Riot Games are doubling down on a controversial feature that will crack down on smurfs and cheaters ruining games of Valorant.
Like plenty of other multiplayer games, Valorant has had issues with cracking down on smurfs. These smurfs are typically players who loan or purchase accounts at lower levels, just so they can run riot.
Back in May, Riot Games announced that they would be introducing multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a way to eliminate smurfs and make games fairer. Some fans were initially skeptical and wanted to see what the Valorant devs had up their sleeves.
Well, they’ve now announced that MFA is only going to affect some suspicious accounts, and that the beta is getting rolling.
Riot will start banning smurfs and boosters in Patch 11.09
“Playing against smurfs is one of the most frustrating experiences in VALORANT, so as part of our ongoing efforts to reduce smurfing, we’re requiring certain accounts to activate MFA through Riot Mobile,” Riot said on September 18.
“Additionally, starting in patch 11.09, we will be issuing bans to accounts we are confident have been purchased and are detected for boosting.”
The Valorant devs added that they won’t be able to “solve the problem entirely,” but they are expecting it to make a “meaningful dent” to smurf accounts.
Players who will have to activate MFA will either have been detected as a shared account, suspected of having different players use an account, or be ranked in Ascendant or above from Patch 11.10.
“If you are not sharing your account with any other player, your experience should not be any different than it is today – you will not be asked to complete any additional verification, though MFA is still a great way to protect your account,” they added.
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From Patch 11.08 and beyond, players will be able to report others for ‘Rank Manipulation’ before MFA rolls out to different regions.
Riot admitted that they may tweak the feature as they go, so they want all the feedback possible.