Valorant: Hiko gives his take on the upcoming Act 3 competitive changes

Valorant is going to see a major shift, as the current Act is about to come to an end. With the significant announcements on twitter about the new Map, Riot Games is planning to re-emphasize the importance of uniqueness in Valorant.

A new map that's ice cold, an update about our next Agent, upcoming competitive changes, and more. Get the info on what's coming when Act III drops on October 13th and beyond: https://t.co/YXjzFF0x8f pic.twitter.com/CAAVueBUVJ

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 7, 2020

In an update, Riot mentions a comprehensive set of changes that will be implemented to Valorant in the future. It is remarkable that as scheduled earlier, this new Valorant map is being released ahead of time. Not just that, they have also amplified the hype around the new season by announcing a new Valorant Agent as well.

Something's dropping. pic.twitter.com/12JtcGr1ne

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 5, 2020

After Killjoy's immense success, players were aching for a new Agent in Valorant - one which has the ability to heal. With very little to go on about the Agent, a set of leaked videos have paved the way for speculations to erupt. However, when it comes to Valorant competitive rules and changes implemented towards the quality of life aspects, Riot seems to maintain its firm grip over the community.

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Upcoming competitive changes in Valorant Act III

In the previous patch notes 1.09, a new set of changes was incorporated to the ranking system. This illustrated how players would have an Act based ranking system as we advance through Acts in Valorant .

COMPETITIVE REFRESH (OCT. 13)

These Act III Competitive changes hope to make your Rank climb tighter as we work on the long term health of organized team play:

• Upgrade that Act Rank Badge with the next Competitive Act
• Rank queue lowered from 6 tiers to 3 tiers, for tighter matchmaking
• Select your preferred server and improve your ping
• Immortal+ rank outcomes are decided 100% by wins and losses

In the Dev Diaries video uploaded by Valorant, Joe Ziegler, Riot's design director, started off by saying how the developers are working around the clock despite the pandemic's constraints. He also mentions,

"climbing the ranks is at the heart of competitive experience in Valorant...Over the past two acts, this is still in its earlier stages and we know we need to do a better job at improving and understanding the system. We want your ranked matches to always feel like that you have a chance of winning...It is harder to put solo players in fair matches. We have also heard from others that there is a desire for even more organized team play."

Joe mentions that the community response is extremely important for them.

"While some may take time to implement, please keep them coming." Next up, we had David Cole, competitive designer lead explaining his stance on the matter. He says, "For us, while the former values of social play are important, they should never come at the cost of your ranked accomplishments. So we are going to take a step back and simplify our goals with ranked which you'll see over the course of Action 3, and then next year in Episode 2 and beyond."

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Hiko acquiesces with the developers' opinion

Popular streamer and 100T pro Hiko took to YouTube, with a video reacting to the new competitive changes that are about to be introduced. These are going to deal with rankings, especially at the Radiant level. At the same time, these new changes are going to focus a lot on how players are getting matched with those possessing a certain skill-cap. For instance, players will now have fewer reasons to complain about being queued in a lobby which has a high skill requirement.

David Cole also mentions something quite crucial, which is going to reshape the state of Competitive ranking.

"We are going to tighten the restriction on ranked disparities for competitive queue, reducing them from a six to three rank difference. For example the lowest rank of Diamond three can queue with is a Platinum three, and the highest they can be with in an Immortal. Additionally, Immortal plus ranked movement will be purely impacted by wins or loses and how decisive the match outcome was."

Hiko cheered up when the ability to select a preferred server was mentioned. This is one of the primary reasons which is going to act as an advantage for players. Valorant is an extremely connection dependent game, thus getting a decent ping means a lot when one is pushing rank. Hiko said,

"a lot of people would play with high ping. If I'm playing like with Jason R, Steel and Riv, they're all three West, and end up playing with 90 ping. So now you actually get to pick which sever you are on."

The other feature of interest was the Top 500 Radiant leaderboard. After players hit Radiant, the game seems to lose its competitive edge as there was nothing more to grind for. However, with this latest inclusion of the leaderboard, it seems that the game will finally have a proper comparative system for top-ranked players. Hiko said that this gives players a lot of incentive to play the game, even after hitting Radiant.

Image Credits - Sportskeeda

Hiko breaks it down by mentioning the server location first, as it is one of the most necessary changes that the game needs at the moment. He also mentions how the concept of the leaderboard can be an innovative one.

"If you are at least Immortal rank or Radiant, you have to queue only solo or duo." The six to three rank shift is also a great dynamic shift as it will force players to have harder smurfs, according to Hiko.

Hiko mentions that players want to play with friends even if they are terrible at the game; thus, the best idea is to play unrated. Even in Iron, Bronze, or Silver, players need to realize that competitive ranking is not something to aim for.