For many tactical shooter fans, few things feel better than seeing your name at the top of the scoreboard. Even if the match itself went badly, having the most kills often feels like a win on its own. Valorant Patch 13.06 takes a different view of how skill should be measured. The update surprised players by overhauling the scoring system, replacing the Average Combat Score (ACS) with a new Performance Score.

The new system uses a scale from 0 to 500 and takes into account a wider range of contributions during a match. These include trades, assists, utility use, damage, adjusted kills and deaths, and spike plants and defuses. GameRant argues that this approach may be the fairer one, since a kill often depends on a teammate's well-timed flash or on someone else weakening the enemy first. By that logic, an MVP chosen purely on kills may be getting credit for work that wasn't entirely their own. The outlet points out that this mindset isn't the players' fault, as tactical shooters have long taught them that topping the kill column means being the best, and Valorant now appears ready to push back on that idea.

Valorant used ACS for years before this change, but it is far from the only game that shaped players' focus on kills. According to GameRant, several major competitive shooters from the 1990s played a big part too. Quake 3 Arena, released by id Software in 1999, gave players one point for every kill, and that total decided their place on the scoreboard. Unreal Tournament worked the same way, while also rewarding players for long kill streaks.

GameRant half jokingly wonders whether announcements like Killing Spree, Dominating and Godlike conditioned players over time. Later games such as Counter-Strike moved toward team based, objective driven matches where helping teammates mattered as much as getting kills. Valorant followed the same approach when it launched in 2020. However, the outlet notes that neither game rethought the older scoring model alongside those changes. GameRant sees this as a bigger issue for Valorant, which leans even further into teamwork through its range of Agents, abilities and assists.

With the new system, playing a support Agent may now feel more rewarding. GameRant argues that a heavy focus on kills is especially problematic in Valorant, where many characters were never built to top a kill based scoreboard. The game has a sizeable roster of support Agents whose main role is to help teammates secure more kills.

In the wider context, GameRant says Patch 13.06 is not an entirely new idea. Rainbow Six Siege reworked its own scoring system 8 years ago in an effort to move away from a mostly combat based model. By comparison, Valorant kept ACS for a long time, which the outlet finds surprising given that Riot Games was aware a change was needed. As a result, GameRant describes the update as a long overdue adjustment rather than a major innovation.

The change also raises questions for other shooters such as Apex Legends. Its current Ranked system counts placement, kills, assists and participations, but healing and revives do not earn players Ranked Points. It remains to be seen whether other FPS games will follow Valorant's lead. GameRant believes Patch 13.06 marks the start of a new chapter for Riot's shooter, and that the Performance Score could change what Valorant players value most in a match.