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This week's Soapbox was submitted by Adam "song2boy" Haselden and like all Soapboxes, it is solely his opinion.

In Response To Crouch Hopping

From my past experiences as a Counter-Strike gamer I've seen the sport evolve. Though several new "fads" have come and gone with the game, "crouch-hopping" is not the same, and should remain illegal.

In the article that I read on Gotfrag, the author failed to mention what the rules exactly state. Not only did he not mention the rules, but he also failed to mention all the facts. His argument is based upon several individuals’ opinions, and in no way supports the truth. This "crouch-hopping" phase is a serious hazard to our e-sport. At first we take the time to simply notice the immediate problem with "crouch-hopping", and notice that it lets you move about as quietly as walking, at a faster pace than walking. Some would consider it a quiet run, which gives any opponent an unfair advantage to moving to spots more quickly than their enemy. Now, if that were the only issue at hand, I would have no problem dealing with the situation.

Next, I would like to take a look at what happens when you "crouch-hop" during a scrim or a match. When you "crouch-hop" more than a couple times, the player who is "crouch-hopping" has a distinct and clear unfair advantage due to the headshot "hitboxes" moving out of place. As many players that scrim, or possibly even played matches that have "crouch-hopping" players in it, you can clearly tell when the hit boxes of the head have been skewed. Time, after time I see players run into sites "crouch-hopping" and then can even stand one place with me shooting their head, and nothing happens to them. This is where the "crouch-hopping", at least in my opinion, gets a bad reputation. Now, I'm sure if ANYONE ever found out a player was purposely messing with the "hitboxes" so that they could get advantage in a situation, you could easily bet the entire community would be in an uproar about the situation. As I have said before, the author did not completely demonstrate all the facts that show the problems with "crouch-hopping".

CAL's Ruling on "crouch-hopping"
3.90f-2 Movement Exploits

"Speed walking", "silent running", or “crouch running” is illegal, which is the repeated crouching to move at a faster pace than normal whether you generate sound or not. You may not hit your crouch button repeatedly in order to move faster or augment the hit boxes in any way. The general rule of thumb would be not to hit crouch more than two times in a row. Note, however, that crouch jumping is still permissible, as well as crouch peeking over a ledge or box. As in other exploit disputes, a CAL administrator will have the final decision.

CEVO's Ruling on "crouch-hopping"
26.00 Crouch Hopping

The act of continuous crouch hopping to exploit hit boxes and sound is illegal during any live round. If a player is found crouch hopping during a live round in which the crouch hopping had a direct impact on the outcome of the round, up to three (3) rounds may be reversed followed by a possible player or team suspension. The severity of the penalty is up to the discretion of a CEVO Official.

Note that crouch jumping to peek over boxes, ledges, etc. is legal. Additionally, crouch jumping to peek a corner is legal so long as it is not done repeatedly.
These are the rules of two of the major North American leagues, and if you do not believe me feel free to look them up. I cannot believe that people are not outrage by these individuals’ opinions.

“There have been several fads and techniques that have been discovered in Counter-Strike history, most of which were never restricted. Some of these including boosting, strafe-jumping, bunny-hopping, banking grenades off of ledges and walls, throwing a smoke grenade as a flash grenade in an attempt to make your opponent turn, stacking on a teammate’s head in order to see over a ledge or box, killing people through walls, and shooting through fake objects (i.e. the rock edge at the B window on de_dust2). While some of these techniques may be more effective than others when contrasting them with crouch-hopping, one question remains. Are these techniques or exploits?”

After reading through my article, I want you take into careful consideration what the author is saying. According to this line of the author, “Some of these including boosting, strafe-jumping, bunny-hopping, banking grenades off of ledges and walls, throwing a smoke grenade as a flash grenade in an attempt to make your opponent turn, stacking on a teammate’s head in order to see over a ledge or box, killing people through walls, and shooting through fake objects (i.e. the rock edge at the B window on de_dust2).”, this author is putting “…throwing a smoke grenade as a flash grenade in an attempt to make your opponent turn..” in even the same ballpark as skewing the “hitboxes”. Now do you see why a lot of the community, including myself, is outraged by this attempt to include cheating into our ever growing e-sport?

After much consideration, and much thought is put into this “crouch-hopping” exploit, the fact remains that “crouch-hopping” is an exploit and should be considered cheating. Despite it may make it more difficult for the admins to pay closer attention to this rule, this should be illegal, and it is their job to make sure illegal exploits are not used in ANY kind of play.