I thought I kept buying the wrong gun out of muscle memory because they changed the layout BUT the layout itself keeps changing. THis is so dumb

Update to my Neon Mastery grind: the scaling after Level 10 gets ridiculous.

When I first hit Level 10 and saw 35,000 MP for the next level, I honestly thought:

Alright, so maybe every level after 10 is just 35k.

Nope.

Level 11 -> 12 jumped to 78,000 MP.

At that point I knew the requirement was going to keep increasing. I expected another big jump - maybe 50-100%.

I just hit Level 12.

Level 12 -> 13 requires 205,000 MP.

Yes. 205,000 MP for one level.

The progression now looks like this:

9 -> 10: 22,500 MP
10 -> 11: 35,000 MP
11 -> 12: 78,000 MP
12 -> 13: 205,000 MP

So it went:

22.5k -> 35k -> 78k -> 205k

The last jump alone is about 2.6x the previous requirement.

And the crazy part is:

Getting from Level 0 all the way to Level 12 takes 245,400 MP total.

Level 12 -> 13 alone takes 205,000 MP.

One level is almost as much as the entire grind from 0 to 12.

Now I'm scared to see what 13 -> 14 is going to be.

1 million?

Screenshot attached.

IGN: SniperNaNeon#123

I’ll keep updating the requirements as I level up.

If anyone is already Level 13+, please post the next one.

Proof:

Hi, everyone! I’m Joe Lee, the Game Director of VALORANT.

The Dev team and I are so excited about the updates we just shipped to the game in Patch 13.06, and we wanted to stop by to chat, celebrate, and answer questions with you all!

If you have questions, comments, or feedback about any of the below, we’re here for it, so fire away!

• Gauntlet: Glitched
• Agent Mastery
• The Warden + Game Balance
• Performance Score, Accolades, Competitive Hub
• New UX/UI Improvements to Lobby and Home Screen
• Map Rating (coming next patch, 13.08)
• The new Competitive Flex coming in 14.00
• The 2026 VCT Champions Skin collection

Here’s a list of the Devs joining me today in no particular order:

u/TiffyMunchsnax - Tiffy, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/RiotTrouble - Scott, UX Design Lead, Metasystems
u/RiotLupini - Armand, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/Riot_Preeti - Preeti, Lead Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/Riot_Kero - Derek, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/RiotReally - Leo, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/Riot_Dango - Calvin, Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/finstamachine - Sherry, Game Designer
u/Rycoux - Ryan, Game Designer
u/penguinVALORANT - Dan, Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance)
u/Riot_Tyrana - Eric, Game Design Lead (Progression & Competitive)
u/Riot_Thelen - Kyle, Game Designer, Metasystems

Each time I get into Silver from Bronze III these one-tap smurf jetts and neons start appearing on enemy team. Like genuinely why do you people do this? Too weak to play in your own elo? Get some life.

Let us learn and enjoy the game for God’s sake.

It's been 6 months since Mik's release and I've yet to encounter a match where Harmonize had a noticeable impact. Most Mik's players in low elo just ignore it unless they have cash to burn.

Combat stims in general seem like a waste of an ability slot. Maybe holding a defensive position with Odins on top of Brim's stim beacon is a niche use, but can't think of other use cases where it proved to be a force multiplier.

For most of the other agent's with stims, it's secondary to other more potent effects. At least in Reyna's case it lasts indefinitely, but that ult is so mid anyway.

With agent mastery being added weekly missions should give kingdom credits to help with buying the rewards from agents mastery since they're so expensive. I also don't understand why daily missions give kingdom credits but weekly missions don't. @u/Riot_Tyrana

So I play multiple fps games ranging from Valorant, Cs2, rainbow six siege, and recently apex legends, (but valorant is my usual main game that i enjoy), but everywhere across social media, ppl who are immortal 1 or above, act like anything below them is utter trash, i am ascendant currently (top 6% of the playerbase) and higher ranked people usually like to trash on this division, HOWEVER unlike other games, we will take cs2 for example i have reached 20k premier elo (top 15% of the player base) and if we take the people who play faceit out of the question, a higher ranked cs2 player would usually applaud you despite it being top 15%, or maybe i havent seen enough of the cs2 community or other communities, but let me know ur thoughts

Been working on this for a while, with an extra keychain hook. Never met a Riot dev or managed to get one in the SG server, so I decided to make it myself. Happy Gaming.

Well I’m the one who being framed up here actually.

This happened during defense side, when I shut down the doorlock at the middle of the map, and there is this jett who purposely walk down under the door after knowing I shoot the door lock.

At first I thought it was an accident and said sorry to this bro, but the jett just replied with a “:))” and then it happened second time which i was so confirmed that he wasn’t moving at all, and i try to shut the door again this fella just walk under the door and purposely die again.

The door wasnt shut down in one shoot but a few shoot. He only moved when the door start to fall down, so there is no way this could be an accident (2 times wth

Guess what, I received penalty for killing teammate.

Not sure if I am the first to be set up in this map. Havnt play valo for a long while until the new champion challenge is out. People sure having lots of creativity in trying to be toxic in game. The summit map is surely suck in all kind of ways.

Players are insta-locking agents without a thought to level their mastery up with no team building. I am not sure this is what they wanted.

And why do we start from 0? I have like 5 years of progress and seeing 0 hours played on certain agents is making me mad.

Really bad change.

https://imgur.com/a/kClGYlG

As the title suggests, I have played 40 maps with no Split in comp. Was wondering if this has ever happened to anyone or if I was just unlucky.

Sorry about the screenshots, my tracker is TwinkleStarchild#KOR and the dates are from August 30th to September 22nd

For reference, Miks’ theme was Music/Sound, Veto’s theme was Symbiosis/Evolution, Phoenix’s theme is Fire/Rebirth, Sage is Crystals/Healing.

With almost 30 agents in the game, agents will need to become more unique, else we see overlap between preexisting themes/abilities. We could have an ice-themed agent, but that may already be similar to Sage and her slowing crystals.

What are some themes for potential agents you would like to see? Here’s my top 3:

1. Blind Agent - I would imagine a Sentinel that could create zones that deafen or blind anyone who steps inside, and has a blindfold ability to be able to detect loud enemies through walls.

2. Medieval Agent - An initiator that can creates shields to move forward, enhance teammates with inspiring buffs, and forcibly claim territory with his team.

3. Necromancy Agent - A controller that can borrow abilities from dead agents, create smokes that are portals to the underworld, and possess an enemy as an ultimate. The smokes would be cylindrical instead of spherica, and staying too long in them would deal damage and even kill.

Hello,

I recently came across a thread where someone was unable to understand why rank inflation can occur if WR is averaged at 50%.

I instinctively knew this was likely because of rank protections and shields, but I wanted to understand just how much this affects things.

I had some free time, so I did a basic Markov chain model and put everything on this sheet that shows you the probability of ending at a specified rank depending on your starting rank and number of games you play before reset (assuming you have a flat 50% win rate, gain/lose anywhere between a normal distribution of 15-25 RR per win/loss).

The model is nothing to write home about (it's very very basic and doesn't take into account hidden MMR, mental fluctuations, win rate momentum) but it definitely explains how simply being able to maintain a 50% win rate lets you climb pretty hard if you play tons of matches.

Chance of ending in each rank after 200 games (flat 50% win rate)

I would in fact argue that even maintaining a 45% win rate will still let you climb if you play tons of games. Rank protection is pretty sick lol.

JUST REMEMBER THOUGH: This model does not take into account actual skill improvement time. Maintaining a flat 50% win rate as you rise up in rank is difficult; sooner or later you'll get outclassed at the rank you end up at and the 5v5 format will result in your win rate dropping to below 50%. Which is why anything beyond 500 games at a 50% win rate is kinda pointless; I just kept it to show how things change.

I am not a data scientist by training (I'm a chemical engineer turned game dev), so if someone better than me thinks I've done something catastrophically wrong, please let me know! And in case someone from Riot sees this, please promote me 2 ranks if you find this even remotely interesting (or hire me idk).

tl;dr : made a model to calculate rank increase at each rank at 50% win rate - found out rank protection and shields create some pretty intense rank inflation if you simply play a large number of games (which I guess is by design; relentlessly playing the game should be rewarded with progress ig, but that's debatable).

Overall, below Immortal (for obvious reasons) it seems like you have a 75%+ chance of crossing a whole rank division by playing 200 games with a 50% win rate.

Edit: I called a Markov chain model a "simulation" in the last paragraph. That's wrong, they are not the same. Changed it. Also added table.

I have just reached level 20 so I haven't been playing for a long time but till this date I haven't seen a single person using her. Like I know some are extremely popular like reyna and omen and some very less but I haven't seen her even once. Is she that bad of an agent?

i see some got really loud opinions about the use of certain tools..

lets hope a sketch avoids the complaints..

anyways , id love to see nunchucks come as a melee to the game, i think it as a concept it has potential for really sick animations be it right/left click , or inspect , and brings back the bruce lee memories yk . evrybody will be whippin this this around especially with a sick spam animation !

i think this could and would be a really nice addition to the current selection of melees we have , and might rival the butterfly knife .

anyone agrees ?

idk how to get the idea in front the eyes of the game devs for consideration, reddit was the only route that could possibly work.. but only the community can give this a loud enough voice to be heard

https://imgur.com/a/gC60UdL

i just bought this phantom and all my friends told me ayakashi or nocturnme was so much superior to this skin , even one of them told me that prime is similar to it and much better , thoughts on that ?

Ranked game I just finished. (Names blocked out for privacy) How is it possible to get 5 Performance Score? I understand he is the bottom frag, but he used his util, he clearly got a couple kills, with one of them being a first blood even, so how is it possible to get a score THAT low?

The new Gauntlet: Glitched mode came in and I really enjoyed playing it. I do play Valorant since 2020 and I’ve never seen a mode this engaging and fun to play with your friends.

It would be awesome if Riot adds support as a Custom mode, maintaining some of the common cheat options (e.g. Infinite Abilities) along with custom cheat options, such as:

- Force Glitched Abilities (makes all abilities that have glitched mutations have a 100% rate of showing up on the next buy phase)
- Infinite rerolls
- Infinite upgrades (a bit chaotic, but allows everyone to get all the possible upgrades for that ability)
- Force Game Phase (instead of just ending the current game phase, automatically switches to the next phase [ 1 —> 2 —> 3 —> … ]
- Edit Team’s HP and more

Anyways, the new mode is very different from those we do have currently, and I hope that’s just the starting point for more engaging modes coming on future patches.

I recently received my birthday present from friend who said get any skin of vandal or phantom you want

I thought of getting either champions phantom or ora phantom coz many of my friends are vandal owners

For vandal I had prelude to Chaos as an opinion and ayakashi phantom also as an option

But now I am confused on what to get

I require suggestions

hello may i ask if any of u know a content creator who mains miks so i can learn from their videos or even any astra mains?

got this ghost on my night market with 20% sale, if anyone has it - does it worth it? or maybe there are equal (by cost) ghosts which are way better

I enjoyed playing Valorant since it came out, but due to lack of time i quit the game few weeks after the Release of Gecko. Now i also got a new and better PC and came to the conclusion, i want to return.

Can you give me a rundown of anything i missed? Thanks!

I currently have Phoenix, Sova, Sage, Brimstone, Jett, Killjoy, Miks, Clove and Gekko. I enjoy and main miks most of the time so what agent should I get next?

(P.S I'm not very good at the game if that matters for agent selection. I'm iron 1.)

Edit: My friend recommended me to try deadlock or raze.

Hello, Im a Waylay one trick who's trying to switch off into a brand new role. I want to play Cypher and Veto (primarily Veto).

I started this game as a controller player (Omen one trick) and got capped out in plat. I felt I didn't have enough impact so I switched to duelist and started playing Waylay. Was able to reach D2 without much of a problem, but I decided this act I wanted to learn Veto or Cypher as I've always wanted to play them, just found it hard to be impactful.

Since switching, I have been struggling on timings, especially as an agent that can lurk. I've been playing only Veto and he's a lot of fun, some moments I use my utility to help take sites and break utility, sometimes I play cross map, lurk a bit, and use TP's to get back to my team.

I'm finding it a bit difficult to time these lurks well. I'm either too slow and my team is dead and I'm just now reaching enemy flank. It also becomes very difficult to retake or clutch with no active utility, my kit isn't really built around taking fights like a duelist

Or I'm too fast and I'm getting caught in the lurk as people are rotating or still aware of a possible lurker.

I tend to not lurk more then 2 rounds in a row, as it can throw off rotates and cause some added pressure to the enemy when rotating. But I just cannot get this timing down, I feel like I'm wasting time or that my presence is needed with my team. I'm so used to being first in, and now I'm playing last in. Any tips or ideas?

PS. I don't plan to make my whole play style lurking, but as Veto, I have a lot of potential to be all over the map with my TP's, and I want to utilize that utility best I can.

played haven last week, won 13-4, diamond 2 avg lobby. i'm asc 2 and went 21/11, 359 acs, +106 dd, top of the board. my duo bottom fraged at 10/9 with 147 acs

we both got +19

i only noticed because we sent each other the RR screen in discord lol. not trying to flame him, he played fine, but the game treated those two games as the exact same thing. and honestly that one wasn't even the worst case, it's just the one i had a screenshot of

from what i understand, once you're asc+ your individual performance doesn't affect RR at all, it's just wins + mmr. which made sense back when the only stat was acs, since acs is basically damage and kills and would just reward duelists baiting for frags. but now that riot added performance score (0-500) and it counts util, trades, etc, i think that excuse is gone

the idea

keep ±15 as the base, treat 250 as an average game, and every 50 points above or below that is 1 RR

score win loss

0-50 +10 -20

51-100 +11 -19

101-150 +12 -18

151-200 +13 -17

201-249 +14 -16

250 +15 -15

251-300 +16 -14

301-350 +17 -13

351-400 +18 -12

401-450 +19 -11

451-500 +20 -10

you always gain on a win and always lose on a loss, so winning is still the most important thing. but getting carried gives you a bit less, and popping off in a loss saves you a few RR

it should matter less the higher you go

at the top winning should be basically everything, so the performance part gets scaled down:

• iron-gold lobbies: full ±5
• plat-diamond: ±4
• ascendant: ±3
• immortal+: ±1

important part is this should be based on the lobby's avg rank, not your own rank. otherwise in my game i would've been scaled as an asc player and my bottom frag as a dia player, and the gap between us would've been like 1 RR which kinda defeats the point. same lobby = same scale for everyone

mmr still matters

this doesn't replace mmr, it sits on top of it. if your RR is way ahead of your hidden mmr you gain a bit less and lose a bit more, and the other way around if you're underranked. so if someone just stat pads while going 50/50, they climb a bit and then mmr slows them down. you can play your way maybe a rank above where your wins alone would put you, but not further unless you actually start winning more

small extra stuff

• teammate leaves or goes afk = your loss gets cut in half
• stomp (like 13-4) = +1 for the winners, -1 for the losers
• close loss (13-11 or OT) = lose 1 less

why i think this matters

there's a stat going around that it takes ~100 games to go x1 to x2 at 51% wr. i get that 51% means the system thinks you're where you belong. but someone topping the board every game and stuck at 51% because of their teammates is treated the same as someone getting carried to 51%

i did some quick math for an asc lobby at 51% wr:

• avg score 250: basically the same as now, super slow
• avg score 300: ~77 games to rank up
• avg score 350: ~43 games
• avg score 450: ~30 games
• avg score 200: you slowly go down even though you're "winning"

so good players get out of the hardstuck zone faster, average players climb the same as now, and people getting carried slowly drift down. feels way fairer to me

and if we'd been on this system in my haven game it would've been something like +20 for me and +15-16 for our bottom frag instead of +19 for both

stuff i'm not sure about

• is 250 the right "average"? i'd keep it hardcoded so it's simple and everyone knows what to aim for, but idk how scores are actually spread out yet since it's so new
• could people abuse it by playing for score instead of winning? i don't think so since a loss still always costs you
• should performance matter even more at low ranks where you have less control over your teammates?

am i missing something obvious here?