CSGO update removes bots from competitive & players are furious: January 7 patch notes, map changes, more

March 2022 · 5 minute read

CS:GO’s January 7 patch was headlined by an interesting change to remove bots for AFK and disconnected players in competitive. The new Counter-Strike update has been almost universally disavowed by the community, who are outraged by the change.

Bots have been a contentious issue in CS:GO for some time, especially in ranked. Stacks would abuse the system to kick underperforming players to get a bot they can play with instead post-death, although that also posed its own problems.

The AI characters would take weapons away from the players, make poor buys, and other questionable decisions. However, their existence was taken for granted ⁠— some solace in losing a teammate if you could grab a bot and get back on the battlefield for a fair 5v5.

Valve has shut that down though. In a drastic change on January 7, the CS:GO developers have removed bots from competitive “when a player disconnects or is kicked.” This means there’s no more 5v5s if a player leaves, you’ll always be stuck a man down.

Release Notes for today are up. Among other things, bots are no longer granted to teams in Competitive matches. Full notes are here: https://t.co/seG0oTAY1E

— CS:GO (@CSGO) January 8, 2021

In addition to that, if an entire team leaves, there will only be a singular bot spawned. This idle AI will be there for an easy kill so the opposing team can blaze their way to 16 rounds.

However, the changes have been almost universally slammed by the CS:GO community. Players agreed that bots were a problem in competitive, but removing them was not the way to deal with it. “We wanted bots to be better, not gone,” one Reddit user said.

Prominent CS:GO YouTuber Anomaly also questioned the changes. “They legit removed bots from competitive. If someone on your team leaves, it’s instantly GG. We wanted more control over the bots, being able to have bots drop guns and have more complex commands, not removing them completely?

“Today me and Linda got disconnected from a game because of internet drop. [We] managed to reconnect and while we were gone our team didn’t do horribly because they had 2 bots. With this new update they would have 100% lost all the rounds we were gone.”

They legit removed bots from competitive. If someone on your team leaves, it’s instantly GG.

WE WANTED MORE CONTROL OVER THE BOTS, BEING ABLE TO HAVE BOTS DROP GUNS AND HAVE MORE COMPLEX COMMANDS, NOT REMOVING THEM COMPLETELY?????? https://t.co/8K4bgSinlF

— Anomaly (@anomalyxd) January 8, 2021

That wasn’t the only issue players had with the contentious January 7 update. Valve also removed a function with pings, no longer highlighting weapons in competitive for allies to pick up. This has also fallen flat with players.

“No more bots? Pings don’t highlight weapons? What the f**k is this update Valve? Now literally every time someone leaves it’s a guaranteed loss… this is so random, what issue does it solve,” another Twitter user added.

Valve are yet to comment on the community feedback. You can find the full CS:GO January 7 patch notes below.

CS:GO January 7 patch notes and changelog

Gameplay

View models

Misc

Perfect World

Maps

Ancient

Cache

Engage

Guard

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