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That inspect tho .. god damn.
That inspect tho .. god damn.
Curious how much you all like the inspect. We usually don't do crazy inspects (prefer to put work into the equip/reload since you see it more often). The idle animations are pretty cool on this skin as well - we haven't done something like it since the Elderflame dragon (when it breathes).
The knife is a literally a protractor, the guns still cool tho
better to help you figure out those sick lineups
The inspect is the reason to buy. To be honest these skins aren’t my cup of tea (they’re really well done just not my personal preference) but the inspect on the protractor looks amazing. Guns have cool reloads too. You guys did great work. Best inspect by far IMHO. Would love some crazy gun inspects too
tell us what is your cup of tea! what sort of skins do you like and where is this not really hitting it for you?
Man you devs really are the best. To have this level of input with developers of a major game is....wild. Everyone jokes about Riot being a small indie company but you guys have the levels of outreach of one. Thanks for all you all do! I'll do my best to answer what I like in skins, but this is def not a representation of most players (I don't like the prime skins so you know I give hot takes).
It's hard to put a finger on it for me but I'd say there are a few types of things I like.
- Space skins. Im a sucker for space. I love astra's swag, singularity is my fav, it's amazing.
- Bright colors that work well together. If there was like a nice cyan blue with bright orange? Would be flames. I think there is a lot to be said for simpler skins like red alert (which IMO is hugely underatted).
- Cool fx. This probably doesn't help you at all cus what does that mean, but really creative uses of physics is how I'd describe it. The way the clips float with the reaver? The forsaken finisher? The singularity floating? Very cool.
- History skins. Yeah infantry guardian is simple but it's sexy.
That's just my take though, I'm sure plenty of people disagree. If you have any other questions pls LMK
Don't discount your input. In general we've had a rule of wanting to make something for everyone, even if its not the most popular or broadly appealing idea.
Hearing all your preferences gives us a sort of multifaceted way of looking at what we can do. You called out Singularity as having a good connection to space, but maybe some folks arent into the black hole scifi/techy lines kind of thing, and they want something a bit more themed around space exploration, like a gun used by some asteroid mining dwarf just in case he ran into a giant space bug. haha. so we can go to a few different places even within a thematic we've already touched.
Glad to hear you like red alert! we also try to always balance out how "simple" a skin can be and still be considered worth getting from a player perspective. as we show more and more things like origin, forsaken, etc it sometimes becomes a bit harder to stack up something like Ego next to it ( at least without features ), so we're always looking for ways to incorporate new ideas into different expressions that players like. There are definitely a ton of folks out there who just want "clean" when it comes to guns and finding good aesthetic choices in terms of color and shape modifications are pretty fun for us to figure out.
FX is funny in a way because in some cases what you might call FX we call animation, but I get it. We actually have a term for something what you're getting at here that we call our "oh sh*t" moment. When a player is going to look at something and just scream "OH sh*t!" (this used to happen with us in the office). We always try to give each skin at least 1 oh sh*t moment, and it usually comes from a mixture of something involving sound, animation, and audio.
With regard to history skins, its something that is definitely niche but we absolutely know there's a desire for. It might be odd looking at a mildly modern/future game like valorant and throwing in a gun thats a literal dragon and then trying to get a player excited about a "real" gun, but we know there are players out there who come from playing CoD, BF, PubG, ARMA etc and there's that relatability that people are into when it comes to more known weapons.
Thanks a ton for your input!
Appreciate it! If you don't mind me asking, how do you decide what types of skins to launch? Is it based on market research, or do you just cycle through to do skins of all types? What skins are the favorites among you devs? Just wondering, thx!
Realistically its all kind of just up to the team. We used to do this exercise (in person) where everyone would throw an idea on a sticky note and put it on a board, and we would vote. Whoever had the most investment in it could make a pitch and drive the idea that the team would do next. We still operate in that way. Artists are free to come up with ideas that they have to inspire the team, and then myself and u/Riot_Preeti come up with a plan to fit it into our schedule. Some of the favorites on the team are the bigger ones like Glitchpop, Ion, and Reaver, but there are some others who really were into Infantry, Ego, Magepunk etc.
So cool! Thanks for the behind the scenes insight! Y'all rlly do some impressive work. Cosmetics in this game are 100x better than other games I've played. Good stuff. Btw can't confirm but 99% sure there is a big market (of at least one person) for a tbone steak themed skin line
a tbone would make for a cool melee weapon
I love the inspect! This might be my first bundle buy in a while, I love these skins.
Side question, do you guys plan on doing another ultra edition or whatever it's called bundle like Elderflame?
No plans at the moment for another Ultra. Skins are hard to make, especially Ultras.
I love the inspect, I myself will pick up the vandle because it looks absolutely amazing. I prefer inspect over reload animations, I just think they look so much cooler. You guys really nailed it with this skin, well done man. I absolutely love how you guys are taking so much input from the players and are always responding like this
We're always listening and reading. All the comments in this thread are really great insight.
I see pros inspect a ton in esports, but we've always wondered how much non-pros care about unique inspects.
I can’t speak for everyone but for me and my general friend group I and they inspect a lot and we love that over the reload and equip animations. You’ve all gotten some great responses from this thread and for sure you guys will continue to do an amazing job with the game.
That's great to hear. I'm honestly really excited to read through all the comments when I'm out of meetings. Sean Marino (oniram) really got a good discussion going! :D
For me personally, the inspect animation on these skins are so cool! But the skins in my opinion are... not it. The white and gold variant is really cool but I just want a skinset that actually has everything. Like, no skin has all of: Reload animation, equip animation, unique inspect animation + bullet sound effects, VFX, etc.
There's always something missing and it sucks. I suppose different strokes for different folks but, personally I love space skins (I really wish there was another Singularity type skinset), and "cool" dark skins like Reaver and Forsaken. I love fantasy ones (Forsaken is sort of elvish). Guns that have intricate curves and edges or texture (like Elderflame).
We'd love to put 100% of features onto 100% of the guns but unfortunately when it really comes down to it, sometimes its one of 2 things:
A. We do something minor for a change and it doesnt get noticed, therefore its not worth. Waaay back when designing the original guns for Valorant we went through this problem where we tried to basically reinvent the wheel when it came to equips and reloads. We very quickly realized that theres only so many ways you can meaningfully equip or reload a gun without completely redesigning the mechanics of it (Prime is an example that id use of having a different reload mechanic). So what you're left with when it comes to those actions is like i mentioned subtle animation changes which go unnoticed, leaving most of the weight on visual effects and audio. Those are typically the areas where we'll try to go all out in a theme but then the counter to that is the default animation is the same so it feels less impactful. So its definitely a balance of finding the right things to do for each skin.
B. Ill forever say I hate using this excuse but sometimes I have to. We just dont have the time to put 100% of features into 100% of the skins. The team currently juggles a ton of content at a time and more often than not the skins we release are the result of months of effort, and for every additional thing we do to one skin, eventually that takes away from others. So for example a lot of players ask about melee variants. If we did end up making melee variants for every melee weapon, the eventual effort that would eat up would probably be an entire skinline, and again for us we have to balance do we focus on variety of an existing thing, or bringing new things to players. For the player who loves Reaver, they'd be stoked to get a white/green dagger, but for the player who doesnt, they've just potentially missed out on having something they did want.
When we can, we really do try to go all out with a gun skin, making the most impactful features and content as we can so that it fits with both the skin thematic, and meets players expectations. If it doesn't we're paying attention and looking to correct it over time, and slooowly we're trying to modify the way we work to get faster, work smarter, and build things in a way with more of a confident guarantee that players will be stoked to experience it!
For me, the most compelling reason to buy a skin is one that FEELS enjoyable to shoot in-game. And I think it boils down to two key things:
1.firing audio. Does the audio of the gun make vandal one-taps feel even more crispy? (The prime vandal and reaver vandal do this very well IMO). Does the staccato-ness of the firing rate make my phantom feel like an accurate laser/helps me time my recoil better? (The oni and prime phantom do this very well IMO. Nothing more satisfying than hearing the quick burst of oni phantom followed by a headshot kill-confirm sound cue. Conversely the singularity phantom’s sound was very disappointing for me. Kinda sounds like its pooping out rubber pellets.)
2.looks. Cool looks are obviously key. As is a pronounced bullet tracer that makes the weapon feel more accurate. Prime, reaver and oni bundles have great tracers IMO
I love that you use the word FEEL. We use that word a lot too. It's not about the individual components of a skin but instead how it all comes together to feel like a fantasy.
Well i am no pro, but yet high elo player. I'd say that inspect animations are definitely cool, but when you're focusing on the gameplay, you don't really pay direct attention to it, you just kinda do it subconsciously by pressing or even spamming the inspect button. And in most cases, it happens with melee, because, for example, with Vandal inspect animations it literally block the crosshair (which honestly got me killed at least one for sure lol). What I do appreciate tho is definitely animations and sounds of the weapon. Pretty sure you already know that, but those skins are just kinda easier to play with cuz of that reason :D Anyways, that's my take on that. Maybe not the very well defined one, but still :P
Hey, it's an opinion and that's always helpful to hear! :)
Sick melee, got me thinking if I want this or Celestial fan. Really appreciate the devs for taking the feedback from the Forsaken bundle sounds and applying it to this bundle. :) I think you guys made the right decision on turning up the sounds because people really enjoy hearing the gun sounds as they fire the guns.
We literally did take that feedback! Glad you noticed. :) Our audio designer is awesome and we talked about it. Forsaken’s Vandal has custom audio but some players thought it was hard to hear. He tuned the audio on Origin so it’s even more apparent than it was on Forsaken.
We always want to be careful with custom audio because some people will be very sensitive to it. We never want a player to pick up a gun, fire it, and not know what gun they’re using. We’re starting to see that our dev team is more sensitive to this stuff (a good thing!) and actually players do want more distinct audio than we expected. We never want stuff to feel pay-to-lose, so I’m glad we are pushing the bar in terms of the custom firing audio but doing it slowly and deliberately.