Valorant Ranked changes announced for patch 2.03: AFK penalties, Act rewards change, more

Riot Games is already looking toward Valorant patch 2.03 that will include the highly-requested AFK penalties and a look at how Episode 2: Act 2 rewards will be earned depending on your rank or leaderboard position.

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Valorant just received it’s 2.02 update that brought with it changes to contentious issues like the running accuracy of the game by tinkering with how the run/walk/crouch errors to rifle accuracy impact your shot.

The in-game changes will be scrutinized to see if they deliver on what fans have been hoping for. But, at the same time, Riot is also moving on changes that could impact crucial aspects outside of an actual match that have also been clamored about online.

For now, Riot is just talking about what they hope comes in the next patch, and it could include a frontline safeguard to protecting the competitive integrity of Ranked play.

Valorant AFK penalties

The Valorant devs have been hearing the pleas to bring in an AFK (away from keyboard) penalty to Ranked games. As a result, Riot has outlined what they see coming to their tactical shooter for inactive players in the competitive queue.

“Yeah, AFK teammates usually ruin a ranked match, as well as make you lose RR when you don’t deserve it,” Jon ‘Evrmoar’ Walker said in the dev update.

For players who went AFK during a loss, Riot is going to give them a harsher RR loss after the game that “can go above our maximum caps.”

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This is only the first part of what could be a multi-pronged effort to dissuade people from going AFK; and if they still do, then make sure that they’re out of the competitive queue for a fair amount of time.

Act Ranked reward changes

There are going to be “rewards based on the end of Act leaderboard standings, or highest rank achieved,” possibly coming in the next Valorant patch update.

The studio is implementing a slight change to how your Act rank will be decided. The new system will determine your Act Range Badge by the highest triangle rank you’ve accomplished, instead of your tip nine wins.

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In either case, that will be the determinant of how Riot distributes new rewards at the end of an act. This also extends to the highest echelon of players in Immortal/Radiant depending on your position on the leaderboard.

While the devs are keeping it tight lipped about what those specific rewards will be for now, we now know how Valorant players will be judged for when they ultimately come at the end of the Act.