Regional leaderboards may be on the way to VALORANT, Riot Games’ popular first-person shooter. The future update was teased in yesterday’s Dev Diaries episode, where David “Milkcow” Cole, the game’s competitive design lead, stated the idea was “already in the works.” The update is expected to come sometime in Episode II, which does not yet have a confirmed start date.
The October 5th Dev Diaries episode mainly addresses updates coming in Act III of Episode I, which is set to begin on October 13th. Starting in Act III, the VALORANT team will be tightening the rank disparity restrictions for competitive matchmaking. Previously, players could queue up with a friend within six competitive ranks of their own. In order to maintain competitive integrity, players will now only be able to queue with others who stand within three ranks of them.
“When we were first setting up ranked for launch, one big goal we had was to embrace social play,” Milkcow says. “But as we’d heard from your feedback, ranked is about competition.” Milkcow states that the VALORANT team believes the social aspect of competitive play is still important, but it should “never come at the cost of your ranked accomplishments.”
Following that announcement, Milkcow explains additional changes coming to ranked matchmaking in Act III. Going forward, Immortal and above rank standing will only be affected by wins and losses, not match performance. While lower-ranked players will still need to perform well while also winning games, higher-ranked individuals will now solely be judged by matches won, as well as “how decisive the match outcome was.” Milkcow states the team plans to implement this for all ranks “by Episode II,” should it go well.
Additionally in Act III, players will have the option to select a specific server in competitive matchmaking. Players are not guaranteed to get the server they select, however.
Moving on to Episode II, Milkcow states that the Act III updates will hopefully “address common pain points” for ranked play. Regardless, the team still has more updates that are “already in the works.” These include public, region-based leaderboards, and a “potential” reduction in queue sizes for Immortal rank and above. While not confirmed yet, Episode II may only allow solo and duo queues for higher ranks.
VALORANT Episode I Act III begins on October 13th.
Source: Riot Games