Cover-Credits:
- Riot Games pushed out a hotfix that will lead to bans if players AFK in Valorant.
- The update was supposed to go live in-game with patch 2.0.1 but was not working for some reason.
- Other changes are also coming to the game to combat toxicity and throwing in the coming weeks.
AFK penalties are now being applied to Valorant, where players are banned for an hour if they are not active in matches. The change was supposed to go live in the previous 2.0.1 patch, but it was not applied. Riot Games confirmed that the team fixed a bug where AFK penalties were not being banned. They said, “if you suddenly find yourself with an hour-long ban, it's because your bad habits just caught up to you.”
More Changes Coming To Punish Disruptive Behaviour
Last week, Riot confirmed that they are planning on tackling disruptive behavior in-game, including throwing, cheating, and AFKing. Players have been upset with the current state of ranked with popular players like Hiko from 100 Thieves called the current state of ranked “trash”.
Rod “Slasher” Breslau shared his ranked experience earlier today, talking about how he ends up with triple duelists every game, and no one wants to take advantage of smokes. Sova, one of the most popular and important agents in the game, does not get picked, and his teammates are usually banned or don’t use comms.
Riot has been actively trying to make changes to improve the player experience over the past few weeks. One of the biggest changes headed to the game in an upcoming patch is queue restrictions for chat banned players. Anyone who is banned from comms will no longer be able to queue up for ranked matches. Riot believes that “having players who have already proven they can be highly disruptive with active restrictions in your rank games feels unfair, and we want to prevent that from happening in the near future.”
There will be additional comms changes coming to the game to help players pull off essential callouts without needing voice chat. There are no specifics available on the game's changes, but Riot has promised updates within the next two or three patches.
The team is also going to make changes to punish toxic behavior soon. The team has promised that they are working on changes in the coming weeks, and if things go according to plan, they will reveal information on what actions they want to take against toxic players. The team has encouraged players to keep reporting toxic players and any form of disruptive behavior, so Riot can collect data and take necessary action against players.
