The rating system
Two numbers, not one: a rating, and how sure we are about it.
A rating and a doubt
We use Glicko-2. Everybody starts at 1500, with a deviation of 350 — a wide band meaning “we have no idea yet”. Each match you play narrows that band, and each match you skip widens it again slightly.
That second number is the whole reason we use Glicko-2 rather than plain Elo. A player five matches in and a player five hundred matches in can hold the same rating while meaning very different things by it, and a system with one number cannot tell you which is which. On your profile it is the shaded band around the line.
What moves your rating
- Winning against a side we rate highly. The bigger the gap, the bigger the move.
- Losing to a side we rate poorly — the same rule, pointing the other way.
- Playing at all, which narrows the uncertainty around your number.
What does not
- Kills, deaths and K/D. They are counted, and they are their own boards.
- Cash earned, objectives taken, or anything else scored inside a match.
- Playtime. Someone who plays twice a week is not rated below someone who plays nightly.
- Anything bought. There is nothing on sale that touches a rating.
Why kills are not in it
A rating that counted kills would rate the fragger above the player who held a zone alone for six minutes, and the scoreboard already answers the first question. Rating asks only one thing: when this player was on a side, did that side tend to win. Everything else is a counter board, kept separate on purpose, which is why the K/D leader and the rating leader are usually different people.
Which matches count
A match needs at least 12 players on a side to be rated. Below that, one person leaving decides the result, and a rating built from those is measuring lobby size rather than skill.
You appear on the public rating board after 5 counted matches. Before that your rating exists and is yours to watch — it is simply too uncertain to rank other people against.
Your graph starts at your first counted match, not before. We will never draw a flat line back to 1500 for matches you had not played yet — that would be a rating you never held. It is not premium, and it is not gated on reaching the board.
See it in motion on the rating board, or read where the boards come from.