The fight has “kicked off,” says Valorant developers, as the first videos of players using cheats have emerged just two days into the FPS’ closed beta.
Valorant’s anti-cheat was hyped up ahead of its closed beta, and now it will be put to the test.
The first clips of Valorant hackers are popping up, just two days after the game’s public launch, but Riot are ready to tackle the problem.
Well it didn't take long, this guys just walking around full on aimlocking dropping big bombs @Slasher pic.twitter.com/QhbA9CrVG9
— phantasy (@phantasyftw) April 9, 2020
A clip shared by ‘phantasyftw’ has gone viral on Twitter after the former Call of Duty and PUBG pro encountered an aim-hacker within 48 hours of the game’s release.
The player, who was on his team, just ran around the map, making it almost impossible for the enemies to get out of spawn. He described him as “full on aimlocking” as the Sova racked up kill after kill.
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Riot responded to the clip directly, and took action. “It sucks, but today we had to ban our first cheater, and it looks like more bans are on the horizon,” said developer Paul ‘arkem’ Chamberlain.
Well it sucks, but today we had to ban our first cheater (and it looks like more bans are on the horizon).
I was hoping for a little more time before this fight kicked off but we're in it now and we're ready.
— Paul Chamberlain (@arkem) April 9, 2020
It’s only the beginning of Valorant’s war on cheaters. Riot hyped up their anti-cheat development as part of the FPS’ launch, saying they’ve got a number of fail-safes to protect the competitive integrity of their game.
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This included a ‘Fog of War’ system meant to resist wallhacks, omitting information about “player locations until just before line of sight contact.”
- Read more: How to get access to Valorant’s closed beta
Down the line, the Vanguard anti-cheat system will automatically detect cheats as the game wears on, and “any game with a cheater detected will be ended immediately and forgiven for all other players.”
If issues exist with those systems in these stages of Early Beta, I'm comfortable taking reports directly. I won't be able to say the outcomes from review for privacy reasons but I am willing to help facilitate these directly at this time as well.
— Matt Paoletti (@RiotK3o) April 9, 2020
If you encounter a cheater in Valorant’s closed beta, there are two ways to get the developer’s attention. You can report hackers in-game using the Report function, which is the most efficient way.
However, if reporting them in-game isn’t working, some of Valorant’s anti-cheat developers are taking direct reporting.
“If issues exist with those systems in these stages of Early Beta, I’m comfortable taking reports directly,” said Valorant dev Matt Paoletti on Twitter.
“I won’t be able to say the outcomes from review for privacy reasons but I am willing to help facilitate these directly at this time as well.”