So early on in its release, Valorant decided that they want to farm as many gameplay hours out of each player as possible. That is not in itself a bad thing as every game tries to find ways to maximize player engagement.

Think about the way the battle pass is designed, it's designed in order to get players to grind as long as possible and nearly impossible to complete.

Now apply this philosophy to the ranking system. De-ranking feels bad and everyone knows this. The soft reset each season is a way to get players to grind after losing their old "peak rank". The placement matches at the start of each Act make it nearly impossible to rank up off the placements but very easy to rank down. At best you're maintaining the rank you ended the past Act with. It's a calculation made that players will play more when they feel like they've lost their rank than when they've reached a rank they are happy with.

I got downvoted to hell mentioning this during Act 2 and the start of Act 3. Now its clear more people are not happy with the state of ranked. It's not a bug it's a feature. This wouldn't feel so bad if ranked wasn't 90% of the core game.