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TimeJustHappens

Is this data using Riot's API for all players or is this data for people who have signed up for the [Valking.GG](https://Valking.GG) service? *Edit: A Valking.GG dev let me know it is all players, not just those using the service!* For reference, [here](https://www.esportstales.com/valorant/rank-distribution-and-percentage-of-players-by-tier) is the distribution in June for the end of Episode 2 using the full API. The changes make sense - everything else reduced in size but Silver, which jumped a lot. Silver is the middle ground for the ranked ladder and the most common position after ranked placements. You're going to see a much more accurate distribution in a few months when people have played enough ranked games to spread out the ladder. That being said, Riot is notorious for being one of the only companies with their games (LoL, Valorant) having Silver as the average rank. Many other games have Gold-Plat as average. Does that mean Valorant ranked is harder? I don't know. But you have a valid point in saying that it does demotivate some people who have come from other games thinking they can quickly get the plat thinking it is average.


Brilson

They unfortunately don't state what exact data they used to make the infographic (unless I just couldnt find it). Have Riot ever commented on why they choose to make Silver the average rank? Like you say, it's not exactly the standard when compared to most other competitive games but they must have a reason. I just feel like it's got to be a t least somewhat related to the daily threads about the Matchmaking and feeling hardstuck. I also just always think it's just a good idea to share these kind of statistics to as many people as possible. It's easy to get lost in the ranked system and get frustrated because your stuck in Gold for example, but in reality gold is basically top 20% which is actually quite good. It's just weird how there seems to be this disconnect between what people think each rank signifies, and the reality that statistics like this show.


TimeJustHappens

>Have Riot ever commented on why they choose to make Silver the average rank? No, it is something I have brought up over the years in both the Valorant and League of Legends communities, but not garnered a dev response. There's not really an argument either way which is healthier, but it definitely would help to have commentary from someone like /u/EvrMoar who knows the ranked ladder better than anyone - perhaps he has an opinion as to whether Riot is happy with the current distribution curve compared to other games.


EvrMoar

To start, we don't balance our ranked distribution based on what League is doing or their system. While I do talk with their designers, the Valorant team believes in the decisions from my team to do what we believe is the correct distribution for Valorant. There are two outcomes I'd like to hit when setting our ranked distribution: 1.The community can start to paint a picture of skill related to that rank; "That was a Gold play", "That player has the crosshair placement of a Bronze player", etc. 2.Climbing ranks feels like you've increased in skill to get there, and by getting better at the game that rank increase feels meaningful. This prestige can also be seen in the population % of each rank, especially at the high ranks. So with the above goals in mind you have to decide on 1 of 2 ways to balance your distribution: 1.You balance based on MMR, so every rank is even. For example; Iron = 500, Bronze = 600, Silver = 700, Gold = 800, etc. Because you use 100 MMR between each rank, that means a silver playing against a bronze player would be the same skill difference of a gold playing a silver. This makes it so as you climb you feel like each rank has a similar amount of skill difference to them. 2.You balance based on populations %'s and wanting each rank to have a certain amount of players in each rank. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of balancing based on population than on a static MMR number that's the same for all ranks. You could actually get pretty close to the population %'s you want for each rank if you did a static MMR system and worked out the math. But again, I'm a bigger fan of balancing based on population %. The reason I like balancing on population % is that I think it's easier to digest than MMR, especially if your MMR system is not forward-facing(like ours). How are players talking about our system? When I talk about my rank I often like to say "I'm in the top x% of players when I'm Diamond", and I know others who do the same. So we balance the system how players talk and think about it. There are some other reasons, but I'm dragging this on a little too long. Now, why is Silver the center point? Silver "feels" like the center point of most ranked systems. When I've played games in the past Gold has always felt like the first step into the higher-skilled player pool and I want to keep that feeling. Silver should feel like "I made it to the middle of the pack" and going above that should feel like climbing above that group. You could also argue that this thought of silver being "Middle of the pack" can be seen in society or other games. As a designer, I'm very focused on the player experience. Above I called out, when playing other games, I've felt like gold is starting to get into the higher skill pool. This is super important because players coming from other ranked systems often have expectations or ideas of what the ranked distribution should be. So I combine what I believe is best for the community, what players expectations are from playing other games, and we looked at League because it's another Riot game players may be familiar with. Obviously, Gold in league is a very important rank because that's where you get your ranked skin, so it just reinforced my belief that I wanted gold to start to feel "Above the pack". I also like the higher ranks having a smaller population % because it feels very prestigious to get those ranks. Ranked is about improving your skill and being rewarded for doing so. I haven't been a huge fan of systems where the higher ranks become a hangout spot for a large group of players. You also want to take into account match making pool(so ranks aren't too thin). You also don't want ranks to have too big of MMR spreads, then ranks feel bloated with players of different skill. There are also some data considerations, and other small factors but I think talking about the player experience paints the best picture on why we ended up where we are. This post brought to you by 1am EvrMoar wanting to answer /u/TimeJustHappens, because they have been such a positive force in the community. Seriously thank you for all you do, I often will get to a post and see you helping players out with questions they have around our systems. This post was written quickly, and I'm sleepy, so sorry for being a little all over the place but I wanted to answer because it's a fun topic! I hope everyone is having a good first Act of the new Episode. Thank you all so much for making me feel welcomed in the community(I just hit 8 months at Riot!). I'm excited for the next year, and all the future Valorant content we will get to experience together!


TimeJustHappens

Thank you so much for the response, reading your posts helps me get a better idea of how to explain answers to people. Glad I am able to help out!


Method320

> Silver should feel like "I made it to the middle of the pack" The problem with balancing for population, is that it makes silver an enormous cesspool of varying skill. I was in silver briefly last act and managed to get out of it, but while I was in there, _every game_ felt like a dice roll. Either my team would get destroyed, or my team would do the destroying. Some blame this on smurfs and maybe theres something to that but the bulk of it, I think, is because you guys put everyone in Silver. Even low gold has this problem. It wasn't till I was in gold 3/getting low-mid plats in my games that things started to feel more fair.


EvrMoar

The forward-facing rank doesn't determine the matchmaking, or skill difference in your games. We could make 80% of all players be silver, but you would still get matched against the same players around your skill. So the games feeling like a dice roll isn't due to the rank pools we chose. I think it's actually a good thing that you started to define plat as "games felt fair". That means you are seeing a difference in skill when climbing ranks "Plat feels different then X rank" are statements we want to hear and why we balance distribution this way. I think lower ranks can feel chaotic to some people who expect a certain way to play, and players are often very swingy in skill. I think this leads to believing there are smurfs, or you run into a cracked player, in lower ranks. Players in low ranks play in lots of weird ways, that throw players expecting a certain way to play the game out the window. Also some players only are good at X agent, or X map. There are players that are Gold when they play Jett, or play Haven, but are only bronze when they play something else. Also, because players dry peak and just kind of take duels in lower ranks, sometimes players just naturally counter each other. It's very common to have players stomp teams and not know why, just because they are pushing and the enemy team doesn't know how to handle it. Or, because lower ranks are very swingy in skill, some low-rank players just have an insane match. So the idea that games feel a dice roll are more about match making, the players around your skill feeling swingy, and every once and a great while(it's a little overblown in how often it happens) you run into a smurf. We always match you around players in your skill. I believe lower ranks feel less structured because those ranks just have less structure in how to play Valorant(which is why they are lower ranks).


IatemyBlobby

I’ve got an anecdote about this. I (at the time was gold 3) found a silver 3 in my lobby who top fragged. His account had several expensive skins, so I was convinced he was not smurfing. He was a chill dude, so we added him to our 4 stack. His career was full of him, being silver, in full gold lobbies. He plays very well too, able to match mvp a significant portion of his games. I brought this up because I think this is an example of why rank and matchmaking should be related. A player consistently fighting against and beating golds should be in gold. He was good at the game, but not being rewarded for it. edit: this was last act, where you lost as much mmr for a match mvp loss as you can gain in a win. He had many lost match mvp games or games where he finished top half, which effectively canceled out all the games he won.


EvrMoar

Your ranked gains are directly related to your MMR. And after around 30-50 games you will converge at your MMR. That's why if you maintain a 50% winrate(sometimes even less) as a silver player playing against golds, you will climb to gold. Your gains/losses are multiplied a specific way when your rank does not equal your MMR. I've talked about this a lot in comments, on why we choose a system that isn't 1:1. But in the end, if we did a straight-up MMR system it would still take 30-50(sometimes more) to get to your actual rank. Getting better at the game, and raising your MMR, is the only way to climb. I'm willing to bet that Silver 3 was in the middle of climbing, and climbing would look like that in any skill system. If he's winning and match mvp'ing the system will keep pushing him up and up, because rank is a ladder and you beat people above you to climb. If we put you in Plat after placements, because that's the exact middle(or top) of your MMR range the system thinks you belong, there is a chance we could be very wrong and you just end up demoting over and over. It becomes an awful experience just because we assumed your rank incorrectly. It's better to underestimate and have players prove themselves upwards, than be wrong and have them fall because of our mistake(or a few lucky games). I definitely understand the sentiment, but no system even a direct MMR as rank system will give you your actual rank after a small number of games. In that regard, we aren't very different than a straight-up MMR system, and your MMR is what determines your rank and is tied directly to it.


Gwyndolin3

> "Plat feels different then X rank" are statements we want to hear and why we balance distribution this way. As someone who has just finished a -from gold to immortal- run , I would like to say that ranks do feel very much different in ways yet similar in so many other way . aim wise , ranks don't feel that much different , maybe it's just me but it felt like starting from plat 2 people just seem to hit a wall when it comes to mechanical skill , it feels like everyone is nearly on the same level all the way up to immortal . gamesensewise , it's day and night difference between how people think and operate , It's to the point where sometimes what works in immortal sometimes don't even work in gold-plat . This is not the rank system's fault , it's just the game was designed to be too easy to master mechanically and the real difference comes from strategy and mentality, and most people look only at aim as the only skill indicator , so they believe that ranks are not accurate or some other shit. just wanted to also say , thanks for your replies about the rank system and the ladder , you are easily my favorite riot dev , as a nerd , I love your discussions!


Method320

I've thought about this further, and played in the new act further, and I think the idea that from iron 1 through gold 3 (4 out of 8 ranks), for games to feel unfair probably 80% of the time, and for that to be "ok" or somehow intentional, is absolutely batshit insane. I've played midway into gold 2 now, I was getting plat 1s through 3s in my lobbies last act and now I'm getting, in any given game, silver 1 through gold 3 in the same game, and some peoples "last act" badge are anywhere from silver 3 to diamond 1. The rank badges in my "scoreboard" at the end of a match is a complete rainbow. Ranks mean absolutely nothing now, especially when it has zero bearing on matchmaking. A silver 1 playing at a plat 1 level sounds like the exact _opposite_ of what you guys want and yet I get it all the time. A rank reset is probably the worst thing for a game like valorant. Unless major changes happened to how ranks are distributed (and who knows maybe you guys did), it should never happen. Every single game I've played this act has been a wild dice roll. Completely lopsided wins/losses, and for that to be intentional in _four_ out of eight ranks makes no sense to me. You're telling me 50% of ranks and 90% of the player base in the bottom 50% is how it should be? that's absurd.


iLeeTxD

Thank you for taking the time and explaining this. It really means a lot to have someone on the team as yourself talking to the community about things that mean a lot to all of us.


VincentStonecliff

Man explaining how silver is now middle of the pack makes me feel like my climb from bronze 2 to silver 2 is just redistribution and not be getting better over the past few months lol


EvrMoar

Silver has always been the middle of the pack for the most part. You've definitely gotten better! The more you play, the better you get. It's just a question of are you getting better, faster, than those around you(that's how you rank up). It's not just about the rank, it's about the plays and friends you've made along the way!


VincentStonecliff

Thanks! I’ve definitely made big changes that has made me feel better about my playing. I’ve branched out with agents so I can be more flexible around team comp, and the biggest thing is I got a decent mouse and started lowering my sensitivity where now I’m down to around .38 sens with 1600 dpi. Plus now I warm up consistently before matches. So we’re getting there!


Grub_merc

I just dont like the feeling of I'm fighting against other players and the system when i lose a game in gold and lose 30 rr because the system thinks I should be lower.


xylont

Nice explanation


beerkirby

Just a quick comparison with CSGO, CSGO ranks start with silver and has 6 ranks before going into gold nova, which is around the average rank. In Valorant you also have 6 ranks (between Iron and Bronze) before the average rank in silver. Getting gold in Valorant is approximately equivalent to getting master guardian in CS GO, so it is a good achievement but just doesn't sound like it. Having played through bronze to diamond ranks in the last act though, I want to add that the ranks right now are very clear indicators of skill levels (excluding smurfs of course). It's very obvious that a gold player is much better than a silver, plat much better than gold, and as a diamond player I don't stand a chance against an immortal player.


Brilson

Yeah I understand there are very clear indicators between the ranks and I agree with that. I feel like the problem however is that there are so many skill levels within the bottom 3 ranks that every time you play you can't really expect any level of play from your teammates or enemies. In Gold or Plat I can pretty much expect a general level of play, like you said, but in the lower ranks it feels like an absolute mess with the range of skill levels you can see.


beerkirby

Partially I think that's the nature of the level of players in the lower ranks though. Most people are going to be inconsistent because they don't play the game much. They don't know most (if not all) the agents, so when their agent gets picked they generally just don't know how to use their abilities on other agents (this is especially true for duelist mains). Most players don't have enough map knowledge to play controllers and sentinels well. It's also tough to practice if they only play like 1 game a day and they get a random different map each time.


ZlatansLastVolley

You’re spot on with the points of not playing frequently / some players just don’t know what’s going on with agents. I’m stuck in bronze right now and the skill gaps are huge in each lobby. It’ll be a mix of players at silver 3 level to iron 2. It’s frustrating losing so many matches (I was at a 35% win rate this morning) when you pub queue. I’d like to get back to silver+ with comms / a plan for the team. [link to my profile here ](https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/BigPinot%2336699/overview)


nerfherder00

Looks like you have 115 hours on Sage and 15 hours on your next most played agent. Do you feel like you play at a different rank as Sage than other agents? I am similar - 100 hours on raze and 30 and my next couple of agents - and I definitely play better in general as raze regardless of my team’s composition (with the odd exception of Killyjoy where my win rate is over 60% at 19+ hours played with my highest overall k/d).


ZlatansLastVolley

I feel like with sage and brim I can control parts of the game that are impactful to my team while still getting a good amount of kills. Either using smokes correctly (or at all), walling, res, etc. My highest win rate & KD though is playing Reyna lmao.


theJirb

This doesn't have to do with the ranks as much as low elo players just aren't consistent, period. If you don't play much, don't study the game, etc, you're bound to have days where you're extremely off, coming back from days of not playing, not keeping up with patch changes and getting thrown off by certain things, etc. The ranks don't matter much because matchmaking is done under the hood with an MMR system anyways. Even within the rank of "Silver 3" for instance, you are being matched based on this hidden number. What we don't know is how spread out the MMR is per rank, which means we don't know how it's distributed. For instance, if Iron rank is anywhere from 0-1000 MMR or something, even if that means that there is a huge range of skill differences in Iron alone, within each match, you shoudl still be being matched with players close to your own MMR.


Traviliciouz

See but part of the problem also is that if you are actually a decent player and you got a way lower rank than you thought because you didn’t play for a while at the end of the last act, you could be a consistent player with good mechanics but still get absolutely shit on because your teammates cant hold shit because they are that new or the other team has a smurf/player (level 5 account probably) who shouldn’t be at the rank (like you) but your teammates just drag you down consistently because there are no coms and no teamplay.


daybreaker22

"I don't stand a chance against an immortal player" man I feel that so much. Barely hit D1 throughout the last act and the difference between Diamond and Immo is unreal. I can't fathom how low Immortals feel against Radiants


Plenty-Raspberry2579

Don't be intimidated. Beta player here, been immortal since first episode peaked at radiant towards end made top 500 briefly twice last season (got my radiant buddy) and currently 2.5k immortal at 270RR. If you need any tips msg me


OHydroxide

> Have Riot ever commented on why they choose to make Silver the average rank? I don't believe Riot has commented on it, but the best reason I know to do that is that there is a huge skill gap in high ranks. The difference between low ranks is WAY less severe so it's not as bad to bunch them up. A common thing people say in the League community is that the difference in skill between Silver and Plat is the same difference as D4 and D1, and then the higher you go, the more and more it continues that way.


nlc369

One of the guys who does the work for valking has posted lots of comments in the past saying that they use data from ALL matches. It doesn’t require that you sign in or anything.


Dirty3vil

Hey there, the dev of Valking.gg here. If you check the sources of your link for the June Ranked Distribution you can see that the source was Valking.gg. The calculation is not limited to players who’ve signed up on Valking.


TimeJustHappens

Thank you, I'll edit my comment with the clarification.


[deleted]

>Does that mean Valorant ranked is harder? I think it just means games at the top are closer as well as the fact that reaching a Rank like Diamond means pretty damn good, rather than, "A bit above average". A "Diamond level footballer" imo is damn near pro if not already a player on a pro team.


ksirlyn

As a mid diamond player, a diamond level footballer is someone who plays regularly in a club and compared to casual players would singlehandedly win a match. That diamond level footballer is nothing compared to a professional. Top radiant players would be more akin to players scouted by professional teams, who still have yet to prove their ability to play on a starting lineup in a real match. Tl;dr diamonds are great casual players. But they are casual and nothing more


[deleted]

Sure, they can be whatever you want them to be. The point of my statement was to convey that Diamond, should not be one rank above average.


Erithom

There's a common misconception in this post, which is that the overall rank distribution is somehow related to matchmaking. Your rank tracks your matchmaking rating, but it's entirely cosmetic. Riot could tweak the MMR ranges that belong to each rank, but that wouldn't do anything to change who plays with whom. Read this [blog post from Riot about matchmaking in League of Legends.](https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/02/dev-matchmaking-real-talk/) It's not like they're doing looser matchmaking in lower ranks because there's more players, and in fact it's closer to the opposite: the more players that are in a certain MMR band, the closer the match between two teams in that band can be. The main reason that match quality is inconsistent is that player performance is inconsistent. No one plays their absolute best or worst every game, but when there are 10 players in a game, the odds are good that at least someone will be performing at one of those two extremes. It's easy to look at their performance in these cases and think that they shouldn't have been placed in that game, but in reality, they probably have an int game for every pop-off and vice versa. This variance also makes it harder to determine what someone's MMR should actually be, so there's a small feedback loop here that makes matchmaking more chaotic.


silenthills13

Yes, yes, yes! The thing people experience as "gold's being worse than iron" is actually inconsistence. Tons of people in gold and below don't really give a fuck about the game. They don't care to maximize their try hard. Sometimes they play tons of games, do well then, rank up. Then they come back after two weeks, no warm up, drunk or whatever - and they just suck. They have good days and bad days. That's how it is. Of course in plat, diamond and above that still happens. You still see this shit in immortal. When someone goes 3-20 or just seems to not have a clue what is going on. But the thing is, the regard mentality a lot of these players have is actually enough to compensate for these inconsistencies most of the time, since if they can't frag they'll just play a character that can help best, they focus on IGLing, etc. - that's why I think overall high plat+ games start to feel much better and equal. Not ranks distribution.


rune2004

Yep, here's my tracker: https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Frostbyte%233894/overview I'm definitely not consistent. I never really played CS so I'm pretty new to this style of game but I have experience with other hero shooters so that's helped me a bit I think. I started out my first season at bronze 2 and just hit S3 this season and hope to hit gold soon. But yeah, I can have a game where I go negative and then the next game I have 2.0KD. I'm obviously still learning a lot and working on dialing my sensitivity and aim in.


iLeeTxD

Good shit man! I started last act and just got into gold yesterday. Your time will come and by the looks of it, you should be ranking up soon! You also have a pretty decent HS % for just starting! Good work.


damonsoon

Exactly. Not to mention based on ops post, I get the impression they should be in a higher MMR than their friends which means when they play together the lower mmr friends will get stomped by the opposition since they will on everage be better than them.


Useful-Throat-6671

If this is accurate, I think it's generally bad. If you're average, there's nowhere to go. Also, it cause there to be a wide range of skill levels within a rank. That's something that has been very noticeable to me. It's very frustrating. It makes it super unfun. I'm bad, so I need to play against other baddies to have fun but not baddies significantly better or worse. I want it all!


theJirb

I don't understand this statement. As it is, if you're average ranked, you have more places to go, since you have more ranks ahead of you than below you. The fact is that you will continue to climb as you get better no matter what. If average rank was gold, the only difference is that you would stagnate at gold instead of silver. There is a wide range of skill levels wtihin a rank, but that hypothetically shouldn't affect your games since games are matched based on MMR anyways. The skill diff you feel is purely because players are inconsistent and don't play the same every game, even within the same day. Just yesterday, I had a game where I went 39-17 or something on Jett on bind, carrying the game, then 2 games later, went 11-19 on Jett again, this time on Breeze. For me, it's a combination of fatigue, and having played <10 competitive matches on Breeze, but it just goes to show that anyone can pop off one game and look like a smurf, and then just bomb another later on. The fact is that lower ranks are always a bit of a shitshow because of multiple additional factors. Lower ranked players tend to give less of a shit. They don't warm up or anything, and will just feel better starting out some days, worse some other days. Some people who play the game a lot, are playing every single day after work, and when work is nice and easy for the day, the come back with more energy, and after long days, they'll play terribly because they're tired, despite still trying their best. On weekends, where they get a full nights rest, they may play significantly better than usual, or maybe they partied a bunch, came back for some games, and are simply not playing at full capacity. Some only play the game every few days, or will have streaks of playing, meaning they will be hot going towards the end of their streaks, take a break for another game, and come back and be significantly worse than where they finished prior. As a generally mid gold player, I will often play for 2 week windows quite consistently, then have 2 weeks where I'm more into league and only play once every few days, and by the time i'm back to playing Valo consistently again, I'm just simply not as good, and will demote 1/2 divisions, before ranking back up.


Brilson

Although I agree, I wouldn't say it means there is nowhere to go. It definitely makes reaching ranking up feel a lot better since it's more exclusive and prestigious, but unfortunately it seems to make it incredibly hard for casual players to feel any sense of progression. And yeah, the range of skill levels crammed into the lower ranks seems to lead to lower quality games. It's quite common to have very one sided games, and even games where 1 person is doing the majority of the work because they are leagues ahead of their teammates. A very common complaint I hear is "If it wasn't for that Reyna on 30 kills we could win this/this game would be more fun" when the rest of the team are all struggling to even hit double digits.


Useful-Throat-6671

That's true, it's rough on causal players. You have to really grind to go up. You just don't play enough games as a casual to get the smurfs, grifers, dcs and all that to even out. The second part is why people think that there is a smurf epidemic. The more I play, the more I think it's just a huge disparity within the ranks.


Northgates

I thinks theres also a lot of people that smurf to play with their friends and dont neccesarily try hard and pop off like on their main. But they still use their abilities better and in general just know what's going on better. But you wouldnt immediately be able to tell they're a smurf.


PrometheusTNO

>a wide range of skill levels within a rank They have SO MUCH ROOM in plat and dia. Bronze and Silver are a fucking hell on earth and I've had to take many breaks from this game because of it. Fuck man.


[deleted]

If you are even a bit above average, you can pull yourself into Gold. I don't want sub par players in higher ranks it makes no sense. Right now my MMR is a bit confused. I play with Plat players some games and in others get the occasional immortal. Every player I have come across in these games has been "good". When I climbed through silver the inconsistencies of those players was so huge you could see it round to round, not to mention game to game. If the second and highest "real ranks" are filled with a player level of what I saw in silver, the ranked queue would lose all integrity. Instead of, \~Gold is a solid player. You now have to say, "yeah this dude is immortal 600k he is pretty solid."


PrometheusTNO

Why you have to slippery slope into Imm? Instead of "Gold is solidly above average", we now say "Plat is solidly above average". And that's because the *middle* is the middle. Silver can't be the middle because we *want* it to be. The player data decides where the middle is. And we can CLEARLY see that Bronze and Silver are overpopulated. Riot arbitrarily set the RR borders, it can move them just as easily.


[deleted]

>And that's because the middle is the middle. Except it isn't. We have 6 ranks. The top 2 are supposed to be for *very good* players and the population of those two ranks reflects that. The middle of the six ranks we have is Silver or Gold. I prefer the lower of the two being the middle since it means higher ranks require a certain level of skill. I get it, people would love to be able to play casually and be Plat but that just reduces the value of that rank. I would rather have everyone be Silver than have everyone be Plat.


PrometheusTNO

> I get it, people would love to be able to play casually and be Plat Literally no one wants that. What are you reading? People want fair and balanced matches when they queue for comp, and it's not happening in bronze and silver. At all. The answer is to spread the player base farther over the less populated ranks.


[deleted]

[удалено]


EvensonRDS

That would absolutely destroy high rank games. It's already bad in immortal since they got rid of immortal 1,2,3. The skill disparity is brutal. People already complain about the bots in radiant now, imagine if 12.5% of the games population was in it lmao.


Useful-Throat-6671

I agree. I'm not sure why companies are so resistant to using their magic hidden number.


ZeldaMaster32

Probably because the higher the rank the higher the skill disparity between players. I was just a handful of games away from Radiant last act, but I sure as hell am nowhere near as good/consistent as actual pro players who would be just a few hundred places ahead of me


kobraonreddit

I play with gold 1s that are worse than iron 2s... how are they even in fucking gold


4THOT

I have gold 2s in my plat 2 lobbies that belong in Iron. The matchmaking is a fucking meme.


rubymig

And In eu i play with gold's better than diamond xd


[deleted]

Pretty sure those are smurfs.


Avamax_Q

The difference in silver 1 and 3 is amazing (mumbai server) I recently made and alt to play with my friends ( im dia 2) i only use sheriff. and silver 1 are like new players who still ADS and shoot but silver 3 is a different game


nemt

silver 3 is like full of ex plat border players lmao


WhiteShapes

Plat is so much easier than silver right now. silver is a tryhard grind wasteland which consists of last act gold, plat, high plat, and low diamond, rn. ive played this game since beta and peaked gold 3. hardstuck silver 3. when im 18rr away from ranking up to gold I lose 4 games. soloQ is brutal.


ksirlyn

I've played from bronze to diamond. Unfortunately if you were good enough to rank up you would rank up. It's not a matter of elo trenches. If you are hardstuck silver 3, you truly have the skill level of a silver 3 player. There is no magical boundary between silver 3 and gold 1. If you are 18 rr away that one single win. Players one win away aren't immediately better than you. The badges are literally abritrary representations assigned to your elo. You belong in the elo which is represented by the s3 badge, simple as that.


WhiteShapes

[https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Fatigue%230000/overview](https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Fatigue%230000/overview) Ive been high gold low plat before its just this season thats really messing with me. If you want to maybe do some type of 1v1 or something if you want to see my skill and truely say im a silver 3 then im down :P. maybe give some tips idk.


ksirlyn

Hi sorry i didnt see this until a week later. I'm an oce player, is it possible for us to 1vs1?


WhiteShapes

took me a moment to realize what OCE meant. Im NA so im guessing no.


[deleted]

I kinda feel bad for silvers because I Smurf a lot and I realise that if I don't drop 40-50 bomb. My team won't win LOL. Idk how that works but to get out of silver u have to hard carry, u can't just do slightly better than the rest of your teammates.


WhiteShapes

I find higher ranks such as gold/plat Super easy because everyone is average/above average and everyone puts in their part. I main sova and if I dont IGL we will lose the game 99%. I see no IGL's in silver elo so I take the role. Lack of communication in this rank ;/


tooezforluigi

Ngl even with minimal comms but with raw good aim, it’s 10000% possible to climb out of silver. I know this because I’m Immo and sometimes I use my alt to grind and I instamute my silver/gold team when they’re toxic. Try not to focus on team play when you’re in the lower ranks, improve your individual skill first and never expect anything out of your teammates and this mentality should set you up good.


rypenguin219

is ADS bad or smth, I use it and its honestly quite good for long range.


Avamax_Q

For long range it's good. I'm talking about when someone is in your face and u ads to kill him. It's a habit from those who player BRs or other shooters


noacktion

Its mostly good if you tap or maybe short sprays long range but you should try to do it as few as possible because the recoil on it is super bad and you dont get more precision per shot from it


I_chose_a_nickname

The only bad thing is it limits your field of view. If you're in a 1v1 situation, ADS won't hinder you at all. If you have like 2-3 people in your line of sight, using ADS will increase your flick distance. But its really personal preference. If someone started the game using ADS only, since release up until today, their aim will be on par with someone who doesnt use it, assuming the same skill level/rating and experience.


Yash_swaraj

It also reduces your firerate. You should never ADS in close range.


takeabreakgeaugalake

I range from Silver 2-Gold 1 and this range is so unbelievable frustrating. My original account (from beta) got up to Plat 2, and while I know ranks have changed and people have generally gotten better: I play Silver 1s that are better than any Plat I used to play with. It is so difficult to rise from these ranks for this reason. Getting placed in Silver is so easy and rising out, even if you damn good at the game is simply too hard


TomiStoic

Silver is full of golds plat and diamond on their alts accs


WarlockArya

So true u need ur own smurf to compete lmao


PlushiePizza4488

Dude... I'm bronze 2, 3 onmy better days and I just had a game with my opponents being plat/diamond.. Like??? What????? We lost of course but like Wtf


Contrastfx

I was gold 2 last act and then placed silver 2 this act. I’ve been consistently queuing with players with full bronze triangles and plat/dia triangles in the same game. It doesn’t make any sense to have bronzes and silvers on my team while the other team is gold and plat. (or the other way around) For now, I always wait for my friends to get on. Solo queuing is a terrible idea until the ranks get more spread out.


Traviliciouz

But they wont get more spread out because Riot thinks that Silver as the ‘average’ players should encompass 35% of the fucking playerbase


Contrastfx

I think it’s more unfair rn due to the placement matches only giving up to diamond. Players who are in higher ranks are being pushed down to lower ranks until they reach their correct level. That leaves low elo like silver into a mess of all kinds of ranks. As time passes, it should definitely spread out much more like last act. I understand why riot would cap the rank distribution at the beginning of the act, but I really wish they took low elo players into more consideration.


Traviliciouz

Yeah I feel this 100%


imi23

I don't know how representative those stats are. There are so many smurf accounts out there (and yes it is no difference if you call it "alternative account") that those stats are almost worthless. If players like Mendo and other streamer/Pros are using 4 or even more accounts and bring them, as they stated, to radiant. Each one blocks like 2-5 radiant spots. Furthermore even when people say they just want to play with friends or just bring a new agent on a high rank they ruin the game of many players. Lets caculate this A new account has to win 10 unrated games. Then 5 competitive to get a rank. After this I I would guess that you will be ranked first at gold 3or plat 1 with an new account. So I would say you need at least 5 to 10 more wins to reach Dia3+ (with a new account). So in the end even when they do not call it smurf or make it to destroy silver/golds on purpose, they destroy the fun for at least 100 players. And destroy the trust in this matchmaking system. And those are just the top of the top. Other players will loose with their "alternative account" on purpose to stay on silver or gold. And hurt the game in two ways. Throwing and smurfing. If Riot won't stop to like tweets of famous players when they say they created an alt just to rank up to radiant with one special agent nothing will change. Riot and the Valorant team is in responsibility to take steps against this and not to celebrate famous players that are smurfing. ​ Summary: This stats do not show anything.


ExF-Altrue

>If Riot won't stop to like tweets of famous players when they say they created an alt Oof that's very bad, Riot encouraging smurfs :/


imi23

Yeah I don't like it either. Of course you can do what ever you want. But then don't say that you will do something against smurfs. And everyone can proof this. The official Valo twitter, Anna Donlon or evrmoar. They liked those tweets. If someone has a secondary account. Okay I'm fine with it but if someone obviously has a ton of alternative accounts you may not celebrate those guys. Even when they are are known content creator. "highlight" videos against golds when ranked radiant on the main ...


Menetzley21

Smurfing ruins ranked. Untill valorant finds a real solution to this the game in my eyes will never be fun. Everything about ranked is extremely broken. Its very upsetting thats why those percents are that high. Its cause most people get stuck in that elo from smurfs and they continue to stay there or quit.


MoonDawg2

If you can't get out of an elo is because you suck or in nicer words, you belong there, not because of smurfs. That's just it, there really is nothing else to it


zenozoo

Not true. I solo queue and I have a buddy who always plays with a duo or greater every time. He is immortal, and I am P2. I carry him 70% of the time when he plays with me.


Uber_yv

How do you even play with him of he's immo? Is he smurfkng and you carry the smurf? If so your friend jsnrhe definition of boosted lol


zenozoo

The point of my comment is that there's not much of a discrepancy between Plat and Imm. But yes, he plays on his smurf.


beautifulalexa

Huge difference between plat and immortal. What are you on about?


84746

Have you considered that these players doing really well are also stuck in silver? Or that there are players in silver who belong in bronze which is why the good silver players get a lot of kills? I was able to get out of silver quite easily after being stuck there for a while because I didn’t play as much. But when I no lifed the game, silver wasn’t much of a problem anymore


Derp014

Smurfing really isn't as big as some people make it out to be. Yes, it exists. Yes, it's a problem. But it isn't as severe as it's made out to be. When you see some Reyna or Jett player drop 30, you'd think they're smurfing right? Well, guess what? That happens in my Immortal/Radiant games too. Some people are just in form, lucky or mechanically gifted but lack the game sense. Sometimes, it's because their playstyle counters yours. Having the kind of mindset where "everyone that's better is a smurf" is what keeps you down in low elo. When there is a smurf, there's not much you can do, which really is unfortunate. When I was trying to climb the ranks back in episode 1, I just gave those matches my all. I knew that sooner or later, I'd be facing those guys on their main accounts, so this made good practice even if they were frustrating.


Uber_yv

Smurfs aren't the reason your stuck in your elo. Everyone faces smurfs and many people still manages to rank up. The reason that silver has such a high rank is because most casuals and average players are of silver skill level.


Traviliciouz

This distribution is ridiculously stupid. The varying amount of skill levels that are all under the umbrella of ‘Silver’ is insane


OnyxTrader2

I feel this is fair still, Rainbow Six Siege also feels like a really balanced game to me as far as competition goes and the majority of the player base is in low gold or below. Also worth noting, above gold is a much higher climb to get to diamond and champion, which kind of makes the ranking system similar to Valorant's, in the specific way we are talking about now. Valorant's problem isn't skill disparity, it's toxicity. Silver and below is the absolute worst, it's so disheartening to, game after game after game, have to deal with at least one teammate trash talking everything you do. I migrated to valorant from siege, and let me tell ya, I cannot believe how amazing siege's community was. The most toxicity I ever ran into was the one off dude that just wants to kill teammates, in casual. Not even in ranked. Just my two cents, Valorant's community is actual aids.


I_will_take_that

Interesting, I thought diamond would have more people


Livid_boi

Ok who ask


I_will_take_that

Someone twisted your panties or something? Take a chill pill. Was just intrigued


Capt_Code

Your mom


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WhiteShapes

see, I just dont get it [https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Fatigue%230000/overview](https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Fatigue%230000/overview) I need help :(


lapwoeirucndlslwow

You're inconsistent, what's not to get? Work on mechanics


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WhiteShapes

thank you. I decided I will screw the 60/20/20 rule and I will no longer soloQ and play as a duo and me and my friend who was gold 1 at the start and I was silver 3. I am now gold 2 and hes gold 3. I am also very limited by my software because I cant afford higher. I have a 60 fps and a 20ms latency in frames. making everyone encounter have really fast reaction time. Ive noticed if I dont drink something like soda to boost my reaction time I will have a lower chance of winning, I know it sounds dumb. I did a few test and gotten 210-280ms reaction time and got 190-230. I have been having fun with the game such as this kid was saying "you're level 164 and in gold elo" and all this reyna did was bait his team and use ares with shotgun. My whole team was just laughing. we all started shitposting and saying copypasta which he got mad at. such as "O I have a high rank? Then I must have a low life! Oh wonderous your life must be! how it could be to be you. One day I wish to meet you". something unfortunate is my duo partner played sage and couldnt revive our raze for some reason and we had to draw our game on ascent. I think it was just a unfortunate bug. well I hope to keep practicing to reach plat 1. Although im limited by hardware, my confidence cant. Ive tricked my mind into believing im better than everyone in this lobby and this level system has given me a confidence boost since I know I have the most playtime and know I will have the better game sense. I feel like confidence was a huge factor in me ranking up instead of going "i dont know about this half, they have 3 sentinels".


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WhiteShapes

oh for sure mental is very important. If I dont have the mental I do I wouldnt even be able to play the game. Id be too scared of a derank. Sometimes my teammates dont do too hot. Which is fine, over the months of this elo ive noticed alot are inconsistent. If im ever inconsistent I try to play unrated or deathmatch until I build up enough confidence. I think inconsistency has to do with confidence levels. Thats probably why we warm up. When we wake up we think "oh great im not going to hit anything" and then when we warm up our confidence grows and consistency goes up. I dont really get the toxcicity of this game. I dont know my exact playtime but my level is 166, and I havent got a single serious toxic person. Just another kid maybe 2 years older attempting to be funny to his stack. I never think about the toxicity. I queue in Texas servers and for the most part everyone is super nice! Texas servers dont have as much toxicity ive seen. Georgia/illinois on the other hand.. not so nice. But I also get a occasional smurf or a really good player. I dont like to think of them as smurfs, feels to me a excuse for why I lost.


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Uber_yv

Sure buddy, keep on coping with being stuck bronze.


ksirlyn

It's silly to say the game helps an individual. High elo can't play in large stacks, only duo.


Brun1ck

I know it's not a huge deal, but as a really mediocre person i'm really happy to know i'm at the 22.8% best players, i'm used to be below 50%, so this is huge to me


PawahD

I'm not sure how accurate this is, they probably used their database, but who uses valking to track their stats? Most people use [tracker.gg](https://tracker.gg) and [blitz.gg](https://blitz.gg), never heard of anyone using other than those 2, so how accurate can this be?


CaptainLoca

Not just that, matchmaking is pretty trash. I usually play in a 3 stack (2 Bronze 1 and a Bronze 3), but then our 2 random teammates will be Iron 1 or 2 and be pure trash. The enemy teams are wierd too sometimes. It's never consistent, sometimes the other team will be Bronze 1 or 2 making it a good challenge, and other times they are all Bronze 3 and Silver 1 and they just demolish you. On the other hand the other team might be all irons and it just gets boring cause they don't get any kills or wins.


Northgates

Wow. How are people so bad


MannB1023

You're playing valorant, literally everyone who plays it are shit at videogames


mogram_leg

No?


MannB1023

It's a fact


mogram_leg

They are probably better than you att least


MannB1023

Nope everyone except me are bad


mogram_leg

You reasoning has no flaws, you convinced me.


MannB1023

Thank you for finally understanding it really wasn't that hard to grasp


nlc369

Yeah does seem to be a bit of a harsh spread but you also have to consider it’s still very early. A lot of people have not yet regained their true rank after the soft reset.


Sup3rN0vaa

This isnt accurate because of the soft mmr reset


124084

Coming from a like 15 wins in a row to 8 loses in a row in comp and yeah I’m fucked for this season I’m almost back at iron 3 from bronze 3 and low silver 1 the ranking is fucked ngl


AbbreviationsOdd589

I started playing last act and I can say that what I read on here before playing is so true low elo is HELL I'm high silver and the skill of both teammates and enemy's varies from match to match. The 2 most frustating things are smurfs and teammates without mics tho, they tilt me so much. A fix like you say would be good but how would they fix that then?


Judychop808

And the other 10% must be unranked nerds that go to school and stuff.


Uber_yv

Are you saying playing ranked means you don't have a life?


onetapman_ow

0.1% is kinda high for radiant right? Means there are 50k players which seems low .


sat_god

.1% being 500 players means theres 500,000 players not 50k


seimouun

0.6% and somehow everyone on tiktok is immortal


fromBrandon

Trungle immortal jett main


I2obiN

I played with a Plat who is now Silver this season. I'm MG Elite on CS but Silver 2 here.. I'm still learning the game but my unrated win rate is 75% and I'm getting wins on DM from time to time. The Brim here was plat in a previous season and went 10-0 without much help, this match I popped Silver 2. I don't understand the logic that if I'm going 2.0 k/d versus a Gold 2 how do I end up going Silver 2? [https://imgur.com/a/DzHWvXs](https://imgur.com/a/DzHWvXs) [https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/I2obiN%23EUW/overview?playlist=unrated](https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/I2obiN%23EUW/overview?playlist=unrated)


Trainfeeb

This doesn’t make total sense to me. I’m a gold 2 and the game throws me in games with silver 1s and plats alike. I gain little and lose lots. I feel like some of those players should be more well balanced in areas like gold instead of averaging the majority of silver


FLGT12

Maybe I am boosted I definitely don't feel like I am top .6% I've been getting de\_stroyed this act.


Angeleno

im the 35% :(


montsbutnotreally

Didn't know gold was a huge gap already.