Riot dispels myths about Valorant key drops, cracks down on sellers

gabhernandez Published 08/04/2020

Today, Riot Games released a blog post discussing the launch of Valorant’s closed beta, and what the company has learned from day one.

The closed beta period has begun for Riot’s new shooter, and everyone is itching to get their hands on the game. To get into the beta, players need to follow three simple steps:

1. Sign up for a Riot account
2. Link that account with a Twitch account
3. Watch Valorant streams on Twitch with “drops enabled” under the title of the stream

That said, there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation circulating regarding how keys are distributed and different approaches fans have taken regarding how to increase their chances of a drop. Riot’s blog post honed in on these, and gave fans greater clarity on how the Valorant beta drop system works.

Key seekers must pass a threshold of roughly two hours watched of Valorant streams. After that threshold is passed, fans are eligible for a key drop. The drops are random, but weighted towards people who have watched more hours of streams. Opening multiple streams in different tabs will not increase drop rates or accelerate the watch time.

Riot cracking down on Valorant account sellers, viewbots

Several other points were discussed in the post.

Valorant staff are looking out for account sellers, and are looking to ban those accounts before the game launches. Viewbotting is also a problem, but filters have been implemented to allow Twitch and Valorant to distinguish between who is a bot and who is a person.

Because Valorant’s key distribution is actually based on total stream watch time, fans may wake up to a drop in their inbox. Drops are happening even when viewers are not actively watching streams, so fans that have passed the threshold can receive drops even when they have Twitch closed.

It should be noted that getting a key is still based on luck, and watching streams all day will not guarantee a key. Fans are encouraged to take breaks and the fact that keys can drop while away from the screen should give those desperate for a key pause when it comes to marathoning Twitch.

There is still no word on a release date for Valorant’s full release.

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