Riot dev responds to Valorant competitive ranked system criticisms, says "not here to give you a free rank"

Valorant's competitive matchmaking has faced plenty of criticism from players since its release.

Pro players like Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek and Spencer "Hiko" Martin have criticized the Valorant ranked system. Many other players are also of a similar opinion.

While many players criticize the ranked system in Valorant, some players like Hunter "SicK" Mims from Sentinels do not. Rather, he pointed out that 5 stacks won’t be a “good solution” to improve Competitive matchmaking in Valorant.

Riot Games developers have worked on the Competitive ranking system by introducing several patches & updates. However, it seems, most players are still not satisfied with the Valorant competitive ranked system.

I'm working on a way for 5 stacks to play together competitively, we agree we want something(unfortunately it's taking time). We are also talking about short term solutions, while we work on the bigger system. Unfortunately no ETA's :)

— EvrMoar (@RiotEvrMoar) May 15, 2021

The 2.02 patch update has restricted players with Diamond 3 or above rank to solo or duo queues in competitive matches. Hence, many players have demanded changes like having a 5-stack and more.

Riot devs have taken note of the criticisms made by the players but recently defended Valorant's competitive ranking system on Reddit.

---

Riot dev defends Valorant competitive ranking system

Valorant's senior competitive designer, Jon "Evermoar" Walker, recently responded to statements made by Valorant pro players on the ranking system.

Riot dev defended it through a long post on Reddit. He brought up the winners/losers queue issue that many people highlighted. EvrMoar later clarified that Riot "can’t solve problems that don't exist."

Later, the Riot dev stated the reason behind people considering it as an issue. He said:

"After we investigated this issue, it seems to be confirmation bias that this happens. It doesn't matter how much it doesn't exist; if someone is adamant it does, they blame something that doesn't exist for why ranked is terrible.”

EvrMoar also mentioned that Riot has worked on Valorant's competitive ranked system to provide players with their deserving ranks. Riot devs are putting their best efforts to improve the competitive experience by taking players’ feedback into account. He said:

“I'm just here to be transparent with the community. Ranking isn't as bad as people think, but we are making it better where we can. I'm not here to make a system to give you a free rank you don't deserve, which unfortunately causes a large amount of negative feedback. I can try and make the frustrations or experiences better where there are known issues, and investigate and keep trying to solve for players that feel like there are problems.”

Riot Devs are bringing updates and improvements to Valorant competitive matchmaking. However, he also said, “So maybe Valorant rank is upsetting you, it happens. We can't make everyone happy.”