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Disruption, the highly anticipated Episode 4 Act 1 of Valorant is ready to make its way into the game on 11 January 2022.
Valorant's latest Episode, matching previous trends, features the release of a skin collection, a new Battlepass, a new Agent and a few influential in-game changes that can have a considerable impact on the game's global community.
Riot Games aims to deliver the best gameplay experience for their worldwide audience, and has made a few changes accordingly.
In addition to the pivotal adjustments made to a few maps and weapons, the developers at Riot implemented minor changes to their competitive system. Let's take a look at the few alterations that will affect players in their competitive experience after the arrival of Patch 4.0 in Episode 4 Act 1.
Valorant Competitive Changes in Patch 4.0
One of the major competitive changes arriving with Episode 4 Act 1 is a feature to tackle the underlying issue of smurfing. Smurfing is an incessant problem that is prevalent in online gaming. To make a statement against this phenomenon, Riot Games decide to execute the following changes.
After the arrival of Patch 4.0, players will need to reach account level 20 before they can engage in ranked matchmaking. However, accounts under level 20 with an existing competitive history can also take part in competitive spheres.
Reduced 5-stack Rank Rating (RR) penalty
Patch 4.0 looks to make certain adjustments to the changes that Patch 3.10 brought to 5-stack ranked matchmaking.
Earlier in the Patch that introduced Chamber, Riot removed the rank disparity for 5-stack queues in competitive matchmaking, allowing players below Diamond 2 to queue without regarding the previous ranking restrictions.
However, players were compensated with them gaining/losing half the RR for their performance in the match if they 5-stack with at least one player outside the rank restrictions.
Riot Games plan on making minor changes to the system by reducing the RR penalty from 50% to 25% for the playerbase who are ranked below Diamond 2.
The change was implemented initially to reduce the potential for players to boost their ranks by queueing with others higher than their skill group. However, the Devs decided the change was too harsh for the player community, as it restricted the maximum RR that players could potentially earn in a 5-stack.
Increased Map Randomisation
The game's community have expressed their desire to have a map selection platform several times in the past. With the feature far from arriving in the game, developers at Riot Games are attempting to improve the current map selection procedure.
This is to ensure that the map allotment method for players remains randomized and prevents duplication of maps in consecutive matchmaking. As for the map selection feature that the community awaits, Riot Games are yet to make an official statement regarding their stance on the concept.
