Too many “one sided” games in Valorant? Riot to investigate matchmaking’s biggest problem

Riot Games are going to investigate the one-sided matches Valorant players have been reporting in matchmaking, especially around the end of every Act.

The devs have been noticing the same type of complaints from the Valorant community when it comes to games ending in a complete stomp. While Riot’s addressed how their MMR system works plenty of times, these kinds of games are still frequent and frustrating players.

While the Elo system in Valorant gives plenty of room for people to pop off, there’s been a ton of instances where teams appear to be stacked opposed to the other team.

Even though the community and Riot developers have some idea of what might be happening, the studio is launching a closer investigation to quell the problem.

Riot Senior Competitive Designer, Jon ‘EvrMoar’ Walker, and his team are going to focus on matchmaking’s woes and are looking for feedback from the community to get started.

“We are investigating why players feel like their matches have been ‘one sided’ recently,” he said. “What’s interesting is this feedback seems to become common at the end of every Act.”

Among early comments, people are wondering if it has to do with how the matchmaking system creates teams in the first place.

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“Maybe it’s the same prob as in Overwatch,” Mendo said. “Matchmaking goes off team average Elo. Pros have high Elo, so they compensate by giving lower Elo teammates, and people on enemy teams have a fairly balanced team.”

However, EvrMoar thinks it has more to do with high-ranked people making alt accounts, or ‘smurfs,’ and eventually making their way through low ranks.

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“Honestly, part of it is probably players creating alts because they finished the grind on their mains,” EvrMoar explained. “Then trying to get their alts to high rank before the end of season, as well as people not caring because the season is ending.”

If one or two people smurf, the impact could go unnoticed. But if a ton of high-elo players insert themselves to lower ranks, then games will quickly feel imbalanced.

There’s still plenty to investigate on Riot’s side, but hopefully these conversations will lead to a much better matchmaking experience in Valorant.