HLTV tweaks Rating 3.0: more weight on kills, refined Round Swing, new eco-adjusted toggles

HLTV has rolled out a hotfix to its Rating 3.0 model aimed at rebalancing how single-map and event performances are reflected. The changes reduce the relative impact of the Round Swing component and increase the weight of raw output (kills), bringing the overall balance of “output vs. cost” back to roughly 60–40—similar to Rating 2.0. HLTV also added an eco-adjustment toggle to match pages and scoreboards so viewers can compare raw stats with eco-adjusted figures like eK-eD, eADR, and eKAST. 

What changed

Swing nerfed, kills buffed. Round Swing’s subrating weight drops, while kill weight rises. Within Swing, the final blow (the last point of damage) is de-emphasized in favor of damage share, trades, and flash assists. 

Round-end credit split refined. When losing players survive at round end, Swing is now split more evenly among the clutcher (1 share), players who earned Swing via kills (2 shares), the defuser (1), and surviving winners (1), curbing edge-case overcredits from clutches. 

Eco-adjustment retuned. Eco-adjusted KAST and damage are recalibrated to avoid inflating ratings for losing teams in small samples and to keep AWPers fairly represented. 

Site UX. A scoreboard toggle now lets users flip eco-adjustment on/off to see why Rating 3.0 can diverge from simple K-D at a glance. 

HLTV says the hotfix mostly affects single maps, not season-long samples. Previous matches have been reprocessed ahead of the year-end Top 20 list, and HLTV plans to revisit EVP selections issued before Rating 3.0’s July debut to keep end-of-year awards consistent.

Quick refresher: what Rating 3.0 is

Introduced in August 2025, Rating 3.0 combines an eco-adjusted version of the 2.1 framework (Kills, Damage, Survival, KAST, Multi-Kill) with Round Swing—a context metric that measures how each action changes win probability in a round, accounting for map, side, and economy. It was the biggest overhaul since Rating 2.0 (2017). 

Early impact and discourse

HLTV highlights that over large samples most players move by just ±0.02 rating points; the changes are targeted at better reflecting high-output maps without over-rewarding isolated clutch spikes. 

Community and media have tracked knock-on effects for star names. For example, coverage noted how the initial 3.0 launch shifted 2024 retrospectives for donk and ZywOo, fueling debate until the current adjustments narrowed perceived discrepancies. 

There’s been criticism around transparency and manual corrections in edge cases, which HLTV has acknowledged in forum replies and external reporting—another reason this hotfix clarifies how end-of-round Swing is distributed.

Related reads (background & analysis)

Introducing Rating 3.0 — the full technical explainer from launch.

How Rating 3.0 affects the top 10 teams — winners/losers analysis right after launch. 

Finding the most impactful CS2 players — using Round Swing to profile “impact.”

HLTV launches Rating 3.0 (Dust2.us recap) — concise overview for North American readers. 

Player voices (on-record quotes that matter here)

While few pros have commented specifically on today’s hotfix, leading players whose performances are central to the Rating 3.0 conversation have spoken this season:

Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut (Vitality) on maintaining elite form in 2025:
“It was online? Fck’s sake. I’ll beat it this year because fck online.” (on chasing an even better year after a blistering start). 

Danil “donk” Kryshkovets (Spirit) on his 2025 run and standards after major trophies:
“It’s such an amazing feeling. I feel relief right now, very strong relief.” (post-IEM Cologne title) 
“We didn’t face Vitality, and we need to beat them to become the best team in the world.” (post-EPL Malta) 

ZywOo reflecting on an off day at IEM Cologne (useful context for how 3.0 treats small-sample swings):
“Almost everything went wrong on my side.” 

These quotes don’t endorse or reject 3.0 itself, but they frame the form and rivalry (ZywOo vs. donk) most scrutinized under the new model.

Bottom line

HLTV’s update dials back Round Swing’s control over single-map ratings, boosts kill weight, and adds transparent eco-adjusted views on scoreboards. Big picture rankings shouldn’t shift much, but high-output maps should now read more intuitively—without overvaluing isolated clutch moments or eco-inflated consistency.