Every so often you can see a player resorting to Reddit or Twitter to rant about how ‘broken’ the CSGO matchmaking is and how the game is filled with cheaters. While it’s true that CSGO has an underlying cheater problem, Valve has found a pretty decent way to ensure that there exists a fine line between the queues of cheaters and clean players.
The trust factor system for CSGO was implemented in late 2017 with an intent to take the best parts of the existing prime matchmaking and combine it with a new system to provide a better experience for its players. Users with a certain trust factor score would be matched with players with similar trust factors, improving matchmaking experience the higher you go up the ladder.
Having a low trust factor means that you’re far more likely to be matched with cheaters or toxic teammates. The only way to get out of that hell is to improve your trust factor yourself, and we’re gonna show you how to.
The official blog post for the trust factor introduction in CSGO states that to improve trust factor, “All you need to do is be a positive member of the CS:GO and Steam community.” While no specific steps are mentioned on ways to improve the trust factor, the implications are obvious.
Here are five tips to help you improve your trust factor in CSGO by a significant margin:
Commends
Commends are a great way to prove your positivity in the community. People generally commend each other for being nice, friendly or being a good leader. That’s all you have to do, be a good teammate during games and don’t encourage toxicity. Maybe ask for a commend or two at the end of the game. Each commend can potentially go a long way into improving your trust factor.
Reports
Valve has clearly mentioned that the trust factor system takes reports received into account when calculating the trust factor. Stop doing anything that might get you reported – stop ruining games, stop throwing and stop abusing your teammates. The more you’re abusing your teammates for not hitting a 1-deag, the further you’re gonna fall down the pit of trust factor hell if they decide to report you.
As a rule of thumb, improve the matchmaking experience of others and you’ll get the same in return.
Take a Break
While it may seem strange initially, you might want to stop playing CSGO for a while and focus on other games. Your trust factor also takes into account the other steam games you play. So if you get tired of CSGO, just hop onto some games of Dota 2 or Pubg. It can also act as a potential stress-relief from the intense grinding of CSGO.
Invest Money
This is something I’ve personally come across but wasn’t mentioned in the blog post. There was a time when I had trust factor in the reds. The battle pass for Dota 2 had just come out so I invested about 100$ in it and went non-stop grinding in Dota for three months. Surprisingly enough, when I got back to CSGO there weren’t any complaints from my party members about my low trust factor. When I asked some friends to check, I realised my trust factor was back to green. This is only rational, because investing some money into your steam account hints toward the fact that you’re less likely to risk a VAC ban by cheating in CSGO, consequently increasing your trust factor.
Some Other Factors
There are also some other key factors that might lay an impact on your trust factor score in CSGO.If your account has a VAC ban on a game other than CSGO, your trust factor will inevitably be low. Another thing to keep in mind is that while queuing with a party, you’ll automatically be matched with and against players with trust factors similar to the person with the lowest trust factor. Lastly, if the steam account you’re using to play CSGO is not your own but you’ve acquired it from someone else, your matchmaking experience will see a negative impact.
