'Counter-Strike: Global Offensive' Launches New Matchmaking System That Analyzes Behavior In Other Steam Games
Valve recently rolled out a new matchmaking system for "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" which takes a more holistic approach to connecting players. Dubbed "Trust," the new system expands on the Prime Matchmaking system it launched last year by taking into account a much wider range of factors, including those from outside the game.
The new system hopes to have the same results as Prime while at the same time ditching the issues associated with the system. It does this by analyzing player behavior not just in the game but across Steam.
Previously, Prime matchmaking players are required to link their accounts to their mobile devices and have a minimum rank of 21. This allowed for a more consistent level of skill and commitment between connected players. However, this also had the unintended consequence of separating players who might have been happy playing together an issue Valve acknowledged in a blog post.
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Now with the aptly-named Trust system, a re-imagining of the Prime system which added a wider range of factors for matching players. By using things such as observed behaviors and attributes of their Steam account, such as time spent playing "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," how frequently they were reported for cheating, time spent playing other games on their Steam account, and more, Valve can create a metric called the "Trust Factor."
Early experiments appear to have yielded favorable results as such Valve decided to push through with the new system. Trust will now be the game's default matchmaking system, although players who prefer Prime can still opt to use it for now.
Valve has not revealed all the factors that determine a player's Trust Factor. Players will also not be able to see their own Trust Factor although the company stated that the purpose of the system is to improve player experience without optimizing anything. Valve also said that constant updates to the system will change what factors affect a player's Trust Factor.
"Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" is currently available for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Mac, and Linux via Steam.
