A recent developer post from Riot Games introduces some new ranked mechanics for Act II.
It has been almost two months since the full release of VALORANT, but ranked play has only been available for a little over a month. Riot Games has previously talked about the game being broken up into Episodes and Acts, seemingly their response to other multiplayer games’ Seasons. An Act lasts roughly two months, and each Act contains its own battlepass.
Up until now, players didn’t know if Acts or Episodes would affect the game’s ranked system. However, the developers have recently revealed a new system that will allow players to show off how well they play during a particular Act.
Act I is set to end next week, on August 4th. At this time, players that participated in competitive games will receive an “Act Rank” that tracks their highest rank, as well as how many competitive games they won during the Act. This Act Rank will be displayed using a cool graphic comprised of small triangles that build a larger pyramid. Each small triangle represents a win, with different colored triangles representing wins at different ranks. The border around the outside of the pyramid notates the highest rank that a player earned during the Act, as well as changing designs based on how many total wins a player had during the Act.
If players want to play ranked during Act II, they will also need to replay three placement matches. However, these games will be based on the previous Act’s MMR, meaning that these matches will essentially hide what a player’s actual rank is. Placement matches will generally match players up against similar opponents as they would have been facing in the previous act.
One of the coolest parts of this update is the Act Rank Badge, a small icon that will be displayed on Player Cards and symbolizes a player’s nine highest-rank wins. This is a good way to incentivize players to grind at higher ranks, as winning games at a more difficult rank will push out wins from lower ranks. This sounds complicated, but essentially, a player who wins nine games in Platinum will have a cooler looking Act Rank Badge than someone who wins four Gold games and five Platinum Games.
This update will also allow career information to be viewed by other players, meaning that your friends will be able to call you out when you tell them you’ve top fragged for five games in a row but can’t carry your team. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like this additional feature will affect how players move throughout the ranks, simply providing them with motivation to play more. Act II is planned to launch on August 5th, hopefully bringing with it a new Agent.
Source: Riot Games
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