Yeah I dabbled with the “competitive” play in 1.6 back in the day when it was finding matches on irc but most of my fun came from the communities I played with consistently. Maybe you can find these in some form but it’s not what most people are talking about these days if they say they “play counter strike”. I don’t really like the seriousness of ranked play so I never got back into it.
> I don’t really like the seriousness of ranked play
I see a lot of people say this type of thing and it's strange to me beause it doesn't have to be serious. You can do whatever you want within reason, as long as you're not griefing or something.
I have a group of friends who I play Overwatch 2 with occasionally, but they always insist on playing quick play instead of ranked and especially in that game quick play is just worse. Rankings are just a way to match you with people of roughly equal skill, you don't have to chase a higher rank all the time. I actually like losing ranks because it just means I'll have an easier time for a while until I go back to where I start struggling.
Meanwhile I see others get legitimately emotional about dropping a rank and I just don't get it. Relax, it's just a game. We're not playing for money or fame or anything. If you're really at a level where money and fame is on the table you probably don't care about your matchmaking rank anyway.
