The players and roles affected by Rating 2.1

We dive into the impact of the update of HLTV rating's facelift.

Rating 2.1 is here, and has brought with it a slight tweak to the order of the best professional players.

It's a relatively small update, prioritising lower rewards for saving and fixes to underlying averages to reduce the importance of survival and KAST to a player's end score.

Read more

Introducing rating 2.1

But, given the disparity between players' styles and propensity to save, that has had a big impact on a sizeable chunk of the scene.

The first thing to note is that everyone's ratings are down. The previous average for rating over an event had strayed from its target of 1.00 to 1.06 as players increased saving rates (and subsequently there were fewer kills, less damage, and more survivals).

So even the save-shy riflers have seen a bit of a drop, now rating 2.1 has put the average back at 1.00 over an event.

As you can see, most now sit 2 or 3 decimal points behind their rating 2.0 value.

The data we will use for this piece, it's important to stress, is over a far larger sample size (every notable event in 2024) than one event so the averages will not be perfect. The same is true of a player's map-to-map rating; do not expect that to average at 1.00. Got it? Right, let's get into it.

AWPers have an expensive weapon, and saving is a key part of their role. Unless you are Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov, it is usually worth saving your $4,750 boom-stick for the next round rather than going for a 1v3 retake.

That is even more crucial in MR12, where CT economy is even more difficult than in CS:GO. You can easily engage in force-buy wars and only afford an AWP once — it's logical that AWPers save often.

But that was having an unfair impact on rating 2.0. The reward for saving, in theory, should be that you have an AWP or strong weapon for the next round, and thus a higher probability of delivering kills or damage than if you had not saved.

So in 2.1, the formula was adjusted to weight survivals as more important in round wins. Surviving round losses also does not contribute to KAST in rating (though on-site KAST still includes saves for it's percentage).

So it makes sense that AWPers are suffering more from 2.1 than 2.0. The role lends itself to high survivals (which helps KAST too) and they save more than riflers — an average of 11.3% compared to 8.0%.

On CT side this is especially relevant, where you still earn round loss money even when you survive. AWPers go down -0.04, with riflers all rounding to -0.03.

But there is a difference between active rotators, who are more likely to die early-round or go for retakes, and anchors — who are more likely to save, and get plenty of their rating from surviving in rounds where they don't see much action.

On T side, this is the same — 0.04 for AWPers, 0.03 for riflers. And, given how little saving there is on T side, there's only a tiny 0.002 difference between more save-heavy lurkers and map control specialists and spacetakers.

So the role stuff is simple: If you rely on survival for rating, and are in a lot of saving situations, you get less credit than before. Output, like kills and damage, are more important than before.

When we combine by role, though, we miss the outliers: The true target of this adjustment.

Most players save a similar amount. But a few players were inflating their rating significantly, plenty of which are in this next graphic.

Virtus.pro's saving style was not something they did for stats; it's a genuine philosophy of playing the percentages in a fragile CT economy. Still, Evgenii "⁠FL1T⁠" Lebedev and Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali are rightfully hit by the 2.1 changes harder than anyone.

Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov often comes under fire, seen as a passive AWPer with plenty of saving, but his high output (0.76 KPR) helps him reach 37 places above Jame in our list with a middling delta of -0.034 to rating 2.0.

Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer is third, another player who will play percentages and rather have a weapon in a 50-50 situation next round than play out a 30-70 clutch. Fellow riflers Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia and Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato are in a similar boat, players who like the late round but also shy away from unfavorable situations.

André "⁠drop⁠" Abreu is the outlier in terms of not being a passive star rifler or an AWPer, but his 11.8% saving rate in 2024 was still inflating his rating.

How about the players least affected? Three MOUZ riflers show up in the top four, with former MOUZ man Jon "⁠JDC⁠" de Castro fifth), speaking to Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek's side's propensity for retakes.

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and ZywOo, two of the frontrunners for 2024's player of the year award, also show up in the top 10. m0NESY was also not affected too much, being 20th out of 130 players in our sample.

These superstars actually benefit from a rating system more focussed on output, with all three above 0.80 kills per round and fairly average saving figures. The gap between them and the mortals below has increased.

---

Explore the data in an interactive dashboard here

---

So that is the outlook of what rating 2.1 has changed. Survivals, especially in lost rounds, have a much smaller impact on the final figure. It's a small change — with plenty more (yes, including economy) to come in 3.0 — but a noticeable and necessary one.

Will it change behavior? That remains to be seen, but if it does not, it will prove that saving was truly for in-game benefits and not for the post-game scoreboard. Let's see.