What's the AFK rating in Valorant? Riot is now tracking leavers

Fariha Bhatti Published 16/12/2021

Valorant AFK players and leavers, beware! Riot Games is been using trackers to single out “serial leavers.”

Like every other online first-person shooting game, Valorant has a good chunk of trolls who like to grieve by going away from the keyboard in the middle of high-stake games. It turns out that Riot Games has been using special tools and features to track and record this behavior, which has significantly reduced the problem.

“If a player rage quits every other game, they’ll quickly find themselves going from receiving a warning to XP denials, to queue restrictions, and eventually banned from playing the game as their rating tanks,” the developer said in a new blog p ost.

In a new series of blog posts that will tackle various integrity issues, Riot Games clarified that a strict system to detect leavers was already in place. Consequently, the game has significantly decreased AFK players, ultimately improving the ranked experience. The developer has been using “trackers” and “AFK rating” in Valorant to kick out the offenders.

What’s AFK rating in Valorant?

The developer has created an AFK rating for each player that tracks the player’s AFK behavior across all of their games played. The more a player goes AFK mid-game, the lower their rating becomes, and the harsher their punishment will be for future violations.

This rating is detected through trackers installed in Valorant’s new system. This tracker doesn’t single out a player unless there are “clear signals” of malicious behavior. For example, occasional leavers who might drop out of the game due to bad internet connections and other reasons will still have a decent AFK rating in Valorant. By contrast, serial leavers will suffer a worse fate. The tracker counts poor ratings, which will trigger the developer’s punishments.

In current patches, Riot Games is zooming in on AFK players who intentionally do not participate but still remain “active” in the game to avoid being disconnected. These are often the worst to deal with as they consciously look to ruin the experience of everyone in the game, especially their teammates. Fortunately, the new tracker works to detect his behavior, helping Valorant developers craft suitable punishments.

Considering Riot’s attitude towards AFK penalties, it’s safe to say that players should stop making light of leaving ranked games. It’s a severe offense in Valorant as it impacts in-game integrity by forcing an unfair and imbalanced competition upon the remaining players.

And now, Riot’s going to punish those who engage in it.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

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