VALORANT has improved the system of detection of smurfs

Riot Games released an official announcement in which they talked about the work done to improve the Smurf detection system. In particular, the developers spoke about the imminent improvements and tests carried out in North America. They also suggested options for further improvements to the system.

The VALORANT data science team is reportedly collecting information and using machine learning algorithms to improve the system for detecting smurfs. The updated system has already been tested in North America (patch 5.01) to ensure that smurfs can be accurately identified and their MMR adjusted to match that of the player's main account.

In testing in North America, the proportion of smurf debacles that had their MMR adjusted was within 1% of what was planned. At the same time, the second half won devastating victories in 25% of matches!

Based on the data received, back in September, the developers officially launched a system for automatically detecting smurfs in all regions. According to the above statistics, the developers managed to reduce the number of smurfs by 17% compared to the beginning of 2022.

In addition, Riot Games investigated the relationships in group matches. In particular, the VALORANT team was able to identify a correlation with the release of update 3.10 and the increase in the number of tied matches.

The main conclusions from the information provided:

• Smurfs are caught within their proper MMR in 4-10 matches on average
• Most of the 5 stacks are players who can't play each other
• The new Premier mode should not contribute to the increase in the number of smurfs

Recall that earlier in 2022, the developers implemented a system for automatically detecting smurfs in order to adjust their MMR. Since then, Riot Games has been monitoring the statistics, making minor adjustments to their system.

In the future, the development team intends to continue to improve their game systems in the following areas:

• Improve methods for detecting smurfs
• Continue fighting against boosting, transferring and selling accounts
• Provide players with different ranks more opportunities to play together in competitive mode