The Valorant Team

The Operator is experiencing it’s coming-of-age movie. But before you get all “look how they massacred my boy” on us, let one of our lead designers walk you through our analysis. There’s also some systemic weapon updates to change your accuracy after landing from a jump.

Five Agents get the squeeze, including ongoing updates to make Viper a more flexible threat, and some parity across the fire rate buffs from Brimstone and Reyna.

What’s in a name? Reported players caught with an offensive name are now forced to change their Riot ID.

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This is Ask VALORANT. Our digital town hall brings you answers to community questions every other week. Today we go into how we’re validating some perceived game-to-game inconsistencies, the work behind a potential left hand view model, the recent map rotation update, and updating weapon skins.

Q

Are there any updates regarding a “Left Hand View model”?

We know that this is something that a lot of players have been asking for and we've been doing some exploration into this. We're currently in the process of validating how this would work from not just a technical side but from a competitive and artistic front as well. While this may seem like a small technical challenge, we want to make sure this is done right for players. To do this we need to validate a couple of different things:

The first thing we want to consider is how we maintain the art fidelity of our awesome weapon skins, character models...

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Today we are thrilled to announce the first major VALORANT esports tournament - First Strike. This event will crown the first regional champions for the game, allowing players and teams to showcase their greatness through merit based qualifiers that will culminate in multiple regional finals in December.

VALORANT is a deeply competitive title, one for which esports is a critical extension of the experience we want to provide to players. First Strike will be the first tournament produced by Riot Games and an important foundational step to establishing regional legacy. As we continue to plan ahead for the future, our approach will continue to be heavily driven by the core principles shared earlier this year. 

For those who are aspiring to compete in First Strike, start building and practicing with your rosters now. Regional qualifiers will begin in the second half of October and we’ll be releasing additional details about rules, policies, and how to register in th...

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Hey and welcome to another VALORANT Community Spotlight, our ongoing series where we show you some of the good trends in our community.

Today, one of our VALORANT illustrators (you might know him from our Episode I art) selects a few of his recent favorite pieces of fan art and talks about why he digs them.

Hello, my name is Ke Su, a.k.a. SUKE. Previously, I worked as part of the League of Legends promo team, and I'm now happily on VALORANT. I love illustrating our characters and it's always fun to see the different ways our fans and players portray them.

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Hello, I’m Brandon Wang, a software engineer on VALORANT’s Content Support team, pairing up with Weapon Artist Chris Stone today for a look at the development of our recent Spline weapon skin, and generally, how engineers and artists collaborate to deliver memorable content for you all.

Spline was another challenge to do something different. Skins like Elderflame and Prime were really out there but we’ve yet to attempt a line for those who prefer a subtle weapon skin but still wanted unique geometry and some subtle VFX. With concept art in hand, the Content Support team tested the design with players—and lucky for us, they dug it. Maybe it was the strange and abstract shapes not typical for FPS designs. Take a look:

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After a heavy duty patch last time, this one will be a little light. Raze mains should study the Blast Pack changes, guardians of the Guardian might appreciate the buff, and you'll soon have a lower chance of going back to back on the same map in any queue.

This intro is brought to you by Orcane, with the big picture:

This patch is quite a bit lighter than the last but we want to take some time to better understand the impact of our changes. We have already seen some shifts to the meta: Sage and Killjoy are seeing a bit less play, Breach and Viper are making a strong showing, and the Vandal is performing more reliably (especially at close ranges).

While these major Agent changes settle, we have turned our eye on a more pressing issue: the Operator. We know that this weapon can feel very oppressive to play against, often leaving players feeling like there is no hope when attacking. We agree that the Operator is likely having an outsized impact on ...

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Previously, we showcased some great videos from our global community that can help you with the VALORANT basics. And now, this community spotlight is made for those who want to swim in the data and the details.

Consider these informal guides and recommendations that cover esports, aggregate top VALORANT gameplay clips, or creative tips on where to place those Sova arrows.

For some extra context, ...

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Spectacor Gaming’s FTW: For The Women and Nerd Street Gamers have teamed up to host the FTW Summer Showdown, the largest all-women competitive VALORANT tournament featuring eight amateur, professional, and content creator VALORANT teams that have been extended an invitation, and four additional team spots filled by a qualifier event last weekend. The tournament is sponsored by T1 and G FUEL.

The VALORANT Team was inspired by the work NSG and FTW have been doing to provide a platform for competitive female VALORANT players. We were so inspired, we asked Nerd Street Gamers and FTW if we could officially make it part of the VALORANT Ignition Series and contribute $40,000 to bring the total prize pool to $50,000 to match previous Ignition Series events.

The tournament is the latest initiative of FTW: For The Women, a Spectacor Gaming-founded organization dedicated to building a welcoming and vibrant community for all women in gaming and will be streamed on twitch.tv/nerdst...

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This is Ask VALORANT. Send us your questions, we find some answers. This time we dive into performance history, breakdown your combat score, and a new way to buy weapon skin variants.

Q

I understand it means I’m doing something right, but what exactly does it mean when I have stars in my performance history?

A

If you’ve ever received a gold or silver sticker in your life for doing well, then this system likely speaks to you. In the performance tab, a star indicates if you’ve played better than we anticipated. That is, if you were regularly beating someone in combat and/or closely competing with someone of a higher rank than you, expect to have that acknowledged via a star.

A silver star means you exceeded expectations and a gold star means you’ve really punched above your weight. Pat on the back not included....

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The short version is, we’ve got some free in-game items for you on the way. Here’s the long version.

We’re teaming up with Prime Gaming to provide in-game items like Gun Buddies, Sprays, and more to players for free.

This loot will be available to anyone with an active Amazon Prime membership.

We’re kicking things off next week on September 18 with the Netter Treter Gun Buddy, straight from the collection of our resident sneakerhead, Killjoy.

How do I sign up?

You’ll need an Amazon Prime membership. If you don’t have a Prime membership, you can sign up for a free, 30-day trial of Prime.

Next, visit Prime Gaming’s VALORANT loot page to claim your loot and link your VALORANT and Amazon accounts to unlock exclusive Prime Ga...

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Alright, a full patch this time.

Killjoy gets her first major update, which should empower more counterplay against her Nanoswarm, as well as reduce its damage. Viper, Breach, Sova, and Sage also get some worthy changes.

All shotguns get their aimpunch and tagging tuned, you can choose to remake a match (under certain conditions), lots of tweaks to the observer tool, and you get some new features that should help keep your identity private in-game.
This patch is also part of an ongoing follow through on a promise to improve hit registration clarity, with several changes coming to the VFX of hit impact markers.

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Hey it’s Paul “Arkem” Chamberlain, your VALORANT anti-cheat lead here again with a quick spotlight on the importance of player reports.

One of the most powerful tools in the fight against cheaters is player reports. Reporting gives players a way to directly tell us, your faithful anti-cheat team, what suspicious activity is going on in their games. Unlike Vanguard’s automated systems (Riot Vanguard is our anti-cheat system) reports bring human insight to our anti-cheat efforts at an otherwise unobtainable scale and bring with it a direct look at everyone’s experience in game. It’s really important that players use the in-game reporting tools everytime they see something suspicious, it’s the best way to help us keep the game fair!

I promise some spicy numbers at the end.

REPORTS LIFE CYCLE

Reports feed into many of our team’s processes both automated and manual. On the automated side, the Vanguard backend uses reports to decide whether or...

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Ask VALORANT, and we respond. This time we go deep on the state of the Operator, why updates are rolled out rather than all at once, and insight into what’s going on with the sound of footsteps.

Q

What are your thoughts on the opinion that “the Operator is too OP”?

A

We think the Operator isn't "too OP" but do believe that the feeling sometimes comes from a lack of personal agency against the weapon (for Agents that don't have tools to break line of sight for themselves), coupled with an overwhelming amount of team coordination to effectively counter an Operator. We're looking into a lot of avenues to help smooth out the experience but we do believe the Operator should be powerful and should encourage a team to thoughtfully enter a space where it might be in play.

To give an anecdote: we've tried iterations of the game where the Operator's strengths weren't as sharp as they are today (especially in ho...

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Previously on Community Spotlight, we showed you some killer VALORANT cosplay. This time, we accessorize with the help of 3D printing from a few savvy members of the VALORANT community.

Have a look!

There’s just something about a Sheriff in blue. @WF3Dprinting shared their rendition of the six-shooter and even ...

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We’re back and we hope you’ve clocked many hours into Act II, are showing off your Act Rank and clicking heads with ...

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Hello we are Chris Stone. Senior Weapons Artist, and Sean Bigham, Senior Concept Artist, here to tell and show you how the Glitchpop skins were born out of a misunderstanding and grew into one of VALORANT’s most loud, colorful and bold designs.

Glitchpop is heavy on the visual elements that bring out the futuristic fantasy for players. The muzzle flash, glitch equip, holographic projector, and stickers were all elements that we could clearly theme in the cyberpunk genre, while offering a great first-person visual experience.

A MEGA-MISUNDERSTANDING

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This is Ask VALORANT. You keep asking us questions so we think we should probably answer them, here, every other week. This week it’s Agent design, abilities, and anti-cheat.

Q

I heard someone at Riot once say that “abilities don’t kill” in VALORANT, but... there are clearly ones that do, like Raze. Are you breaking your promise?

A

This statement isn't completely accurate—especially in a game that already had Raze and Killjoy's gameplay locked in before our announcement... Anyway, that was our mistake—a big part of that mistake was in missing the nuance (specifically that tactical fundamentals—not just “abilities don't kill”—are a key component).

Guns provide the vast majority of kills, and even our damage abilities are designed with the goal of creating threat. When well-played against, guns should b...

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After three epic events, the North American Ignition Series is approaching its end for this year. But we’re revving the engines one more time with our fourth and final event, Pop Flash, from Wednesday, August 26 through Sunday, August 30.

Hosted by B Site, and produced in conjunction with FACEIT, Pop Flash will feature a four-day main event where eight teams will fight for their share of a $50,000 prize pool.

The competition will feature B Site’s founding teams (Cloud9, Dignitas, Team Envy, Gen.G, and Immortals) and three additional teams (Sentinels, T1, and TSM). Competing teams will be split into two groups of four and start with three days of group stage ...

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Just because all the conventions are postponed doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some bomb VALORANT cosplay. Community Spotlight #3 is dedicated to a handful of those who are still showing their stuff. Keep them coming!

It’s a modest sample, but if you like their work, why not give them a follow?

CYPHER

Via ...

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