Riot responds to surge of cheaters in Valorant and promises bans are coming

In response to an increased wave of cheaters in Valorant, Riot devs have taken to Reddit discuss a fix for the ongoing issue. 

Valorant has become synonymous with a lot of things: cool skins, a new breed of esports and interesting Agents. Sadly though the game has become associated with cheating and smurfing, two aspects that Riot are still trying to grapple with fixing.

A recent tweet from Team Liquid’s headshot king Adil ‘ScreaM’ Benrlitom warned players to “be careful, lots of cheaters right now” and has subsequently brought the debate about how best to punish these users back into the forefront of the Valorant scene.

In response to continual issues with player misbehaviour, one fan took to Reddit to demand a response from Riot about how they plan to combat the issue. In a series of responses, the devs have provided us some clarity on their future plans.

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People want to be seeing more punishments, but less of this screen in-game.

Riot devs respond to Valorant cheating

The Reddit thread, started by user PeteyySD, asked if “anyone was going to talk about the surge in cheaters” that has plagued the FPS title of late.

They go on to complain that they had fallen victim to cheaters using aimbots in multiple games, and noted that they’d seen the same user twice despite reporting them. This prompted a response from Riot dev RayKay, who implements anti-cheat measures.

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It says: “While we can never stop all cheating we want to make sure that it does not effect your ranked progress. Our team is looking to make many improvements this year based on the feedback we received and hard lessons we learned last year. Keep those reports and feedback coming.”

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A follow-up question asked if players will be able to get back lost MMR from games where cheaters had been found, or even have their ranks altered to where they were before.

Raykay replied by stating “that is a cool idea, that is something we would like to do but got some bigger priorities in front of it right now.”

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So, while it’s clear that Riot are aware of the recent tidal wave of cheaters that have been ruining Valorant games across Future Earth, it seems like a quick fix isn’t in the works.

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While this may be frustrating, it makes more sense for the developers to work out a long term solution to what has become a particularly prevalent.

Only time will tell what fix will be but in the mean time, in ScreaM’s words, “be careful” Valorant fans, there’s some mischief afoot.