CSGO February 3 patch notes: Shorthanded Income, timeout changes

Valve are changing up how CS:GO’s Shorthanded Loser Income and timeouts work in the February 3 patch. The changes come to help improve the competitive experience for teams who are down a man.

CS:GO has been in a bit of a rut since Valve made the drastic call to remove bots from Competitive. The controversial decision has been met by tons of resistance, despite Valve extending an olive branch of changes.

Extra timeouts and the Shorthanded Loser Income system have somewhat bridged the gap, but not by enough. Valve is now altering the two systems to try and help teams who are a man down remain competitive without being able to jump between bots.

Shorthanded Loser Income handed out more frequently

Shorthanded Loser Income is one addition Valve has made to CS:GO to help rebalance Competitive queues after removing bots. If someone disconnects, after three rounds, you’ll get bonus money to spend.

While it used to only work on losses, the recent update is now giving it out every round, regardless of win or loss. This means that teams who are down 4v5 aren’t punished for winning after the three-round buffer, which is still in place.

Tactical timeouts changed after tech pauses addition

The addition of Technical Timeouts in the January 27 patch has made CS:GO games run a little slower than normal. Given they activate automatically when someone disconnects, it’s an unavoidable consequence.

However, Valve is changing how Tactical Timeouts work within CS:GO to accommodate tech pauses. Tactical Timeouts will be changed from four 30-second timeouts to two one-minute timeouts. The changes are being tested in the Broken Fang Premier queue.

• Read More: How to call a CS:GO Technical Timeout

While it’s the same length of time overall, having less pauses makes the game flow a bit better. Instead of the potential of stopping six times over the course of a game, that has been cut to four.

You can find the full CS:GO February 3 patch notes below.

CSGO February 3 patch notes

Gameplay

• Short-handed income is now given after every round regardless of a win or loss.
• Broken Fang Premier team timeouts have changed from 4x half-minute timeouts to 2x one minute timeouts.