One of the issues which Riot Games appears to be putting as top priority for Valorant is cheating prevention. However, despite the game’s powerful new anti-cheat system, it seems that some players have already figured out how to cheat or hack to get advantages in the Valorant closed beta. Fortunately, Riot appears to be cracking down as hard as possible.
The Problem of Cheating in the Valorant Closed Beta
There has been a great deal of attention paid to Vanguard; the anti-cheat system which Riot is using to secure Valorant. This system is meant to be extremely robust, and Riot has offered sizable bounties to anybody who can discover exploits in it to help them strengthen it even further. The system has attracted negative attention from some, however, who believe that Vanguard has too much insight into users’ computers.
Unfortunately, Valorant players have been reporting the use of aimbots and other such cheating in the closed beta. It’s unclear whether Vanguard has actually detected this cheating or not. Valorant’s anti-cheat lead Paul Chamberlain has said that the studio doesn’t always ban cheaters immediately upon detection; “We prefer immediate bans,” he explains; “but sometimes it’s better for us to delay so that the cheat developers don’t learn that they’re detected for a while.”
That being the case, it’s possible that a crackdown on cheating could come soon in the Valorant closed beta. However, it’s not entirely encouraging that, despite having a powerful new anti-cheat system, cheaters began to find exploits within days. Hopefully, Riot will continue to strengthen their anti-cheating measures before the game’s full release. Given that the game is evidently seeking to compete with CS:GO, Riot will also need to develop a reputation system as robust as CS:GO’s Trust Factor. According to Chamberlain, a system similar to Trust Factor is in the works for Valorant. However, this system won’t be ready at launch and will come at some later date.