Future anti-cheat plans include 90-day penalty for queueing up with hackers

Earlier this month, the VALORANT community voiced their concern on the increasing number of cheaters in the game, even with the presence of Riot Games’ complex Vanguard anti-cheat system. The studio at the time acknowledged the issue and promised “to make many improvements this year.” It didn’t take long for us to see an extensive blog post from Matt “K3o” Paoletti on behalf of the VALORANT Anti-Cheat team to discuss their learnings from First Strike and their future plans.

Considering First Strike was VALORANT’s initial major competition, RIot Games had to build everything from scratch, and they are carrying everything they learned into 2021 and the Champions Tour. This included conducting “an in-depth review of every participating account in every region,” which they will continue to do to make sure tournaments of this caliber are a safe environment for every professional player.

As for one of the most prominent questions, what will happen for those who queue up with a cheater who eventually gets caught? Well, Riot Games isn’t taking it lightly, and has a 90-day penalty for “bussing” as part of their future plans. Not only that, they are trying to figure out a way to recalibrate and adjust the rankings of those affected by cheaters, which is something present in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, whether it was a win or loss.

“One of the first new efforts is to discipline players who queue with cheaters, or as we can colloquially call it, “ride the cheat bus on the highway to hell.” The team is also looking at other measures to rectify the damage caused by cheaters, most noticeably, re-calibrating your rating after it may have been impacted by illegitimate players.”

“All forms of boosting are being considered. Changes in VALORANT’s metagame systems are also going to make a positive impact. Episode 2 is implementing a whole overhaul of the Ranked system, and one that will help us keep an elevated level of integrity at the highest ranks.”