Riot will increase penalties for AFK players in VALORANT

Riot Games is increasing the penalties for players who go AFK during their matches of VALORANT, the company announced today.

The VALORANT beta’s ranked and unranked matches alike have had some issues with players going AFK or idle. In turn, they’re basically ruining the match for their teammates who are forced to play the game down a player.

“We’re shipping a change that increases penalties for AFK’s, which include longer queue restrictions for folks to AFK for multiple rounds,” Riot said. “We’ll keep an eye on these restrictions when there’s service instability, but please commit to the games you queue up for.”

Steeper punishment for AFK players is a welcome change, especially considering how common it seems to be in the game’s beta. With a few months left before the game’s current scheduled release window, now’s the time to make changes like this.

Right now, Riot’s site lists the current punishment for AFK’s as follows: “You’ll receive a time penalty of increasing severity each time you’re determined to be missing in action. There will be a timer counting down, so take a deep breath and remember not to duck out once you’re back in game.”

It’s unknown specifically what the full extent of the new punishment for AFK players will be, but longer queue restrictions are a start. A more severe possibility is a matchmaking timeout or the lowering of a player’s rank, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

VALORANT is scheduled to release this summer, but the beta is ongoing with updates being pushed out consistently.