Actually, hot dropping IS the best strategy to play if you are at a bronze-to-gold level. Perhaps not necciserly SUPER HOT, but I would still say that always jumping with at least 1-2 other squads is the way to go: Why? Because if you play "strategically" and cheese your way to RP gain by jumping safe and hide most of the match, you will fall behind the skill curve so hard and rank up far above the rank that ACTUALLY fits your skill level.
Now someone will maybe say "but playing strategically is also skill"... Yes it is. But its an INTELLECTUAL skill which doesnt take that much practice. Sure, there are some players, even high elo, who just cant see how to circle to avoid choke points and bad positioning BUT for most, normal intelligence players, this is rather a mindset than a skill. But the skill of actually winning fights is 90% muscle memory and 10% intellectual. You just need the hours put into the game to increase those skills and its way better to do this continuously during your rank climb even if it will be a little slower.
Bascially; fighting your way through the ranks will make your skill match your current rank which is a good thing for you and your gaming experience in the long run.
@BalladalidilaAs I put in the OP, the issue is not my tactical skill, I am just not that young and aim train every day. My mechanical aiming skill is pretty average and I don't play hyper aggressively because of it. So hotdrop is objectively the worst for me and is the sole reason I lose RP. I have gained plenty of RP from only having a single fight with the last two squads, but I have lost a considerable amount to hotdrops.
There really is no skill involved with a lobby wide hot drop, its just "did you get a gun? No? GG. Yes? Well now you have to fight about seven squads and hope not only you but your entire team comes out on top."
Meanwhile I have gotten RP from Crypto reviving all the way to the end and getting no kills. One clearly works, the other is almost always a losing proposition.
I think you are missing my point. I understand that you have a higher chance of gaining RPs by not dropping hot and not playing aggressively and if gaining the highest possible rank is your main goal with this game, then thats OK.
My point is that I see no reason to rush up through the ranks if you know that your actual fighting skills are below average at your current rank. You just shoot yourself in the foot since you eventually will reach a rank where you literally cant kill a single enemy. But you play this game however you want ofc.
To put it in another way: If you find it difficult to escape Silver as a solo player, then perhaps this just means that your actual fighting/aim skill is below silver average. So whats the hurry to gold if you cant even fight your way through silver? Why not fight and fight and fight in silver and perhaps be demoted to bronze where it supposedly is a bit easier? And down in bronze, keep fighting and fighting and become better and better and when you are able to fight your way to silver, then hopefully your skill has increased to a more suitable level for silver etc etc
@BalladalidilaAgain like I said in the OP, the weirdest part about this all is that rank clearly does not denote physical skill in bronze through early gold. I have been melted on contact by bronze 4s with the aim of a apex pred, but have had evenly matched fights with golds all the time.
That is the point to be had here, you don't get stuck at silver 1 because of your skill as a solo-que, you get stuck because of hot drops. Skill wise I should probably be stuck somewhere in gold, but its incredibly slow to escape silver 1 because of all the bronzes and even silvers that still hotdrop dragging you down with them. I have had golds as well I get matched with that are fed up with silvers and below because they too keep getting dragged down into hot drops.
I actually remember when I first climbed up from rookie during the last split and said "why are there so many golds in my lobby, that can't be fair." But now I realize that when I get melted on contact by someone with pred like skills, it actually tends to be a bronze player that does it. Meanwhile gold's tend to share my level of aiming skill.
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