Valve has banned Counter-Strike 2 players from using the SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions) counter-strike automation feature on their keyboards. Razer was the first to support Snap Tap on the Huntsman V3 Pro keyboard; it was soon followed by Wooting with a similar implementation of Snappy Tappy – now Valve has announced that players using these features will be kicked out of Counter-Strike 2.
Image source: counter-strike.net
«Recently, certain hardware features have blurred the line between manual input and automation, so we decided to draw a clear line between what is acceptable in Counter-Strike and what is not. We will no longer allow automation (either scripted or hardware) that bypasses these core skills, and going forward (and starting exclusively on Valve’s official servers), players suspected of automating multiple actions with single taps will be kicked out of matches.” in a statement from Valve.
Players are indeed kicked out of matches, The Verge journalist was convinced, but the company is not yet ready to block accounts for using these functions. SOCD features from Razer and Wooting allow players to customize their strafing mechanics. Typically, changing the direction of movement sideways to the opposite requires releasing one key before pressing the other – if you press both, the two commands simply cancel each other, and the character stands still until the player releases one of the keys.
SOCD allows you not to release the keys – the command is accepted from the one that was pressed last. As requested by professional Counter-Strike 2 players, SOCD functionality is prohibited in tournaments. Wooting added this feature after Razer did so – now the first has said that it is glad that Valve has taken a stance against Snap Tap and has warned against using this feature and its analogues in CS2, since it now threatens exclusion from the game.