For many years, I have been looking for tactical shooter games that put heavy emphasis on teamwork and player synergy.
I know that there have been a lot of shooter games that advertise themselves as team shooter games but the focus on tactical teamwork was not there until I came across Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege. Within hours of playing the game, I knew that this was the game that I was looking for the entire time.
Previously, there was one thing that has plagued my entire experience in playing the game: I had a hard time ranking up from Gold to Platinum. I've since learned some tips on how to do it and accomplished it myself. Read on to learn how you can too!
- A Tactical Shooter Game
- Rank System in Rainbow Six: Siege
- Ranking Up in Rainbow Six: Siege
- Improving Your Mechanics
A Tactical Shooter Game
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is an online first-person shooter game released by Ubisoft in 2015 and is available for download on both PC and gaming consoles.
It was made available to download for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in December of 2020. Siege is the sequel to Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Patriots and is considered as a reboot of some sort to the franchise.
The game heavily leans toward teamwork and cooperation with players taking control of operators within a team of either attacker or defender.
With different game modes to choose from, players from each team will have to contend with rescuing hostages, diffusing bombs, or taking control of a certain location or item in the map to win the game.
Where to Download
Rainbow Six: Siege is currently available for download on both Windows PC and several consoles. To download the game on your PC, simply head over to the official website or other gaming outlets like Steam and the Epic Games Store.
For consoles, the game is available in both the PlayStation Store and the Xbox Store. You will need to purchase the game first before it is available for download.
Rank System in Rainbow Six: Siege
The ranking system in Rainbow Six: Siege is very different from many other shooter games in the genre. For one, I noticed that the rank tiers are based on earth elements apart from the topmost tier. The ranked tier names are as follows from lowest to the highest rank: Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Champions.
These ranks determine how good you at the game, with Copper being the lowest in the system and Champion as the highest and most likely filled with highly-skilled players or professional players.
Most of the time, the Champion division is where the game gets competitive at the highest level but certain divisions in the system are still able to provide a good amount of competition.
Starting from Gold or Platinum, players begin to gain skill expressions and a fair amount of understanding of how the game is played, so you should expect to have competent and well-adjusted players and opponents around this rank.
How the Ranking System Works
The ranked system for Rainbow Six: Siege is determined by our skill as a player. The first 10 ranked matches will determine which rank I'm placed in. The game will then compile all my wins and losses and place me in a rank where I belong based on my skills.
The game's system uses the matchmaking rating based on the wins and losses that I have incurred throughout playing the game. The game does factor in how I play the game but ultimately, it is down to wins versus losses. However, certain factors might change how the ranked system works and there are different ways to recalibrate your matchmaking rating.
First, consistently winning games can dramatically change your MMR and will speed up your climb in rank. However, leaving games, poor performance, cheating, getting kicked off for being idle or getting voted off, and losing matches will severely decrease your MMR. Having good game etiquette contributes to your rank staying solid.
Ranking Up in Rainbow Six: Siege
Having such highly competitive players in the ranked system means that you will be competing against many skilled players. Reaching the Gold rank is a feat that many can do but reaching Platinum is another journey that will take a long while for many players in this game.
There is a reason why many Gold players tend to struggle in reaching the Platinum division let alone move past the first few tiers in Gold. There are a lot of factors that affect how you climb in rank for Rainbow Six: Siege.
The following tips are based on experience as a former Gold ranking player that has made some mistakes in the past and was able to correct them and buzz through to the Platinum rank after following them.
The first thing that I want to share with you to get your rank up to Platinum is to get good at your role. Learn your specific role in the game and check out pro-leagues to fully understand what your role is and how to execute it flawlessly. Playing the game in this caliber will surely help you gain the necessary MMR points to get you to Platinum rank or even higher.
Don't Be a One-Trick Pony
A One-Trick Pony player is classified as someone who plays the same operator over and over through mastery of the character to win more games. The main advantage is that they know the operator inside-out, their weakness and strengths. However, they are also very vulnerable when they do not synergize well with the team, or worse, someone else picks their operator.
I highly suggest that you try to learn and play as many operators as possible. Choose two or three main operators to play and stick to them. If you do not get your first pick then at least you still have two more operators that you can play properly. Learning how to play different operators means you can adjust well within the team's needs.
While this task may seem to take a lot of time at first, it is a very rewarding experience especially when you get to team up with good players especially in Gold rank where players commonly struggle to rank up. Based on my experience, I usually pick three operators that have a similar play style and then focus on mastering different aspects of the game moving forward.
Improving Your Mechanics
As a first-person shooter game, Rainbow Six: Siege heavily relies on players playing the game with skillful mechanics. There is a reason why we get stuck in Gold rank for so long and that reason is due to a gap in mechanics and game knowledge. So I work at improving my mechanics to see my rank go up.
The first thing that I would suggest is to rewatch your games. Look back into how you played the game and try to find any errors you may have made. Once you are aware of the things that you keep on doing incorrectly, you can correct them and avoid them from happening again in the future.
Another great way to improve your mechanics is to practice them. Practice headshots, shooting from a corner, or even learning the basics of the map is useful if you want to improve your game.
Take the time to learn the game before going back to the rank and see how much you have improved and in no time, you can escape Gold and reach the Platinum rank a lot faster.
Make Some Friends and Queue with Them
It's always a struggle to play solo in this game. Not only do you increase your chances of getting toxic and unskilled players, but you also run the risk of becoming toxic yourself and becoming overwhelmed with tilt.
The best way to combat this tilting experience is that I usually look for friends in the game and play with them. Use Discord to communicate with them while playing. Playing with friends removes some of the random factors that may cause you to lose the game.
You may have to deal with your range of skills and mechanics but at the very least, you have your friends to carry you if you find yourself struggling or you can also carry a friend that might be having a bad time playing the game.
Conclusion
With regular updates, new maps, weapons, and operators to play with, Rainbow Six: Siege is fast becoming a favorite of the first-person shooter genre.
If you have been playing the game for quite some time now and remain stuck in the Gold rank or lower and you want to climb up to Platinum or above, I hope these tips mentioned above will help you play better and climb the ranked system much faster.