So don't feel bad about your rank. For awhile I just assumed that my rank would go up if I had a better kill-to-death ratio. However I completely failed to realize that the number of points you earn/lose depends on the rank of those you kill or who kill you. You lose a lot more points for getting killed by someone who is lower ranked than you. The amount you lose will increase according to how much lower the rank of the person is that kills you.
Even though I average 4 kills for every 1 time I died, my rank was going down. Then I realized that even if I get 10 kills, I would undo all of those points by getting killed by a lucky shot from a new player. If you put yourself in harms way on a server populated by lower ranked players, you are more likely to lose points or break even if you are good, than to gain points.
The key to moving up the ladder is to play with other players who are ranked higher than you, or as in the case of the player "2 Engineers 1 Dispenser" you try your best to avoid getting killed at all costs (he's currently ranked #16).
2 Engies plays on the 24/7 2fort server. I think his a good teammate to have because he is a very reliable engineer and you always know where to find his sentry. However, i've noticed that he doesn't take risks. Even when he switches to demo, he will never leave the base and just lobs grenades off of the battlements. In any game where the top three players will have accumulated between 150-200 points, 2 Engies will only score 20-50 points. What he does is avoid getting killed, period. He sets up one sentry gun that gets occassional kills, and he stays down in intel or in the spawn where he picks off a spy every once in awhile. Slowly and steadily he has climbed the ranks and now he's in the top 20. He's method of moving up the ranks requires an enourmous amount of patience.
I don't view this as cheating, because a higher rank doesn't imbue one with any sort of in-game advantage. He's just identified a way to take advantage of the scoring system of HLStatsX and tip it in his favor. If you want to move up the ranks, try to play in eG vs. eGO events where there are more players of a higher rank than you. Or pick a capture-the-flag map, build a sentry, hide, and be patient
Surely you'll be able to leap-frog ahead today if you play well?
