Riot is tackling toxicity in the next couple of VALORANT patches.
VALORANT’s social and player dynamics team discussed AFKing and chat-based offenses in today’s dev blog, explaining that improvements to the detection and penalty system will begin as early as Patch 2.03.
“Even one AFK’d player can turn the tide of a game, and it’s discouraging to know that you’ll have to carry twice as hard for a chance to win,” Riot said.
Riot tweaked the AFK detection system to eliminate a few loopholes that allowed players to “[slip] through the cracks.” And to penalize leavers, devs will be tracking individual player behavior to distinguish between the occasional internet outage and griefers.
Players who make a habit out of this behavior can expect anything from a warning, XP denial, small RR deductions for pre-game dodges, larger RR deductions for in-game AFK (starts Patch 2.03), increased queue restrictions, barred entry from ranked games, and eventually game bans.
As for chat-based offenses, Riot hopes to introduce a new system with escalating penalties by Patch 2.04. Depending on the frequency and severity of the offense, players can expect warnings, comms bans, ranked queue bans, and game bans.
“Let us be crystal clear: there is no room for violence, threats, or targeted harassment in VALORANT—those behaviors will not be tolerated,” Riot said.
Because the current text evaluation systems can’t tell who starts a “rage war,” Riot advises players to not harass back or repeat what a player says to you. Reporting them will suffice.
And with a target patch of 2.05, Riot will roll out feedback on player reports. This will notify you if a player you reported was penalized.
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