Leaving Valorant ranked games early can hurt your MMR, says Riot dev

Leaving Valorant ranked games early can hurt your MMR chances, explains a Riot dev who notes that your competitive ranking in the FPS game can actually still increase on a loss. MMR (Matchmaking Rating) is the hidden rating used alongside the visible RR (Rank Rating) in Valorant to help determine what skill level you belong at in the multiplayer game’s competitive ranked modes.

Valorant senior competitive designer at Riot Jon ‘EvrMoar’ Walker has taken to Twitter with some useful information about how MMR works. Calculated separately from your Rank Rating, MMR doesn’t reset between Episodes, Valorant’s seasons, and it calculates values based on both your ‘Encounter MMR’ (how you perform against players on the enemy team) and ‘Win/Loss MMR’ (who you win and lose matches against).

The idea is that your hidden MMR helps Riot to determine where you should be each season. As such, if your current rank is higher than your MMR, you’re likely to lose more Rank Rating on a loss and gain less on a win, because the system believes you’re placed a little too high for your performance level. The reverse takes place if your current rank is lower than your MMR, in order to help give you a shove up the ladder.

All of this brings us to why you shouldn’t give up on your ranked games early. As Walker explains, “Your MMR can go up on a loss! While your RR will go down, if you have a really good match your Encounter MMR can go up higher than your Win/Loss MMR goes down.” Therefore, sticking in a match and trying to make some big plays can help to “soften” the loss and raise your personal MMR for the future.

He adds that this is even more impactful in lower ranks like gold and below, where your Encounter MMR holds higher waiting than your Win/Loss. Therefore “it’s always important to play your best and not give up to increase your MMR, increasing RR gains,” says Walker in closing. Plus, you might earn yourself a Valorant Riot gun buddy for the trouble.

The recent Valorant Champions 2022 tournament has been dominated by Chamber and Fade – check out our Valorant agents tier list for the best picks to use in your games. Meanwhile, fan reception to Valorant map Pearl is still split. We’ve also got speculation on the next Valorant Night Market date and the next Valorant agent, an Indian controller with water powers.