Valve relaxes CS2 Premier queues' rank bandwidth

Counter-Strike 2's latest update addresses an issue that has been bugging the community since the beginning of Season 2. Even in five stacks people who used to queue together in the first season could not queue together as the game would return an error saying that the ranks in the party are too far apart.

Prominent figures in the community like WarOwl, expressed their discontent towards the Premier matchmaking algorithm stating that a game should not prevent players from queuing with friends in a five stack, while restrictions on smaller party sizes were still reasonable. This also led to higher ranked players creating alt accounts to queue with their friends, spoiling the matchmaking experience for lower ranked players.

In the new update, Valve claims to have adjusted the logic that flags parties for having high rank differences. Players who could queue together in the first season of Premier can now queue together in the second season as well.

The update also came with small UI adjustments and a minor fallback issue. Here are Valve's release notes for the update:

PREMIER

• Adjusted the logic that determines when players are too far apart in CS Rating to participate in matchmaking together as a party. In most cases, players who used to play together as a party in Premier Season One will be able to party together in Premier Season Two.

UI

• Added "Get Service Medal" UI element directly to the main menu profile card.

• Fixed a case where main menu profiles were missing display medals.

• Updated Dust II radar image to be more accurate.

MISC

• Fixed a case where inspect or reload button presses could cause prediction errors.