Riot Urges Valorant Players to Use the In-Game Tools to Report Cheaters
In a recent blog post, Riot has issued a statement urging their players to use the reporting tools in Valorant more, in order to help them clear the game of cheaters. Although the Vanguard anti-cheating system is reportedly doing a good job at detecting cheaters, there are several reasons why player reporting is still useful.
The Current State of Cheating in Valorant
According to Valorant’s Anti-Cheat Lead, Paul “Arkem” Chamberlain, player reports are; “One of the most powerful tools in the fight against cheaters”. One reason for this is that Vanguard reportedly uses player reports as a way to gauge which players it should focus on, which helps the system to ban players more rapidly, and without a need for manual review. When it does come to manual review, player reports are also a useful tool, especially for one particular reason; they help Riot to learn about cheats which Vanguard doesn’t yet know to detect.
Given the attention which Riot’s Vanguard system got at the game’s launch, it’s possible that some players may think that they don’t need to file manual reports; one reason why Riot may have felt the need to issue this statement. However, the blog post goes on to reveal some figures which, overall, paint the current state of Valorant cheating in a fairly positive light.
According to Chamberlain, around 97% of the Valorant player-base has never received a single report. Furthermore, of the remaining 3%, many players are innocent. Indeed, 80% of the players in that 3% have only been reported by a single person. Overall, just 0.3% of Valorant players have received more three or more cheating reports. Even this isn’t a totally accurate method of weeding out cheaters, however.
After manual review, around 40% of players with more than 20 reports to their name are actually found innocent! As such, the number of active cheaters in Valorant does appear to be a very small figure. However, as Chamberlain says; “Even without a perfect correlation, reports are extremely helpful. […] It’s really important that players use the in-game reporting tools everytime they see something suspicious. It’s the best way to help us keep the game fair!”