Valorant’s closed beta hasn’t been out for long but cheaters have already found a way of exploiting the game and ruining the experience for others. The Riot Games team promised to take swift action on hackers when they originally announced the game last year and it seems like they’re delivering on that promise.
According to a tweet from Phillip Koskinas, one of Riot’s anti-cheat data engineers, more than 8,500 cheaters have already been hit by the company’s ban hammer. “Located a Valorant universe where there were 8,873 less cheaters and moved us all into it, please be careful as your bones may’ve shifted during dimensional travel,” he says on Twitter.
However, in a recent blog post, Paul ‘Arkem’ Chamberlain, Valorant’s anti-cheat lead, says the numbers of players banned are of “secondary importance” to Riot. While it’s great that thousands of players have been caught cheating and dealt with, Arkhem says Riot measures its success based on feedback from the playerbase. The company tracks the number of player reports for cheating, as well as asks for feedback online.
While many players are happy that cheaters are being dealt with online, some are still unhappy with Vanguard, the game’s anti-cheat software. The program, which boots on launch, is meant to stop cheaters in their tracks, but in recent weeks it’s also been to blame for many a problem ranging from FPS drops to driver issues.
This is something that Riot has been focusing on over the last few weeks. The company promised Vanguard doesn’t collect data and it recently gave players more control over it, but some still believe the program is too intrusive and needs to be refined.