EvrMoar

Ranked distribution changes didn't change the players you get in your match. We didn't change anyone's skill rating, how their MMR changes, or changed any back end calculations for players directly. We only moved the cut offs for lower ranks.

Think of it this way. I'm using made up numbers for this. So lets say you have a match making rating(MMR) of 450. Before the change we said "You are Iron 2 if you are between 400-500 MMR." Turns out, iron 2 had too many players in it, we overestimated how many players would end up at that 400-500 MMR. So to fix it we now say "You are in Iron 2 if you are between 400-420 MMR, and Iron 3 421-480 MMR, etc." The player that is 450 MMR would go from Iron 2, to Iron 3, without actually changing their skill/MMR. Because MMR is a reflection of the players skill, that number didn't change.

When you match make we use your MMR to match you with similar MMR players. So it doesn't matter what Ranks you run into in your lobby, your MMR is ar...

I definitely think stats, in general, help players understand their performance and track improvement. I also think it's just enjoyable to see numbers go up(Hello my addiction to Gacha and Idle games!).

This is a topic we are talking about, and will constantly be something we are thinking about as Valorant grows.

I've been seeing a lot more of these posts recently, I've avoided commenting on them because we have so many changes coming to ranked.

I can probably explain this, it probably won't make you any less frustrated but it can help understand what is happening.

Okay so, as you climb ranks winning becomes more important then individual skill. Essentially you have two hidden ratings(most often called MMR in most games), one for your skill and one for your wins. In lower ranks your Skill MMR is a bigger factor in climbing ranked. As you go up in rank, that skill MMR becomes less of a factor and your wins against opponents becomes a bigger factor.

How MMR systems work is they take into account how likely you were to win/lose the game(since your opponent also has an MMR), which determines how much rank you gain/lose for beating your opponent. Unfortunately, you may have been the higher MMR team/players. So because you lost, you may have lost more because you were the ...

:O

<3 Thanks for playing our game, can't have a great PvP game without a great community. The competitive team saw your post, and we are glad you are enjoying all the work we are putting in. Hopefully we can keep making you proud in the future. We will be out there grinding with everyone, trying to get those ranks after those distribution changes >:)

edit: I also wanted to say, after thinking about my answer, that I joined a very talented team that has done amazing work. I've only been here a month, in all honesty I haven't even dipped my toe into Riot and working on Valorant. While I may be showing up on Reddit, explaining how ranked is working here or there, I'm lucky to be surrounded by the super talented team that poured tons of time and effort launching the game and making ranked awesome. Valorant is young, we will probably never be done changing and improving the competitive space. We are excited to be on this ride and we will be watching for feedback!

If you played after the patch, but still lost a game, nothing would have changed. It's not that you played a game yesterday, it's that you lost in general. It wouldn't have changed anything if you played today vs yesterday.

I wouldn't get hung up on one loss, you didn't get punished or anything like that because you lost one match. Your rank did not get effected more or less then anyone else because of one match. The change effected everyone the exact same, you didn't get any more or less rank then anyone else after this change.

:(

I'm the competitive designer, but I can definitely see where it's confusing. Essentially we said "we want less players in iron, we believe that lower ranked players are probably in a lower rank then intended."

So after our changes an iron 1 player will probably end up climbing easier and after a few games may end up in iron 2,3, or bronze 3. This isn't exactly how it will work out, but lower rank players from Iron-Gold should find it easier to climb a tier or two.

This will occur because we lowered the % of the playerbase we want in iron. Because we lowered how many players we want in iron we had to increase how many players should be bronze, silver, and gold.

It is slightly confusing, ranked systems are complicated at times. Just know that most players should be able to climb a few tiers pretty easily, if they are below gold, due to our changes.(you obviously have to play ranked to have the adjustments effect you)

If you ever want to lear...

I commented on this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/k94s7r/valorant_patch_notes_114/gf3iyd7/

I can explain this!

So ranked distribution is the % of players in every rank. You can see an example here: https://www.esportstales.com/valorant/rank-distribution-and-percentage-of-players-by-tier (I just grabbed this site at random, I'm not saying the stats they have are valid or invalid, or that I endorse them or anything like that. I just wanted an example for players to look at to help understand what I'm talking about.)

I'm going to be talking about MMR, MMR stands for ...

This is awesome, I'm going to save this for later :D

Congrats to 100 Thieves, that series was super intense.

Huge shoutout to both teams! That series was crazy to watch unfold. This is just the beginning for competitive Valorant, lets gooooooooooooo!

It depends, there are instances where you can get stomped and get less then 3 arrows.

I think looking at the overall system, and not that one match, is probably better way to think about it. Lets say you could lose 0-100% rating for losing a match. If you get stomped, aside from AFK/Leavers/etc., there is probably a skill disparity between both teams and you should lose a higher percent. So it doesn't matter if it was arrows, LP, or some other point system you would be losing a high % of rating for that match. Unfortunately when you gain/lose rating the best way to determine how well a match went was how hard of a win/loss that match was. This also helps prevent smurfing, slightly. If we didn't let you move so quickly, smurfs would sit at lower ranks longer and you would have more of these stomps and bad experiences for players below the smurfs skill.

Or another way to think about it. Do you enjoy how fast you can rank up? We let people rank up pretty fast, compared...

I do not have a good answer for this, I was told but I can't fully remember. I will follow-up and ask to make sure I find out.

We also have a social player dynamics team which focuses on this kind of thing, so they are the ones that would be better suited to answer this. So, I'm sorry I don't have an answer but know that we are aware of toxic behavior and have a team dedicated to solving these issues.

Congrats! Radiant is a huge achievement, I'm trying to climb ranked and I can't even imagine setting aside the time as well as the dedication required to hit that rank. Seriously, great work.

Good luck in your future endeavors, and if you do comeback hopefully we've made some great changes for you to dig your teeth into!

Good luck with your team and your climb in the Valorant eSports scene! There is something special about being on a team, grinding out games, tournament play, etc. I wish more people got to experience it.

Your frustrations are definitely heard. Ranked is going to evolve and hopefully, given the time needed to improve the system, you and the community feel like we improved ranked as Valorant grows over the next months/years. Again good luck, and yes your feedback/issue/situation has been heard :)

Thank you! I'm just like everyone here, I want to play good games! I really just want a space where the community, and myself, can have fun and to push the industry forward. Valorant is so baby so there is so much potential for the game and that is extremely enticing for a designer.

I shipped about 8 COD titles, so it was definitely time for a change of pace. I've also been a huge Riot fan and played league since beta, so I was super excited to join the team.

Warzone was a blast to work on, I feel very pillaged to have a big part in the design of it. Thank you for fragging out and playing the games I've worked on! Without people playing our games, we wouldn't have a job or a community to play against >:)

I wouldn't say you are restricted by rank. I think it's better to look at it as you need to prove you belong where you belong. Your mmr/elo/rank almost become one in the same after so many games and the game has a pretty good idea of where you currently belong. That's where the variance comes into play. Variance is like saying "hey we think you belong where you are at in elo/rank, but you are starting to improve/decline in skill. We are going to loosen how far +/- we can match you to test you and see if that's true."

At lower ranks performance is important for this, so even tho you may not be win/losing you may be having mixed performances against people above or belong your rank. The system will compare every single interaction in a match. So if you are gold, and you are going even with other gold players, but getting stomped by silver players, that could negatively impact where the system thinks you belong.

The system is intensely complex, and I said this in other...

Connection issues can be roughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I don't live in the Riot area/LA yet, but I just got fiber where I love and it's been insane. Unfortunately I will have to move sometime next year and have to figure out a good place to live, that also has amazing internet. It's always a struggle lol, especially because sometimes living out of town is cheaper but also has worse internet.

Valorant is unique in the fact that your elo/rank/mmr is very closely tied and almost one in the same after you play your placements, or maybe a few games after placements if the game can't tune in on your exact skill.

The one thing that I think that helps with getting where the game thinks you belong is that Variance/Confidence I talked about. The system will tighten your gain/loss amount when you start to even out in a certain rank because it thinks you belong there. If your win/loss or performance, depending on how much those things may matter(example; immortal3+ is win/loss only), start to change then that variance will increase because you probably don't belong in that area and you will find it easier to climb/derank.

If you are swinging ranks really hard, you may not be playing games consistantly, or if it's in lower ranks your performance may be very inconsistant. If you pop-off for two games against plat players, but then get stomped when there is an enemy g...

Hmm I can't answer this well, my guess would be having different variance on where the game thinks you belong. I know that's not a good answer, but variance can be unconfident in you, because it also tries to take into account how likely you are to have a bad day, good day, how swingy you are in win/loss streaking.

One thing to think about, and this isn't ment as a slight to you or your skill, is how quickly you hit those ranks. If your friend hit Radiant before you, it might be likely that the system identifies him as the better player. Be it the performance before hitting immortal 3 where only winning/losing really matter, along with the confidence the system had in where he or you belong.

Congrats on making it to immortal and getting close to radiant tho! I'm striving to at least get to immortal someday. Hopefully we can make some improvements to ranked so you get a better idea of how you're progressing and why these situations could be occurring.