Valve releases update to ranking model

25-2-2025 01:18

Several key changes to do with forfeits, minimum matches, club share rewards and mid-event updates have been implemented into the Valve Regional Standings.

An issue that likely caused GamerLegion to miss out on an invite during IEM Katowice has been addressed

An update to the Valve Regional Standings model has been released, bringing several key changes.

Among the biggest changes is that forfeits are now considered the same as any other loss. Previously, forfeits were not being counted as results, which opened the door for teams to abuse the system by giving up on matches without being punished.

In another key change, tournament data will no longer count until the whole event finishes after it was brought to Valve's attention that this could cause issues otherwise.

In one such case, GamerLegion felt they lost out on an invite to BLAST Open Lisbon during their campaign to IEM Katowice due to prizemoney earnings not being accounted for until a team is eliminated from a tournament.

A team now only needs five matches to be ranked instead of the previous 10 matches.

Finally, placement-based "club share" earnings, which ESL differentiates from prizemoney in its events, have been added to the model, effectively summing up the two prize brackets.

woowww amazingg i am shocked

2025-02-25 01:20

148

7 replies

How has this not led to more discussions about Imperial FE's conduct? Everyone went on a witch hunt for the coaches when they used the coach bug??

2025-02-25 17:09

6 replies

what did they do?

2025-02-25 20:55

5 replies

They were forfeiting/dodging matches to manipulate the system and boost their rankings so they could get invited to tier 1 events. It is one of the primary things that prompted Valve to change the rules. Seems way worse than a coaching bug to me since you can't influence the outcome of a match more than refusing to play it.

2025-02-26 07:49

4 replies

Source: Trust me bro

2025-02-27 11:47

3 replies

This was well documented and there are multiple articles and pros talking about it. Have you been living under a rock?

2025-02-28 03:07

No I’m sure they just skipped all the matches due to scheduling conflicts, the female scene is know to be so packed with events.. It was pretty clear, why pretend otherwise?

2025-02-28 09:56

1 reply

Good point, I'm sure all the professional players and professional journalists are wrong.

2025-02-28 21:09

Nice, a couple of solid changes

2025-02-25 01:19

165

cool

Still won’t help nip win though

2025-02-25 01:21

nothing can get NIP

2025-02-25 01:31

129

its not the beggining of 2025, oh wait...

2025-02-25 09:59

winning closed qualifiers could help NIP

2025-02-25 02:42

NOW CHANGE IT SO THAT H2H IS #1 PRIORITY FOR GAINING POINTS AND NOT PRIZE MONEY. NATIONAL EVENTS AND FE EVENTS ARE 14.3% VRS. TY VERY MUCH THAT WAS IT FROM ME.

2025-02-25 01:23

vetten has spoken.

2025-02-25 16:24

Yelled*

2025-02-25 17:48

yapped*

2025-02-25 20:13

HOW DID I YAP?

2025-02-25 22:03

Valve dont hear me otherwise

great changes. Now reduce money's weight in the algorithm. And accentuate on the ranking difference of each opposing team.

will this only count for future games or will they go back and count forfeits as losses now? they should go back because Imp Fe unfairly cucked PARIVISION out of points twice

2025-02-25 01:24

Lex Retro Non Agit

2025-02-25 01:40

These seem rather simple on paper. I'm surprised it took this long

2025-02-25 01:25

2 replies

I'm surprised it was this quick

2025-02-25 01:39

i know right 😂

2025-02-25 02:02

Good job Gaben

2025-02-25 01:26

now go after the saudi monopoly

what monopoly?

2025-02-25 11:00

Watch Richard Lewis' latest video e.g.

2025-02-25 13:33

they helped ESL a lot with this update, they never will lol

2025-02-25 11:44

Most of these changes had already been made (except for the 10 -> 5 matches), but good to see them formalized.

2025-02-25 01:28

Weighted money vrs + 3 man core overhaul next

How long do you have to wait before changing someone from the Core and not lose VRS points?

2025-02-25 02:04

Well, I like what esl did where each player is worth 10 or 20% of their points (forgot), meaning you can technically do it right away if u wanna make a change Tbf how the 3 man core would retain points or how long to wait before that's adjustable I wouldn't know, the main idea is that the current implementation isn't the most ideal

2025-02-25 07:01

i think hltv ranking works the same 👍

2025-02-25 09:05

Yea that would be good, each player got own points. That way we can avoid shit that happend to sangal

2025-02-26 10:40

interesting they included club share into VRS rankings. I guess they dont completely want to fuck over ESL lol

shoutout to nightowls

2025-02-25 01:33

Hoot Hoooooot 🦉

2025-02-25 02:07

GamerLegion died for this update.

2025-02-25 02:01

with teams only needing 5 games to get a VRS rank, how many teams will get a VRS rank suddenly? There are currently 212 ranked teams, when will these new teams be added?

2025-02-25 02:08

just checked on github, that adds 71 new rosters, though many no longer exist already.

2025-02-25 02:11

"Finally, placement-based "club share" earnings, which ESL differentiates from prizemoney in its events, have been added to the model, effectively summing up the two prize brackets." So they won't do anything against the ESL monopoly and cabals?

2025-02-25 02:17

Theyre helping it with this

2025-02-25 06:11

Wouldn't that further incentivise teams to participate in ESL events? Or am I missing something?

2025-02-25 08:05

yes thats what im saying. before this club share not counted to prize money so esl not that incentivising but now that it is theres no excuse. only FaZe seemingly made a stand and idk why.

2025-02-25 08:17

Ok, I misunderstood your initial reply then. I really hope something happens. Did you watch Richard Lewis' latest video on YouTube?

2025-02-25 08:48

As long as IGS and annual rewards are not in and it's still perfomance based it's more or less fine. And if there's some kind of prize cap for tier-1 events (I'm not sure about it) then ESL can't have, let's say, 300k tournament with $5mil club rewards

2025-02-25 08:56

Ok, that's good to hear.

2025-02-25 13:29

ok nice but when game update volvo?

2025-02-25 02:32

We need NA and SA to be separate regions with separate slots for events including the Major. As the Americas have 11 slots for the next Major it would look like this: NA 6 slots and SA 5 slots.

2025-02-25 02:39

NA 6 slots? doesnt deserve 2

2025-02-25 04:08

SA that only has to have 2 spots

2025-02-25 04:34

lol, SA > NA, since BR teams moved back to SA hltv.org/events/7261/pgl-cs2-major-copen.. hltv.org/events/7863/perfect-world-shang.. hltv.org/events/6979/blasttv-paris-major.. hltv.org/events/6379/pgl-major-antwerp-2..

2025-03-05 19:32

It's kind of going to be that way anyway, only the top 5 spots are shared. The remaining six spots at the MRQ are going to be split evenly.

2025-02-25 15:22

Nah. The VRS needs to be scraped. It's completely cooked & literally makes no sense. It's the worst ranking system that has ever been created. I'm not even trying to over exaggerate either. It's ass.

2025-02-25 03:09

Breathe, dude. It’s fine, and a lot better than direct invites. Now invites have to be earned.

2025-02-25 11:29

its better then was before anyways

2025-02-25 13:34

There are plenty of arguments for a better/improved ranking system than the VRS, but having a largely impartial ranking that the TOs have no control over, is better than the endless partner team events that we saw previously.

2025-02-25 15:23

Nah not really. Even with the VRS the top teams will always be at those events, so nothing has really changed. At least with Partner leagues, the top teams were guarantee to be there. Meaning that we would always have a good show and high viewership. Why do you think the last PGL event was a total flop? Faze was the only team that brought viewership. With VRS you get teams like Imperial FE which literally makes no sense. They didn't even play in T2 or even T3. Btw i fully support female CS and constantly watch it. I'm just saying they never should have been at Blast & Cologne.

2025-03-01 18:16

VRS does not guarantee that the "top" teams will be at events because A.) teams can and will skip events and B.) they can make roster changes that negatively affect their ranking. The last PGL event was far from a total flop, in fact it was a pretty decent success for PGL and something to build on for their future events. They've also adjusted their prize pool to be more competitive with ESL and BLAST's club offerings. Imperial Valkyries going to several events was a weird quirk in VRS and could be an issue again in the future, but that is still an argument for an improved ranking system, not for going back to a closed partner team system. We already saw several undeserving teams (like Evil Geniuses) get invites to events as partners, and you could just as easily have had a partner female team if you had a big enough wallet to impress ESL.

2025-03-01 23:10

It does tank the viewership & yes the last PGL event was a flop because of viewership. Viewership is how Tournament Orgs make money. No one wants to watch T3/T2 CS at an S tier event. It literally makes no sense. At least when ESL, Blast, ect used their own rankings. We actually got T1 teams playing at S tier events. It's not just weird that Imperial made it to Blast & Cologne (one the most prestigious CS competition in CS). It's the fact that Imperial win IMPACT every year which is prize money. Prize money & who you play is a HUGE factor into the VRS. That's why Imperial FE made it to those events. Imperial FE brought a massive viewer ship so i'll grant that but it makes no sense having a T4 team playing at Cologne ffs. They haven't even played in T2 tournaments. -Again, i'm not hating on the female scene, i support them but i'm just stating facts.

2025-03-02 19:32

I haven't seen any credible sources calling PGL Cluj-Napoca a flop, viewership may have been lower than an equivalent ESL or BLAST event, but it was good enough for their first tier 1 event. Especially with the top teams not being present. ESL did have a ranking system that was half-way decent. It was fairly impartial and included other events in the scene as well. It was negatively affected by the partner systems, but so was HLTV's ranking system. BLAST however, never had a ranking system and only had a points leaderboard that heavily favored their partner teams and events. (They did include certain ESL events though.) You raise excellent points about Imperial fe and the issues there, but I maintain that those are changes that need to be made to the VRS, not reasons to abandon using ranked invites.

2025-03-03 15:02

bye bye girls

2025-02-25 03:10

GL died for this, RIP

2025-02-25 03:19

good changes

2025-02-25 03:52

Do event cutoffs include longer running tournaments like CCT and ECL?

2025-02-25 04:32

It becoms something. Good news

2025-02-25 05:11

Now fix game

2025-02-25 05:42

Get rid of giving MVPs to losers also. This doesn't happen in any other sport/esport.

2025-02-25 06:14

9 replies

it surely does. Just to give you an example, in the 2018 WC Modric won player of the tournament despite losing the final.

2025-02-25 06:29

Ah yes, because Valve does that.

2025-02-25 06:32

It has happened in plenty of sports

2025-02-25 06:59

No it doesn't. It only happened once in NBA ever and that was 50+ years ago. NFL and Hockey doesn't. All college sports doesn't. Stop lying. You Niko fans are ungodly cringe and it's kind of sad to watch. Anything to hold onto the delusion. Great individual player, blatantly bad teammate.

2025-02-25 07:14

Literally just google it lol. Chuck howley was named MVP of the Super Bowl while losing. Living in reality and being able to use a search engine to find information does not make me a NiKo fan

2025-02-25 07:20

do you realize sports are not only the ones that only americans play and then they crown themselves as World Champs, right?

2025-02-25 11:48

Flag-Comment Consonance

2025-02-25 14:49

name checks out

2025-02-25 20:24

it happens in football world cup mvp 2022 – Lionel Messi (Argentina) (winner) 2018 – Luka Modrić (Croatia) 2014 – Lionel Messi (Argentina) 2010 – Diego Forlán (Uruguay) 2006 – Zinedine Zidane (France) 2002 – Oliver Kahn (Germany) all losers for 20 years until 2022

L sub tick

2025-02-25 06:15

nice update to VAC

It will never change. It's like that for 20+ years

2025-02-25 08:04

so esl just go around the partner league ban, and they just let them, and make it mean something to the rankings too this is fucking bullshit

2025-02-25 07:24

Mate. They reduced the vac barrier from lifetime to 5 years. So anyone who had vac can participate in tournaments 😂😂😂😂 valve🤡🤡🤡🤡

2025-02-25 08:19

Well, it is perfomance based after all, so it's not that bad. Would be way worse if IGS or annual programs were in it. And if there is any kind of prize money cap in play for tier-1 (I'm not sure, I know there is for tier-2), then ESL can't exceed it by abusing club shares

2025-02-25 08:44

isnt IGS skill based?

2025-02-25 09:08

Kind of. But it's not a tournament, conditions are pretty specific (it's not just 4 events out of last 10, but it has to include Kato, Cologne or ESL Major) and would boost only 1 team

2025-02-25 09:22

but the thing is, to participate in the revenue share, you cant skip 2 iem events in a year, or 3 in 2 years

2025-02-25 09:12

I can't find that info about 2 events, but even so I think it's for annual share and not tournament club rewards? Because then it is unacceptable to say that they are purely perfomance based and count them in.

2025-02-25 09:28

Found it here. It is indeed about "Annual Club Incentive", not tournament club rewards. Annual still does not count towards VRS. pro.eslgaming.com/tour/2024/12/esl-pro-t..

2025-02-25 09:40

Nice Valve

2025-02-25 07:38

Finally, VAC is working 😂😂😂😂 valve 💩💩💩🤡🤡🤡

2025-02-25 08:18

but how does it affects imperial valks legacy ?

2025-02-25 08:22

Good job Valve for actually listening to the feedback about the ranking and improving it for the future.

2025-02-25 09:01

Good changes, didnt expect them to actual listen and react somewhat fast

2025-02-25 10:28

hehe i knew it woman ruining their situation but it was innevitable

2025-02-25 10:49

well, better late than never

2025-02-25 11:42

Cool now release episode 3 please

now delete imperial valk FRAUDS

2025-02-25 14:28

Now that a female team won't play in tier 1 anymore can we at least have them in the showmatch? Much more entertaining than these boring showmatches. If not that then a match for 3rd place would also be cool.

2025-02-25 14:42