You’ve been tasked with the acquisition of a precious resource, holding your own fight after fight, and securing the enduring dominance of the entire planet. You can see why we’re holding you to some pretty high standards. Abide by the rules and dare to seize victory, or fail to fight with valor and find yourself stripped of your title as an Agent. The choice is yours, but we’re here to help you stay on the proper path. Here’s how to avoid bans, fight fair, and earn your stripes (so to speak).
We expect our Agents to conduct themselves with decorum. Competition is only fun when it’s healthy, and we have systems in place to flag players who choose to ignore protocol. The following includes some of the behaviors that can cause you to receive punishment, or worse, get you banned from VALORANT.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct
If you take part in behavior that’s disruptive, abusive, or discriminatory, you can be banned from communicating in-game or even be temporarily or permanently banned from the game itself. Here are some examples to avoid:
- Insulting, threatening, harassing, or offensive language.
- Abusive language targeted at players based on their performance or otherwise.
- Any kind of discrimination or hate speech. This includes targeting a player’s race, ethnicity, religion, ability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
- Ruining the game for other players with in-game actions, such as quitting or throwing the game.
- Provoking conflict, hostility, or arguments in an attempt to derail or distract from gameplay.
- Inappropriate in-game names, including (but not limited to) content that is lewd, demeaning, or derogatory.
AFK, Queue Dodging, and Friendly Fire
No one likes to be left holding the Spike with no one to watch their back, or to be stabbed in the back by an ally’s ability. That’s why we have dedicated systems to detect bad behavior like AFKs, queue dodging, and friendly fire in the hopes of reducing the number of Agents who decide to go MIA or turn traitor. If we detect such behavior, you may be kicked from the match to prevent opportunistic enemies from taking advantage of the situation.
We expect our Agents to work together, win or lose. To that end, we have a variety of penalties in place based on the offense and the Agent's behavior.
| Penalty | Details | Duration |
| Warning | Tells you that you have triggered our AFK/Queue Dodging system. Further violations can result in harsher penalties. | n/a |
| XP denial | You will be denied any XP earned in the match that triggered this penalty. | 1 match |
| Rank rating deduction | If you AFK or queue dodge in a competitive match, you will lose 8–12 RR points, potentially pushing over the -30 RR loss barrier (indicated on the post-match results screen). | 1 match |
| Queue timer | You won't be able to join a non-custom game until the timer shown runs out. | 3–240 min |
| Ranked restriction | You won't be able to queue in ranked matches until the timer shown runs out. | 7–14 days |
| VALORANT game ban | You won't be able to play VALORANT until the date and time shown. | 7 days–permanent |
If you have a clean (or mostly clean) record, you're unlikely to face much—if any—punishment. That being said, the above penalties are less about singular violations and more about the sum of your play history. With that in mind:
- Penalties are applied in response to the severity of the offense—you won’t necessarily receive every penalty or receive them in order.
- You may receive the same penalty multiple times or even incur multiple penalties at once.
- Some offenses are weighed more heavily than others, so you might wind up with a lengthier ban by default
It all depends on your behavior history and offenses—even small infractions can add up over time to a harsher penalty.
For more information, head on over to our Penalties and Bans FAQ.
Cheating
Cheaters never prosper, and often they get themselves banned—and anyone in their party—banned. We repeat: Queuing up with cheaters (“bussing”) can get you banned. The intrepid team behind VALORANT has been hard at work developing systems (like Riot Vanguard) to deter everything from bots to third party software, so fight with honor and win with skill and skill alone (and maybe a touch of luck).
Boosting
And speaking of winning with skill alone, you should be winning with your own skill, not someone else’s. That means no boosting.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, boosting is a form of cheating where a player logs into another player’s account to win ranked games for them, raising (or boosting) their rank to a higher tier. Not only is boosting a deceptive practice that hurts the integrity of VALORANT’s community, it goes against our terms of service—you cannot share your account or Login Credentials (username/password) with anyone. Like other forms of cheating, boosting and bussing are bannable offenses.
Need to Report a Player?
You can do so in-game by pressing Esc and clicking on the Report button next to the player’s name. If you didn’t get a chance to report them during the match, you can go to match history (Career > Match History) and report them by right-clicking their name and submitting the report.