The Latest on Valorant’s New Competitive Mode
| Tags: Valorant
| Author Shane Dwyer
Despite being in beta, Valorant's competitive mode is the talk of the town.
With the recent 0.49 Patch, Riot unveiled its Competitive Mode for Valorant. It’s been a few days now, so we did a deep dive to see how the competitive scene is reacting.
You would think that with the success Riot had revamping ranked queues for League of Legends that it would implement those same features into its new installment. Features like having solo/duo queues separate from teams of three or more. Unfortunately, at least initially, this is not the case.
Prominent players are already complaining about being paired up with teams of three or more when they are playing solo. This creates an obvious disadvantage for a game that relies heavily on communication. To add to the problem, communication is not always easy when different groups of players are using different chat services, like Discord, rather than the in-game chat system.
There is also a growing concern with the lack of meaningful information about how gameplay affects ranking scores. Aside from trial and error and flat-out guessing, there is no way to know how each Agent’s unique abilities or skill-set affects their ranking score. Like other issues with this game, we will have to wait and see what Riot gives us in the final version of Valorant to know the full details.
The Future is Bright
On a more positive note, none of these issues stopped Cloud9’s TenZ from being the first NA player to ascend beyond immortality and reach the top rank of Valorant. With this achievement being claimed less than a week after Patch 0.49 launched, we can only assume that there will be more to follow in the coming days.
There is some confusion surrounding the prestigious top rank title, which is also the game’s namesake. We can only hope that it is simply a placeholder for whatever the official top rank will be called. In fact, I have a few ideas of what might work instead:
- Valiant
- Darth Valorant
- Omnivalorant
- Infinity Stone
All jokes aside, we are still in the Beta stage and Riot is likely working tirelessly to keep Valorant at the forefront of everyone’s mind. That certainly means updating and tweaking ranked play to satisfy its fast-growing base. This kind of game development is new for everyone and we are all enjoying being a part of the testing group. We look forward to the final product and the competitive scene that follows.
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Shane has seen esports blossom from projector screens at a comic book store to sold-out arenas with adoring fans. His accolades are modest, but he is a true fan of the gaming community. He aims to bring a strong voice to esports as a whole as it grows in popularity around the world.