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aeneia



12 Aug

How to Fix the Night Market for Everyone!

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Originally posted by DrSlimeBogle

Probably true lol.

However... better than what we have now! It's such a bummer to wait so long for Night Market to only get 5 chances to see something you want. Having 15 chances (or 10.. or more? I'm sure u/aeneia and the team would come up with something dope) would at least give you a little bit better odds :)

Thanks for your vote of confidence, friend :)

Unfortunately in this case, I moved off the VALORANT team a few months ago! I'm now over in the Entertainment part of the company (we do Riot's music, comics, the upcoming Netflix show...pretty much anything that isn't Riot's games!).

But keep raising your concerns here. The devs do look out for this stuff!


25 Mar

[deleted by user]

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Originally posted by ro1isawed

NO WAY

I mean I figured you were gonna meme me, but you hit me with my favorite meme of all time. :')

[deleted by user]

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Originally posted by ro1isawed

It did here lol

AH YOU f*ckIN GOT ME

[deleted by user]

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Originally posted by Captin_Blackfire

Mostly yes, but partly no; it's being more honest with the customer, but now the player can't earn RP from the battle pass for free, so instead of some free ground, they get none, and now skins are more expensive when they are already quite high.
The problem with RP is that, no matter how it is framed, you are only given a fraction of the skin for the already high 20$ base price you spend.
In League of Legends, I pay 20$ for a legendary skin. I pay for new voice lines, new animations, and a new look. In Valorant, I pay 20$ for a skin that has no new animations, no new VFX, unless you go pay more money to actually unlock the skin.
And this is made even worse by the fact that RP is disgustingly expensive. You have to by the 20 RP bundle for 20$(which isn't enough enough to fully upgrade a gun in the first place!), when it costs 30$ for just the VFX and animations(not even counting the different styles!) .
Let's say a new player buys a Prime Vandal, and that they ...

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Thank you for the writeup here :) I appreciate the breakdown and the comparisons you have.

I do have a question for you, as a followup: It's not uncommon to have comparable/similar products that cost different prices. For example, buying a pair of sneakers from Target is going to cost less than it does at H&M, which is going to cost less than it does at Supreme. I own Fire Emblem Three Houses, and I have put over 100 well loved hours into that game. It cost me $60; and I'd have happily paid twice that much if I had known how much I will have loved it. It was the same as Mario Kart on the same console, which offers a very different experience for me.

How do you, personally, determine what's WORTH more or less? Could you make an argument that a very similar product is actually more valuable, thereby justifying a higher price (like sneakers)? Or that two similarly priced products have really differing value to you (like my perception of Fire Emblem)?

I hope...

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Ask players with a bad connection are they sure they want to proceed to a competitive match

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Originally posted by Gooierwheat

Your game sometimes closes itself . Would that be a client side error or server side .

Unfortunately I don't have the answer to that question :( I have many sciences, but that one is not mine lol

[deleted by user]

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Originally posted by ro1isawed

the buning question- did he dm u?

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON DRAGONBALL Z

[deleted by user]

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Originally posted by MarioKartEpicness

I've actually had some thoughts on it over dinner, and wanted to wait a while before responding. If it's too wordy, just go to the last scetion.

My initial message is definetly thinking on the side of "how does this make money", since it's hard to not look at a monetization method and wonder how it makes money. But a more neutral stance on the situation is better to go on, Radianite is just an optional upgrade for skins and it's not needed to enjoy that skin.

What players may be more bothered by is that their purchases feels incomplete without any upgrades, and that the price of Radianite is a high hike from what they've already spent. I could get an Elderflame Vandal for $25 USD if it appears in the shop, but it won't be that Elderflame Vandal i saw in the trailer until i've gotten the level two animation upgrade, which requires 20 Radianite. if i don't prepare for this prior, this could cost me another $20 USD which is almost as much as the skin...

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Hey there! Thank you for this really thoughtful writeup. You make some really good points, and I agree that kind of transparency (with all the warnings) would mitigate some of the feelings of Wait now I have to upgrade with another currency?! . I actually have a meeting with our core team next week to talk through some of the stuff raised in this thread.

So thank you again for participating in the discussion :) We don't get better without feedback, and it really does make a difference!


23 Mar

Ask players with a bad connection are they sure they want to proceed to a competitive match

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I love seeing this! This is something we've actually discussed as a team. I can't speak to any plans to build it or not, but I just wanted to validate your thoughts here: it's a freaking great idea :)

EDIT: To follow up on others' comments, it's true that many folks end up getting connection issues in the middle of games. That's why our new warnings and penalty system tells players, "Hey, you disconnected a lot last game. Fix yo stuff before jumping in again." (Those exact words, I swear)

....as you may guess, some players are still, indeed, queueing back up lol. But not all of them!

Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by Le_Vagabond

the entire system is predatory in several ways, first with the valorant points themselves:

  • the basic cash shop currency <-> real money exchange rate. this hides the true cost of any purchase in Valorant behind a conversion step, because "1700 VPs" has no real life meaning for vulnerable people like kids.
  • the VPs bundles are priced just so you need to buy the bigger one to afford whatever you actually want, in order to have leftovers after that purchase - vulnerable people will see those "leftover points" as money wasted if they do not get more points and buy something else, and won't include them in the price of the item they bought in the first place.
  • the items bundles are time limited. act now, they say, or I'm gonna disappear forever. this makes vulnerable people go for an impulse buy, rationalize that the price isn't actually that expensive (it is already masked behind one mathematical conversion from € to VP, so it's easy for them to fall for th...
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Hey there friend, Thanks for this breakdown. I can't say I agree with you on everything, since your argument suggests that (1) any limited time offers are predatory, (2) any bundle with a spread of content value is predatory, and (3) a bundle featured in our digital store for a week and comes back in your rotating store thereafter is a " don't think, act fast or else" tactic, and is therefore predatory. IMO, your definitions of "manipulative, deceptive, and predatory practices" are exceedingly broad, encompassing even bare minimum incentivization strategies.
That said, there are other aspects of it that DO make sense to me. For example, I'm personally not a big fan of currency conversion. IMO, it's an unnecessary cognitive effort for people, and it's a shame that it's regarded a standard practice (so standard, in fact, that one would be hard-pressed to define it as deceptive.) Despite my criticisms, I do appreciate the time and effort you put towards breaking this down. It ...

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Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by JasemTheArab

People just think its bs to pay 20 bucks for a skin and have to pay AGAIN to get the good stuff for it. Your skins are overpriced as is and radiante is not cheap literally such a stupid cashgrab but hey its riot were talking about.

Based on your explanation, I'm curious then: Would it feel better if all the price was wrapped up at the beginning? So rather than spending the VP then the RP, it would all add up at the start?

Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by Le_Vagabond

On the off chance you are real and being candid:

Your system is dishonest and predatory. If you didn't intend for it to be, you should take a step back from the horrible standards of the free to play industry and take a long look at yourself in the mirror.

When I was working for a Korean F2P company, we referred to ourselves internally as drug dealers. I still feel unclean about that, but at least I didn't delude myself into thinking it was ok.

You probably aren't though, because I do not believe anyone from Riot's monetization team would come and post this here.

Hey there - What, exactly, is predatory about it? That's not a word I use lightly. (Please note that there's a difference between "I don't like this" or "This is overpriced" and "This is predatory.") That word carries a lot of weight at Riot, and I'd like to hear your breakdown, if you don't mind.

Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by SturmiLol

Hey, about 90% sure you won't answer this, since that's most likely forbidden, but anyway. Is there more information about who exactly came up with the RP idea/price in the first place, or a person who is actually willing to debate about the topic? Honestly, as someone who owns just about every premium skin set in this game, i wanna tell yo, the system sucks hard. The battlepass gives you roughly enough for a single bundle, and even with your 'discount' (really unsure if that one is legal around here in europe), RP are priced rediculously high. Like for real, what sad excuse for a human beeing would even think of that. You advertise a fancy dragon skin with sick animations, you sell it for a 100€ (more than EVERY CD PROJEKT RED game combined) and thought yourself : "Hey, that wasn't enough money, we should lock the animations and alternative colours behind another 211,97€ paywall (360RP). That's a totall of about 312€. ...

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Hey there - If the people who created these systems would like to come out and own that, they're welcome to. However, that's not a finger I'm willing to point. Though I have to give you SERIOUS kudos for the most creative PG-rated insult I've ever heard. I love it. I'd like to explain this more, but being real here, I haven't even had my coffee yet. I've made note of your points; and I promise you, they will be hand delivered to Joe and my other teammates (in whom you hopefully have more trust lol).

Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by MarioKartEpicness

Of course 1 Radianite won't have a use in the same way 1 Apex Coin doesn't have a use (Apex Legend's premium currency); Radianite upgrades are in multiples of 5, and apex's minimum spending is 25. But unlike Radianite, I can say that apex coins are around 100 for $1 USD because I could buy 1,000 for $10 USD, or that vbucks are ~80 cents because I can buy 1,000 for $8 USD.

That being said, I believe Radianite's "bundled discount" is still dishonest, as there's no way to obtain a useable amount individually using real world currency; Telling someone that their shop prices are discounted from an unobtainable amount (<5 Radianite) at an unknown base price, which if obtainable wouldn't be useful, is a bit silly.

What Radianite's markdown may be doing instead is making revenue in a more clever way. Someone who recently bought a skin will want the visual effects and animations that go with said skin. If they were told this costs full price on top of their skin price it...

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Hey there friend - your breakdown makes a lot of sense, and I can for sure see why you've come to that conclusion. But even if you're the only person to see this, I want to be clear: I was one of the folks who determined our Radianite Strategy. At no point, in any meeting I was in, did anyone say, "Hey, if we present it like this, it'll trick players into buying more." Like many things that got shipped to players last June, the storefront was in a place of "This will work, and we'll improve upon it when we get the chance (or more quickly if it proves to fail)." So all that said, we know there's room for improvement. And if it's something you really think needs to get changed (and prioritized over other things we could be working on), I encourage you all to continue speaking up about it. I appreciate you putting your feedback out there. And I especially appreciate you doing so without any pitchforks <3.

-Lea "riot aeneia"


22 Mar

great AFK detection.

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Hey fam! This...sucks. It sucks a lot.

At risk of sounding defensive here, I do wanna point out: players are sneaky. We've been improving our AFK detection over time, and every time we patch one hole, they go and find another one.

So in other words...keep posting this stuff. Keep reporting players who find loopholes in our systems. Every bit of information we get helps us to patch the holes.

Thanks for posting :)

Nearly 1 year later and Radianite is still absurd

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Originally posted by Gusaxd

Also, isn't it illegal for Riot to sell Radianite as if it's on sale for 20-40% off even though that's the price it's been always sold for? It kinda feels like a limited time thing, creating a sense of urgency to buy the absurdly priced RP

Hey there friend! I definitely get the frustration here. It just...doesn't make sense from an outside perspective lol. And it's something we've raised before.
The thing is, Radianite isn't marked at 20%. 30%, and 40% off because it's on some sale. It's marked down because it's bundled. Radianiate has an individual value. 1 Radianite point has a cost that went into its design. It's just not visible in the client because we know that players aren't going to buy a single Radianite. There's just not a use case for that.

Again, I'm not saying the situation here is good. It's just...not as bad as this interpretation makes it seem lol.


12 Mar

Now that Riot is going to ban people from rank if they're chatbanned, expect more false reports.

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Originally posted by npcSara

Also good to note that there seems to be a common misconception of the process reports go through before a comms ban is even administered. There is no case in which a player will get comms banned through a spam of unverified reports from a single game.

100% truth.

Now that Riot is going to ban people from rank if they're chatbanned, expect more false reports.

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Originally posted by RiotBrighteyz

False reports are definitely top of mind for us and we have pro actively taken steps here. When we announced that we were going to restrict comm banned players from ranked we saw that a lot of you had the concern that people may try and abuse the system to get other players banned from rank. That behavior is definitely not okay with us, so we enacted many changes behind the scenes and safe guards to prevent folks from 'gaming the system,' to get others banned.

While we aren't going to share the exact math and rule set that leads to a comm bans (that could potentially help folks trying to game the system), with the new changes we've put in it will be extremely challenging to gang up or target a specific player in any way for a chat ban. If somehow you feel you were unfairly comm banned you can reach out to player support, however with the number of protections put in place we think this will be extremely hard to do and very unlikely.

We will keep a close eye on the...

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Bumping this for sure! This was something we identified as a risk months ago, and we made significant changes to the report-to-penalty system to drastically reduce the likelihood of false positives.


05 Mar

The different agent roles for dummies! (Not that you are dumb)

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I love this.


24 Feb

Ask VALORANT - Feb. 24

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Originally posted by villainized

i agree, that's mind-blowing.

I just wanted to tell you that I love your flair.
...I AM THE HUNTER

Ask VALORANT - Feb. 24

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Originally posted by Eviscerace

After seeing this stat , i'm actually happy about the rr penalty change. Finally won't have the same people dodging when they see icebox.

this comment for real made my day :<