Playing with Cheaters Will Now Get You Banned For 3 Months in Valorant

Valorant has been teasing some updates to its anti-cheat for the past few weeks and we finally have sights on what changes we can expect over the coming patches. Matt “K3o” Paoletti posted a blog on behalf of the anti-cheat team talking about all the changes that are coming to Episode 2 in Valorant. 

Upcoming Changes to Combat Cheating 

There are some new measures that are being implemented to reduce cheating. 

• Queuing with cheaters can lead to a 90-day penalty.
• Possible rank calibration for players affected by cheaters.
• System updates
• Cap on highest achievable rank from placements. 

The rank calibration may affect not only players who lose ranks due to cheaters but also players who gain inflated winrates when playing with cheaters. Analytics, data science, and technical improvements are coming to the game’s anti-cheat system.

Riot is Happy with Its Anti-Cheat in Esports

Riot believes that the game set a high standard for competitive gaming. During the First Strike event, there were no reported incidents of cheating at the event and the competition was fair according to the devs. Riot wants their game to feel as close to LAN as possible even when playing in an online setting to ensure competitive esports’ integrity is maintained. 

The anti-cheat team was able to perform in-depth reviews of every account that participated in the First Strike tournament both before and after the First Strike events to ensure there was no foul play. It was a resource-intensive task but they were happy with the results. 

Protection from Cheaters

Riot understands that competitive mode does not share the same benefits of manual account reviews that events like First Strike share. Riot is working on making cheating as difficult as possible and the current percentage of games with cheaters is a “fraction of a percent”.

Paoletti talked about how cheaters at the highest ranks ruin the prestige of reaching the highest ranks in a competitive environment. Teaming with cheaters means that even if the cheaters get banned, you still get the rewards for playing with them. The team wants to put a stop to that through upcoming changes.

The team asked for continued feedback from the community and for players to keep reporting players to ensure cheaters are detected and caught on time. They know that removing all cheaters is not a possibility but they can keep it to a bare minimum. Paoletti added, “Cheaters, sadly, will always exist, but cheaters never prosper.”

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