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The saga continues. Undeniably, skins make up a significant part of the game despite having no actual bearing on the gameplay (other than your teammate looking at the ground because "ooh, shiny" and then getting shot). Let's see if I can make them funny.
Pricing: Before analyzing the actual skins, I felt that this was a major topic. Everyone and their mothers complains about how expensive the gun skins are, especially compared to the skins of the similar game, CS:GO. "I can't believe this spicy lizard gun costs $25! I could buy ten decent skins in CS:GO for that money!" However, there is a perfectly justifiable reason for Riot to charge so much for these quality skins. In Valorant, a quality skin completely changes the model shape, sounds, and even adds a final kill animation. In CS:GO, a quality skin is the masterpiece of a high school graphic design student going through an edgy phase. There is quite visibly a difference in the time and effort it took to make the skins.
Select tier: The cheapest gun skins. You're tired of plain black guns, but you spent all of your other Christmas money on Fortnite skins. Mostly just texture changes, but nothing too distracting or eye-popping (except for the sensation bundle, why don't you just rub cake frosting in my eyes while you're at it, Riot?). Anyone that sees you with this type of skin will think "That's a skin" in the most neutral way possible and then forget about it as soon as they look away.
Deluxe tier: The neat gun skins. This is the second lowest skin tier, but it's already getting fancy. Model changes, moving textures, and the sakura bundle is there too I guess. This is just based on how I feel about the skins in this tier, but the people that buy skins in this tier are already avid skin collectors and they happened to vibe with one of the bundles in this tier. They aren't the nicest skins, but they are nice skins, y'know?
Premium tier: The clickbait gun skins. "THE NEW GLITCHPOPS GAVE ME AIMBOT!!!" "I CAN ONLY ONE-TAP WITH THE REAVER VANDAL" "THE PRIME SET IS PAY2WIN!" These are the skin sets that everyone freaks out about, because they're the flashiest, most flamboyant skins, not including the two other tiers that everyone equates to the premium tier in quality anyways. These are the skins people will ask you to give them in the buy phase, these are the skins that draw your teammates' attention to the ground, these are the skins that draw in the big bucks, because everyone wants them. They come with variant colors, final kill animations, both shooting and killing sounds, even tiny details like transforming bullet holes into nerf darts. Some of the skins even come with the placebo effect, making people think the gun is better because the "bang" is a lower pitch when they shoot. Nutjobs.
Ultra tier: The. . . it's just elderflame. There are no skins in the ultra tier except the elderflame skins. It's difficult to determine what separates the ultra tier from the premium tier since there is only one skin set in it, but I'll try anyways. The elderflame guns aren't just guns with a laser effect or a spooky effect or a toy effect, they're living, breathing creatures. That is, the whole model is moving all the time. You aren't shooting people with guns, you're recreating How to Train Your Dragon as violently as possible. Ironically, what makes this skin better than most others is what makes some people think its worse. Apparently, wielding a wiggly, wriggly wyrm weapon is too distracting to be efficient in combat. Other than that, the ultra tier is very similar to the best skins of the premium tier.
Exclusive tier: The. . . dammit, again? It's just the singularity skins. Ok, yadda yadda yadda, only one skin, blah blah, hard to determine differences, whatever. No one dislikes the singularity skins. The reason the singularity skins are two tiers better than the likes of the prime and glitchpop guns is because the designers took every step of making a premium tier skin and cranked them up to 11. The model is elaborate, the reload animation is unique yet slick, the final kill animation is massive, hell, even the inspect animation makes cool spacey noises. It's technically another laser gun, but it's a cool-ass, cosmic, magical laser gun. In sum, the exclusive tier is the premium and ultra tiers, but over-the-top.
Battle pass skins: The random assortment of gun skins. These are technically the cheapest gun skins since you can get 10 skins for $10. However, if you only want one of them, you have to get all of them, like buying a jar of various jellybeans because you really only like the cherry ones. And if you want all of them, you have to play for hours to get all of them, like trying to justify buying a big jar of jellybeans all for yourself. You also get some random junk like player cards, titles, sprays, and buddies, but buying a battle pass just for those is kind of a waste.
Agent contract skins: The "IT'S FREEEE" gun skins. Literally anyone can get these with a little patience. Half of them aren't too bad either and a few are even better than some select tier skins. These skins are only for pistols though, so if you don't buy any skins, you can only impress your teammates for the first round, and then they'll know you're not a real gamer for the following rounds.
KNIVES: WHY ARE KNIVES SO EXPENSIVE!!! YOU NEVER SEE THEM EXCEPT FOR WHEN YOU WANT TO GO FAST!! WHO'S HYPING UP KNIFE SKINS!? PREMIUM KNIVES DON'T MAKE COOL SHOOTING SOUNDS OR HAVE UNIQUE RELOADS AND YOU'LL NEVER GET TO SEE THE FINAL KILL ANIMATION UNLESS YOU'RE INSANE! YOU CAN'T EVEN SHARE KNIFE SKINS WITH YOUR FRIENDS! IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!!
If this god-awful sh*tpost is extra god-awful, it's because I wrote it with half awareness at random intervals of time. Skins are dumb, love 'em. Maybe I'll make a "for dummies" for specific agents next. Rambling done.
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