Riot Games Reveals Increase in Hardware Cheats Usage in Valorant

In the latest Valorant developer update, senior anti-cheat analyst Matt “K3o” Paoletti shared the dev team’s progress on the anti-cheat and the state of competitive integrity in the game. The 90-day penalties for “bussing” in Valorant have been effective according to K3o. Bussing is a term given by Riot Games to acts of queuing with cheaters. By playing with cheaters, you essentially could eliminate the risks of getting banned but the developers have put a stop to this by introducing bans for bussing in Valorant.

The dev team has also been monitoring all pro level games including the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) main events to ensure there are no instances of cheating. Riot revealed that the matches in the VCT are monitored right from the open qualifiers and pro players are routinely reviewed.

Cheating in Valorant is at an all-time low

K3o revealed that the rollout of the system being updated to Valorant’s ranked mode has helped reduce the report rates of cheating. However, the team is “combating increased cheating efforts, as cheaters and cheat developers continue to attempt to implement new techniques. The global popularity of VALORANT has created a global market for these nefarious actors, and we make sure to respond accordingly.”

Despite the number of reports being at an all-time low, some regions saw spikes in report rates and Riot is continuing its efforts to improve the Vanguard anti-cheat and maintain the game’s competitive integrity. K3o addressed the increase in “hardware cheats” that depend on an external piece of hardware for said cheat to function. These cheats can bypass protections and detection measures and Riot is currently working on addressing the issue.

Despite the measures, the teams feels that cheating will always exist to some extent and despite the technical advancements that the cheats are going through, Riot will continue to keep cheating at a “sustainably low level.”

The future of Valorant’s Anti-Cheat

Riot revealed that during Episode 2, cheaters were boosting other players by duoing with them, knowing that their account would get banned but the person they would duo with, or essentially boost, would retain all the benefits. Riot has deployed automated measures to take actions on the boosted account and is continuing to make improvements to the system.

While account sharing and win trading are problems, third-party tools are the main focus for the dev team. Riot will continue to explore where it can create the most impact and there will be updates to Vanguard in Episode 4 and beyond to keep cheaters at bay in 2022 and beyond.