97% of VALORANT players have never received a report

Riot Games implemented a strong anti-cheat system that many criticized during VALORANT’s launch. To give credit where it is due, Vanguard has been keeping the tactical shooter a safe place so far, with the studio constantly updating the community on the tool’s performance and their own efforts to combat cheaters and respond to reports. The latest blog post dives into just how important the reporting tool available for players is in helping Riot Games keep VALORANT a safe and secure place for everyone.

Paul “Arkem” Chamberlain, VALORANT’s Anti-Cheat Lead, explained to the VALORANT community what happens when someone files a report against a player and the cases that warrant manual review. The latter process is done to the most reported VALORANT users to remove them as soon as possible, in addition to helping further improve Vanguard’s detection of suspicious software and analyzing out-of-the-norm behaviour.

“Reports feed into many of our team’s processes both automated and manual. On the automated side, the Vanguard backend uses reports to decide whether or not a player should receive additional scrutiny, such as a higher intensity game integrity scan. Vanguard also uses the number of reports (more specifically the number of unique reporters and number of games in which the player was reported) as an indication of confidence in its findings—which helps us ban players faster and, in many cases, without manual review,” explained Arkem.

Later in the blog post, Arkem shared an interesting statistic about the VALORANT playerbase. 97% of players have never even received a single report, while the remaining 3% unfortunately have at least one in their record. However, more than 80% of them have only ever been reported by a single player, which often doesn’t warrant a ban unless Vanguard detects something suspicious.

Not only that, Riot Games have been incredibly proactive in suspending those who ruin the experience VALORANT offers even before any reports come in, as “only 53% of banned cheaters were reported before their ban and only 60% of players with 20 reports get banned after review.”

It is worth noting that Arkem has already revealed he is leaving Riot Games and the VALORANT development team later this week, which leaves the Anti-Cheat Lead position vacant. He added a small feature in the update 1.07 for streamers and content creators to be able to hide their in-game UI and crosshairs, a much requested addition. Whoever takes over will have to maintain this level of transparency with the community on the statistics and health state of the game.

What do you think of Vanguard’s performance so far in protecting VALORANT from potential cheaters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!