‘Valorant’ developer outlines how it’s tackling communications abuse
Riot Games has addressed issues surrounding toxicity within Valorant and its chat systems, outlining what it’s already done and what’s still to come.In a blog shared today, Riot Games has shared its thoughts on abuse and toxicity within Valorant.“While we can never remove the bad conduct itself from individuals, we can work to deter behavior such as insults, threats, harassment, or offensive language through our game systems,” explained the blog, whilst adding that there’s also room to “encourage “pro-social” behaviour”.Outlining what the studio already does to combat toxicity, the blog states that Riot currently uses player feedback to identify when some individuals are deemed particularly toxic, so it can punish them faster. It also touches on the game’s recently-added muted words list, which aims to let players choose which words and phrases they do not want to see or hear in the game.On the topic of punishments, Riot says it has issued 400,000 voice chat and text bans and 40,000 bans in January alone.Looking ahead, Riot shared its plans to expand its efforts to tackle toxicity in voice chat, on which it said the following:When a player experiences toxicity, especially in voice comms, we know how incredibly frustrating it is and how helpless it makes us feel both during the game, as well as post game. Not only does it undermine all the good in Valorant, it can have lasting damage to our players and community overall.