[2021] What’s the point of placement matches?

We removed a system that could potentially lead to your MMR feeling hardstuck in Episode 3. By removing this system we had to make changes to match making slightly. We used data to compare against the old system, and found out match making would get more accurate/fair by doing this.

You have two MMR's in Valorant, Encounter and Win/loss. Your one MMR is made up of those two. In low ranked Encounter is valued more, this helps us combat smurfing because high ranking players are more consistant in their performance. In higher ranks Win/Loss becomes a bigger factor.

Because of us pulling out that system that may have had players feeling like they were "hard stuck", on top of the weighting changes of the two MMR's that make up your real MMR, it's causing big movement for some players. There are players that may have been held down in the old system climbing easier, there also is a chance that players who were being held up above their actual MMR are going to drop down.

All part of the fun of working on a ranked/match-making system! We are monitoring and will continue to do so.

I'm sorry you didn't see increases in your ranked after placements! It's an interesting pain point, I'll add it to my list of feedback and think on it more. I try to maintain a document of player feedback each act and see if there are things we can act on.

Every episode we do "Squish" ranks. This just pushes all ranks downwards. It helps us fight boosted accounts, accounts that are inactive, and also prevents ranked inflation. This is just to make sure people don't get to a rank, and then sit at that rank and don't really play the game anymore(or if the community improves past that player, they don't get to sit in a rank they no longer they belong).

Remember the whole community is getting better at Valorant. You are definitely getting better, but so is the whole community. To climb you need to get better faster then those around you.

I believe!!! You can get out of Iron and hopefully you see some positive improvements :)

Definitely have thought about this.

The amount of players that four stack is very small, and so is your chance as an individual to get paired on their team. BUT it still happens, so that really shouldn't be an excuse to not do anything.

Encounter MMR would help you here. Yes you may have to take a loss, and it feels bad because 4 players are forcing you into it, but all the kills and duels you had in the match still can make you gain MMR. If you are winning duels, but still lose, your encounter MMR can actually go up. Depending on the rank, especially if you are lower rank, you can actually have your MMR overall go up because encounter means more than your win/loss.

I have other concerns about 4v1 toxicity etc. In the end, you should have very few 4+1 matches, and that should reduce how often you get into these situations. Also because you do have encounter MMR you still have something that is taking into account your skill in that match.

Individual performance does matter.

Encounter MMR is your individual performance for every fight you were involved with in a match. If some how a gold player got put into a match against TenZ, if TenZ killed that gold player he would get very little MMR for the kill. If that gold player killed TenZ he would get a ton of MMR because TenZ has a high encounter MMR.

It's not just killing either, your encounter MMR is influenced by damage for an assist, smokes, flashes, etc. Every duel that happens, if you were involved, it will affect your encounter MMR.

Lastly, it isn't about getting lots of kills it's about who you kill. If you drop 30 kills, but only on players below your skill, it may not be worth as much as dropping 10 kills against players above your skill.

In the end, because you have both a performance and win/loss MMR, doing what is best to help your team win and making sure you use your abilities and play effectively will enable you to climb. Encounter MMR is turned on for all ranks, it is a small factor in Immortal+ tho.