Valorant Patch 2.01 attempts to crack down on leavers
Players leaving and going AFK is a never-ending problem in online team-based games like Valorant. Whether a player gets upset and rage quits, loses internet connection, or has to go do something else, it ruins the game for the rest of that player’s team.
AFKers and leavers have felt relatively safe in Valorant, with little punishment for their actions. In Patch 2.01, Riot is adding additional punishments to help stop this kind of behavior.
Leaving Valorant games after Patch 2.01 will result in more restrictions
Leaving or AFKing out of a game right now will result in a loss and a small queue restriction for repeat offenders. This doesn’t give players much incentive to stick out rough games where they think they will lose anyway. These players just go AFK instead, because they know they won’t be punished.
With the introduction of Valorant Patch 2.01, players will receive additional queue restrictions for leaving games. Riot states, “We want to make sure that folks having connectivity issues aren’t harshly penalized, but those who are purposefully AFK-ing receive harsher penalties.”
It looks like there will be “AFK forgiveness” for players who leave for a few rounds. Players who continuously leave games or leave for more than the acceptable amount of rounds will receive more penalties. Right now it seems like these penalties will all be in the form of a queue time restriction.
Didn’t think we’d patch again so soon?
Patch 2.01 is here with adjusted AFK restrictions, light Jett touches, and a major changes to Split. Read all about it: https://t.co/MZDD7pIMfT pic.twitter.com/ViGDFVKuNG
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) January 20, 2021
Riot hasn’t specified the exact amount of rounds players can leave before getting a penalty. They also haven’t specified what the exact penalties will be. This is likely, because they don’t want players to feel like it’s okay to leave ever unless they have a connectivity issue.
Hopefully, these new measures will help ensure players are staying in games. The harsher queue restriction penalties introduced in Valorant Patch 2.01 should at least help prevent players who want to play from leaving games.
