Trust Factor in CS2 and How to Improve It

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One of the main purposes of the developer’s efforts in Counter-Strike is to improve the matchmaking experience for all players. The Trust Factor in CS2 has been created specifically for this. In general, it’s another aspect to consider in the game system and a way to connect people of similar skills and habits. While CS2 ranks evaluate the abilities of Counter-Strike players, the Trust Factor is more about behavior and communication.

Trust Factor in Counter-Strike 2 is a hidden parameter that is based on various activities of each account on Steam.

Trust Factor was introduced back in 2017 for CS:GO, and it was successfully transferred to CS2. However vague the basis for this parameter is, it’s quite self-explanatory. Everything in it is about how trustworthy you are in the Counter-Strike community.

Trust is measured by:

Cheat reports
Unfinished online matches
CS2 inventory
Games and items on the Steam account
Behavior in other Steam games.

Valve doesn’t reveal what exact activities they monitor to calculate Trust Factor for CS2 players. They want people to focus on the game itself and not to worry about what they should and shouldn’t do.

What Is Trust Factor in CS2 For?

The practical role of Trust Factor is to create the best matchmaking experience for everyone in Counter-Strike 2.

If a person is a reliable teammate and a respectful opponent, they totally deserve to be in a CS2 match with similar individuals.

If a player enjoys cheating, talks trash, quits in the middle of a competitive match, uses smurfing, and misbehaves in some other ways… well, they should be connected with gamers of the same archetype.

Sure, there is a big range of trustworthiness in between those oppositions. And the CS2 Trust Factor is meant to thoroughly categorize players and link them to each other in official matchmaking.

Trust Factor is strictly a practical tool to help CS2 players have the best time possible within the game.

How to Check Your Trust Factor in CS2

It would probably be nice to have an icon near your CS2 avatar that clearly shows how high your Trust Factor is. Nope, it doesn’t work this way. Valve is upfront about the secrecy of this parameter, and the game hides all info on it. Or rather, it hides it from you.

One clever trick helps CS2 players find out their general Trust Factor. Invite friends to your lobby to start a competitive match and see if anyone gets a warning about a potentially bad playing experience.

Head to Competitive Matchmaking.
Invite friends to join you in the right menu.
Press ‘Go’ and wait if any of you gets a special message. Its color shows how bad someone’s Trust Factor is—of course, in comparison to the person who sees the warning.

The message is about how your matchmaking experience will be affected if your friends’ Trust Factor is significantly lower. The color division has three levels:

Green — it’s a good Trust Factor. You will not see green warnings, but a green level player will see yellow and red messages. If there is no warning at all, and the lobby is highlighted with green, this means that all players in it have a high, green level of Trust Factor.
Yellow — this message shows that the mentioned player has a slightly lower Trust Factor. It’s not a crucial issue, and the level can be improved easily.
Red — it’s the lowest Trust Factor in CS2. If you see such a warning, your friends somehow screwed up their Steam reputation. If your friends see it, you should reconsider your gaming behavior.

This method of checking the CS2 Trust Factor is not 100% reliable. It’s quite obvious that at least one of the friends will have the green Trust Factor to see yellow warnings. Use this experiment if you are super curious and want to do this for fun.

How to Improve Your CS2 Trust Factor: Tips

It’s still pretty beneficial to have a high Trust Factor. You sure want to have good teammates to celebrate many victories. And you probably don’t want to deal with toxicity in gaming.

The best tip here is — be the player you would want to connect with. Focus on performing well in every match, be friendly with your online partners, finish competitive games, and simply enjoy everything Counter-Strike 2 has to offer. It’s the best recipe for improving your Trust Factor.

Some precise tips on this topic may help you boost this process.

Complete Your Competitive Matches

If you don’t have enough time for bringing a potentially long match to an end, just don’t start it. Head to Deathmatch for quick action. Join Casual matchmaking to avoid too strong obligations. But when you start a competitive CS2 match, complete it. Rage quits totally ruin your Trust Factor. Don’t be angry.

There is a method to skip a match you don’t want to finish. Learn how to kick yourself in CS2, but don’t use this trick too often.

Never Cheat!

It’s not even about the Trust Factor. Cheating is the most inappropriate and disrespectful behavior imaginable. Don’t be that person. You’ll ruin your experience as well. Sure, sometimes, some toxic people may make false reports. But if you use cheats, you will be reported often, and thanks to the Trust Factor, you will find yourself playing with the same cheaters—or maybe even banned from the game.

Build Up a Great Inventory

The whole point of Trust Factor is to prove that here we have a real player, not a bot, not an alt account—just someone enjoying the game. The inventory fills up naturally, as you get drops.

And then, most players want to express their unique personality or highlight their mastery, so they buy CS2 skins to support their style, and they turn their game inventory into a treasury. The game evaluates this aspect and increases the Trust Factor of accounts with good inventories. And that’s not necessarily about the price. The quantity and variety of game items matters too.

Play Other Games on Steam

This aspect also proves that your account belongs to a real person, and the community can trust it. If you play different titles for a reasonable amount of time (not just launch a free-to-play game for five seconds), Trust Factor improves. The games you buy on Steam are also important and positively affect Trust Factor, even if you put them to the backlog.

Be a Decent Person

Strictly speaking, no system can evaluate how polite you are with your teammates. But toxic players got many (many!) more reports, and that affects their Trust Factor. Still, even beyond this aspect—no one really likes annoying gaming partners. CS2 is a competitive world, alright. But it’s also a community to build friendship. Stay on the bright side!

One more thing to understand about CS2 Trust Factor is that you don’t build it in a day. Time is needed to develop your positive reputation in the gaming community.

New Steam accounts have to prove themselves. Traces of your previous actions are written in the databases. Was that a good impact? Be patient while painting your image in Counter-Strike 2. And the advice from Valve is really the best: focus on playing the game and being a decent person. Trust Factor is just a side power to support your nice experience.

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