Advertisement

Valorant Episode 2 adds ranked progression tracker, leaderboards

Valorant’s ranked matchmaking system is getting an update, with new features such as a new progression tracker, regional ranked leaderboards, and other quality of life changes being added with the release of Valorant Episode 2 on Wednesday (12 January PST, 13 January SGT).

With the update, Riot Games intends to remove the ambiguity around rank progression that was in the previous system and make it easier for players to see how they stack up against others in order “to better reward [their] time playing ranked and recognise skills where it's due.”

In order to better show players how they are progressing up the ranked ladder, Riot has removed the previous progression tracking system — which used vague arrows — and replaced it with a more granular progress bar.

(Photo: Riot Games)
(Photo: Riot Games)

The progress bar will only be displayed for players in Iron to Diamond rank.

“Our current rank system doesn’t give you a great picture of where you stand in between ranks, how much you should generally expect to gain match to match, and why you are moving. With these changes we hope the rank system is much easier to understand, more fair, and it's harder to quickly lose ranks for those days when your game is off,” said Riot.

In addition to a new progression tracking system, Riot has also implemented a new leaderboard feature to showcase the best players of each region. The leaderboards will show the players who hold Radiant (top 500 players) and Immortal (top 1 per cent of players) ranks for each region.

In order to qualify for one of the regional leaderboards, a player must have played at least 50 ranked games on their account. To stay on the leaderboard, a qualified player must play at least 1 Competitive game every seven days.

The leaderboards will be displayed in-game, with a web version also available on the official Valorant website. Players who have been banned will not show on any leaderboard.

“We want players for each region to be able to see who is the best of the best. We also want to make sure that you trust the leaderboard is legit so folks will need to earn their way onto the Leaderboard and stay active in order to hold their spot,” said Riot.

In addition to those two key features, Riot have also implemented a number of other quality of life changes, such as rewards given out at the end of every act or episode, a more streamlined rank progress requirements, and new celebratory visuals as players get promoted to new ranks.

Valorant Episode 2 will not only update the game’s ranked matchmaking system, but will also add a new agent — the stealthy infiltrator Yoru — to the game. To learn everything you need to know about Yoru, check here.

Valorant Episode 1 will end at 10pm on 11 January for all regions, by which time the Competitive game mode will be disabled. Episode 2 will be released on 12 January, with Competitive to be re-enabled on that day.

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page.