I think I understand where you are coming from, wanting RR to drive MMR, but the whole point of Ranked Rating was to smooth your Rank swings and give you an easy to understand point system.

You aren't matched based on Ranked Rating, and I sometimes see the argument where you should be.

"I want to beat silvers, then golds, then plats, etc. to get to my actual rank."

In concept, and not diving deep, that seems like an okay idea. But there is a reason this isn't used in most games. Things like Microsoft developing their True Skill Elo System(which most big games use and license), as well as the Elo system in chess. The reason being is that by beating a Silver player, it does not mean you are actually Plat or wherever you think you belong. It only means you can beat a silver player. Could you imagine us throwing the whole player based into Iron/Bronze and giving them the same RR per win/loss and matching them based on their RR to climb? You would have teams of literally every rank fighting through the ranks. You would just be hoping that you had the immortal that is currently climbing out of bronze on your team. Essentially it would be a huge mess and match making would be chaos.

Plus, we don't have to do that. We actually have a very good match maker, that makes very fair matches(some would disagree, but we've done a lot of investigations into this). If we know you are probably somewhere between Gold-Plat we can start testing you there right away. Right now, you play placements, the game says "I think you are somewhere in the Gold-Plat range" then it places you on the lower end of the area it thinks you belong. After placing you it then tests you exactly where it thinks you belong, which is usually a few sub-ranks higher(Iron doesn't have room to go down so they're the exception). Then if you win games, you will win more RR then you lose. Eventually you will win enough to push your Rank upwards, to match your MMR. Alternatively you could lose enough to drop your MMR to your Rank. Either way, you can't stop converging with your MMR.

There is an issue, that is really hard to solve, and that's players being at the Rank they belong. We want you to improve, but you also need to improve faster then other players in your Rank. Just because you are Gold 2 now, doesn't mean that in two weeks the rest of the playerbase is also improving and that you'll be Gold 2 then. So not only are you playing to improve, you are playing to improve over other players. Remember it isn't you vs. the system, it's you vs. all the other players. So what happens is you converge with your Rank, then because we are generous with stopping you from demoting, there is a good chance you'll get 1 sub-rank above your actual rank through win-streaking. That's when you'll start to see more RR loss then you get from Winning. If you were to Raise your MMR up, to your current Rank, then you would see your RR even out again and enable you to climb.

If you think Ranked is kind of a grind now, making players play purely based on Ranked Rating would be more of a grind. You could argue that MMR is a more complex Ranked Rating system, because technically it's awarding you numbers to climb, or go down, but at increased rates based on your opponents values. If we match made you based on Rank, we would increase that grind ten times over because you would not have an accelerated way to increase your rank(which is what MMR does now).

At the end of the day, it can be hard to accept, but you have to be better then other players in your rank to climb. Ranked isn't meant to be a grind for rank, it's suppose to be a system that finds your current true rank.

Lastly it's impossible for you to have never gotten more RR for a win then a loss. The system never places you over your MMR after placements. The only way this MIGHT occur would be if you were Iron 1, and you never lost after placements so you pushed yourself above your MMR before losing a match(not seeing the Ranked Rating loss that is less then a win because you won all your matches).

Sorry if you're frustrated, I understand the frustrations of feeling hard stuck due to losing more then you're gaining. We are actually talking about trying to find a solution to that perception, but nothing will feel good. Eventually we have to hold you accountable for the rank you truly belong at.

Rank is always an illusion until you put in enough games, even in the old system. You weren't Radiant, in any season, right off the bat. It took some games to get there. No matter what ranked system you play, you have to put in some games, to prove you belong at a rank and climb there.

While you may have been playing other Immortal/Radiant players, while being plat/diamond. You were getting +35-50 per win and only -10 for a loss. Do you think it's fair if we, after 1 game, just gave TenZ the #1 spot on the leaderboard just because we think he belongs there? Unfortunately every Elo/Rank system needs you to play games, to figure out where you belong. We can guess all we want, but until you actually give us enough matches to have a big enough sample size, we won't know your rank until you put in some games.

Also we are pretty generous in letting you move upward, and even increased how fast you can increase within a patch of the initial new ranked system launch.

We aren't going to let players sit stagnent at a rank, that's the point of soft resets. If you truly are Radiand/Immortal you will get there, the system isn't holding you back. You are ranked against other players, if you beat them you will climb.

Lastly you can't stop converging to your MMR. After a handful of games, no matter what, you will converge with your MMR. If you were Radiant, got soft reset to plat, even if you go 50/50 win/loss you will get back to Radiant. Unless of course you didn't improve, and the top 500 players did and are better then you.

Sorry you're frustrated, but no ranked system knows your true rank after 5 games. Even in the Elo system, where most MMR systems are based off of, takes 1000+ games to find your true Elo. And that's for chess, which is a game that is unchanging and does not have new maps, agents, balance patches, etc. I think it's acceptable that we ask you to play a handful of games to prove you belong at a rank.

Because players stop playing the game, and new players rise up. The top players are constantly shifting, even monthly. You need to soft reset to to clear out high ranks where a player may have stagnated at their rank, and may not really be engaging with Valorant or even a top player to begin with.

Creating a restriction where "You only have to play 1 game a week" or docking Rank can only get you so far. At the end of the day a player could coast, for multiple seasons, at the top rank without much effort if we didn't soft reset.

The other issue is cheaters. If we let people climb too fast, you could get an account onto the leaderboard. We need a few games to actually determine if you're cheating or not. We are good at detecting cheats but sometimes it takes some games.

Also if we let TenZ get the 1 spot, right off the bat, the leaderboard would literally be 10 people, and all of their alt-accounts, sitting in the top 250. Radiant would be full of alt-accounts, which would also promote account selling and boosting because it would be too easy to get high rank. This would actually increase smurfs as a side effect as well, because players could top out their rank so quick they wouldn't feel the need to stay on their main accounts. High rank players would start to roll more smurfs once they think they've "finished" their account.

Lastly we don't know TenZ is the best player. Elo takes 1000+ games to know your actual true rank. Just because you top frag in 5 games doesn't mean you're the number 1 player. TenZ could have been the #1 player 2 months ago, but the game has only been out for 10ish months. That means if he would play Valorant less, other players have 20% of the entire lifespan of the game(currnetly) to grind and pass him. We need him to keep playing games, and prove, that he belongs at the top as the community as a whole is getting better at the game. Soft resets do that, because like I said above people can get to high ranks and coast(not everyone at the top ranks plays 5+ games a day).

Getting dropped into Plat is not a big deal for the top players. It may suck at first, but we are just over half way through the season and players are already converged with their MMR in Radiant. It took most players 1-2 weeks to actually get to their MMR anyways, which was only 25% of the season. The top players are already going to be playing a ton, and will get to their rank. We are actually keeping Radiant more prestigious, and actually mean something, because we require those players to put in the work to earn it.

Leaderboards, while for personal prestige, are also a tool to promote eSports and scouting of players. We don't want players who aren't at the top, aren't actually the best players in a region, and have not proven they truly belong at the top ranks. And like I said, technically it would take 1000+ games to actually know a players true rank. I think asking them to play around 100 games-200 game, being that they are hardcore top players, is not unfair to maintain the prestige of high ranks.

We didn't change the match making system. You are getting the exact same matches as you would have last episode/act. In fact we didn't even touch players MMR.

So the only explanation, if you really feel like there are more smurfs, is not the match makers fault but realistically that more smurfs are being made. We are still refining how we find out who is smurfing in data, but right now it's actually a very small % of the playerbase.

I'll definitely get some flak for saying this, but I think there is a perception players are smurfing more then it's actually occurring. In shooters it's not uncommon for a player to have a really good game, and instantly have a bad game in their next one. Just because a player may have a lower rank, and do well, doesn't mean they are smurf. They could just be having a good game, or are in your match because they are actually climbing up rank. Players are on their own journey all the time, so players will climb up in rank. Everyone will have good matches, okay matches, and bad matches.

Lastly the game is so young, it's only been out 10 months. The whole community is getting better at the game at an insane pace. Every month you've put in Valorant so far, is 10% of the lifespan of the game. That means the whole communities skill is going to be increasing very quickly because the game is so new. A silver player now is miles ahead of a silver player in beta.

I've heard the complaint that making a new account makes it easier to rank up. It's interesting that you got Plat 2 on your alt, but are only silver on your main. I don't have the time to investigate every account. But I'm willing to bet you either have very few matches in one of those accounts, and a lot in the other. If you were to play the same amount of matches, on both accounts, there is a very high chance both accounts would get to the same rank. Also, if you use one of those accounts to group up with other players that could be heavily effecting your MMR and match making quality - or boosting/holding down an account. If you are trying to group with a bronze/silver friend and can't carry enough because that player is below you it could be holding you back.

Either way, at the end of the day, nothing has changed with how your MMR or how match making works. So if you are upset about your rank, or the games you are getting, that has been the same since ranked has come out. I'm sorry if you're frustrated, but the system is still new and we are always working on it.

You're best metric of if your rank is at your MMR is if you are gaining around the same amount of Ranked Rating per win as a loss. That means your Rank has converged with your MMR and you are at your rank you currently belong at.

That being said, some players are climbing up, some players are being pushed down, so everyone is on their own Ranked journey. So because you have a lower rank player in your game doesn't mean you are going down, it could mean they are on their way up.

I hope that helps, and thank you for the kind words!

Same :(

This isn't the case for Valorant. I, personally, won't push to add anything like that and I only have minor changes I want to investigate for our MMR system currently. Now we are digging through data, as well as how the new Ranked Rating system is working, to plan changes for the future!