Toxicity in VALORANT chat continues to be an ongoing issue for the popular FPS game.
Riot Games will continue to work on toxicity issues in VALORANT chat after recent findings revealed that it was still an ongoing issue with little progress.
Lots of effort with little progress
VALORANT producers released a blog post on Feb. 10 outlining their recent findings surrounding toxicity in VALORANT chat. The biggest takeaway was that there was a lot more work to do.
“When we surveyed players, we noticed that the frequency with which players encounter harassment in our game has not meaningfully gone down,” The blog post stated. “Long story short, we know that the work we’ve done up to now is, at best, foundational, and there’s a ton more to build on top of it in 2022 and beyond.”
In January, VALORANT attempted to make meaningful changes to toxicity in VALORANT chat when they banned over 40,000 players and administered 400,000 reports.
These bans ranged from short bans to permanent bans for really bad behavior detected in VALORANT chat.
However, it appears that these changes have not made any meaningful impacts on the constant issues of harassment in-game.
How Riot plans to fix VALORANT chat
Riot Games plans to implement harsher punishments moving forward as producers become more comfortable with detecting punishments.
There will also be “zero tolerance” words that will be filtered in-game to immediately punish players, such as violent threats towards other players.
A Regional Test Pilot Program will also be created for each region. VALORANT aims to improve VALORANT chat abuse and detect issues faster moving forward. This new reporting system will be known as ALARMBOT.
Through this entire process, VALORANT will look to be transparent about their progress regarding voice moderation and toxicity in the middle of the year.
Closing remarks from Riot Games
Riot updated their Terms and Service so that voice communication evaluation was possible.
Towards the end of the blog, Riot Games made one final call to action to ask for help from the community in tackling issues around toxicity in VALORANT chat while also providing updates on voice.
“Deterring and punishing toxic behavior in voice is a combined effort that includes Riot as a whole. We are very much invested in making this a more enjoyable experience for everyone. “The only thing we’d ask is that you stay engaged with the systems we have in place.”
Until then, VALORANT players will need to continue with the usual means of reporting and muting toxic VALORANT players. The VCT Challengers NA Stage 1 start on February 11 featuring the best teams from across the world.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Valorant news and updates.