How to raise your Trust Factor (trust level) in CS2
We have already published an article about Trust Factor, but we think it needs new detail so players get a clearer picture of how the trust level (Trust Factor) works and, more importantly, of how to keep it at a normal level.
Trust Factor is a complex measure of how well-behaved your account is, and its score folds in a lot of separate modules: reports, commends, how active the account is on Steam, whether your friends carry bans, and plenty more, the main ones of which we cover below.
Understand one thing: without a decent Trust Factor the game turns into an ordeal.
What lowers your Trust Factor?
Any bans
If your account carries a ban, even in another game, that lowers your trust level a great deal, and putting that kind of situation right is extremely hard.
Your friends
Odd as it sounds, the system takes bans on your friends into account, and we strongly recommend clearing out anyone who picks up a ban. We will go further and recommend removing suspicious players you have played with in advance, if you are not sure they play fair, because the system looks at your shared matches too.
Account activity
Low in-game activity lowers the trust level noticeably, and this is not only about CS2. It matters that you launch other games, talk in Steam chat, leave comments, in short that you raise your activity across the whole platform
A new account
A brand new account simply cannot have a high trust level. That does not mean a green Trust Factor is impossible, but you will mostly be matched against equally new accounts. The score is built both from the registration date and from the number of matches, the XP and the medal levels
Kick votes
This one is a little strange, but starting kick votes and taking part in them (voting FOR kicking a player) lowers your trust level a great deal. The system is probably built to catch players who abuse the feature, so if you want to kick a genuinely unhinged player nothing will happen to you
Team damage
Even without a report, the system records the damage you deal to teammates, and if it is judged as more than accidental you take a penalty. Try to avoid other kinds of in-game interference that can be read as griefing too
Reports
Now the completely obvious one: every complaint about your behaviour costs you Trust Factor points, and costs a lot of them. Note that reports from teammates are far more dangerous than a complaint from an opponent. Think of it as roughly -3 arbitrary units per report from the other team and -10 units for a report from your own side. Be careful.
What can raise your Trust Factor?
Comments on your Steam profile
This one both raises the activity of your account and shows the system that other users find your account interesting. We do not know whether the system reads the comments themselves, so the recommendation is to collect positive ones. Who left the comment matters as well: empty new accounts, accounts with a low trust factor and, heaven forbid, accounts with bans can do more harm than good.
Ask your teammates, and after a good game your opponents too, to leave comments on your profile
We also run a service that delivers Steam profile comments, and we send every comment from a real account, so if you want to speed the process up, come and take a look
Commends
Commends, or praise, are the opposite of reports, which is why it matters so much to ask for them during competitive games: that is how you keep the balance between complaints about you and praise for you. As with reports, who sends you a commend and in what circumstances is critical.
To restore your trust factor we also offer a way to buy commends right on our own server, though you can do it the natural way too, by asking for and earning praise during a match
Steam activity
Let us look in more detail at which actions the system takes into account and which of them count as the most effective
Write guides: even one can pull your trust factor up to a normal level, and talking in comments and chats helps trust along as well. Keeping in-game activity high is critical, so even if CS2 is the only game you play, try running a few others in the background to build up hours.
You can do that automatically, through our service - Steam hours boost
Steam Guard
You must have mobile Steam Guard enabled and a phone number attached (one that has NEVER been hit with a ban). This does not only protect your account, it also gives Trust a solid bump.
Watch Overwatch cases
By reviewing Overwatch cases and returning correct verdicts you earn a little XP, and the system raises its trust in the account
Make purchases
We are not pushing you to hand money to Steam, but making small purchases, even for 10-30 rubles, through the store and the Community Market raises the score of your account, so do not skip it. You can sell a few trading cards and buy others, creating financial activity that way
How long does the trust level take to update?
So you have taken all of these steps, or some of them. When should you expect changes, and will they be instant? Unfortunately we cannot give a straight answer, because every case is individual, but we will explain the mechanics behind trust factor changes so you can read your own situation.
Trust factor almost never updates instantly. Those are rare exceptions, available when a large batch of commends comes in. Usually it takes from 24 hours to a week for trust to climb and refresh gradually.
Boosts Trust Factor fast
- A commend boost, and ordinary commends in large numbers
- Topping up the comments on your Steam profile
- Purchases on Steam
Boosts Trust Factor in 1-4 days
- A Steam hours boost, or simply a lot of in-game activity
- Enabling Steam Guard
- Talking in the community
Boosts Trust Factor in 7 days or more
- Writing a guide
- Reviewing Overwatch cases
- Better behaviour during matches
