Riptide Operation - Week 16: Riptide! + Case Opening [Let's Play Games #41]

A new week means a new CS:GO post, but which this time will not only just make us begin the week with another set of missions in the Riptide Operation but it also represents the last post like this since the operation came to an end already and the four missions we'll play today, are also the last ones from this operation.

We have no information when a new operation will be released, nor if it's already in the making or not, but I'm sure Valve will make the announcement as soon as there is something concrete, so through this post, I'd like to also find out how many of you played this operation and what are your thoughts about it, because I did notice some people in the community who are playing CS:GO and considering that it's in the top 3 the most played games, it's impossible not to meet some buddies on here. 🙂

Anyway, this post is going to be a little bit different than these presented so far but will talk about it later because we have to first check out the last set of missions released in the Week 16: Riptide!, shall we?

1. Competitive - Short Match - Basalt: being needed to win an entire match OR collect 21 winning rounds from more matches played [★★★]
2. Guardian - County - Overwhelming Current: where you have to get 25 kills with any weapons [★★]
3. Deathmatch - Group Sigma - Pull Away From The Crowd: where you are required to get 30 kills with any of the operation's agents OR a total of 100 kills collected from more matches played [★★]
4. Casual - Group Delta - Tidal Flow: you have to score 7 kills with an operation skin for the weapons OR a total of 25 kills across more matches played without playing with a specific skin for the gun [★★★]

Both the Deathmatch and Casual missions are sort of trying to encourage more users to either purchase the operation on the last moment if they haven't done it already or, to at least get from the market one of those agents that were released in the operation or the skins for the weapons.

If you are asking me, this is the first time I get to see such a thing happening in CS:GO along all the 11 operations released in this game, and personally, I feel like a thing that shouldn't be done towards the players which are around 20 million of unique players monthly. So we can say that the game is already enjoying a lot of success and there was no necessity to ask them to purchase both an agent and a skin for the weapon to complete these missions.

Of course, there was also the 2nd option to get more kills with usual weapons or agents, but it's still something that I didn't like even though I owned both a Riptide Agent and weapon at the moment the missions were released.

Anyway, back to the game.

We started this series of completing the last set of missions by warming up in the Deathmatch which I managed to complete in a single match.

Usually, I play Deathmatch everytime I plan to play some Competitive matches, so I'm really used to this kind of fast respawn thing and to score as many kills as possible. It's a thing that contributes both to your aim and reflex, as well as learning new maps and know where you should expect the enemies to come from.

But if you don't own any agents from the Riptide market, you can play 2-3 matches until you collect all 100 kills required and call it a day. 😃

The same advice you can follow in the Casual mission that we played next, where, even though you will get kills a lot harder due to the respawn which is missing and that you have to wait until one of the teams is fully killed, there is no rush in collecting the kills that you can score quite easily if you are camping or simply playing with an AWP (if you are used with the scope weapons).

For me, it was also a short time completing this one because I had a few cases opened and so I found in my inventory a weapon from the Riptide Operation that helped me score the 7 kills required in just 2 or 3 rounds played in the match.

The next mission we played was the Guardian one which I can easily say now that it's the single game mode that was never missing along the 16 weeks released in the Riptide Operation. There were all kinds of challenges, playing either against 5 or 10 bots, getting kills with a specific weapon or category of weapons, playing with the enemies' guns or anything you like and so on, but in the end there was the same requirment, namely to get 20 or 25 kills on bots.

And as fun and easy it may sound, it was never like that because you are usually playing on maps with a high risk of being exposed and not too many obstacles to hide behind them, but there is no better way to train with some of the guns that you usually most likely never purchase.

However, for this last week, the whole action takes part on a suburban street from a Danger Zone map, so accuracy is really important and the best you can do is to have you or your teammate get an AWP while the other one plays with a rifle. And don't forget about the Zeus for the Armored guys which are a big challenge to kill with a normal gun.

Honestly, now with the operation being over, I doubt there will be players that will still load up matches on this mode, but honestly, I can't wait to get back to this kind of missions in the next operation that hopefully, won't take too long until it will be released.

And the last mission you can ever complete in the Riptide Operation was the short match on the Competitive mode that couldn't happen other than on an unusual map that was released at the same time the operation was, so if you are not lucky enough to get a nice team and win the entire match from the beginning, there is also the chance to collect 21 winning rounds form more matches played.

As much as we hoped to get nice people to play with, all of them were playing this map for the first time as it happened for us and it's really hard to have control on the match when you don't even know where the enemies are coming from or how to reach a site other than following the map the whole time, lol. 🤣

But it was still a nice thing that contributed on the nostalgia we got as soon as we realized that everything is over and we will have to wait a few months until a new operation will come out along with more in-game skins and missions. 😄

So, after the last 4 months loaded with lots of missions, emotions, and hours played, it's time to say goodbye to Operation Riptide, but say hello to your platinum coin which is finally happening as a celebration for all the 100x stars collected from the tasks completed.

While at the beginning everything seemed just like an opportunity to get another medal next to your in-game profile, during the time we ended up with a lot more than that which for me, it also contributed on my skill and determination to become better and better on this game that I hope I'll conquer one day with the highest ranks I can get on each of the ranked game modes available: Competitive, Wingman and Danger Zone.

But as no reward comes alone, there was also the 100x stars we collected so far which we could use to purchase different things from the Riptide Market that after 20th February it will disappear and so you won't be able to use your stars anymore if you haven't done it so far.

You will see that the first row is dedicated only to the agents which are costing differently (see the bottom left corner), depending on their rarity and how they look like because we all love having shiny skins rather than the common and boring ones, aren't we? 😃

Personally, I couldn't wait for too long and used some of the stars at the beginning of the operation to get the girl from the picture from above which I really liked and wanted to get my hands on.

These are also some of the most expensive agents from the operation and at the first I planned to spend all my stars to get these because I expect to see their price raising more after the operation disappears from the game because they are very unusual from any other agent of the game and they are also the most suggestive ones for the operation that had just ended.

But during the time and after the prices became a little bit more stable on all the Riptide things you can see on the market, I came to the conclusion that I should try my luck getting one of the weapon skins where some of them are even a few hundreds and thousands of euros, and where if you get one of these it's enough to sell it for real money and make yourself a nice gift.

And this is exactly what I did in the previous operation but which came with a big loss of profit so I gave up opening the collection cases that have a total of 19 weapon skins each because it's really hard to get one of the expensive ones while most of the skins are around a few cents or maximum 2 euros and just 2 or 3 more profitable.

So I went a little bit further, but still did not give up on the thought of opening the cases for the weapon skins. The one I decided to focus on, was a case which it costs 20x stars each opening but where you have more chances to get something nice because there are just 3 skins in total.

To be honest, all 3 skins are pretty interesting but the one I was aiming for was the 3rd one, a USP-S Whiteout pistol where the Factory New one costs (at the current time of writing this post), around 126 euros.

Since I had around 64x stars to use, I opened 3 such cases and (lucky me!) I got 3 pistols like the one I wanted, but where none of them had the wear I wanted so these are around 2-10 euros each, but where I have big hopes the price will go a lot higher as soon as the operation disappears from the game. 😀

If you don't consider yourself a lucky person you can always go for the operation cases where each case costs around 2x stars and so you can get 50x cases with a total of 100x stars earned during the operation. A case like this is being sold for around 50 cents each so you can easily get around 25 euros from solding all of them, which is almost double the price you paid to get the Riptide Operation.

And now, as a final note, I'm really curious if you had the Riptide Operation in CS:GO and if you used your stars already. If so, what did you got with these? And what are your thoughts now, when everything is over?

Personally, I really enjoyed this one, perhaps the most out of the 11 released during all these 12 years and I'm pretty satisfied with my score in the missions and all the skins I got from it. 😇

Game	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Release Date	21st August 2012
Played On	Steam
Genre	Multiplayer
Hours Played	4,779 hrs

	Episodes	Stars Earned
Week 1:	Shark Week ✅	13x ★
Week 2:	Seal The Deal ✅	8x ★
Week 3:	Surf’s Up ✅	10x ★
Week 4:	Gendarmerie ✅	8x ★
Week 5:	Tropical Paradise ✅	10x ★
Week 6:	Rumble In The Jungle ✅	10x ★
Week 7:	Land, Sea, and Air ✅	8x ★
Week 8:	Midway ✅	9x ★
Week 9:	Nautical Mile ✅	10x ★
Week 10:	Decompression ✅	8x ★
Week 11:	Water, Water, Everywhere ✅	9x ★
Week 12:	Remember Your Training ✅	10x ★
Week 13:	Practical Oceanography ✅	9x ★
Week 14:	A Little Competition ✅	9x ★
Week 15:	Barrier Reef ✅	8x ★
Week 16:	Riptide! ✅	10x ★

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