So lemme start by prefacing I have multiple accounts in multiple elos in order to queue with friends.

Now I keep reading on reddit that the general skill level has increased and that has made ranking up harder and pushing people downwards on the ladder.

I disagree. I believe people are getting worse which is why it's harder to climb. I used to have a 95% winrate all the way up to diamond on my plat smurf without particularly trying, I would drop 20 kills and with good ability usage/comms - we would win the game. Nowadays, I feel like if I don't drop over 30 and play duelist, we lose. And this applies to gold and silver as well. People don't know how to play the game in a literal sense. Cyphers not tripping flank, Omens not smoking key areas of the bomb site, Sovas who don't have a single clue where to dart, baiting duelists, lurking breaches, etc. All these issues are common in almost every rank I play now, all the way up to high diamond/immortal.

It didn't used to be like this. Aim on other hand, I can tell has definitely improved, but people need to realize that aim alone will not win you rounds. Teamplay will. I see some plat players with immortal aim but they have no clue how to contribute to the team other than winning 1v1 gunfights. Bad comms, backseat gaming, flaming, everything got worse.

So am I the only one who's feeling this change? I guess as the popularity of Valorant increases there's a influx of new players but the changes feel so drastic to me. And this is particularly true for plat/gold lobbies. Maybe this is why people think ranking up is harder nowadays, NOT because the players got better but rather because everyone got worse. So what's caused this change? And is this a real change or is it just me?