Algorithm OverviewOverview: 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.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject? Is this a good idea? Should there be a server option to turn this off?

If the system were implemented today, here's what the prices would look like.

Sail

Hmm..I don't know. Counter-Strike weapons were so easy to attain before, even with high prices...I don't know how much this really would affect the game..

Kiey

I think it's a cool idea, that is really going to suck in practice. I also think that it's generally pointless. One of the things I used to do in CS:S was run around with a cheap SMG or a 5-7 and kill someone with a better gun and scavenge their stuff.

If anything it will make things harder for teams that lose a bunch of rounds in a row and don't have enough money to really buy anything useful.

EsonLinji

It's an interesting way of getting game balance, but I think they need to give more detail about how the algorithm behind the price change works. They give some info in a link from the link, but it appears inconsistent or at least imprecise.

Also, I would expect that the prices would reach some sort of equilibrium after a little while (a few months at most, given how much the game is played), after which only small changes would occur.

Apreche

If you make the assumption that weapons which are bought frequently(AK47,M4A1) are better than weapons bought less frequently(TMP,UMP), then this can actually work out great. Assuming the algorithm is written properly, this will basically be an automatic balancer of weapon prices. While the system is in its initial phases, people will have crazy games of CS where really good guns are really cheap. I forsee lots of people running around with paras and elites. But once the system reaches equilibrium you should theoretically have the most balanced weapons prices possible. So I think this is actually a good idea for balancing the game as long as it works in reality the same way it does on paper.

Kiey

If it ever reaches an equilibrium, or the gun market could just be completely out of balance. One day you play, the AWP is the most expensive gun; the next day it's the cheapest and the Deagle is the most expensive.

What I don't like is that the Deagle will be super expensive, and it was such a great first round in a game gun. Now, you'll have to save two or three rounds.

Valve really just should have changed the prices themselves. Then at least they'd be consistent.

Symmetry

I think its a great idea. And, if it doesn't stabilize quickly, they can always just convolve in a low pass filer (i.e. count past weeks at partial value) to get it to stabilize. I always like to use obscure weapons in CS, so I think this is a good thing for my playing style.