For years, the thrill of Valorant has been to climb up the ranked ladder. Players have spent hours trying to reach high tiers ranks like Immortal and Radiant. But now, the same grind feels like a second job than a fun hobby. Veteran players have shared their disappointment with how the internal matchmaking rating system rewards points to players.
Players feel that they are losing massive amounts of Rank Rating (RR) for a single loss while gaining very little for a win. This makes moving up the leader board feel like an impossible challenge. As a result, there is a steep decline in player base in the Valorant community.
Why Fans Are “Frustrated” with Valorant’s Rank Rating System
The main reason behind players frustration is due to its point system for Ranked matches. In higher ranks such as Immortal bracket, players’ individual skill seems to have almost no impact on rank progression. A player can perform exceptionally well, outplaying everyone on the server, but a team defeat will still severely punish their rank. One player documented their rank journey following a recent competitive rank reset. Sharing about it, he revealed that even after having a sixty percent win rate over multiple matches, the Ranked Rating points (or RR) still dropped completely out of the Immortal bracket down to Ascendant 3.
Riot needs to fix their newest MMR system.
by u/3nd1ess in VALORANT
Under the current rank system, players must maintain a sixty-seven percent win rate just to maintain a high rank. The top one hundred professional players in the world only average about a fifty-seven percent win rate. This means the game is actively demanding a win rate that even world champions cannot achieve. If a person logs on and plays two intense matches, they statistically only have a thirty-three percent chance of gaining any RR points for the day.
Has the rank system gotten worse since the update?
by u/PaulVrl in VALORANT
Many players have similar frustrations and talking about the issue online, such as the thread shared above, wherein an Ascendant 1 player with a 60.5% win rate revealed they are lower than where they started the act due to getting +13 RR for a 20-kill win but losing -20 RR for a loss. Another user took to Reddit sharing how he was awarded -24 RR for a match MVP loss while only gaining +16 RR for a win, making solo queue completely unbearable.
This left many players feeling incredibly drained, turning what should be an entertaining video game into an exhausting mental burden and a second job for many just to reach a certain rank. All these factors are contributing to a steep decline in player base participating in ranked matches.
Decline Of Valorant’s Competitive Player Count
Now because the game feels so unrewarding, the high ranked player numbers are actively collapsing at a fast pace. Data shows a massive drop in the number of top-tier competitors. During the peak era of Episode 4 Act 3, the game had over five thousand five hundred players in the highest ranks. Over the course of the past year, that number went down to an average of just fifteen hundred players. This statistical decline proves that veteran players are actively walking away from the game rather than dealing with the grind.
For six long years, ranking up has been the core motivation for the community. Aside from a simple weapon gun charm decoration handed out at the end of a season, other than that VALORANT offers no significant in-game rewards. Long-term players participating in discussions on the VALORANT player leaving the game agreed that receiving the exact same gun buddy design for six straight years provides zero incentive to keep playing. When the joy of ranking up is taken away by the broken Rank Rating system, the motivation to play disappears completely.
Hidden MMR Changes V26:A1
by u/WovenPillar in VALORANT
Some fans strongly believe that they are getting matched with teammates who lack fundamental tactical awareness, creating an irreversible skill gap. The community widely agrees that the game will continue to lose most of its players unless developers completely change how competitive points are calculated.
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