VALORANT Episode 2 Act I Competitive Changes

Rank rewards, how does the Rank Rating work, and more on this EP2 Competitive breakdown.
Game Updates
Ian “Brighteyz” Fielding, Jon “EvrMoar” Walker

With the start of Episode 2, we’re removing the ambiguity in how close you are to ranking up, making it easier to compare how you stack up against the best of the best, a better rewarding of your time invested in ranked, and making a number of other quality of life changes based on your feedback.

A quick summary:

  • Regional leaderboards displaying stack rank for Immortal and Radiant players
  • Shift to solo/duo premade cap for Immortal and Radiant players
  • Rank rewards and end of Episode changes
  • Progression arrows, replaced with progress bar and numerical progress for more rank granularity
  • Many other quality of life improvements

REGIONAL LEADERBOARDS

Leaderboards.png

Everyone wants to know who’s king of the mountain. Each region will be able to see any player who reaches Immortal or Radiant (top 500) on an in-client Leaderboard. We also want to make sure that you trust the leaderboard is a living and breathing reflection of the best, so folks will need to earn their way onto the Leaderboard and stay active in order to hold their spot.

  • Leaderboard displays in-client (along with a web version on playvalorant.com available within 24 hours of Episode 2 going live)
    • Radiant players (top 500 per region)
    • Immortal players (roughly ~1% of rank players per region)
      • Immortal will also only be one rank now, using the Immortal 3 icon
    • Leaderboard Rank and Rank Rating (we call it RR for short)
    • Riot ID, Title, and player card
    • Games won per Act
    • Ability to anonymize your name as “Secret Agent”
  • Unique per region NA, EU, APAC, BR, LATAM, KR
  • Updates in real time
  • Requirements to get on the leaderboard:
    • Requires 50 ranked account games to place on leaderboard (retroactive for returning players)
    • Requires playing at least 1 Competitive game a week (within 7 day period) to stay on the leaderboard
    • Banned players will not show on the leaderboard

CORE RANK SYSTEM

Our previous rank system didn’t provide a great picture of where you stand in between ranks, how much you should generally expect to gain match-to-match, and why you’re moving in the first place. These changes should hopefully make the rank system much easier to understand, more fair, and harder to quickly lose ranks on those off days.

  • No more arrows. RIP.
  • New Progress bar and Rank Rating show proximity to next rank
    • Rank progress bar will display for Iron to Diamond. For those at Immortal and Radiant, this will shift to showing your Leaderboard rank.
  • Immortal 1, 2, and 3 are now all fall under “Immortal”
  • Players will no longer have their rank hidden (changed to ‘?’) for inactivity
    • This will now only happen if you are in placements

How Does the VALORANT Rank Rating (RR) Work?

  • Majority of RR comes from wins or losses (match outcome)
    • You will always gain RR on a win and lose RR on a loss
  • On a win, you will gain between 10 and 50 RR
    • Min 5 RR gain for Diamond+
  • On a loss you will lose between 0 and 30 RR
    • Max drop of 50 RR on a loss for Diamond+
  • On a draw you will gain a max of 20 RR (performance-based)
    • Only for Iron through Diamond, where we take individual performance into account.
  • Demotion protection: You must lose at 0 RR to demote
    • If you demote, you will not go below 80 RR at that rank
  • Promotion boost where you start at minimum 10 RR on a win
  • Decisiveness of a win and exceptional performance at lower ranks for individuals can help you earn rank faster (and more quickly boost smurfs to accurate ranks)
  • New rank ceremony and celebration visual for getting promotions
  • Rank info page updated along with providing info around rank rewards

END OF EPISODE/ACTS, RANK REWARD CHANGES

You need a better reward for your time playing and earning ranked, as well as skill recognition where it's due. Rank Gun Buddies give players a way to display their best proven skill for a respective Act (their top Act Rank for that Episode). For high rank players on the Leaderboard, your Badge will also show the final leaderboard position with which you ended the Act.

We also wanted to make sure it was clear when Acts and Episodes ended and where you stood by setting a clear end time for Competitive Acts in advance.

  • Episode 1: Act 3 competitive season will end shortly before the Episode 2 patch:
    • NA - 10:00pm PT | Jan 11th
    • LATAM- 10:00pm CDT | Jan 11th
    • BR- 10:00pm BRT | Jan 11th
    • EU- 10:00pm GMT | Jan 12th
    • APAC- 10:00pm SGT | Jan 12th
    • KR- 10:00pm KST | Jan 12th
  • Rank rewards for Episode 1—which will be respective gun buddies based on the highest Act Rank you achieved during the episode—will be granted shortly after (1 day or less) the start of Episode 2.
  • Act Ranks will give you a rank triangle for the rank you end the match with
  • This is a change from the previous condition of having to win at that rank for one of those sweet triangles.
  • Your end of Act Rank and Badge will commemorate your final leaderboard position at the end of an Act.
  • New rank rating bonus progression for your initial rank matches each Act
  • The number of placement games (5) is now consistent for each Act, regardless if you’ve done initial placements or not.
    • The highest rank you can earn with placements is now Platinum rank, tier 3.
  • Updated rank distribution to be more forgiving
    • Significantly reducing the number of Iron players and increasing the percentage of players in Bronze, Silver, Gold and Plat players. Diamond and Immortal player distribution will stay largely the same. Radiant will be the top 500.
  • Removed hiding players rank during an Act if they had not played for 14 days. Once a player has completed placements, rank will not reset or be hidden for the entire Act.

Jump in, try out these changes, and send your feedback! We can’t wait to hear what you think and keep making changes based on your input.