If you’ve ever had to play a team-based game with strangers, you’ve probably experienced the joy of at least one of them going AFK at some point during the match, leaving the rest of you to struggle your way to the end. Upcoming patches to Valorant are hoping to address this behaviour using a holistic approach.
Projected to be included in patch 2.04, Valorant will be improving detection of “AFK-like behaviour”, before and during the game. The devs couldn’t go into detail about exactly how this will work, other than to say that the system will be “vastly” improved. But don’t worry if your internet occasionally misbehaves and kicks you out, you’re unlikely to be punished at all. However, if you’re consistently dropping out, you could be in for a range of repercussions, from warnings and XP denial to being banned from ranked matches or from the game as a whole (in very extreme cases).
Also coming in 2.04, updates to chat-based offence detection. Chat involving violence, threats, and targeted harassment will be flagged by the new system and may result in anything from warnings and comms bans to extended game bans. Since the system won’t be able to tell who started the flame war, it’s best not to engage and to rather just mute and report if you know you can’t help but bite back. Penalties will “escalate with both the frequency and severity of the offence”.
A release date for the patch has yet to be confirmed. For more details on the upcoming patches, check out Valorant’s latest dev news post.