After teasing the arrival of Rated Mode last week, Valorant has revealed more information about what to expect.
Ian "Brighteyz" Fielding, Senior Producer for Valorant, has revealed in an official blog post the upcoming changes that will take effect in Patch 1.02, as well as what has been planned beyond.
Rank Iconography
Most notably, the top dogs in ranked mode will no longer be called 'Valorant', to prevent understandable confusion between the game versus the rank. Instead, they will be called 'Radiant', a term that represents Agents infused with powers.
On top of that, they have also made the following changes:
Clarity pass for rank colors so it's easier to distinguish between each rank
Visual polish pass for each Match Rating
Placement Matches
It has been confirmed that placement matches will accept skill discrepancies within a premade party up to a certain extent. While elite players will be prevented from matchmaking with friends who are complete newbies, you'll still be able to play with friends with a skill gap of an acceptable range - though it has yet to be revealed how large the acceptable range will be, and how it will be quantified during the placement process.
Premades
Valorant has assured players that they are optimising the ranked experience to ensure fair and balanced matches regardless of your premade size. They are aiming for a 50/50 fairness in ranked matchmaking for the majority of skill groups by the end of beta.
As for the top two tiers - Immortal and Radiant, Valorant acknowledges the benefits of premade teams (as opposed to solo queue) in this specific tier of play, and is still seeking methods to address this problem.
Rank Progression
Valorant's in-game seasons, known as 'Acts', will last roughly 2 months each. After Patch 1.02, Valorant will provide visible info regarding your overall performance during a particular Act, allowing you to track progress markers such as:
how you’ve climbed in rank over the Act
your total number of wins
your number of wins at your highest achieved rank
Plans for the Future
Beyond these changes in the near future, Valorant also has a bunch of long term plans laid out over the longer term. These include competitive team support, in-client tournaments, fairer overtime handling, and leaderboards.
However, Fielding has also stated that rolling out Competitive Matchmaking is their immediate priority, so expect Valorant to focus on polishing Rated Mode before these additional features begin to see the light of day.
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