Cover-Credits:
- Riot Games revealed that Valorant's chat-banned players will no longer be able to queue in ranked matches.
- The change is coming to the game in the next two or three patches with no confirmed release date.
- The game will also receive updates to its penalty systems to combat toxicity.
Riot continues its fight against toxicity with a developer confirming a much-needed change to ranked. Players who have chat restrictions due to toxicity will no longer be able to queue up in ranked mode, which incentivizes good behavior. Valorant’s chat ban system's underlying issue is that players who are restricted from voice and text chat are still able to queue into ranked matches, which hurts their teams due to comms restrictions. That is set to change, according to Riot developer.
Riot Developer Reveals Information on Changes To Ranked
In a recent thread on Reddit discussing chat-banned players being able to queue ranked, Riot’s Brighteyz revealed that the game would be preventing players who have been penalized with communications restrictions from played ranked. The change will come in the next two or three patches, so players will have to be patient until the change is ready to be implemented in the live version of the game.
The team is still working on the tech, and it is taking longer than expected. Once the patch goes live, having an account restriction will prevent you from queuing into ranked games. The team does not want to make voice comms mandatory for playing ranked as players might have different reasons to stay out of voice chat, they do not want players with a history of disruptive behavior to be able to join ranked matches. The comms system will also receive an update to combat disruptive behavior, and changes to the penalty systems are also in the works.
In addition to the above-mentioned changes, the game also needs a way to stop toxic behavior in-game. With multiple threads claiming that sexism and toxic behavior is an issue in Valorant, a Riot team member responded, “I promise, we're working on it. I can't speak to any details right now, but if all goes to plan, you'll be hearing from us in the near future with actions and updates if all goes to plan. In the meantime, remember to report. It doesn't fix the issue immediately, which sucks, but we can't fix it at all if you don't raise a flag to tell us it's happening.”
The developers are also taking action against cheat makers Gator Cheats to combat the increase in cheaters recently that has been affecting ranked matchmaking. Riot Games has partnered with Bungie to sue the cheat makers, and we can expect updates to Riot Vanguard in the upcoming patches as well.
