Valorant devs promise ranks will be "easier to climb" in Episode 3 Act 2

Getting ranks right in any game is far from an exact science, something which Riot Games know all too well, with their vast experience with the hyper-competitive League of Legends and Valorant games proving that fact.

Valorant, just over a year old now, has seen a number of changes to its ranking system, not all of which have been appreciated; with some claiming to be "hard stuck" at one end, while others finding fault in the restrictions around party sizes at the other.

The most recent changes were introduced in Episode 3 Act 1, not so much to the ranked system, but rather the matchmaking one and which made games fairer. This had a knock-on effect of reducing most of the player base's MMR and thus rank. So where once a player was categorized as Gold, they now display as Silver, even though their skill level may well have increased in that time.

• Read more: Riot defends Valorant ranked, says system is "not here to give you a free rank"

It is something that the developers have been tracking throughout the Act and now with enough data in front of them, they plan to tweak the system heading into Act 2, making it, in the developers' words, "easier to rank".

In the most recent Ask Valorant blog, Valorant's Competitive Producer, Jon Walker, explains:

"We can comfortably say our lower ranks have too many people in them, and our higher ranks not enough. This is what we call Ranked Distribution: the population of players in each rank. Since your rank is tied to your MMR, this led to the whole player base situated in a rank lower than intended (by a small amount)."

Walker provides the above image to show how the current players are currently distributed across ranks, pointing to the fact that many Silver players should be in Gold.

The ideal, as Walker states, is to have the ranked distribution look like this:

How exactly they plan to make these changes isn't detailed, and Walker explains the process is "complex" though it is likely that player's initial rank sorting will put them slightly higher than usual and there may be changes to how much RR a player earns on a win, or conversely how much they lose on a loss.

"If there is anything to take away... it’s that it should be a little easier to climb a few ranks in Episode 3 Act II," says Walker.

Works for me.

Valorant Episode 3 Act 2 starts on 9th September, after Act 1 was extended for two weeks.

• Read more: Former Valorant pro wins Paralympics Gold in Swimming

For all the latest breaking news and updates, make sure to bookmark our Valorant tab for all of your Riot Games needs.