VALORANT senior competitive designer Jonathan “EvrMoar” Walker responded on Twitter to public outrage over the dramatically lower placements in ranked during Episode 4.
Episode 4 of VALORANT was released on Jan. 11 with a hard reset to all competitive ranks, which left some players confused and frustrated. Many players reported placing multiple divisions lower than they finished Episode 3 in, including high-level diamond and platinum players ending up in divisions as low as silver.
“I’m seeing lots of threads on the Episode 4 Rank Reset,” EvrMoar on Twitter said. “Yes, every episode will drop your rank because we do a ranked squish. Every Episode is competitively different then [sic] the Episode prior. We expect you to prove your skill, especially as the community evolves and gets better.”
Additionally, a thread popped up on Reddit full of players venting their frustrations with the new Episode titled, “Riots placement for this season makes me not want to queue up for ranked.”
VALORANT continues to adjust ranks
As Acts and Episodes evolve for VALORANT, so too has the competitive ecosystem. This is not the first time VALROANT has hard reset ranks. This happened with Episodes 2 and 3, too. However, the number of Immortal players allowed in the game has shifted somewhat as VALORANT gained more players. VALORANT has gone from having tiers of Immortal players to one rank, like Radiant is, with a leaderboard system.
I'm seeing lots of threads on the Episode 4 Rank Reset. Yes, every episode will drop your rank because we do a ranked squish.
Every Episode is competitively different then the Episode prior. We expect you to prove your skill, especially as the community evolves and gets better.
— EvrMoar (@RiotEvrMoar) January 12, 2022
“It can be extremely frustrating, I understand,” EvrMoar said. “But if you truly belong at a certain skill level you will get there. Just because you got Gold/Plat/Immortal/etc. doesn’t mean you can’t do it again. And if you can’t get back to that rank, do you deserve it in the current season?”
As a reminder, each time the ranks reset in a new Episode, the highest any player can place is diamond. This means many ranks get squished, especially with Immortal and Radiant players taking up most of the slots until they can climb back to their previous ranks. Though it may take time, the ranks will even out eventually.
