I’ve been playing valorant for a while now. And for the majority of the time I have been playing the game, I never had an issue for suspect of hackers. Even when a player was “popping off” or going insane throughout the game, I usually (as well as both teams) chalked it up to the person being a smurf.

However, I have begun to encounter more and more suspect type players. And have officially encountered multiple hackers/cheaters. Some even having admitted to it, but claim that nothing will happen to them so it doesn’t matter.

It started out with me encountering just a couple here and there about a month ago. But as of the past 1.5-2 weeks, I have encountered numerous cheaters in my lobbies. I even had a duo of cheaters on my team one time. They said to the enemy team that they are “Radiant” smurfs. However, in the private team chat they explicitly told us “yeah we are using hacks” and also mentioned they were queued together.

Of course, this has caused me to not trust most players that seem to be doing exceptionally well in any lobby I play in. As it always seems like they hit crazy, numerous headshots in a row, have an amazing game sense, etc., then ultimately it seems like obvious hacks/cheats.

So what is going on? Why is there SO MUCH lately? And how is RIOT going about to resolve the issue? Multiple hackers/cheaters I’ve encountered said explicitly “RIOT won’t do shit for banning hackers”, “RIOT’s cheater reporting system is meaningless”, etc.

And others have even mentioned that they can simply “spoof” their hardware if they ever get banned, and they can continue playing the game and cheating.

Another cause of concern is it could be hindering a lot of people. I’ve noticed recently on this Reddit, as well as talking to people in-game that it seems like they simply cannot win a game, or that everything seems to be going fine, then they get in a game with an absolute madman of a player. Some even saying that they are winning, then someone on the other team pops off. These could potentially be signs that MANY players are facing hackers/cheaters who are using “legit” settings. Even one hacker can completely shift the game, and make it impossible for you (or any fully legit team) to win. And they could never be noticed because of “legit” cheating settings, or simply claim that they are an aim-god radiant/immortal smurf.

So what is going on? And how will this be resolved? Or is the Valorant community soon going to encounter the CSGO hacking plague phase that made me, as well as many other players in the world, quit the game entirely out of frustration?