[2021] I got +14 RR on a 13-0 competitive win.

MMR is important because one match where you get 54 kills is awesome! But that's just one match. We don't know if players just fed you kills in their spawn, maybe someone was super tilted and having a bad game, maybe you were just having a good game etc.

Unfortunately, one game is just one game in you career. Just like you don't want to be punished for having a game where teammates may throw/tilt, we can't overly reward you for having an insane game either. But by having those insane games you are increasing your hidden MMR. Every game is changing your MMR, so by having good games that is how you will raise your MMR, which will increase your RR gains, which will help you climb.

Rank cares about finding your your true skill, the only way that is possible is by testing you at where it thinks you belong and pushing you exactly to that spot. If you improve, changing where you belong, you will get pushed upwards.

The other points about certain agents having higher KDA, which is why we don't use that as a major factor for rank is very true. Valorant is not only about being a great slayer, depending on your agent it can be about enabling your teammates. That is why your performance bonus in Ranked Rating is only weighed against yourself and your average performance. You are the constant factor in your ranked matches, start improving and you will get more points!

I've seen people talk about this, being frustrated that wins are worth less then losses. This was the case in the arrow system as well, you just didn't see it(or people just complained about getting 3 arrows down and only 1 up).

Unfortunately, because we let people group up to 5 and because shooters are much easier to carry then say a moba - we have to be a little more aggressive with your Ranked Rating. It's very easy to have a group of friends boost you to a rank you may not belong in, by feeding you wins etc. The system can tell if your win MMR is high, but your performance MMR is low.

That means that the only way to truly climb is to actually get better and skill out of low ranks, increasing your performance MMR. Yes, technically you will get a small bump in win MMR by just chain winning games but there is still a performance factor.

The system does not want you to game it, or try to manipulate it, and will push against you if you start to get too far away from where it thinks you belong. Our goal is to create a system that finds your true skill. Yes, ranked can be upsetting when you want to climb, or want a certain rank. Realistically you will get there if you truly belong at that rank, you are in the same set of rules as all of the other players.

I'm sorry you've felt hardstuck, but remember everyone is on their own ranked journey. I don't doubt if you are trying to improve and practicing effectively that you will climb. Good luck!

Thanks for helping the community, it's nice to see information circulating to help inform people!

Ranked is always tricky. The better we get at determining player skill, or creating rules to try and create a more accurate system in getting players to their true MMR rating, it can complicate things. I definitely want to keep talking about the system, because it helps not only figure out what we need to make better, but also helps people learn why we do things the way we do it.

I don't like the perception that we "Have X design to increase grinding and to get people playing". At the end of the day we just want a fun, competitive game, because that will get people playing. By having a ranked system that can accurately find your true skill level we set up a very healthy competitive atmosphere. If we can maintain truly accurate ranks, and leaderboards, it will just help develop pro/amateur scenes and also create fun competitive match making for players.

We enjoy playing Valorant and want to be able to keep playing it for a long time! Hopefully we can keep working on fixing and frustrations and make the game better, as a community!

Thanks again!

I guess my question would be this then:

Would you prefer that you be stuck at that rank and you only gain little to no points? Like the arrow system, winning a match and getting 1 arrow.

In the prior system, it was tied much more to MMR then the current one. It would be very difficult to increase your rank if you didn't improve. In the current system if you are winning, quiet a bit more then losing, but not improving your MMR(or you out pace your MMR gains) we still let you climb a little. If you start to get a little too far ahead of your MMR, competitive will push you down harder. Ranked has the goal of finding your current skill level.

This can also be because of things like grouping up, really skewing your MMR/Matches slightly. If you group up with a lower MMR player you can potentially gain less MMR because you are being brought down by your group. This may even be a way people would try to exploit the system to get RR gains. That's the reason we have to tie it to MMR, because otherwise you could manipulate ranked by grouping up to get easier matches(or have people make smurfs, tank those smurfs, and group to give you easier matches).

Unfortunately, at some point, every rank system is going to say "You got to the rank you deserve, this is your skill right now" - all of those systems also use some form of skill based match making.

It can be frustrating, but everyone is participating and playing with the same set of rules. After multiple investigations, and spending a lot of data and dev resources, we've yet to find a truly hard stuck player that belongs in a higher rank then where they are at. I'm sorry you're frustrated, but we will always be making tweaks. I would really focus on improving, and less on your rank. Rank is given based on your skill, improve and you climb. Hopefully we can help fight AFK and Toxicity to reduce the amount of matches that players feel like are out of their control.

Because you have two MMR's, one based on win/loss the other performance. Technically a player could be winning, but not really doing so well in performance.

There definitely could be an edge case where a solo player gets on a 5-10 game lucky win streak, or is winning without increasing their skill. Unfortunately, even if your friend only groups up for a few games if he gets bumped even 1-sub rank above where his MMR is sitting he will be pushed down. The further he gets from that rank he belongs, the harder the push down.

It will always be a tricky situation, because we can't do a pure win/loss MMR system. Because our game has different maps, agents, the ability to 1v5 a round, etc. performance is a very good metric to understand a players rank. The reality is that in an FPS a good player can really carry a game especially in lower ranks. Unfortunately that means there is a chance you can deviate from your MMR.

I think allowing you to pull ahead of your MMR, slightly, is healthier in the long run. Alternatively we would just not let you rank up, or hide the fact you are being pushed down. I think no matter what, any MMR system will be open to negative feedback because it requires the community to just "Believe" that our system is rating you correctly. I understand there is a concern that you just have to have faith our MMR system is good at rating your performance and tracking you.

But also know the MMR system is purely a way that you are compared to everyone else. If you truly perform better then other players, at your rank/mmr, you will climb up the ladder and push them down. At the end of the day you are on a giant ladder, if you do better then other players you will climb.

Hope that helps, it can be a little confusing.

Thanks for the feedback! It's definitely tricky. Valorant is fun when player in groups, and competitive play is definitely where a lot of people want to play. We will be constantly fixing and making it better, thank you for playing!

The system hasn't changed, we still rank you based on the same factors. Also match making hasn't changed, you are getting the same matches this Episode as you would have in the last.

The only difference is we made your gains/losses visible and put your Ranked Rating on top of your MMR(rather then 1:1 tied to it like the previous system). But the matches you play in, as well as your MMR that determines your rank, is the exact same(so much so we didn't even reset it at the start of the act).

I understand you are frustrated, but I think a lot of frustrations come from people seeing changes, losing some matches or having their rank shift, and trying to blame the new system as to why they may have gone down in rank(or believe matches are unfair).

That's not to say you aren't having bad matches, or a poor ranked experience. But if you are it's either perceived, or related to something else. I know toxicity and AFK has been a topic that has brought a lot of frustration. We are combating those, as well as working on other fixes, and I hope it gets better for you.

That isn't true at all, performance isn't just kills. It looks at ability usage, if you entry fragged, if your smoke helped take a site, if you flashed for a teammate, if you used abilities which resulted in a clutched round, etc. It looks at a lot more then just kills.

I think it's easy to blame dualists, and getting frags, because visibly those players may end up at the top of the scoreboard. But realistically, on the MMR side of things, those players aren't always getting the most MMR from a match. Remember the system is both performance and win/loss based. Whatever you feel most effective doing, to enable your team to win, will help you climb.

Another thing I think that helps dualists climb is that it's very straight forward for people to understand how to use them effectively. You run forward, flash someone, then kill them(or a teammate does). It's very easy to be effective with abilities when it's so straight forward. That also enables players to use abilities, get kills, and be effective and climb Elo. What's interesting is we see dualists being effective at lower skills, while some dualists struggle in higher ranks where players have a deeper understanding of ability usage.(I don't know the exact data, this is more the character team, but you get the idea)

Sorry if you're frustrated, but playing the agent you think gets you the win will be the best way for you to climb. If you are good at sage, then pick sage.

Because, in almost all Elo/MMR type systems, it takes realistically thousands of games to find your "True Rank". MMR/Elo is just one way certain games have done rank, and just because it was one of the first doesn't make it the best. It works really well for games like Chess where the rules are static, they don't change, and due to that player skill doesn't shift very much.

Alternatively you have video games. We release new agents, maps, balance patches, etc. There is no way you can get 1000+ games in a single patch, without the game changing slightly. Every time something changes in the game, the entire community has it hit their skill differently. Maybe a new agent comes out that you struggle to play against, maybe you can't learn a new map, etc. Because of this our MMR system has to try and be as accurate as possible, with minimal amount of games, as be willing to be flexible if you prove it to be wrong.

So lets say we place you in gold, because of your 5 placement games. Well you could have easily gotten maps you were good at, got your main agent every time, you were exploiting an OP weapon, etc. Well after a patch, or getting into games not on a map you are good at, or not getting your main agent, we start to get a better idea of your skill. Turns out the system was wrong and it starts to tank you to silver. The old system was more 1:1 with your MMR, and it felt bad. Almost every day there would be a new post about how "I had a bad game and was demoted, but I had an insane game and only got 1 up arrow". This is because of all the things going on with MMR to gauge where you belong, and it can sometimes swing kinda fast.

Yes we could just show you your MMR, and let you swing up and down like crazy, and you would have little to no idea why that was happening or why one match gave you 2 points and another gave you 25 for winning. Instead we want the ranked experience to be smoother, to have you say "I'll rank up in about 2-3 wins" etc. It just feels better, and we still get to use MMR to match make and create extremely fair matches.

Also having a point system that sits on MMR lets us come up with penalties, like taking away points for AFK'ing, without us effecting your MMR which would effect match making quality. I think, personally, it's just a better experience and better suited for a system where your MMR can move quickly due to a constant changing environment.

There isn't, it's an interesting idea tho. Technically it will effect your MMR differently, where the high ranking players in your group may not be gaining as much MMR as they would be solo(because the lower rank players will bring down the average match MMR and thus reduce the amount of MMR increase per win). But that also depends on the ranked/mmr differences in your group, as well as the opponents you are getting in your matches. So realistically it would probably even out over time.

We are investigating grouping in Valorant, and ideas we have around that space. Valorant is definitely a blast to play in a group and we want to support that(even in a competitive environment).

You also have to think about how many people are coming back to the game, because of a new episode or new content. While the community as a whole is increasing in skill. If you were to take a silver player in this act, and make them play a silver in Episode 1 Act 1 they would be miles ahead of them in skill.

Depending on how much you play, if you play less then the average player, you will see yourself getting worse and the community as a whole getting better. Not that it's a bad thing, it's just something that happens to games overtime. This is especially true to younger games, where 1 month of playing the game is 10% of the total time that game has been out. Where in 5 years, a month of game time will be 2% of the total time the game has been out. Technically, early on, the more time invested in a game to stay on top/improve is extremely important imo.

I understand that how the game feels is more important then what any dev will tell you; I've played enough games to know I don't agree with plenty of game devs and what they say. We definitely didn't change any players MMR or how the match maker uses that MMR to make matches. So nothing has changed, only forward facing Ranked stuff was changed.

Consistency is the mark of a good player, and an indicator that you are at the rank you belong. Technically, in a perfect world, if the match maker had enough games from every single player playing you would get into matches where they were almost all draws and everyone was even in performance.

The more you swing up and down, with performance or winning/losing, the harder it is for the system to raise your MMR and believe you should be climbing. If you become more consistent, and start to perform better, you will climb. Remember you are in the same system as everyone else, you are the only constant factor in your matches.

It may feel like you're hard stuck, but I promise if you improve above the rank you are in you will climb. Good luck!

This new system is built on the same match making/mmr as the arrow system. Last season your rank was your MMR, this season your MMR is used to dictate your RR gains/losses. The system is pushing you toward your MMR, which would have been very close to whatever your arrow rank was last season.

So essentially, if we were still using the arrow system you would currently be lower rank. We didn't change MMR or match making. Your current MMR is lower then your rank, so it's pushing you down. I promise if you improve, above the current rank you are playing at, you will climb.

We've investigated lots of accounts, with lots of claims like this, and have yet to find anyone who is hard stuck. We've even done things like copied accounts MMR/history, and have seen what skill improvements would do to their MMR/Rank. We have yet to find a true hard stuck account.

That being said, we are still investigating and still have plans to make the system better. Remember the system is just trying to find your true skill, focusing less on your rank and improving is going to be the best way to climb. Good luck!

Sorry, looking back at my response I don't know what I was trying to say. Lol, the problem with responding to lots of feedback all at once.

Yes, if you are truly top fragging your MMR is going up. But, top fragging isn't the only thing effecting your MMR. You have a performance and a win/loss MMR. As you get higher rank your Win/Loss MMR starts to matter more then performance. Also your performance MMR isn't only fragging; it tracks ability usage, entry fragging, if your smoke helped take a site, if your heal let your teammate clutch, etc.

So it's tricky. You could be top fragging, but not really helping your team win. Then if you aren't winning, you also won't be raising your Win/Loss MMR. Honestly, if you are winning matches and performing effectively you will be climbing the fastest possible. If you are top fragging, but not winning matches, potentially there are better ways you could help your team to win games.

On a side note, one of the things I see Radiant players I get to talk to regularly say is something like "Getting a kill, dying, then giving site is worse then just backing off and retaking". I definitely see players top in kills, but at the cost of dying when the enemy team enters the site, rather then backing off and retaking as a team. Aggression can be a gift and a curse :)

Hope this is a better answer!