[2021] VALORANT Patch Notes 2.02

Unfortunately most Elo-like systems require 1000+ games to actually know your true rank. That's also in an environment where the rules may stay static, no new content(like maps), very static rules - essentially chess.

Because we have to take a more proactive approach, your MMR is still pretty in flux until you hit the 50-100 game mark. We saw lots of feedback that "Two bad games demoted me twice!" alternatively if someone popped-off they may have promoted into a rank they may not deserve if it was early in their confidence/mmr testing.

So this new system lets us test your MMR, get more confident in it, and converge you to the rank you belong in over time. The system also allows to create a very strict set of rules, for gains and losses, using ranked rating. In an MMR system, even if we made your MMR visible, every match would be vastly different in gains/losses. One match you may gain next to nothing, where the next you may gain a ton of MMR. Switching to ranked rating lets players clearly know about how many wins it should take to rank up.

It also lets us do things like punishments, or rewards, without altering your MMR. Lets say we want to punish players who afk, by deducting ranked rating. If we do that we are no longer effecting your MMR, potentially creating issues with match health, but we have a way to punish you for bad behavior. Alternatively if we ever wanted to create a system to refund games for X, Y, Z, reason we now can give you ranked rating without being concerned about MMR. If we touch your MMR, especially after you played a match, for a punishment or reward it would effect everyone you come in contact with where as Ranked Rating is purely yours.

Hope that helps!

https://i.imgflip.com/4/qgnc4.jpg

Sorry this took us a few patches. The initial change was shipped to address some of the Omen/Sage glitches that could teleport Omen under the map, but the hitbox widening on corners was an unintentional side effect. Should be all cleared up now, though!

I know we always say this, but we're just still iterating. We've playtested several versions of Viper buffs but are trying to tread the line between helping her into viability in solo queue, viability in compet play, and also maintaining her identity without homogenizing her compared to the other controllers.

It's actively being worked on, there are just lots of larger questions at play here, and we also have a big tournament coming up so we didn't want to ship something that would be potentially disruptive that we weren't absolutely confident in.

We're working on getting a separate patch line to help unlock this capability! Balance team feels you on this one, believe me

It's all good, nothing that you said in your comment was incorrect hah. We feel the same pain that y'all do on this front, we want to get that set up ASAP.

Ranked rating can be tied to MMR if you knew the math.

I'm going to make up numbers, but lets say a players MMR in immortal+ is 1500. Lets say their actual ranked rating is like 50 on the leaderboard.

Maybe 50 ranked rating is actually 1200 MMR, so they will earn increased ranked rating per win(and less for a loss) until they get to 1500. Then when they converge, if they don't improve or get worse, and their MMR sits steady they will gain an even per win/loss off matches.

Essentially we are always pulling you to your MMR with convergence, and the system knows how much rank rating you should have based on your MMR and will get you there no matter what(you just need to put in enough games).

Also you have two MMR's, a skill MMR and a win/loss MMR. Immortal+ is win/loss MMR only. So it's much easier for them to converge and stay with their MMR since skill is not a factor. Where as lets say someone places in bronze, converges at silver, then suddenly they become a god and their skill MMR shoots into plat. You can't have that drastic of a change in your win MMR as your skill MMR since winning/losing is how you raise/lower it.

Essentially the leaderboard SHOULD be almost 1:1 a players MMR, within a win or two. Players just need to put in the work to converge to their MMR on the leaderboard.

I appreciate it! All of us were players far before we were devs, and still are players for plenty of games in our free time. We won't be going anywhere anytime soon!

I want to be more transparent than I am, but I'm afraid of setting the wrong expectations. What I will say is that we've playtested a ton of the buff ideas for Viper I've seen posted on the subreddit already - we didn't get them from the subreddit, I just see people pitch ideas we've tested already pretty often. All in all, it seems like a lot of us are on the same wavelength. It's all about tuning and finding the right mixture to keep her identity, not make her oppressive, and get her to be more powerful at the same time.