Add a new tier between Exceptional and Experienced

[Water]

Ranks don't really get satisfying to climb until you hit Expert in my opinion (however that may have just been because i started when expert wasnt all that hard to get). And if there is an imbalance in chat ranks like OP is describing, then seeing you need to double your points or whatever to get to the next chat rank is much more demotivating than there just being an extra one in the middle.

Yes it's probably because you started when expert wasn't hard to get. I'm almost Expert now but I definitely enjoyed climbing up to this point. I think that with Scotty's idea it'll make things a lot more fluid when ranking up. You'd get constant satisfaction instead of this weird disconnect when you hit experienced. I also think more importantly it'll make the bottom 4 ranks more meaningful as new players will stay at each one longer, so progressing for them will be more satisfying and more indicative of improvement.

I just would like to clarify that we can't look at CS:GO ranks in the same way like we would look at CS:S ranks, just saying. In CS:GO I believe you get a few thousands points for g1s on maps like mesa, aircontrol, leet and stuff. And g1s on these maps are like top 1k players or so, so it really isn't hard at all to get - every Exceptional player should be able to get top 1k on any tier 1 map, right? So when Experienced player's skill hits the level of getting g1's on tier 1 maps he will get Exceptional in no time.
To sum up what I said, in CS:GO you get way more points for completing maps because of a really big playerbase AND need less points to rankup than in CS:S because of less good players. Well, even I was Master in CS:GO after like a week of a little tier 1-3 grind, I think I had like 60 completions back then. I don't really play on CS:GO for like over half a year and I believe I'm still top 25 and that makes me think that ranking up is so easy in CS:GO that it's especially not needed, if ever, I would add another rank for CS:S.

And yeah, I kind of agree Juxtapo, I remember when I hit Expert in CS:S ~2 years ago or so and that was the most satisfying so far, but Exceptional was the first big rank gap that made it really satisfying to get too, and then there was Hotshot that no one really cares about.

And Scotty's double scaling points ranks idea is pretty good, it would make less big gaps between ranks in CS:GO.

I strongly disagree with the notion that when you get your first g1 you climb quickly. In my own experience and from what I've seen the average player usually gets a few g1's ends up around 8k points and then slows down considerably. I think this is due to the daunting and annoying grind ahead of them. At least for me g1's on t1 maps are really boring to get, so much so that I did t4's before I even felt the need to grind out g1's. And yes, I also think Scotty's double scaling points is a great idea.

Additionally, your own experience with CS:GO ranks don't reflect that of new players. You got master in 60 completions because you were already good at surfing. You were basically smurfing in a game you already mastered. That's true in any game ever, which doesn't equate to how difficult it is to reach that point for a new player.

[rool]

why fix whats not broken?

[TooM3R]

"12000+ Experienced
8000-11999 Skilled
5000-7999 Casual
2000-4999 Beginner
0-1999 Rookie"


I don't think you should change how much points you need for lower ranks in csgo. When I started surfing grinding to beginner alone (1000pts) took me a really long time, I think making it be 2000pts would motivate people even less, although when I surfed there were less people therfore less points per group.

[murglegurgle]

I agree with TooM3R that increasing the point requirements at lower ranks will discourage people. Increasing the points just recreates the problem you were trying to solve by creating another rank tier. However, I like the idea of creating another rank between experienced and exceptional because experienced is such a diverse rank. The skill difference between an experienced rank player with 6k points and 10k is huge. You should be able to estimate how good a player is just by looking at their rank, but for players of the experienced rank this is not the case.

[Water]

why fix whats not broken?

Because it is. If you disagree refute the points I made.

"12000+ Experienced
8000-11999 Skilled
5000-7999 Casual
2000-4999 Beginner
0-1999 Rookie"


I don't think you should change how much points you need for lower ranks in csgo. When I started surfing grinding to beginner alone (1000pts) took me a really long time, I think making it be 2000pts would motivate people even less, although when I surfed there were less people therfore less points per group.

I agree with TooM3R that increasing the point requirements at lower ranks will discourage people. Increasing the points just recreates the problem you were trying to solve by creating another rank tier. However, I like the idea of creating another rank between experienced and exceptional because experienced is such a diverse rank. The skill difference between an experienced rank player with 6k points and 10k is huge. You should be able to estimate how good a player is just by looking at their rank, but for players of the experienced rank this is not the case.

From my experience with leaderboards/ranked systems, games lose players more frequently when ranks are easily obtainable. I think this is because of players having instant gratification for almost no work, so when they look at their rank and it shows up as "Skilled" they perceive it as they're skilled at surfing, therefor they lose interest in progressing that they otherwise wouldn't have if that rank was harder to reach. This may not be obvious as CS:GO has such a high population that rookies are replaced constantly with an unending stream of people willing to try surfing. However this becomes a problem when you're trying to retain players and have a more competitive and active community when it comes to long time players. I think in the long term a system that doesn't instantly gratify new players will result in more of the same people sticking around and increasing their skill levels, which in turn makes things more fun and can lead to an increase in donations because it's people like that who donate.

[Laniakea]

The issue lies in the fact that Exceptional and above are based on ranks, while Experienced and below are based on points. This means that as more people play, and competition increases it becomes far harder to get Exceptional, while Experienced stays the same. This is what is creating such a huge void in between Experienced and Exceptional. The debate is not about how easy or difficult it is to get Exceptional, it should be about the distribution of ranks in general. Whilst I'm not online to check atm, I feel confident in saying there's far more Experienced surfers than Skilled surfers on CSGO. In CSS, there's over 1000 Experienced surfers compared to just 150 Exceptional surfers (basing this off memory). If anything, this devalues the Experienced rank because everyone seems to have it with very little effort. There's nothing to distinguish between me having 20000 points and me having 6000 points, despite 14000 points being more than enough to go from Exceptional to Hotshot (I believe). I'd love to hear an argument as to why lower rank transitions (Experienced -> Exceptional) should require more points than higher transitions.

[Robotron]

I have played on servers that have like 25+ ranks. It does take a lot of the thrill out of ranking up. I like the number of different ranks, and the breakdown of the ranks from exceptional onward. But I do feel like the grind from experienced to exceptional was an incredibly daunting task for me when I first got experienced. What kept me going was that I just liked surfing, the only thing that changed was my goal at surfing. I started grinding points instead of beating maps, which I feel slowed how well I was learning to surf. Getting g1s on most of the high point maps is remarkably easy if that's all you do. I like how the gap between experienced and exceptional is big, because getting in the top 500 is a decent accomplishment and should require work. But I feel like if experienced was like 6-8k and you couldn't get it with just two g1s it would encourage people to focus more on completions and get a wider map variety nominated and voted for. I just recently started showing an IRL buddy of mine how to surf, and granted I have been doing everything except putting my hand up his ass like a puppet and surfing for him, he is almost experienced in like a week or two. Meanwhile even at his pace it will probably take him 6 months or so if he keeps at it to get exceptional. That is a lot of time and dedication to get 1 rank, I feel like a lot of people need to be teased with the dangling carrot a bit to keep it up.

[Juxtapo]

I have played on servers that have like 25+ ranks. It does take a lot of the thrill out of ranking up.

The amount of ranks isn't the issue with those servers though, it's the lack of competition. KSF has competition so it can have more ranks and still feel meaningful for players. The issue with the current system is the massive gap between two of the ranks, which has no reason not to be fixed.