If you and your friends were sad about ranked five-player stacks being gone in VALORANT, then you might be happy to see Riot Games’ plans for Patch 3.10.
In a new developers blog post detailing some additions for Act Three, the devs confirmed that five-stacks are returning for players of any rank in Patch 3.10. The trade-off will be that groups of five will earn slightly less ranked rating and four-stacks will no longer be allowed in the competitive queue.
Riot reassured some players that although five-stacks are returning to competitive, the team is also bringing some additional changes that should help keep both matchmaking and leaderboards a bit more balanced. These details will be given in the full patch notes later this month.
The overall player base had plenty of problems with allowing five-man teams into competitive queues since people discovered that they’d be placed against these squads alongside multiple solo players as teammates.
As a result, these matches would usually end up a lot more one-sided than normal since the stack would have better communication and coordination than a team with five random teammates. It got to a point where some pros and streamers even said that playing solo in ranked was “sabotaging your own rank.”
Some people suggested that Riot should implement a system similar to its popular MOBA title League of Legends, where there’s a queue for solo-duo players and another separate queue for five-man stacks. The system and changes that the devs are planning in VALORANT haven’t been detailed just yet, but maybe they’ll help alleviate the worries of the players in Act Three.
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