How Multiplayer Games Like Valorant Could Improve Matchmaking

By Bee Wertheimer | August 22, 2025 | 10:30am

Video Games Features Valorant

How Multiplayer Games Like Valorant Could Improve Matchmaking

If there’s one basic human concept I understand in this world, it’s that when you learn a new skill, you get better at it over time. So why, after sinking over 800 hours into Valorant, am I stuck in the second-worst rank in the game?

It wasn’t always this way. I peaked at Gold 1, and have been consistently ranking Silver since last act. Did I suddenly get worse? Did everybody else get better? Am I being matched with terrible teammates?

In Valorant, your rank is mainly determined by whether your team wins or loses, rather than your individual performance. So if you’re playing well but your team doesn’t win, you’re gonna lose Rank Rating (RR), and vice versa. The exact amount of RR you gain or lose after a game is determined by, in order: match outcome, how much you win/lose by, individual performance, and rank convergence. That last one has to do with a hidden stat called Matchmaking Rating (MMR), which is used to even out discrepancies between what Valorant perceives your rank should be and your actual rank. But for the most part, if you win, you get promoted, and if you lose, you’re demoted.

My immediate instinct is to accuse the matchmaking system for my embarrassing act rank. According to my stats on Tracker.gg, my damage per round, kill/death ratio, and headshot % were all significantly higher in Act 4 than in Act 3, yet I fell from the respectable Silver 3 all the way down to B3. How could this happen to me?

It’s possible that I played worse in Silver because I was matched against higher ranked players on average. But if that’s the case, why wasn’t I able to win consistently enough to get back into those Silver lobbies in Act 4?

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If you ask a nerd how to get better at Valorant, they’ll tell you to learn how to in-game lead (IGL). This advice makes sense; Valorant is a team-based competitive shooter where ranking depends on your entire team’s performance. However, IGL-ing becomes tricky when you have a marginalized gender identity.

Over the past five years playing Valorant, my first and only competitive shooter, I have endured the worst sexual harassment and degradation of my entire life. In her fantastic article about quitting competitive gaming, Alyssa Mercante writes, “I think, subconsciously, I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to be good at competitive games as a way to undeniably prove that I deserve to be in this space, that I’m just as much of a ‘gamer’ as the men screaming slurs at me.” Whenever I enter a match, I wait for my teammates to talk first and suss out whether I feel safe enough to speak based on their energy. Because of this, more often than not I talk very little, or not at all.

The problem is, Valorant cannot preemptively ban bigoted freaks. Riot has no way to predict who among us has a tarpit for a soul—somebody must be hurt before the offender can get banned, and sometimes that somebody is you.

But is that really the case? Is Valorant, a game made in 2020 that clearly makes an effort toward inclusivity at the very least through its aesthetics, completely innocent in the harassment its gender-marginalized players face? Could Riot have designed a competitive game that encourages positive interaction between players?

In Every Game Has the Community It Deserves, Rhys Frampton points out that, much like in Valorant, Overwatch 2’s five-player team structure puts intense pressure on each team member’s performance—as opposed to a game like Team Fortress 2, where 12-member teams makes it difficult to single out any one player. Frampton writes, “If game designers are to have any success combating toxicity, we must acknowledge that our own design choices are often the underlying systemic cause, and that it is our responsibility to change them.”

In a game that depends so much on a team’s performance as a cohesive unit, a matchmaking system based solely on skill is a massive waste of potential. Imagine how much better an experience the average competitive match would be if factors like player personality type and play style were taken into consideration during the queue; even if you lost, you were way more likely to have tolerated or even liked your teammates.

Reddit user EjnarH, a psychological specialist working in game design, made an incredible post detailing their concept for a harmonious team-based game. Their proposal includes a commendation system that allows players to praise each others’ behavior. This design incentivizes players to build good reputations, so that the paralyzing need to prove oneself every single match is negated by previous endorsements. Another great feature is information about mutual friends and interactions. This is the example they provide: “Legolas934 (also friends with Alex. Has received commendations from 8 people you gave commendations.)”

In a game with this matchmaking system, I wouldn’t have to wait for nebulous cues from my teammates to determine if they’re going to treat me like a human being. A positive reputation would give me the courage to speak in-game without fear of retaliation, because even if I made a bad call, at least my team would know I have good intentions. And how else are you supposed to get better at something, if you aren’t permitted to make mistakes and grow from them?

I’ve had significantly fewer incidents in Valorant lately; fortunately, it seems Riot has been good about taking action regarding ban requests. Or maybe I’m getting better at speaking only when spoken to.

I started playing Valorant because it was the only game in its genre that allowed me to play as non-sexualized female characters. Counter-Strike: GO collected dust in my Steam library for years due to its hypermasculine, militaristic aesthetics, but Valorant has opened up the first-person shooter genre to more gender-marginalized players like me. To further encourage diversity in games, designers must explore and invent systems that promote kindness and sportsmanship over toxicity in competitive spaces.