Up and Down the Ladder: Rank Distribution After the December Update
The December update really changed the CS:GO ranks. Let's take a look at how.
Introduction
The December update of CS:GO was a very controversial one. It was one that changed the way CS:GO was played and looked at by the community. It added the dreaded R8 Revolver, the ridiculously overpowered pistol that was basically a pocket AWP and could kill in one shot.
It adjusted the recovery time for the AK47, M4A4, and M4A1-S to reduce the range at which spraying is preferable to tapping/bursting, a feature which seemed to had ruined everyone's playstyle.
However, the most controversial feature added was the rank shift, which meant that losing fewer matches would derank high ranked players faster and as thus the median rank has shifted more towards the Nova range.
Before Update
Image courtesy of CSGOSquad.com
This screenshot has been taken from CSGOSquad website and it shows the rank distribution prior to the December update. As you can see, ranks were distributed from Nova 4-LE, with most players being in the Nova 4 and MGE rank at around 13% each. There are an extremely low percentage of people in the silver ranks, proving that getting to silver both from deranking or from a first rank up would be hard if not nearly impossible. This could also mean that unskilled players could have been easily carried to the Nova 4 rank, which from my experience and that of others, was very hard to get out of, thus leaving unskilled players in the median rank.
After Update
Image courtesy of CSGOSquad.com
This is a screenshot taken from the same website after the December update. As you can see, ranks seem to have been more evenly distributed, with a large percentage of them in the low-mid Nova range. The percentage of DMG+ players has significantly decreased, with LEs taking as much as an 8% hit. The percentage of Globals decreased from around 2.97% to around 0.7%, thus proving that players deranked much easier after losing a couple of matches when compared to before the update.
The percentage of silver players has received a pretty major boost, with the combined S1-SEM ranks gaining as much as a 25% increase in population! The high percentage of silvers could also mean somewhat skilled players, who before the update might have been placed in the Nova 4 range, have now been placed in the Silver to low Nova ranks. The Nova ranks themselves seem to have become the new median ranks. This could also mean that unskilled players are in silver, where they belong, as opposed to them being in the high Novas as they were before the update.
This could also mean that, since the difficulty of getting to higher ranks is also higher now, more experienced players might be dropped into low ranks in which they would stay for longer than necessary and thus prevent less experienced players from advancing up the rank ladder themselves. I can speak from personal experience that I went into the patch with the rank of DMG, and after losing 3-4 games in a row; I dropped straight to Nova 4.
Why Would Valve Do This?
It's simple; they did it to keep players playing. According to this Cracked article, video games "...set up the "pellets" so that they come fast at first, and then slower and slower as time goes on". This means that once you get your first rank, you're excited to rank up again and so you keep playing. This ability to gain lower ranks easier will also get new players to come in as they can see that it's now easier to get started in the game. Once hooked, they want to rank higher and higher as "...the delayed gratification actually increases the pleasure of the later levels". This means that the higher you get on the rank ladder, the better you feel, and the cycle continues.
If Valve kept the previous rank distributions, people tended to be stuck around the Nova 4 range, meaning it was harder to get up to the SMFC and GE ranks. This might put off players who do not have the patience or the time to put in and get to those higher ranks and this might lead to them quitting the game and losing Valve precious revenue. However if it is easier to get to the high ranks, and players see the goal as something they can achieve, they will keep playing and thus gain Valve even more money.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the new rank distribution can be seen as a double-edged sword. On one hand, players who didn't deserve the derank, got deranked, and players who deserved being in Silver were placed in Silver. In reality, if Valve is aiming for GN4 to be the median rank, the bell curve still needs to be further adjusted. There needs to be more players in the higher ranks, and the concentration of low silver players should be evened out and distributed into the high silvers/low novas for the ranks to truly as they should.
Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!
