Valve says 'we've decided to draw a clear line' and bans Snap Tap keyboard automation from Counter-Strike 2

Valve has made a bold decision with its latest update to Counter-Strike 2, and one that is something of an about-turn on previous attitudes. A client update has announced certain forms of scripting popular in Counter-Strike will now be detected and banned, essentially putting an end to automated inputs that some players use for actions such as jump-throws of grenades and counter-strafing. Yes sir, the tears are delicious.

A good chunk of Counter-Strikers probably don't even realise such tactics existed, but keyboard macros of various types have been around in the game forever. In fact Valve's previous stance was to allow them. But contemporary hardware has increasingly leaned-in to allowing what's called Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Direction (SOCD) inputs, a name so catchy that hardware manufacturer Razer has dubbed the feature «Snap Tap», and it's been a major controversy across all competitive games.

Here is a full explainer of how SOCD / Snap Tap works, particularly how it relates to counter-strafing in competitive Counter-Strike, and why that might be a problem. The short version, however, is that it makes a core skill of the game (stopping to shoot accurately while moving) trivially easy to execute.

So Valve has come out hard, and said this shit is no longer going to fly. As someone who plays the game normally I'm all in favour of automated assists being banned, and the top-voted comment on the CS2 subreddit goes along similar lines. «Valve has taken a standpoint,» says TheZeroStone. «The end of tool assisted gameplay, as someone who doesn’t use any keybinds and have been relying on my natural inconsistencies, I am happy.»

Here's the official word from Valve: «Certain types of movement/shooting input automation such as hardware-assisted counter strafing will now be detected on Valve official servers, resulting in a kick from the match.» It goes on to list certain input binds that will now be ignored by default, and for good measure adds that the grunt when