Valorant, Riot Games' competitive team-based first-person shooter, is a striking success. The game launched in early June and was immediately picked up by players of all experience levels looking for an alternative toCounter-Strike,Overwatch,Fortnite, and other popular shooters. But that doesn’t meanValorantis perfect. A key example is the game’s ranked mode, which while workable, could be improved dramatically. Unfortunately, Riot’s now confirmed thatValorant’s ranked mode is not currently being worked on – but for a very good reason.
Ryan Scott, a lead designer onValorant, recently did a Q&A session on-stream and spoke openly about the state of ranked. Or more specifically, Scott explained why he wasn’t able to talk about the current state ofValorant’s ranked mode. That reason is that “the guy” at Riot responsible for the ranked mode’s design has officially left the company.
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“Who can we talk to about the ranked system? Sadly? … Nobody, right now,” is how Scott frames the question. He explains how the person who worked on ranked from a design standpoint is no longer withRiotand, in Scott’s words, “nobody owns the ranked system right now.” In other words, no one is responsible for ranked, and so no one is actively iterating and improving the ranked system.
As a result, development ofValorant’s ranked mode is simply on pause. It exists as it is and will continue doing so, but no changes are currently in the works or planned for the future. That doesn’t mean that Riot isn’t aware of the current problems with ranked mode. That doesn’t mean Riot isn’t going to make changes eventually. It just isn’t actively working on it right now. Riot is clearly hard at workupdatingValorant, but this area is currently a blind spot.
Scott says that the team is currently discussing what to do about the situation. “We’re trying to fix it in the short term until we can fix it in the long term,” is how he describes how Riot is approaching the gap in the design team internally. But Scott doesn’t have any updates in that regard. Only an update about potentially having more updates in the future.Valorantis a young game, recently launched, and these things happen.
The good news is thatValorantdoes have a ranked mode, which wasn’t a certainty before the game launched. The ranked mode works and does a decent job of rewarding players for their victories. It could absolutely be better, especially when it comes to healthier matchmaking for more competitive matches. ButValorantplayerswill have to wait for that.
