EvrMoar

Why would we create unfair matches just to let people stomp? That isn't proving skill, an immortal player will stomp a diamond player just as much as a Radiant.

In fact that isn't proving your rank, that's just proving your better then diamonds. Right now I think it's much healthier for players to be put at their skill, then be forced to maintain a 50:50 winrate and be moved to that Rank.

Also how does that effect smurfs? We can combat smurfs by quickly changing their MMR, so they aren't ruining games while they smurf through every single rank. Right now I don't think anyone can convince me that stomping on someone below your rank is good for the game health, or player enjoyment. I also don't think it's a good way to show your skill.

You also won't get better and improve your rank stomping low level players. We need you to play players of your skill, so you get better or we validate you belong against those players. The system would be complete chaos without...

Act Ranks will show your leaderboard standing based on end of Act, not whatever you are now. Our goal is to put a number on your Act Rank based on your leaderboard standing, again based on the end of Act.

Also soft resets are needed. Every game that has ranked has boosted players, players that don't belong in high ranks, players that quit playing the game, etc. Is it fair that someone could get a high rank, then play one game a week for months and maintain that rank? Is it fair if we just let TenZ get #1 on leaderboard after 5 games?

All Elo systems need you to play multiple games to know your true rank. This system is just doing that, after a handful of games you will converge with your MMR - you can't stop it. At some point I think it's fair to say "if you can't earn a rank, do you really deserve it in the current season". This is especially true because most players need less then 20 games to converge with their MMR. Top of the leaderboard may need more, but I th...

Our match maker is actually extremely good at finding fair matches. It's hard to hear, because I feel like(even myself) finding a reason to blame why I may be losing or underperforming is hard - unfortunately teammates or match quality definitely becomes a target.

We've been getting a ton of reports that "My match making is unfair, I get stomped or I stomp every match!". We've actually investigated these claims a ton over the past week. I've actually had people say this, and I go to their match history and their matches are all 10-13, 11-13, 13-8, etc.

Now just because we don't see MMR shifts, bad match making, etc. Doesn't mean there isn't a problem, so we are always looking at data and we really want to see the data after the season plays out more. But so far, I think a lot of this is ranked anxiety and early season movement. You have players that played 2 months ago and may have had immortal act ranks then but haven't played Valorant since. We've changed weapon ...

Hey guys, I'm the Dev from the twitter post!

There is lots of good feedback in this thread and I really want to talk about it. I'm seeing a few "If I'm playing against Immortal, Plat, etc. players, I deserver to be that rank". I agree technically you do! No matter what, after you play a handful of games, your MMR and your Rank will converge. So if you are playing Immortals/Radiants, after 20-50 games if you can maintain a 50:50 winrate you will reach that rank.

I know that means your rank isn't where your MMR believes you belong, and it feels unfair that you just don't get the rank you are playing at. This is both true, and not true. No matter what, once you play some games your MMR and Rank will converge. This is something you can't stop. We believe you belong at, whatever rank your MMR is testing you at, but it's up to you to perform at that level and climb. We would rather have you test up to your rank, instead of just putting you there and maybe we are wrong and...

Someone who has a Radiant Act Rank triangle could have gotten it at the beginning of the Act - which was over two months ago. They could have not played for two months, came back to the game and had their skills atrophy. The match maker corrected them during/after placements.

Also players that may have been boosted in 5 stacks, came back and were corrected by the match maker.

I'm not saying that's always the case, maybe there is a bug or some weirdness going on. If there is an issue it isn't intentional. Lastly, we have gotten reports from twitter, reddit, devs, etc. and investigate quiet a few. Right now we are not seeing any match making changes that can't be explained by player skill changing, then the system correcting them.

It's only been a week, and we made big changes with leaderboard, turning on solo/duo, etc. Lots of people who haven't played in a while came back to see those changes, lots of players are pushing hard because it's a new episode, and ...

I don't understand your comment, TenZ has always struggeled finding games on his main. His que time didn't jump to four hours, it was four 1 hour queues - I watched the stream he tweeted about his four hour queue time. The reason he has long queues is because we didn't reset MMR, and his MMR is much higher then most people(you can see he was top of the leaderboard last season). If we did reset MMR he would have found games much quicker, because there would be more people around his MMR to match into queue with.

In fact him, and a few other people, were what we had to look at to roll out a change speeding up their queue times(which came out today). Again, I don't understand why you think I'm lying, if TenZ had hour long ques before the new season, then still had them(until today when we got a fix in).

I understand you may have frustrations with the system, or that a lot of the complaints that are popping up make assumptions that may not necessarily be true. I have be...

We are talking about a few things. I believe there is a perception issue along with beginning of season issue.(sounds a little bit lame to blame it on this but I'll explain)

Our match maker is pretty good at matching 5 stacks against 5 stacks. Or at least 5 stack against 1 + 4 stack. Unfortunately, in extremely edge rare cases, very unfair stacks can get matched up against a split group. I am concerned that people just think "oh their five stack" or ask in chat and get a troll response "of course we're grouped kekw". Alternatively it's natural to want to blame any reason you can find on a loss - which is why people start using rank as a way to target teammates or 5 stacks as a complaint. I'm not saying it's always the case, but there will always be some level of trying to find a scape goat for why you may be losing. That being said, it doesn't mean you should turn a blind eye as a dev, there is obvious legitimate concern and we need to use feedback and data to see if it's a...

To start off, I don't think the system is perfect. I think if you were to ever believe your Ranked system is perfect, and complete, you'd probably be wrong as a game designer.

That being said, we have investigated multiple people who have made these claims. Looked up their back end MMR, match history, the games they've pointed out issues in. For multiple games. We didn't make it public, saying "hey we are looking into your game." because we don't want to create this unfair perception that we are willing to look into certain players match history over others(that's what player support is for). That being said, we want to gut check feedback and make sure things are working correctly after such a big change.

After these initial investigations we haven't really seen any issues. We are still watching, and looking, but there haven't been any that have really jumped out as the system not matching players fairly.

The reason for the more restricted group is it helps ...

Hey!

It sucks you haven't had the best experience with voice chat, and just general toxicity in Valorant. I think some people pointed out some good tips, I always mute as soon as things start to get toxic. The Social and Player Dynamics team on Valorant is working on fixes for issues just like this, it's the start of the year but they are listening to issues like yours and are coming up with great solutions. No word on when those will hit, but hopefully we can tackle this toxicity issue with the community and make Valorant a better place for everyone who wants fair games, with less toxicity(and afk's :P ).

Thanks for playing, I hope you keep enjoying Valorant! And a big thank you to everyone who gave tips and words of kindness. Being a positive force in the community helps, even if sometimes negativity can get overwhelming.

Good Job!

It's hard, the actual Rank and the prestige is definitely a drive and what people strive for. But remember, improving and the journey are all part of achieving your goals and the fun part! You're consistantly improving, and it shows. One of the things I've learned, working in game dev, is that we often see one of the biggest factors in improving a players skill is simply more time invested into playing the game. Sure there is "practice efficiently" and knowing how to get better helps, but just playing the game will get you better too.

Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoy the new ranked system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/l1bg5v/a_ranked_complaint_template_for_all_of_you/gk08aho/

This is going to sound harsh, because this is a perception issue and it's still a problem that we may need to solve.

We didn't change match making, or how you find matches. You would get the same opponents, and teammates, compared to the last season. If we kept the rank system the same, and just made people play placements again(like beta to release) people would get the same matches they are getting now.

While you may run into players who have act/current ranks that are above or below you; The matchmaker believes you are close in skill and most of our matches(especially in anything below immortal) are very close in skill.

There is a confidence system, which gets loosened when you are in placements, that will let you shift your MMR harder based on your performance. That's the closet thing that will really change your MMR on a soft reset. That being said, it is healthy because as players play more games the system gets "Confident" in their MMR. Soft resets ar...

That is how our ranked system worked last season, there were very rare instances where your MMR and Rank were not 1:1. That's why you would see players have 1 or 2 bad games then suddenly get chain demoted, or chain promoted.

It's good in theory, because then your MMR is exactly your rank. The problem is that MMR fluctuates and isn't an exact representation of where you belong until you've played enough games. Our system uses your MMR as a center post, and then has a confidence check - that confidence gets more precise with the more games you play, because the system gets more confident in where you belong.

That being said, improving and playing outside of your MMR(either better or worse) will shift that confidence because the system doesn't think you belong at your old MMR before. Confidence is simply how far from your MMR you could possibly be playing for a given match. Sometimes you pop-off, sometimes you don't, but you are probably about this range as a player.

Yes, because it's unfair to have a ranked system where you are purposely dodging to manipulate your rank. Also it sucks to be on the receiving end to try and get a game and you get 5+ dodges in a row. There are people who stop playing because they can't find a match after they keep getting dodged, especially when in diamond+ que times can get in the 2-5minute time(even worse in immortal/radiant).

Being high in rank is being good at playing all maps, so dodging because you don't like a map(or are familiar with it) is manipulating your rank. I think it's valid to want to dodge a game, maybe once a play session/day. I think it's manipulative if you are dodging multiple games a night.

You also have to attack this from the perspective of why people are dodging, and other ways to stop that behavior. Right now we have a social player dynamics team that is working on how to fight toxicity, afk, etc. If you are dodging due to toxicity, that is somewhere we can improve to ens...

hahaha, thank you!

I'm newer to the team, but after being on the team and designing this new ranked system I have to give them a huge shoutout. The match making system, and MMR system, is super impressive and one of the best I think I've seen. I know I'm biased, after working on the team and being a Rioter, but they've done a great job in making a system that I believe does its job. Hope you enjoy the new changes if you play!

This is more of the social teams space, so I don't know! But I also like the honor system from league! Sorry I didn't have an answer, thanks for the question!

Your MMR influences your gains/losses in ranked rating. There is a convergence that happens, so after you play ranked games and your MMR shifts it will influence how many points you get for a win/loss. Then after placements, and a few games, you will converge with your MMR and your MMR will be around your current rank. Then if you want to climb you win games, increase your MMR, which will also help give you more ranked rating for a win.

This is because MMR can fluctuate pretty heavily from game to game. If you remember posts from last season, people would often have posts like "I had a bad loss and was demoted, this is unfair." that's because last season your MMR was your Rank for the most part. This system is less "swingy" and doesn't penalize you as harsh for a bad night of games.

It also makes ranked more tangible and easy to understand. There are no more arrows, you can see how much rating you are gaining per win, and understand about how many wins you need to r...

I think this answer is kinda what you're looking for.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/kxh45h/valorant_competitive_team_ama_on_20_update/gje6sfk/

Your hidden MMR is used for queueing/match fairness. That also will increase your ranked rating for wins, or decrease ranked rating lost for a loss. So you will get paired up in fair matches, with players around your skill.

This is why TenZ was having an issue finding matches, his MMR was extremely high and it was hard finding players to make fair matches with him. We are also working on a fix for this. But that's a good example to see the system in action.

The problem is a mix of perception/MMR, and the queue grouping rules.

There is always a struggle to make sure we maintain competitive integrity in ranked, but allow people to be social and play ranked with their friends. That's a big reason why we are looking at how to do a team competitive mode/system(still early and who knows what it will end up like).

If you get paired with, or against, someone that normally you couldn't group with, that persons MMR is shifting hard because of their play. This can happen because someone was too high of a rank, and their MMR thinks they need to be brought down, or because they are over performing and need to get brought up.

Unfortunately we don't allow you to group up based on hidden MMR. It's difficult because we don't show it to you, and you don't know if your friends MMR is even close to yours. With the ranked rating system it could allow some manipulation if we allowed this, and weirdness to occur, and MMR is used more...