Valorant producers address issues on griefers and hint at possible solutions

Valorant, being a competitive game, is naturally filled with smurfs and griefers.

While it’s an easy task to play with buddies in a lobby, the players who decide to play with randoms often get frustrated at queuing up with trollers.

Many players intentionally throw away games just for the sake of getting a lower rank to smurf on in the future. This not only affects the players who queue up with them in a team but also affects the opponents in the future, given that there is a huge skill gap.

While Valorant producers have previously assured players they would bring in new methods to punish the smurfs; they have now addressed the issues of griefing.

In the latest Ask Valorant - Dec 04, a player frustrated with the above issue had asked the following:

“You mentioned before that part of the way you fight smurfs is to boost players who overperform. Is there any way to flag players who lose 20 games in a row?”

This question was answered by the Senior Producer of Valorant, Ian Fielding. He said that Valorant does not tolerate such intentional losses from players. He suggested the players who've been facing such teammates to report them.

"If you legitimately lost 20 games in a row trying to win, then my heart goes out to you. That being said, it's far likelier that if someone has lost this many games in a row, then they are intentionally feeding.

You should report players for this, and this can lead to penalties for the player, such as chat and voice restrictions and potentially even bans for repeat behavior."

Valorant Devs might implement a "blocking" system

Image via Riot Games

Many players have dealt with teammates who are difficult to cooperate with, and thus a member from the Valorant Community had suggested the Devs to introduce a "blocking" system in the game, so they won’t queue up with the players they don’t want to.

Producer Sara Dadafshar addressed this particular issue and appreciated the idea that has been suggested to them. But while she asserted her willingness to work towards the issue, she mentioned another tiny problem that might arise with the mechanism.

This "blocking" system may increase one’s queuing time. Players who are highly ranked have already faced issues of long queues, that go up as far as 45 minutes. And applying the blocking system may extend it further. Thus the devs need to do some tweaking before finally implementing the idea.

She assured that while this issue will be resolved soon, the devs are working on a “better detection of disruptive behaviors in hopes of being able to administer penalties appropriately.” Also, of having the players queue with the right teammate.