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The anticipation surrounding Valorant's latest patch is at an all-time high, and players only have a few more hours to go until the servers go down for the update. Patch 3.10 has been confirmed to bring a number of meaningful changes to the game, including a new agent, Chamber, and possibly a new skin bundle.
The release of the Patch Notes has caused the community to pour onto it. In this patch, no agent has been nerfed or buffed. Some new Esports features have been confirmed that are going to affect the HUD. Several bugs have also been addressed.
One of the biggest pieces of news in the notes has been the changes that Riot Games has introduced to the competitive queuing with Patch 3.10.
Valorant's competitive queueing system
Valorant players are divided into eight ranks - Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamon, Immortal, and Radiant. Each rank further has three other tiers. After becoming eligible to play competitive matches, players have to complete five competitive matches to unlock their rank.
In order to play with friends, Valorant made the following ranking restrictions:
- All players from Iron to Silver can play together
- Silver and Gold Players can play together
- Gold and Platinum players can play together
- With Platinum or above, it is the same 1 tier difference
These were put in place so that players from vastly different ranks don't end up playing against each other. Now with Patch 3.10, Riot is introducing a major change to these restrictions. 5-stacks for all ranks in the Competitive queue have been added. Along with that, 4-stacks have been removed from the Competitive queue.
Why the removal of 4-stacks from the Competitive queue?
The developers in the patch notes basically describe it as follows:
"These types of groups (4-stacks) tend to leave the remaining solo queue player with a relatively poor play experience, and we believe that removing this option will result in a significant reduction of overall toxicity reports."
This move can be seen as a welcome change for many players who queue solo. Being stuck with a 4-stack often results in an unpleasant experience because of the obvious communication gap. Because 4-stack are usually on a call together, the solo player rarely gets communicated with and has 'a relatively poor play experience' in the match, as seen in this Reddit post.
Massive changes like these have both pros and cons and are sure to change the competitive experience from hereon. Only time will tell how this change sits with the Valorant community at large.
Patch 3.10 notes are already out. The patch is expected to drop in a few hours.
