What's up friend. It was essentally the high entry costs in ranked and kill multiplier not being beneficial for players in the early game. For instance, getting kills at top 15 wasn't gonna give the player a high multiplier than getting kills at top 5. If you had early kills, you had to make top 10 - endgame to get good RP. But if you die below top 10 with kills, you would still get negative RP because of your low multiplier. On top of the high entry costs across each tier in respective ranks, it was difficult to get positive RP as you went up, especially for solo players.

They eased up on the entry costs by 10 pts across the board in split 2. It opened up for some deserving players to get to their previously expected rank but with a slightly tougher journey than previous seasons. On top of rank demotion getting introduced, it weeded out the players who don't deserve to be in their rank.

That's my rough take to make it short and sweet. Other players may explain it better. I was thinking OP could weigh in but it's their first time playing and have no idea how much easier it was to solo in rank in previous seasons.

Hope you and your little ones enjoy the time spent together.