For many Valorant players the battle against toxic players seems never-ending, but Riot have confirmed that they’re looking into replicating a feature similar to that in Overwatch to deal with problematic players.
The age-old question of how to permanently stamp out the toxic players that plague every virtual universe under the sun has yet to be answered – and the same is true in Riot Games’ flagship FPS, Valorant.
From casual players to big streamers like Pokimane, many players have been subjected to racist, sexist, or just generally toxic abuse while on the game, even prompting the queen of Twitch herself to pretend to be a man in voice chat as an experiment.
This has inspired discussion around how best to deal with problematic players, with one fan offering a solution that mirrors the likes of League of Legends and Overwatch. It turns out, however, that Riot are, in fact, listening and preparing to ship similar updates in the future.
Riot dev responds to calls for new Valorant toxicity system
In a January 16 tweet, player and streamer dnosVAL said, “Valorant needs to come out with a trust-factor system or an endorsement system so that toxic/racist/sexist people end up only playing against themselves and regular players get to play with regular players.”
Blizzard’s FPS, Overwatch, already utilizes a similar mechanic, with players who leave games early or are caught using exploits being thrown into the pits with their fellow rule breakers. Additionally, the Endorsement system (one which allows players to vote for both enemies and allies that performed particularly well) matches players with high Endorsement levels together in future games.
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League of Legends has a related system, where players can vote for teammates who left a lasting positive impression after the game.
Executive producer for Valorant, Anna ‘SuperCakes’ Donlon, was quick to jump into the comments section, writing “just wanted to say I really like where you’re going with this idea. There are several systems we’re working on & testing right now that we hope will help in this space & whatever we ship will factor in the abuse folks are talking about in replies. Hope we can share more soon.”
Just wanted to say I really like where you're going with this idea. There are several systems we're working on & testing right now that we hope will help in this space & whatever we ship will factor in the abuse folks are talking about in replies. Hope we can share more soon. ❤️
— Anna Donlon (@RiotSuperCakes) January 26, 2022
While Anna hasn’t given an estimated date for this system’s in-game arrival, a lot of players will be counting down the days until it appears. Until then, though, just remember that it’s nice to be nice – otherwise, you may end up in the lobbies from hell.