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

There has been a lot of criticism from the Valorant community regarding the ranked system, and its apparent weaknesses. Recently, even Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek called the Valorant ranked system "hot garbage", and now, Riot Games has officially responded to the concerns of many Valorant players. While Riot believes Valorant ranked will always need updating, and they're working on improvements.

Riot responds to Valorant ranked backlash

In a lengthy post on Reddit, Valorant's senior competitive designer Jon "EvrMoar" Walker, took some time to respond to several concerns about the game's ranked, competitive mode.

First off, Riot's EvrMoar explained there's no winners/losers queue in Valorant, as some might have suggested. There's simply no such thing, which means Riot can't "solve problems that don't exist."

He continued to explain that the developer wanted to figure out why people thought such a queue exists: "After we investigated this issue, it seems to be confirmation bias that this happens. It doesn't matter how much it doesn't exist; if someone is adamant it does, they blame something that doesn't exist for why ranked is terrible."

(Picture: Riot via Reddit)

EvrMoar continued to talk about Valorant ranked and the community backlash, explaining how some people might have just reached their skill peak. 

Riot's senior competitive designer then continued by saying he is on Reddit to be transparent with the community, and that "ranked isn't as bad as people think". However, Riot is "making it better where we can".

EvrMoar continues by stating: "I'm not here to make a system to give you a free rank you don't deserve, which unfortunately causes a large amount of negative feedback. I can try and make the frustrations or experiences better where there are known issues."

(Picture: Riot via Reddit)

Riot is currently investigating matchmaking and looking at ways to improve it. Furthermore, they are looking into smurfs and systems to combat "AFK/Toxicity" in Valorant.

On Shroud's main concern about Valorant ranked, due to duos and solo queues instead of playing with a group of five friends, EvrMoar noted the team is: "working on a way for teams to play together competitively, looking into boosting, ranked health, and tons of other things all related to ranked."

You might be wondering when Riot Games will be deploying some Valorant ranked changes. Well, your guess is as good as ours, as EvrMoar explained "I wish we could get changes out quicker, but unfortunately, this stuff takes time and Valorant has been out less than a year" noting how they have already reworked ranked based on feedback.

• Read more: Shroud slams Valorant ranked queue restrictions calling it "hot garbage"

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