Valorant: Patch 1.05 brings some much-needed transparency to ranked climbing

The Valorant ranking in the previous patches wasn’t exactly the most understandable and informative system in the client.

How one went up a tier or dropped down one was a mystery for the majority of the player base. However, with patch 1.05, Riot Games are looking to bring a lot of transparency to the ranking system of Valorant.

A slew of new in this patch: Killjoy, Act Ranks, Deathmatch (beta), and balance for Raze. Read all about it: https://t.co/8iHNAnSekA pic.twitter.com/DAIAwpNWZG

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) August 4, 2020

The new arrow indicator in the Valorant ranking system

Image Credits: Riot Games

About the former ranking system, Riot had said:

“Previously we showed very little info around how much rank you lost on a loss to limit the already painful experience of a loss. However, this was leading to issues where a player may have had a really rough game (think decisively lost the game and played poorly) and then would win several games and not rank up.”

Hence, from patch 1.05 onwards, Valorant will have three different kinds of rank indicators which will give players a much better idea on where they stand in the tier.

One arrow down will signify that the LP rating has “decreased slightly” while two arrows down will mean higher a "rating decrease". Three arrows down, on the other hand, will mean “rating greatly decreased”.

So, if you’re often getting the three-arrow down sign, a tier drop is imminent.

Conversely, winning matches will provide you with the upward-pointed arrow and will pretty much work the same way as the downward arrow, but instead of making you lose ratings, it will help you gain them.

The higher your in-game performance and hidden MMR rating, the faster the upward arrows will make you climb through the ladder.

The new arrow system will help players gain a lot of transparency during their ranked grind, and will not leave them utterly confused every time they climb or drop a rank.

Moreover, this will not be the last change that Valorant’s ranked system will receive in ACT 2. Many players have felt that it’s quite hard to climb the ranked ladder in Valorant, and Riot Games have also noticed that the system was not rewarding the more skilled players as it was intended to.

The coming patches will, therefore, bring a lot more transparency to the ranking system in Valorant.