The Valorant Team

Hi, I’m Kevin Lee, a software engineer on VALORANT’s Game Systems team. Our team is responsible for developing many of the core systems that support VALORANT’s gameplay, including movement, combat and input. In this post, I’ll be going through one of the systems that’s core to FPS gameplay: Hit Registration.

In a game like VALORANT, hit registration is arguably one of the most important systems given that the difference between a win or loss can come down to a single headshot. Our goal as developers is to ensure that when a player fires a shot, the outcome of the shot is clear, feels right, and is above all else, correct.

We’ll sometimes see posts or receive messages from players with clips where hit reg appears broken. We take all of these reports seriously, and go through each video frame-by-frame to validate that the system is working as expected.

That being said, we think hit registration in VALORANT is in a pretty good spot right no...

Launch was the start of Episode I, where in Act I, you got Reyna, Ascent, Elderflame and ...

Your newest VALORANT Act has arrived! It’s true, it’s true. That means this patch comes with a new Agent (have you met?), a fresh Battlepass, and our new Deathmatch (beta) mode.

Act Ranks go live—and you can dive into our dedicated post for more—but comp...

This is Ask VALORANT. We collected your top questions from under a certain frog’s hat and chose a few to answer every other week. Weapon skin animations, VALORANT lore, hit reg, and custom Agent keybinds are on the docket.

Q

Have you considered an option to disable the special animations / sound effects of gun skins? While the aesthetics of the skins are pretty nice, all the effects around them can be distracting.

A

Yes, we discussed this a lot before launch. There are a few things that we had to consider first before we started building any tech to support something like this, including how players would react to custom effects, animation, and sound.

First of all, we’re committed to fixing anything that compromises the competitive integrity of the game. If it’s objectively interfering with our players’ gameplay, we’ll fix it (like we did for the ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: These notes were found among the files of Killjoy. They’re here without alteration. The first file is undated, but there’s good reason to believe it was written to roast Brimstone.

OK Brimstone, I read your Beginner’s Guide. Maybe too long. All you needed to say was—have me on your team! 

I know you like that thing you do when you yell at the sky, but with me, tactics beat firepower. So, let me remind you how I’ve already thought of everything.

ALARMBOT

Equip and deploy a bot that hunts down enemies who dare to get in range. When my killer robot friend reaches its target...boom! Enemies who ...

This summer has been heating up with our two North American Ignition Series events, hosted by PAX Arena and ...

As we near the end of VALORANT Act I, we want to lay out our plans for the Competitive experience at the end of an Act, and discuss new features starting in Act II.

Currently in our Competitive system, your rank is very closely tied to your skill (MMR) and it can move up or down fluidly depending on if you are having a good or bad day of competitive play. We want you to have an accurate representation of your current skill in matches. We also want to build a ranked system that promotes growth and engagement over ‘peaking’ at a top rank, getting anxious about losing it, and stuffing it in the fridge.

Let’s talk about our next steps!

Competitive Act II Update & Act Ranks

The takeaway: After an Act, all that matters for your Act Rank are your 9 best ranked wins of the act, and how many wins you’ve gotten in the act. So if you peak at Diamo...

Rise of Valour, presented by Fortress Melbourne, will be Australia’s biggest online tournament hosted by a dedicated esports venue, with over $70,000 AUD in prizes to be won. The tournament, part of the VALORANT Ignition Series, will consist of 4 stages with 3 pathways to the finals, and will be open to all teams in Oceania (regardless of skill level) who can compete online from home. Professional commentators, including Vandie and Zenox, will be in the venue hosting 10 days of broadcasts...

This week, we asked our regional teams to find some strong examples of new player-friendly videos from creators that can help anyone get started in VALORANT.

If you’ve only dipped your toes in our game or need some spicy tips, you’re likely to find something below— Give them a try!

Thanks to all the creators featured here, we are always on the lookout for more.

BRAZIL

This is a great guide from Cooruja that covers all Agents and discovering which one is the perfect pick for your game style.

FRANCE

Skyyart explains many complex aim mechanics that could help make your kill count jump.

HONG KONG

Fish & Chill offers tips on how to control your recoil. Super helpful especially if you are coming from other FPS games (happy to have you).

INDONESIA

In under nine minutes, Jordy Fil...

How about those Elderflame weapon skins? At least they weren’t cake. Hope you caught some of that VALORANT fan art, too.

On to this patch. Four Agents get some polish, with Viper coming away with a series of buffs, including a per second increase of her decay against enemies. You’re also gonna have to work a bit extra now if...

As a follow up to our discussion several weeks ago about the Creation of Split, we wanted to provide clarity on our overall map creation process with a focus on our latest map, Ascent. As you might imagine, it takes quite a while for a map to evolve from initial idea to landing in your laps. Ascent was one of the very first maps that we put together on VALORANT and was the place where we developed and refined much of the core gameplay that you experience today.

It’s been on a long road...

The whole map process kicks off with a stage called Incubation. This is where the designer builds a proposal that establishes a design goa...

This is Ask VALORANT. Our investigative reporters collect your questions and choose a few to answer every other week. This loop takes on a potential in-game replay system, the rough number of Radiant-tier players in the world and esports plans for the observer client.

Q

Will VALORANT have a gifting system like League has?

A

Yes, gifting will be coming to VALORANT (soon™)! We want to give players the ability to gift content as a way of celebrating victories, holidays, or any occasion that calls for it. We're aiming to enable gifting by the end of 2020, but timelines may shift as we get closer to the date.

—Miles "Riot Usury" Metzger, Revenue Strategist

Q

Is VALORANT going to get an in-game replay system?

A

Yes! this is something that we're interested in exploring soon. Whether it's to study...

Hello and welcome to the VALORANT Community Spotlight, a new ongoing series where we show you some of the fun and obscure trends happening among our players.

For our debut, VALORANT Senior Illustrator Atey “Snatti” Ghailan picks a small sample of his recent favorite pieces of fan art and talks about why he loves them.

Take a look and make sure to check out each of these talents.

Hello, my name is Atey Ghailan, and I'm a part of the illustration team on VALORANT. I've been on the team for about five years and I'm really excited about all the amazing fanart you guys have been making.

...

Hi, VALORANT community! Preeti Khanolkar (Producer) and Sean Marino (Art Lead) are back! Last time, we talked to you about the design for the base arsenal and how our team develops skin fantasies within the bounds of competitive integrity. Today, we’re ready to delve into the deta...

We’re excited to announce the second North American event in our global Ignition Series: the PAX Arena VALORANT Invitational Powered by Seagate.

Sponsored by PAX, the organization behind some of the most beloved esports and gaming events, and brought to you by Seagate, maker of top-line gaming hard drives and SSDs, the Invitational will feature hand-picked esports pros and streamers vying for a piece of the tournament’s $25K prize.

The four-day Invitational will begin Wednesday, July 22 with all 20 teams, including 16 pro organizations and 4 influencer squads. Eight teams will advance to the single elimination quarter-finals on Friday, followed by four teams ...

Easier reading this go around; the first patch of Rated queue is looking fairly stable thus far, so we’ve opted to keep our balance changes light in order to let the meta evolve naturally.

Invest in Guardian stocks, as the weapon is beginning to find itself! These updates should help the weapon better carve its own gameplay niche as a heavy-hitting and affordable precision rifle. Also, Spike Rush lovers continue to get spoiled with yet another new orb.

The recently added Surrender option gets a dedicated button to help cast your vote. And the vote threshold is changing for Unrated—surrender votes will pass up to 1 no vote from voting participants, whereas Competitive will still require a unanimous Yes to surrender.

You can also surrender sooner now, for when it feels like your opponent has a 141 2/3% chance of winning.

WEAPON UPDATES

Guardian

• Price reduced from 2700 >>> 2500
...

This is Ask VALORANT. We collect your questions and select a few to get answered every other week. This round we tackle cross-region play, pick and ban system, and a possible deathmatch-type mode.

Q

Do you have any plans to change the aim punch? Like, each weapon getting a different amount of aim punch?

A

Not at the moment, but I do think there’s an opportunity to lessen aim punch in extreme cases, for example, a long fire from a pistol or shotgun that is inflicting minimal damage with lots of fall off.

—Trevor Romleski, Senior Game Designer

Q

Many of us are wondering, will there be a deathmatch mode?

A

Deathmatch is absolutely a mode that is coming to VALORANT in the future. We don't have a timetable yet, but it's something where we're actively working on the underlying technology as well as designing, iterating, prototyp...