Trust Factor is one of the “hidden” measurement methods Valve has invented for CS2 to gauge how “trustworthy” you are for CS2 Matchmaking. Here’s what you can do to check your Trust Factor in Counter-Strike 2 and improve it.
How to Check Your Trust Factor in CS2
At this moment, it’s not possible to verify your Trust Factor directly in CS2, but some workarounds will help you get a general idea. The first pre-requisite is to have Prime Status in CS2.
Now, you only need a handful of friends to conduct small lobby tests. You should create your lobby and invite your friends in. If your Trust Factor is significantly lower than your friend’s, your friend will receive a system message that will notify them that their matchmaking experience might be impacted because a player’s trust factor is (significantly) lower than theirs.Â
You can conduct several tests between each of your friends in the playgroup to see if anyone will stand out. Usually, the player who does not get the system message is the one with the low Trust Factor. Sadly, this is the only way to determine if your Trust Factor is low. If you realize your Trust Factor is low, here’s what you can do to improve it, to save yourself from being matched with and against other players with low Trust Factor.
How to Improve Your Trust Factor in CS2
While Valve is very secretive about how Trust Factor operates, the community has managed to deduct some things over these past years, with a lot of trial-and-error.
1. Be on your best behavior in Competitive Matchmaking and Premier
This is plain and simple. If you do not exhibit negative behavior on your end, the system probably won’t bother you. Do not teamkill, try not to votekick people except in very extreme circumstances, and try not to get reported for abusive voice and/or text chat. To the system, it doesn’t matter if you actually did something bad or not. If you get mass-reported frequently, you will even get a matchmaking cooldown penalty, which probably impacts your Trust Factor as well.
On the other hand, try to trade commendations with friends and play in 5-stacks, to prevent malicious reports from teammates. More on why that’s good for you in the below guide:
2. Do not use cheats in any VAC-protected game
If your account earns a VAC ban on another game, your Trust Factor will probably tank, and your account will be technically marked forever. Just don’t cheat. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t cheat in CS2, either.
3. Play CS2 (and other games) regularly
This signals to Valve that you are an active member of the community. Additionally, you can participate in Steam Discussions and report comments breaking the rules to further elevate your community standing.
4. Level up your Steam account
Raising your Steam account level improves how Valve’s system (and other players) perceive you and your account. You can always buy cheap trading cards (starting from about 50 cents per set), combine them, and earn a profile badge and XP.
5. Raise your Inventory value
An expensive knife in your inventory will indicate that you are not mad enough to use cheats with that account, right? However, only some players can afford these, and only some people want to hoard skins even if they can afford them. I, for example, have one low-value skin only. A keepsake from CSGO. And I do not intend to get any more. This is why there are multiple methods for raising your Trust Factor.
6. Make your profile public
This is more of a social/psychological aspect. What does almost everyone do when they are killed suspiciously? They open the killer’s Steam profile. What do they do when they see that the profile is private? They report their killer for cheating in CS2. If they see your high Steam level, big game library, and thousands of hours played, they are less likely to report you.
7. Link your phone number to your Steam account
Linking your phone number and having the Steam Guard in your mobile app is always a bonus, indicating that you are serious about your account and that it’s not just a random throwaway that you will use to be a bad actor and grief people around you.
That’s all about the Trust Factor. I hope that this information was helpful to you, and I invite you to read more guides on Prima for CS2 such as how to surf in CS2 and many more at our game tag below.
