In-app agent select is gone, and incognito players' careers stay private
Since 3.0.0, DailyVAL no longer lets you pick or lock an agent from the app, and incognito players in agent select and live matches show only their agent and rank, so nobody can open their career from there. Riot has said it penalizes instalock tools and stream sniping. Both changes are there to protect your account and your games.
What changed
These changes took effect in 3.0.0, released on October 5.
- In-app agent select removed: during agent select you can no longer pick or lock an agent from the app, so pick in the game. The agent select screen still shows the map, your teammates' picks, the lock count, the countdown and comp suggestions.
- Incognito players show agent and rank only: in agent select and live matches, a player with incognito on shows no name and has no profile link. This applies to Premium members too, and the Premium option to view incognito players has been removed.
What Riot said
In VALORANT Patch Notes 13.05, published on September 1, Riot wrote under Player Behavior Updates:
We've started rolling out penalties if we detect usage of stream sniping and instalock tools. Players found using these tools will be subject to temporary game bans that will escalate to permanent with repeated usage.
Why we removed agent select
In-app agent select sends the pick and lock commands for you from outside the game, the same way instalock tools do, and people kept using it to instalock and grab agents before their teammates could talk it over.
Riot now penalizes instalock tools: detected use leads to temporary bans that become permanent with repeated use. Keeping the feature would leave everyone who used it exposed to a ban, so we removed it entirely.
Why incognito players' careers are hidden
Turning on incognito is a player's choice not to let people outside their party know who they are. If their name and career could still be looked up in a third-party tool during agent select or a match, people could use that to snipe streamers or to harass specific players during and after a game.
Stream sniping is the other behavior Riot named for penalties. When a player chooses incognito, DailyVAL respects that choice, Premium members included.
If you are still on an older version
Versions before 3.0.0 still include in-app agent select. To keep your account safe, please stop using it and update to the latest version on the App Store.
Thank you for your understanding and support.