Valorant Champions Tour Challengers Philippines Plagued With Connectivity Issues
Cover-Credits:
The group stages of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) are now over and it has been a bumpy ride so far. The event so far has been plagued by connectivity issues and most of it has to do with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), one of the Philippines’ major ISPs, being unable to offer stable connectivity. Multiple teams lost maps due to connectivity issues affecting one or more players in the respective teams. In addition to the unacceptable connectivity issues, the tournament organizers are also being criticized by fans for not being consistent with the event’s rules.
Stricter quality control is necessary at Valorant events
Internet and power issues are common in Southeast Asia and Riot Games needs to account for these challenges during its events to offer everyone a fair experience. The official rules by Riot state that 15 minutes of grace should be given to teams that face connectivity issues. And disqualification of teams is left to the hands of the tournament organizers. But it turns out that the event organizers are inconsistent with their rulings and have shown signs of preferential treatment towards some teams at VCT Challengers Philippines.
During the group stage, Team Secret earned its first win against Oasis Gaming but the matchup was marred by connectivity issues. Oasis Gaming was suffering from issues with Riot’s tournament client itself. According to a post by Oasis Gaming coach Vic Vic Villavicencio, the admins directly disqualified Oasis Gaming after just a minute of wait time instead of the usual 15 minutes. Typically tournament admins ask the opposing team if players are willing to wait. Team Secret agreed to let Oasis Gaming resolve its technical issues but the admins disqualified the team anyway.
Team Secrets’ Jayvee “DubsteP” Paguirigan was unhappy with the decision taken by the tournament admins and said on Twitter that it was not the way he hoped to win at the event.
Oasis Gaming is not the only team that was affected by connectivity issues at the event. Looking for Org (LFO) was also affected by connectivity issues and was forced to forfeit a map. In addition to the connectivity issues on service provider PLDT’s end, there are also inconsistencies with how tournament admins are handling these issues.
Esports Observer PH shared details in a Reddit comment from vlr.gg and PPGL’s VCT stream VODs, which revealed:
Team Secret vs Bren Esports had over 40 minutes of grace period with no default.
Oasis Gaming vs Team Secret had one minute of wait time with one map being given a default result
Zeals Esports vs Looking for Org had over 45 minutes of grace period.
Looking For Org vs South Built Esports had 15 minutes of grace period with one map being given a default result.
Action PH vs Bren Esports had two minutes of grace period due to tournament client issues and one map was given a default result
The official tournament rulebook states under section 6.1 states that the “standard grace period is 15 minutes. Decision of disqualification will always come from the tournament administrator on a case-to-case basis.”
It is unknown why there is a disparity between the varying grace periods between matches. While the behavior by the admins hints at biased behavior towards certain teams, it could also be the case of admins not being properly trained to handle the situations. The recent events puts a stain on the tournament organizer’s credibility and it also hurts the competitive nature of the Valorant Champions Tour.
The inconsistent decisions by the admins are concerning and the issue needs to be investigated by Riot Games. Considering the fact that a lot of the issues are tied to the Valorant tournament client itself and not just connectivity issues, the admins need to be more mindful of the gracing period. In some cases, teams are not even being awarded the minimum gracing period which directly goes against the tournament’s rules and it should be disputed.
