The speculation surrounding ranked changes in Valorant’s next act came to an end after Riot Games released their latest blog post. Here’s all you need to know.
Previously, we could only rely on rumors that Riot is planning an update on the Valorant ranking system. Now we know for sure that there are some changes coming. Riot Games made another announcement yesterday and it shed some light on the topic. Here are the main points in the blog post:
After an Act, all that matters for your Act Rank are your 9 best ranked wins of the act, and how many wins you’ve gotten in the act. So if you peak at Diamond but drop down to Gold, your act rank will only remember the good times. Take another run at Immortal, push those lower rank games out!
The Act Rank mentioned above will also “evolve” as you win more games, changing the color palette of its border. The border also changes as you hit these win thresholds: 9, 25, 50, 75, and 100. Your friends will also be able to inspect your match history and check your rank.
As you play, your Act Rank fills with smaller triangles. Each triangle represents your ranked match wins (Gold, Immortal, etc.) over the course of an Act based on the rank you entered the game with (hence your rank for that match). Wins at higher ranks visually replace your lowest wins to display the best of your Competitive games. For example, more wins at Radiant will push out your earliest wins at Bronze (very aspirational!).
Riot also mentions that there won’t be a badge for Act I which is set to come to an end in early August. The argument? They’d like players to know what they’re getting into before committing. To sum it all up:
- As you win games in different ranks, triangles will pop up in your Act Rank badge
- The higher rank triangles will drive out the lower ones
- The highest rank in which you also have 9 wins will be the one you’ll earn for the act
So what happens when the act ends?
Well, you get a badge indicating the highest rank you’ve achieved. Your rank gets hidden and you’ll need to play 3 matches to recalibrate it again.
Typically, your Rank will land a couple of tiers below where you ended the prior Act, but we’ll be increasing how heavily we weigh performance in your early games so you can quickly improve your rank if you play well and win.
If you calibrate lower than the previous season, worry not, that’s what Riot wanted. We can only imagine that some sort of reward will be awarded to players depending on their final rank for the act/season, but so far Riot haven't said anything about it. In addition to everything above, the devs could be increasing the number of levels from 3 to 5 per badge.
Stay tuned for more Valorant news and check out EarlyGame as well as the EarlyGame Youtube channel for everything gaming and esports.
