Finally standing up against account boosting and account buying-might be just the nightmare Valorant was going through- Riot Games will now impose a lifetime ban for any purchased account which will be flagged or detected for boosting from patch 11.09. No warning, no second chance, only a hard hammer blow.
Honestly, I think the time has come for that.
The official Valorant Twitter account blasted this bombshell announcement causing the neighboring gaming communities to go berserk at once. There were some who cheered in awe while others suddenly must start sweating bullets.
What does this mean for the average Valorant player? Nothing for the players who can swear clean this whole time. Players that have been paying cracked players to boost them or really have been purchasing boosted accounts ought to start saying good-bye to those accounts.
The response to the announcement somewhat paints the entire story through reactions. One player, F4lse, threw the all-important question of if that means flows washing back into bronze and silver ranks without smurfs everywhere. That would actually be the pain point – legitimate players unfortunate enough to be in lower ranks fighting toe-to-toe against those who truly belong somewhere else.
Not everybody is confident that Riot will pull this one off. More or less max doubted: “they always say this and can’t detect shit.” I would say: “fair point,” for most game companies have made similar promises before with varying degrees of success. The real test, however, would be whether or not Riot’s detection system can distinguish between someone who has truly improved and someone whose rank is bought.
How are they even gonna know what’s a purchased account? KyuuM asks the million-dollar question that’s Snapchatting across everyone’s mind: “How the system can identify an account purchased??” So what sort of metrics are we looking at? Do changes in IP addresses figure in? Sudden jump in player skills? Inconsistencies in play patterns?
Grok AI showed up in the replies to clarify and describe that boosting is paying someone skilled to play your account to boost your rank, while purchased accounts are those accounts mostly bought from others pre-leveled or ranked. Both are against the Terms of Service, and both are getting banned mercilessly.
Some players are counting their blessings already. User effoffex claims their account got banned “just for being inactive for 4 years,” which-if true-is a little messed up Riot. For once I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry because, on the other hand, user ry is worried about getting banned “for being so inconsistent,” which is honestly a mood.
The international Valorant community is responding, with responses in Portuguese, Italian, and who-knows-what else. A Brazilian player literally said, “vao banir o fredzx acabou pro beta,” which roughly translates to, “Fredzx is about to get banned, and it’s over for the beta player.” So apparently, the struggle is real across continents and from sea to sea.
What interests me more is how this relates to the greater smurfing issue that has plagued Valorant for ages. Luii, a Mexican user, expressed what many of us feel on the matter: “Every game I’ve played this past few days have not felt real.” Constantly being put against players who are way above your skill level but sitting in your very rank kills all joy from the experience.
In fact, the timing of this announcement is quite interesting. Valorant’s competitive stage has been skyrocketing, and ranking players to look up to is key to that. If people don’t believe ranks mean anything, they will not put in much effort to intelligent climbing.
Moving on to economics. Aarya pointed out how “Many gamers earns from this thing,” referring to account selling and boosting services. So there is a thriving underground economy around this issue. But just because clandestine revenues stem from these activities doesn’t make it good for the health of the game.
This is a fight Riot has seen them wage across all their titles for years. League of Legends has had analogous problems with boosting and account sharing. They’ve gotten a lot better at detection, and hopefully, such an experience will be translated into Valorant.
Are the bans then coming in full force? Will we see permabans at the start, or will others be warned first? The tweet does say “bans,” so this implies at least some measure of permanence; however, patch notes shall be the actual teller on it.
Jokes are already flying around. Nicco from Italy tagged a friend, saying: “arriva la resa dei conti” – “the reckoning is coming.” The realist Max B. Torquato just asked another question: “Am I dreaming?” We all seriously have been waiting for this day.
Account detection algorithms get really sophisticated lately. They track hardware IDs, IP patterns, mouse movement analytics, etc. It’s not just about someone suddenly starting to play better. They can technically say whether it is the same guy behind that keyboard or not.
If what is being said is true, then maybe it is possible for this ranked mode to actually be playable for the average player. Thus, not being smashed by a Radiant player who decides to smurf around in Gold anymore. No more unbalanced teams where one player is clearly not belonging in that rank. Real pure competitive matches with everyone standing good about the same level.
Of course, there will always be false positives. That is just a price you pay with any automated system. For now, one hopes Riot has set their appeal process very well for anyone caught mistakenly in this crossroads. The last thing anyone would want to become stripped of their own account due to either having a really good week or something very alike.
Community response remains highly positive. luis said, “finally a good update.” This other user simply said, “only took four years!” which… yeah, deservedly so. Valorant has been out for a while now, and the problem has existed since day one.
With Patch 11.09 coming into force, it’s interesting to watch how this will play out. Will there be mass bans? Will the ranked experience really change? Only time will tell, but for now, most of the community is just glad Riot has stepped forward and taken it seriously.
Maybe we might finally play the game without wondering whether that Jett who eradicated our entire team is a Bronze player or just a smurf. Let’s hope.
