Honestly the big issue is the numbers only go up. Most of the time these ranking systems have a decreasing value after you reach the highest rank tier. So you can literally be the #1 player.
So have the numbers go up until you reach Onyx, maybe to something like 2000 idk, and then go down as you do better and better. That way the fight is not just for a higher value, but the number one slot.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but that’s how other games I play do it and it’s always a big achievement to be number one (I would never be able to get anywhere near that I’m just saying).
Right now you get ranked up to Onyx then go for higher numbers, but you don’t really get anything besides street cred among the other people in that level of play for winning and going up etc.
And yes, this is a system that will always be negatively influenced by cheating and I don’t have A good solution for that aspect in mind.
But the problem is that the ranking system just isn’t that accurate.
You would need a tournament type structure to provide the necessary data to sort players that succinctly.
At the moment, you can’t even guarantee that an Onyx 1500 on one server region is the same as an Onyx 1500 on a different one. Let alone comparing two CSR numbers on opposite sides of the world.
It’s pretty much along the same lines why they let the “Champion” system fall by the wayside. It just didn’t work.
So what could you do instead?
You could have a % counting down. Top 10%… top 5%… top 2%… top 1%… top 0.5% etc.
Then award status… eg. make the top 0.1% to be “Champion”.
At least it’s not trying to pretend to sort players out into a strict individual ranking order outside of the influence of server zones.
And then you have the cheating and toxic behaviour. It’s bad now just with a number to grind. Imagine how bad it would get if there was a status to go with it!
My personal drift is for them to simplify the ranking back into a division / tier. So Bronze 1 all the way up to Onyx 6. If you want more than 36 levels then make it 10 tiers per division for a total of 60 levels; Bronze 1 up to Onyx 10.
And then, if the game conditions are right - everyone on both sides is a similar rank and everyone has a ping < 50ms then announce that the game is for Championship points. Win and get the point.
Then you can show that you are Onyx + 37 points for the season.
Get 50 points to be awarded champion status… or whatever.