Valorant players slam Riot for not supporting Rated Solo Queue

Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau, Lucas ‘Mendo’ Håkansson, Daniel ‘dafran’ Francesca, and more have criticized Riot’s approach to Valorant ranked queues, saying solo queue is needed for “a truly fair competitive experience.”

Valorant’s Rated mode has come under scrutiny from players for not being truly competitive. While players have the chance to grind to the top of the leaderboards, the system is heavily skewed towards premades without a dedicated solo queue.

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In a May 13 blog post, Product Manager Ian Fielding said Riot weren’t looking at adding a solo queue  similar to League of Legends. They want the focus to be on teamplay, and not making solo queue “the definitive test of someone’s skills.”

“It’s important to us that competitive matchmaking in VALORANT is focused on teamplay, because we believe that playing as a team is a major component in your overall mastery of the game,” he said.

• Read more: Valorant bans could extend to other Riot titles in the future

“We also think it’s valuable for players to search for good teammates now for competitive play, so when higher-stakes competition becomes available, they already have teammates they can rely on.”

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However, the decision has been widely criticized by players. The community, especially pro players, want to see Riot implement Rated Solo Queue to improve the high-elo competitive experience.

“Solo queue is imperative for a truly fair competitive experience, especially at the highest ranks when matched against a full 5-stack of players,” said Slasher.

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Some players, like Dafran, also drew hypotheticals based on other games.

“Imagine if Astralis was as good at Valorant as they are in CS:GO and they 5 stack,” he said. “There will not be enough players in the highest rank, so your system will put 5 soloqs against Astralis.”

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Others, like Mendo, have said they will flat out ignore Valorant Rated without solo queue in place.

• Read more: Valorant announces more severe punishments for AFK players

“Unfortunately it seems like ranked will continue to put solo queue players against 5-stacks and that it is an intended feature,” said Mendo, before promoting his 10-man system.

It’s still early on in the Valorant beta, with the game having been open for a month.

Riot could backflip on their decision based on community opinion, but for now, it looks like solo queuing in Rated is going to be tough for the time being.