AFK players and leavers are an annoyance in any game, and doubly so in a competitive one. It’s the sort of thing that every maker of such a game should have a plan for from day one of launch — but if they don’t, it’s better late than never, right?
In last week’s “Ask Valorant,” the devs were asked about leavers, and specifically if they would implement harsher penalties than are currently implemented in the game. Personally, I’d vote for “fire them into the sun,” but Producer Sara Dadafshar was a little more tactful, saying that Update 1.14 would change the requirement to unlock ranked mode to “games won” rather than “games played.” Once you can get into ranked play, Dadafshar said that the team was looking into better ways to detect such behavior and harsher punishment.
Other topics covered in the Q&A is how smurf accounts will be dealt with, and the ability to block players so you never have to be their teammates again, the second of which Dadafshar calls an “Interesting idea!” For all the talk of how Valorant “copied” Overwatch, it clearly didn’t do so in terms of certain disciplinary measures, which that game has had a stance on for years.
You can check out the brief Q&A on the Valorant site.
