The issue of player behavior in Valorant has hardly improved for some members of the community, as people are now asking for more enhanced report functions in response to sexual harassment during a match.
In May, Valorant Executive Producer Anna ‘SuperCakes’ Donlon touched on the work Riot is doing to address bullying and harassment in response to a clip by Riot employee ‘Greenily’ depicting verbal attacks towards her.
This instance of abuse ignited the conversation on the toxic members of the Valorant community, eventually leading to Riot’s Community Code a month later.
But some are pressing the company to integrate more strict and direct ways of reporting sexual harassment since victims don’t feel like the current options exactly address the severity of their predicaments as its happening.
Gross, this is creepy as hell. This is why I can't solo. I'm so sorry. We're absolutely looking into long-term solutions for making it safe to play VALORANT – even solo queue!
— Anna Donlon (@RiotSuperCakes) April 24, 2020
“I’ve been sexually harassed a lot while playing [Valorant],” user ‘GreatfulLoL’ said. “If you get caught cheating once you get hardware ID banned, but for you to get any punishment for sexual harassment you need to have dozens of people report you.”
They pushed for a way to save voice comms so that Riot could have recordings of players flagged for abuse. GreatfulLoL noted how the company has been a public force against cheaters or hackers, and wants to see the same kind of initiative for this issue.
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“When people tell me that they are going to find me and describe details on how they want to r*pe me, they should get hardware ID banned,” they said.
A method people have been using to record their moment of abuse is to simply record gameplay by using free software like OBS or the like, but a system built right into Valorant for these purposes would streamline the process.
In the company’s report on in-game player behavior, SuperCakes said that “this is a very hard space to take on. I can’t solve society, and some of these issues are really, really deeply entrenched.”
An excerpt from the ‘Fairness in Every Match’ section of the Valorant Community Codes reads: “when addressing disruptive behavior, we believe that penalties should reflect the standards and needs of the community, and that they should address the specifics of the disruptive behaviour rather than being overly punitive.”
Riot are committed to addressing the problem of harassment in their new competitive shooter and the Valorant community are waiting to see what the company does to find a solution.