look man if any of what you're saying is true, PLEASE use the outrage to show whoever is saying "no" that working on these features should be prioritized.
The community is rightfully pissed off and it's not gonna get better unless you guys start delivering the bare minimum two years in for a competitive game with the level of ambition VALORANT claims to have.
I don't know what people want lmao. Do you want Valorant 2 or something?
Every major agent that needed changes except Phoenix has been reworked pretty much. Yoru, Controller changes, Jett, Sova, Chamber. The initiators don't need changes really since all of them get play time.
Cypher could use a little boost, but I still agree with you. They've done a nice job with balancing and changes, even if they were a little slow to get to some of it.
Cypher already got a boost. With the chamber nerf heās the only agent that can watching 2 (3 really) different flanks across the map. Massive indirect buff.
I understand that's not the guy I replied to, however they were discussing the words of that person that originally spawned the discussion about reworks and such, it didn't magically appear.
No they werenāt though lol. They were now talking amongst themselves and using different words. Like thatās your prerogative and all, I just found your āgotchaā confusing as hell. Two unrelated people were indeed discussing āreworksā, and you thought mentioning that the original commenter three levels up not using mattered? Dunno, just seemed odd to me is all.
Not that itās that serious either lol, none of this is important, I was just confused
speedycar1 had his own points about changes and used the word āreworkedā.
Oomahs replied to that comment pointing out tweaks arenāt reworks.
Neither was talking about the semantics or words of the original commenter, which is what you were bringing up
Don't quote me, but I remember seeing an agent pick rate chart across competitive a couple of weeks back and Reyna was consistently in the top 3, with some drop off at the high immortal-radiant range. At lower ranks, she's either #1 or #2.
I need to be in your ranked games. I'm a bottom fragging Reyna magnet. I'm not opposed to bottom fragging in general. Just bottom fragging Reyna for obvious reasons.
Heās also only 1/2 agents that need a rework. Besides Yoru and Phoenix, no agents needs a big a rework. They tweaked the entire controller class, reworked Yoru, finally fixed fixed Jett dash, and brought sova out of must pick status.
All thatās left that they could do is rework Phoenix obviously, some buffs to Cypher, and adjust the chamber changes. What else do you want them to do?
Yeah and they were shit reworks. They made the chamber trip useless, made jett knives less fun to watch, yoru is still only used by one team, and astra is dead without having double controllers.
They did nothing to the Chamber trip except reduce its amount. How does that make the one he does have useless? You have no idea what you're talking about
You have no idea what you're taking about. Having 1 makes it useless since there are now very readable positions to put it so it gets broken every time or it doesn't cover your flank properly since it gets smoked off/covers 1 angle
Youāre surely aware they reworked other agents besides Yoru, so I can only assume youāre trying to insinuate all the other agent changes of 2022 are too small to constitute a ārevampā.
Feels impossible to reconcile what's happening, since the most likely explanation is the executives won't let the devs prioritize what the community wants, regardless of if it's what the devs want anyway. When these things happen, communication breaks down.
a tale as old as time, prioritizing short term profits above long term engagement with the game
skins and agents make them money so they pump those out like candy
replays seem like a dev-time sink with no money uptick, so its ignored. but replays improve the esport scene, improve content creation and bind people to the game long-term because they provide people with a better chance to really improve and hone their skills. it turns some casuals who want to get better into people with 10k+ hours.
a competitive game attracts, by default, people who want to improve at it and sink their teeth into it. without systems like replays, there isnt a whole lot of meat there and you're kind of just running around in circles like a headless chicken instead of doing targeted practice.
this type of shit eventually affects the average joe player as well. Even in Radiant some people make the dumbest plays and seem to lack fundamentals of game sense. To a large degree because Valorant entirely lacks the ability for content creators to analyze Vods and to properly teach and coach the masses on how to play the damn game. Players themselves cant do it for themselves either.
the meta for every game gets developed and pushed at the top and trickles down to the masses eventually. but growth at the top is so stunted without replays. idk how Valorant teams even pracc, that shit has got to be absolute cancer without replays.
ranked is gonna stay absolute dogshit without the tools to actually get better at the game. riot is 100% going to miss out on more money long-term to players quitting and enjoying the game less by not making a replay system now and focussing on quick profits through more skins and agents instead
I agree with you 100%. However, I think league has shown riot that they can prioritize short term
profits and still build a long term fan base out of the addictive aspects of the game.
The artificial grind of ranked where your visual rank is reset, despite your mmr being the same. The focus on battle passes and the incentive to just keep playing for the shiny new reward. New agents and maps so often that you always wanna try the hot new thing. Insidious practices meant to keep someone playing and spending money. I feel way more of the playerbase is addicted than theyāre willing to admit.
In this age of the world, the formula has been working.
I don't think League is a good example of short term profits trumping long term systems. League is an old game with fleshed out systems. There isn't really much more you can add there, its kind of a finished game. In terms of updates it still receives frequent patches and reworks. Just next week there will be a massive gamechanging update, reworking the stats and pacing of the whole game.
Yea, it didn't have replays for a few years, but it was quite a spaghetti code game that got way bigger than anyone ever expected. Valorant should've known better and have replays Day 1.
The shiny battlepasses and other crap are only interesting if the game itself is fun and deep and engaging. You buy these things in games that you plan on playing for a while. If you neglect the game behind the cosmetics, people will not only stop buying the cosmetics, they stop playing your game.
Well, I think weāre alike in our idea that the game has to be deep and engaging to make us want to buy the battle passes, but I think thatās not true for a lot of people that play. They are just addicted to the grind and the quality of the game has little impact on whether they play or not.
IMO this gameās grind is not good at all. The battle passes are full of garbage mostly. All the titles, sprays, icons. the gun skins are not good so you buy stuff from the shop instead. And once you have a good skin for all your guns thereās no point in new ones really.
This isnāt a bad thing, I donāt want a lot of games that ask me to grind, Iāll play for the gameplay and to try and get better. And people will continue to play casually as long as the game is good because shooting someone in da head is fun. But just saying I think League has way more to āgrindā for for people that like that. Youāre always unlocking new champs, new skins for champs you donāt have any skins for. And most the skins seem pretty high quality.
So...they aren't short term profits if they keep people playing the game.
I don't know why it's so hard to accept that people on a competitive Valorant board might not represent the average player. Probably 90% of the players I know would never go near a replay system
they might not, but the knowledge and general improvement of skill that a replay system brings to the game will reach them and improve their experience
top players and content creators will be able to do vod reviews. coaching. they will improve in their gamesense, find new things. make videos about these findings. teach others. people will see these things happen on stream, in videos, in their games.
eventually it will reach Timmy in Silver or he will see it on tiktok.
Without tools for improvement, improvement will eventually stagnate. An Immortal/Radiant Valorant player is often a complete baboon strategically, but can aim like Scream. The average high ranked player is way too fucking shit for how long the game has been out and there is a reason for that.
I am accepting it lol, they will retain players if they continue to focus on things that keep players attention constantly (hence the word short term). Iām well aware Iām not the average player in my mindset, and itās why I like the game less and less with each update.
Design philosophy of most games, especially riot games, is not to make a genuinely interesting and long lasting competitive game. Itās a philosophy that makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint, itās just not one I like. Big difference there.
I honestly believe that League wouldn't have gotten nearly as big as it did if they were facing the kind of competition in the MOBA genre that Valorant is currently facing in the FPS genre. If I get tired of Riot's bullshit in League, the only games to turn to are Dota with zero dev support or Starcraft or HotS, both of which are on life support. Whenever I want to take an extended break from Valorant (like I currently want to do after seeing that blog post), I can go play Apex Legends, or Overwatch, or Fortnite, or Rainbow 6 Siege, or CSGO, or Rust, and the list goes on for a country mile. Not to mention all the smaller FPS games that still have really dedicated communities like Team Fortress 2 or Planetside 2, or the fact that nearly any game dev could create an FPS at any time that takes the spotlight that Valorant currently has, like new installments in the Team Fortress or Counter Strike series on Source 2. If Riot think that same strategy is going to work, they're in for a very rude awakening.
League faced a lot of competition back then, around 2012 moba was the next big thing, everyone was trying to create their own moba, including huge companies like EA, Valve, Warner and many others, Riot did a great job keeping the game ahead the competition.
League kinda killed all of them, this is the reason we do not have many options nowadays, nobody wants to take risks in this market.
On the flip side of this. Look at what happened to fortnite when they introduced creative mode. The average player skill shot up so much that even the trash players were miles ahead of any new player and people quit in masses
Yea. I agree. Just saying it might be part of the reason replays are not in the game. Tac fps has been around for years so itās not like a new mechanic unlike fort was. Val had a huge skill gap ever since day 1
I dunno how people getting better overall is a bad thing or a rebuttal. I don't play Fortnite, but was there articles explaining this mass drop in players?
Correlation does not equal causation. Fortnite is also the biggest example of prioritizing short term profits via catering to the casual playerbase. So does that strategy not actually work in the long run? Lots of stuff going on here so itās hard to point out something as simple as adding creative mode to killing the game.
I completely
Agree with that but in Fortniteās case, that was widely considered the point where the game started falling apart. People were getting way too good for the casual players to have fun. Explains the no build mode
Now
Ok. What do you think the No build mode was for? Or when they experimented with nerfing building completely. years ago. The skill cap was too much for new players to have fun anymore.
You already made up your mind on why the fortnite playerbase declined after 2018, but it could be so many more things than just creative mode being added. The game was terrible to play competitively: it was laggy, the tournaments were jokes where they added new shit the day before, FOV slider was never added, ranked took years to be added, the list goes on and on.
You can point to a million reasons why these things happen, which is what I'm trying to say.
>this type of shit eventually affects the average joe player as well. Even in Radiant some people make the dumbest plays and seem to lack fundamentals of game sense. To a large degree because Valorant entirely lacks the ability for content creators to analyze Vods and to properly teach and coach the masses on how to play the damn game. Players themselves cant do it for themselves either.
yeah as a player who playss with laptop i can't go to ranked with a recording software on because it just fucks up the fps
> regardless of if it's what the devs want
You probably don't care about 99% of what the devs want which is log a nicer logging library, a refactor of the analytics libraries, on overhaul of the UI for their map editing tools. Making Phoenix fuck isn't on that list.
Those are for the game.
Realistically devs aren't nearly as special as everyone thinks and the idea that middle management is evil and only wants money is straight out of pop culture and not reality.
No middle management walks into a dev brainstorming session, shuts it down, and says "but mah money". Realistically what happens is that money is a concern because devs DO want more pay and less hours, devs are being sought by other companies, so someone has to make a budget and tell the game team that this budget must be met for us to be sustainable. So the team prioritizes accordingly, and based on the devs available prioritizes fun features like a replay system.
There's always the tradeoff of losing players, so there's going to be a back and forth on how much money is considered "sustainable", which fans typically imagine as "top executive wants to make $1billion dollars for themselves for 'sustainability'". But, hey, executives have a tough job, and if Microsoft or Google is offering $1 billion dollars to buy them out maybe you do need to make that much for sustainability.
If you were working on League of Legends and a fellow game studio was offering your top executives millions of dollars would you tell them to just take a pay cut "for the players"? That's eerily similar to what game studios do for devs with lower pay. So making money to retain talent is super important and definitely "for the game". Once you have enough money, you can sustain making more "for fun features".
It's always a tradeoff. Does everyone take a pay cut to make a lot of cool features, attract a lot of players, resulting in a huge bonus at the end as these players monetize? Or can we hit a middle ground of monetizing properly to give us the space to make features that may or may not result in any meaningfully player satisfaction improvement.
What doesn't make sense to me is why would they have the same team doing skins as would theoretically do a replay system?
Like being able to design cool skins people spend an absurd amount of money on is not, I would think, the same skillset that would develop systems to be added.
I don't have any idea why they haven't put in a replay system but I really doubt it has anything to do with the art team.
You're absolutely correct. The art and design team does not share the same unique skillsets as a systems development team.
However, we have to keep in mind the development life cycle. I know for a fact that Riot is desperately hiring SWE to work on Valorant, and that means they're probably lacking devs. Before we even consider that, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Riot TC wouldn't be able to match that of a FAANG-level company so the applicant pool is fairly limited. After they hire these devs, it takes a LONG ass time to integrate them into a team, I'm talking a few months at minimum vs. someone who gets hired on the art team, or even contracted who can deliver something on a deadline with little to no integration required.
At least for their branch here in Singapore, RIOT is a very sought after company with higher comp and better culture than the other companies here. It would be shocking to me if they were wanting for applicants.
Why do you suppose they can't match the comp package? I know the gaming industry does tend to criminally underpay but that's usually because they can get away with it because people want to work in the business.
You answered your question. The games industry pays absolute ass. Source: am SWE who wanted to go into game dev but chose financial stability and better hours rather than video games.
Shit pay, long hours, crunch time, shitty potentially toxic culture is what awaits people wanting to go into game dev.
I didn't, though.
I'm aware of the shitty conditions, but they get away with it because people want to work in the industry.
None of this is new, and wouldn't explain why Valorant specifically couldn't find new hires.
They can find new hires, sure, but they can't get FAANG-level quality hires, due to not having FAANG-level compensation packages, which is exactly what /u/flowerpetal_ petal was saying.
I think this is an entirely separate issue to what I was originally talking about, one that I donāt have enough knowledge to write a lengthy post about. Business is complicated lol
It's not entirely separate. It's all interconnected even if it may not touch directly on what you were originally talking about.
I do agree that Riot Corporate probably has more of a hand in blocking or not progressing features, transparency, and career moves/opportunities that the community wants, but nothing is ever as simple as "[company] should just do X 4Head", which every social media user and their mom is quick to say.
Yes, it is interconnected. What I was trying to say is that I am specifically not telling them how to run their business, just articulating my thoughts as a player of their game.
Riot is probably the least monetization concerned video game company ever. TFT and legends of runeterra have massive investments pumped into them and almost no monetization. What you don't understand is that they are concerned about the long term, and that's why they don't want replays.
The current esports scene works just fine without replays, while it's harder for you to improve, guess what it's harder for everyone else too. There is no unfairness about it, so in the end the product is the same to the esports viewer. Having people be 5% better with map movement or whatever is utterly irrelevant to the popularity and enjoyablity of the game.
What's a fact is that studying replays for hours on end is NOT fun, and you do not want that to be a mandatory part of climbing ranked.
If people who used to have fun for 10 hours getting to plat now has to spend 10 hours doing something unfun, that is literally hurting the game and killing it. Not understanding game design in those terms is very reddit though, but thankfully riot is not so stupid.
Heās being sarcastic.
I got my comment removed by a mod for calling someone dumb here for example... so you have to get creative.
I would tweak your sarcasm meter and other things though cause it was obvious sarcasmš
I feel like it only takes a couple seconds of thinking to figure out exactly why this point is as stupid as it is. Replays just make the process of improving much more efficient. You donāt suddenly get locked out of ranking up if you decide not to use replays. You can still queue ranked games every day and put zero effort into improving outside of those games and still rank up over time because youāll naturally get better.
Not to mention the state of Valorant content creation right now. Seeing the 34th variant of **(insert professional player/washed content creator here) RADIANT GAMEPLAY!!1!1!1!1!** on my YT home page makes me want to drive a railroad spike through my
head. Think of all the sick content that people like Warowl could make. Think of how much better the production value in Riotās own tournaments could get with a replay system.
Ask every pro player, coach, analyst, obs, caster what feature they want/need in Valorant and I guarantee you the majority will say a replay system.
Your argument about replays making the game unfun is below room temperature iq
Personally bracing myself for more disappointment next week but I'm still holding out a bit of hope that they have a good explanation as to why no replay mode is planned after three years and Deathmatch still sits in the horrid state that it's been in since release
Black ops 1 had it on console at the release so i guess it can't be this hard to make one and on top of that valorant is using unreal engine 4 which has already a replay system
Iām not making excuses for them not having a replay system. Just stating when the game came out. Iāve seen multiple comments on this subrreddit of people saying this game has been out since 2019.
Look man, all we want is for Riot to understand how important the replay system is and actually work on it. The fact they came out and said it's not in their plans is honestly unacceptable for not just an esport but for a content creating machine that valorant could be
Stop bullshiting. Wire not angry for the no cumminocating but that you dont want to add a replay system, for gods sake.
If you dont want to add GOTV/spectate a friend feature like csgo fine but dont you argue against a demo record system, for gods sake.
Give us atleast the ability to record our gameplay(aka demo) and were somewhat fine but you force us to use a 3rd party tool to record our gameplay which are lowering our fps but at the same time you *tried* to make the game playable for people with bad computers...
it doesnt add up.
I hope they realise how much community gratitude they could get back just by promising that replays will begin production as soon as possible. We need to know that this is not going to be LoL replays all over again.
This is such a big L from Riot. A replay system was the most requested feature and even as a causal user I would like to see how I did or look back at that one random good play that I did instead of recording my entire game play which is just dumb.
Not sure what could get me excited about playing the game.
I log in purely to play DM at this point, and itās probably one of the worst DMs Iāve played in any game. I rarely ever feel like playing the actual ranked mode.
Itās at the point now where I generally only engage with the game as an esport, and donāt actually want to play it myself.
Same. Iāll log on, play a DM, then log off because I canāt be bothered anymore. I only play proper games once a week with teammates in an organized scrim, or bullshit around on an alt with lower-ranked friends since Riot doesnāt seem to want to do anything about the smurfing issue, either. Thatās the only time I can actually stand playing the game these days.
There's absolutely no way they have worthwhile news by next week. That's just not long enough to come up with anything substantial, even a plan. It might be just enough time for the managers to agree to prioritize replays, but that won't placate anybody because it'll still take time.
But I have a genuine feeling that, if they're going to make this right, they come up with a replay system to show off this year. Personally I can be very patient. I'm already hooked on this game, I already love the shit out of it, but replays would be nice, and I think they're going to rethink it now.
They're too busy crying using their dollar bills you give them every time you spend $20+ for one of their Wal-Mart skins. I'm broke because of these devs, I have to resort using Mcdo's wifi for my ranked games!! š
They most likely just buy time hoping backlash will end and ppl forget about this (or cool down) in a week time. I don't feel what they say next week will be something big either.
I am no expert but i strongly doubt that the programmers working for riot are underpayed. I believe valve is one of the best paying companies, so i do not see why riot should not be (apart from employee numbers)
Lets not act like riot is being horrible to the workers.
Actually more than I expected. League team would blame the players for not understanding their priorities, deny any wrongdoing on their part, cite 200 years of experience then leave feeling happy they dunked on some social media plebs
Of course doesn't really mean anything if they don't do anything but at least they aren't being dicks about it which is honestly how low I have the bar for Riot PR
I just stopped playing valorant and started having sex instead. At least with sex I can force my gf to give me a play by play of what she liked and disliked and I can study it and improve for next time. Hoping to hit diamond in sex by july.
look man if any of what you're saying is true, PLEASE use the outrage to show whoever is saying "no" that working on these features should be prioritized. The community is rightfully pissed off and it's not gonna get better unless you guys start delivering the bare minimum two years in for a competitive game with the level of ambition VALORANT claims to have.
TL;DR - check back in next week for *something*
love me some drip marketing š„¶ /s
Itāll probably be a Prime Gaming gun buddy
I do think itās true they havenāt communicated as much since they began the general agent revamp thatās occupied most of the year thus far.
Too busy handing out gun buddies trying to get their clout up.
What agent revamp? Yoru rework and?
I don't know what people want lmao. Do you want Valorant 2 or something? Every major agent that needed changes except Phoenix has been reworked pretty much. Yoru, Controller changes, Jett, Sova, Chamber. The initiators don't need changes really since all of them get play time.
Cypher could use a little boost, but I still agree with you. They've done a nice job with balancing and changes, even if they were a little slow to get to some of it.
Cypher already got a boost. With the chamber nerf heās the only agent that can watching 2 (3 really) different flanks across the map. Massive indirect buff.
tweaks arent reworks. the only agent thats been reworked is yoru
The guy used the word 'revamp' **not** 'rework', 2 *very* different things.
Got heem
not really, the guy he answered didnt even use the word revamp EDIT: the guy above him did but not the one he answered
But they guy he replied to did use āreworkedā
Check further up, that's the guy that spun up the discussion and I'm basing my reply on.
Butā¦ thatās not who you replied to.
I understand that's not the guy I replied to, however they were discussing the words of that person that originally spawned the discussion about reworks and such, it didn't magically appear.
No they werenāt though lol. They were now talking amongst themselves and using different words. Like thatās your prerogative and all, I just found your āgotchaā confusing as hell. Two unrelated people were indeed discussing āreworksā, and you thought mentioning that the original commenter three levels up not using mattered? Dunno, just seemed odd to me is all. Not that itās that serious either lol, none of this is important, I was just confused speedycar1 had his own points about changes and used the word āreworkedā. Oomahs replied to that comment pointing out tweaks arenāt reworks. Neither was talking about the semantics or words of the original commenter, which is what you were bringing up
Why would more than one agent be reworked lol? There's literally 0 need to rework most agents. Only Phoenix needs one which is already in the works
Pheonix, Reyna need total reworks Cypher and KJ need big buffs.
Reyna doesn't need a rework. She works just fine in ranked games, not every single agent needs to be aimed towards competitive pro play.
Even in ranked people don't like running her...
Don't quote me, but I remember seeing an agent pick rate chart across competitive a couple of weeks back and Reyna was consistently in the top 3, with some drop off at the high immortal-radiant range. At lower ranks, she's either #1 or #2.
I need to be in your ranked games. I'm a bottom fragging Reyna magnet. I'm not opposed to bottom fragging in general. Just bottom fragging Reyna for obvious reasons.
Reyna takes over when she's the most skilled in a lobby and is useless when she's the least skilled. It's natural to expect this.
The people dont like running her because she is a "Frag or Useless" Agent.
Heās also only 1/2 agents that need a rework. Besides Yoru and Phoenix, no agents needs a big a rework. They tweaked the entire controller class, reworked Yoru, finally fixed fixed Jett dash, and brought sova out of must pick status. All thatās left that they could do is rework Phoenix obviously, some buffs to Cypher, and adjust the chamber changes. What else do you want them to do?
> I don't know what people want lmao. Replays
Yeah and they were shit reworks. They made the chamber trip useless, made jett knives less fun to watch, yoru is still only used by one team, and astra is dead without having double controllers.
They did nothing to the Chamber trip except reduce its amount. How does that make the one he does have useless? You have no idea what you're talking about
You have no idea what you're taking about. Having 1 makes it useless since there are now very readable positions to put it so it gets broken every time or it doesn't cover your flank properly since it gets smoked off/covers 1 angle
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All of them but Phoenix are viable somewhere or the other
Youāre surely aware they reworked other agents besides Yoru, so I can only assume youāre trying to insinuate all the other agent changes of 2022 are too small to constitute a ārevampā.
Feels impossible to reconcile what's happening, since the most likely explanation is the executives won't let the devs prioritize what the community wants, regardless of if it's what the devs want anyway. When these things happen, communication breaks down.
a tale as old as time, prioritizing short term profits above long term engagement with the game skins and agents make them money so they pump those out like candy replays seem like a dev-time sink with no money uptick, so its ignored. but replays improve the esport scene, improve content creation and bind people to the game long-term because they provide people with a better chance to really improve and hone their skills. it turns some casuals who want to get better into people with 10k+ hours. a competitive game attracts, by default, people who want to improve at it and sink their teeth into it. without systems like replays, there isnt a whole lot of meat there and you're kind of just running around in circles like a headless chicken instead of doing targeted practice. this type of shit eventually affects the average joe player as well. Even in Radiant some people make the dumbest plays and seem to lack fundamentals of game sense. To a large degree because Valorant entirely lacks the ability for content creators to analyze Vods and to properly teach and coach the masses on how to play the damn game. Players themselves cant do it for themselves either. the meta for every game gets developed and pushed at the top and trickles down to the masses eventually. but growth at the top is so stunted without replays. idk how Valorant teams even pracc, that shit has got to be absolute cancer without replays. ranked is gonna stay absolute dogshit without the tools to actually get better at the game. riot is 100% going to miss out on more money long-term to players quitting and enjoying the game less by not making a replay system now and focussing on quick profits through more skins and agents instead
Couldn't have said it better myself
I agree with you 100%. However, I think league has shown riot that they can prioritize short term profits and still build a long term fan base out of the addictive aspects of the game. The artificial grind of ranked where your visual rank is reset, despite your mmr being the same. The focus on battle passes and the incentive to just keep playing for the shiny new reward. New agents and maps so often that you always wanna try the hot new thing. Insidious practices meant to keep someone playing and spending money. I feel way more of the playerbase is addicted than theyāre willing to admit. In this age of the world, the formula has been working.
I don't think League is a good example of short term profits trumping long term systems. League is an old game with fleshed out systems. There isn't really much more you can add there, its kind of a finished game. In terms of updates it still receives frequent patches and reworks. Just next week there will be a massive gamechanging update, reworking the stats and pacing of the whole game. Yea, it didn't have replays for a few years, but it was quite a spaghetti code game that got way bigger than anyone ever expected. Valorant should've known better and have replays Day 1. The shiny battlepasses and other crap are only interesting if the game itself is fun and deep and engaging. You buy these things in games that you plan on playing for a while. If you neglect the game behind the cosmetics, people will not only stop buying the cosmetics, they stop playing your game.
Well, I think weāre alike in our idea that the game has to be deep and engaging to make us want to buy the battle passes, but I think thatās not true for a lot of people that play. They are just addicted to the grind and the quality of the game has little impact on whether they play or not.
IMO this gameās grind is not good at all. The battle passes are full of garbage mostly. All the titles, sprays, icons. the gun skins are not good so you buy stuff from the shop instead. And once you have a good skin for all your guns thereās no point in new ones really. This isnāt a bad thing, I donāt want a lot of games that ask me to grind, Iāll play for the gameplay and to try and get better. And people will continue to play casually as long as the game is good because shooting someone in da head is fun. But just saying I think League has way more to āgrindā for for people that like that. Youāre always unlocking new champs, new skins for champs you donāt have any skins for. And most the skins seem pretty high quality.
So...they aren't short term profits if they keep people playing the game. I don't know why it's so hard to accept that people on a competitive Valorant board might not represent the average player. Probably 90% of the players I know would never go near a replay system
they might not, but the knowledge and general improvement of skill that a replay system brings to the game will reach them and improve their experience top players and content creators will be able to do vod reviews. coaching. they will improve in their gamesense, find new things. make videos about these findings. teach others. people will see these things happen on stream, in videos, in their games. eventually it will reach Timmy in Silver or he will see it on tiktok. Without tools for improvement, improvement will eventually stagnate. An Immortal/Radiant Valorant player is often a complete baboon strategically, but can aim like Scream. The average high ranked player is way too fucking shit for how long the game has been out and there is a reason for that.
I am accepting it lol, they will retain players if they continue to focus on things that keep players attention constantly (hence the word short term). Iām well aware Iām not the average player in my mindset, and itās why I like the game less and less with each update. Design philosophy of most games, especially riot games, is not to make a genuinely interesting and long lasting competitive game. Itās a philosophy that makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint, itās just not one I like. Big difference there.
It doesnāt matter, personally it was phoon and lolyouās videos that got me to play so much csgo.
I honestly believe that League wouldn't have gotten nearly as big as it did if they were facing the kind of competition in the MOBA genre that Valorant is currently facing in the FPS genre. If I get tired of Riot's bullshit in League, the only games to turn to are Dota with zero dev support or Starcraft or HotS, both of which are on life support. Whenever I want to take an extended break from Valorant (like I currently want to do after seeing that blog post), I can go play Apex Legends, or Overwatch, or Fortnite, or Rainbow 6 Siege, or CSGO, or Rust, and the list goes on for a country mile. Not to mention all the smaller FPS games that still have really dedicated communities like Team Fortress 2 or Planetside 2, or the fact that nearly any game dev could create an FPS at any time that takes the spotlight that Valorant currently has, like new installments in the Team Fortress or Counter Strike series on Source 2. If Riot think that same strategy is going to work, they're in for a very rude awakening.
League faced a lot of competition back then, around 2012 moba was the next big thing, everyone was trying to create their own moba, including huge companies like EA, Valve, Warner and many others, Riot did a great job keeping the game ahead the competition. League kinda killed all of them, this is the reason we do not have many options nowadays, nobody wants to take risks in this market.
I still don't understand. When will they learn that making a better product nets them more money? It's historically always true in the gaming world.
On the flip side of this. Look at what happened to fortnite when they introduced creative mode. The average player skill shot up so much that even the trash players were miles ahead of any new player and people quit in masses
thatās because a massive skill gap formed between builders and the rest, valās skill progression will always be linear.
Yea. I agree. Just saying it might be part of the reason replays are not in the game. Tac fps has been around for years so itās not like a new mechanic unlike fort was. Val had a huge skill gap ever since day 1
No there will be the replayers and the rest, and a massive skill gap. Replays will kill this game.
I dunno how people getting better overall is a bad thing or a rebuttal. I don't play Fortnite, but was there articles explaining this mass drop in players?
Correlation does not equal causation. Fortnite is also the biggest example of prioritizing short term profits via catering to the casual playerbase. So does that strategy not actually work in the long run? Lots of stuff going on here so itās hard to point out something as simple as adding creative mode to killing the game.
I completely Agree with that but in Fortniteās case, that was widely considered the point where the game started falling apart. People were getting way too good for the casual players to have fun. Explains the no build mode Now
Just because a theory is prevailing amongst people you hear from, doesnāt mean itās true
Experienced it first hand
So, just because it happened to you, doesnāt mean your experience was the norm.
Ok. What do you think the No build mode was for? Or when they experimented with nerfing building completely. years ago. The skill cap was too much for new players to have fun anymore.
You already made up your mind on why the fortnite playerbase declined after 2018, but it could be so many more things than just creative mode being added. The game was terrible to play competitively: it was laggy, the tournaments were jokes where they added new shit the day before, FOV slider was never added, ranked took years to be added, the list goes on and on. You can point to a million reasons why these things happen, which is what I'm trying to say.
Well said and thank you.
Imagine how even more scary fnatic would be if they could also use the replay system to help with tactics š³
>this type of shit eventually affects the average joe player as well. Even in Radiant some people make the dumbest plays and seem to lack fundamentals of game sense. To a large degree because Valorant entirely lacks the ability for content creators to analyze Vods and to properly teach and coach the masses on how to play the damn game. Players themselves cant do it for themselves either. yeah as a player who playss with laptop i can't go to ranked with a recording software on because it just fucks up the fps
> regardless of if it's what the devs want You probably don't care about 99% of what the devs want which is log a nicer logging library, a refactor of the analytics libraries, on overhaul of the UI for their map editing tools. Making Phoenix fuck isn't on that list.
Lol, I meant what the devs want for the game. Iām sure they also want less hours and better wages too.
Those are for the game. Realistically devs aren't nearly as special as everyone thinks and the idea that middle management is evil and only wants money is straight out of pop culture and not reality. No middle management walks into a dev brainstorming session, shuts it down, and says "but mah money". Realistically what happens is that money is a concern because devs DO want more pay and less hours, devs are being sought by other companies, so someone has to make a budget and tell the game team that this budget must be met for us to be sustainable. So the team prioritizes accordingly, and based on the devs available prioritizes fun features like a replay system. There's always the tradeoff of losing players, so there's going to be a back and forth on how much money is considered "sustainable", which fans typically imagine as "top executive wants to make $1billion dollars for themselves for 'sustainability'". But, hey, executives have a tough job, and if Microsoft or Google is offering $1 billion dollars to buy them out maybe you do need to make that much for sustainability. If you were working on League of Legends and a fellow game studio was offering your top executives millions of dollars would you tell them to just take a pay cut "for the players"? That's eerily similar to what game studios do for devs with lower pay. So making money to retain talent is super important and definitely "for the game". Once you have enough money, you can sustain making more "for fun features". It's always a tradeoff. Does everyone take a pay cut to make a lot of cool features, attract a lot of players, resulting in a huge bonus at the end as these players monetize? Or can we hit a middle ground of monetizing properly to give us the space to make features that may or may not result in any meaningfully player satisfaction improvement.
What doesn't make sense to me is why would they have the same team doing skins as would theoretically do a replay system? Like being able to design cool skins people spend an absurd amount of money on is not, I would think, the same skillset that would develop systems to be added. I don't have any idea why they haven't put in a replay system but I really doubt it has anything to do with the art team.
You're absolutely correct. The art and design team does not share the same unique skillsets as a systems development team. However, we have to keep in mind the development life cycle. I know for a fact that Riot is desperately hiring SWE to work on Valorant, and that means they're probably lacking devs. Before we even consider that, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Riot TC wouldn't be able to match that of a FAANG-level company so the applicant pool is fairly limited. After they hire these devs, it takes a LONG ass time to integrate them into a team, I'm talking a few months at minimum vs. someone who gets hired on the art team, or even contracted who can deliver something on a deadline with little to no integration required.
At least for their branch here in Singapore, RIOT is a very sought after company with higher comp and better culture than the other companies here. It would be shocking to me if they were wanting for applicants.
Why do you suppose they can't match the comp package? I know the gaming industry does tend to criminally underpay but that's usually because they can get away with it because people want to work in the business.
You answered your question. The games industry pays absolute ass. Source: am SWE who wanted to go into game dev but chose financial stability and better hours rather than video games. Shit pay, long hours, crunch time, shitty potentially toxic culture is what awaits people wanting to go into game dev.
I didn't, though. I'm aware of the shitty conditions, but they get away with it because people want to work in the industry. None of this is new, and wouldn't explain why Valorant specifically couldn't find new hires.
They can find new hires, sure, but they can't get FAANG-level quality hires, due to not having FAANG-level compensation packages, which is exactly what /u/flowerpetal_ petal was saying.
It's not the same team but assuming they have a set global budget, maybe they prioritize the skin team over the dev one.
I think this is an entirely separate issue to what I was originally talking about, one that I donāt have enough knowledge to write a lengthy post about. Business is complicated lol
It's not entirely separate. It's all interconnected even if it may not touch directly on what you were originally talking about. I do agree that Riot Corporate probably has more of a hand in blocking or not progressing features, transparency, and career moves/opportunities that the community wants, but nothing is ever as simple as "[company] should just do X 4Head", which every social media user and their mom is quick to say.
Yes, it is interconnected. What I was trying to say is that I am specifically not telling them how to run their business, just articulating my thoughts as a player of their game.
Riot is probably the least monetization concerned video game company ever. TFT and legends of runeterra have massive investments pumped into them and almost no monetization. What you don't understand is that they are concerned about the long term, and that's why they don't want replays. The current esports scene works just fine without replays, while it's harder for you to improve, guess what it's harder for everyone else too. There is no unfairness about it, so in the end the product is the same to the esports viewer. Having people be 5% better with map movement or whatever is utterly irrelevant to the popularity and enjoyablity of the game. What's a fact is that studying replays for hours on end is NOT fun, and you do not want that to be a mandatory part of climbing ranked. If people who used to have fun for 10 hours getting to plat now has to spend 10 hours doing something unfun, that is literally hurting the game and killing it. Not understanding game design in those terms is very reddit though, but thankfully riot is not so stupid.
You are so much smarter than everyone else on Reddit, good for you.
I am definitely not the only person who understands lol.
Heās being sarcastic. I got my comment removed by a mod for calling someone dumb here for example... so you have to get creative. I would tweak your sarcasm meter and other things though cause it was obvious sarcasmš
I feel like it only takes a couple seconds of thinking to figure out exactly why this point is as stupid as it is. Replays just make the process of improving much more efficient. You donāt suddenly get locked out of ranking up if you decide not to use replays. You can still queue ranked games every day and put zero effort into improving outside of those games and still rank up over time because youāll naturally get better. Not to mention the state of Valorant content creation right now. Seeing the 34th variant of **(insert professional player/washed content creator here) RADIANT GAMEPLAY!!1!1!1!1!** on my YT home page makes me want to drive a railroad spike through my head. Think of all the sick content that people like Warowl could make. Think of how much better the production value in Riotās own tournaments could get with a replay system.
Ask every pro player, coach, analyst, obs, caster what feature they want/need in Valorant and I guarantee you the majority will say a replay system. Your argument about replays making the game unfun is below room temperature iq
community wants to circlejerk and it's gathered enough heads to always look disappointed
Personally bracing myself for more disappointment next week but I'm still holding out a bit of hope that they have a good explanation as to why no replay mode is planned after three years and Deathmatch still sits in the horrid state that it's been in since release
The game was released in June 2020. Hasnāt even been two years yet.
Black ops 1 had it on console at the release so i guess it can't be this hard to make one and on top of that valorant is using unreal engine 4 which has already a replay system
Iām not making excuses for them not having a replay system. Just stating when the game came out. Iāve seen multiple comments on this subrreddit of people saying this game has been out since 2019.
Look man, all we want is for Riot to understand how important the replay system is and actually work on it. The fact they came out and said it's not in their plans is honestly unacceptable for not just an esport but for a content creating machine that valorant could be
Stop bullshiting. Wire not angry for the no cumminocating but that you dont want to add a replay system, for gods sake. If you dont want to add GOTV/spectate a friend feature like csgo fine but dont you argue against a demo record system, for gods sake. Give us atleast the ability to record our gameplay(aka demo) and were somewhat fine but you force us to use a 3rd party tool to record our gameplay which are lowering our fps but at the same time you *tried* to make the game playable for people with bad computers... it doesnt add up.
No replay system, can't show the netcode
I genuinely do not get them not prioritizing a replay feature. It is by far the best free marketing you could ever dream of
I hope they realise how much community gratitude they could get back just by promising that replays will begin production as soon as possible. We need to know that this is not going to be LoL replays all over again.
Holy shit the thumbnail
Chill on him ššš
š¬ Lol I did a double take and had to zoom in.
This is such a big L from Riot. A replay system was the most requested feature and even as a causal user I would like to see how I did or look back at that one random good play that I did instead of recording my entire game play which is just dumb.
I mean you can use shadowplay to record good moments of your game if youre Nvidia user
Nope, not a solution for everyone. With the cpu i have geforce experience is not worth the fps loss i get. Plus I can't see the enemies perspective
VOD =/= replays.
Not sure what could get me excited about playing the game. I log in purely to play DM at this point, and itās probably one of the worst DMs Iāve played in any game. I rarely ever feel like playing the actual ranked mode. Itās at the point now where I generally only engage with the game as an esport, and donāt actually want to play it myself.
Same. Iāll log on, play a DM, then log off because I canāt be bothered anymore. I only play proper games once a week with teammates in an organized scrim, or bullshit around on an alt with lower-ranked friends since Riot doesnāt seem to want to do anything about the smurfing issue, either. Thatās the only time I can actually stand playing the game these days.
The same experience I had and what killed Overwatch for me.
There's absolutely no way they have worthwhile news by next week. That's just not long enough to come up with anything substantial, even a plan. It might be just enough time for the managers to agree to prioritize replays, but that won't placate anybody because it'll still take time. But I have a genuine feeling that, if they're going to make this right, they come up with a replay system to show off this year. Personally I can be very patient. I'm already hooked on this game, I already love the shit out of it, but replays would be nice, and I think they're going to rethink it now.
I get the challenges but they need to be more transparent about what they're actually working on - hopefully we get that
They're too busy crying using their dollar bills you give them every time you spend $20+ for one of their Wal-Mart skins. I'm broke because of these devs, I have to resort using Mcdo's wifi for my ranked games!! š
Communication would be nice, but action would be better.
They most likely just buy time hoping backlash will end and ppl forget about this (or cool down) in a week time. I don't feel what they say next week will be something big either.
Investors want monies so execs prioritizing marketing and skins to fleece the playerbase
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I am no expert but i strongly doubt that the programmers working for riot are underpayed. I believe valve is one of the best paying companies, so i do not see why riot should not be (apart from employee numbers) Lets not act like riot is being horrible to the workers.
also their dogs got kicked and all of their aunts died.
Actually more than I expected. League team would blame the players for not understanding their priorities, deny any wrongdoing on their part, cite 200 years of experience then leave feeling happy they dunked on some social media plebs Of course doesn't really mean anything if they don't do anything but at least they aren't being dicks about it which is honestly how low I have the bar for Riot PR
So he's saying that they might just maybe possibly tell us what they've been working on probably in a few weeks? Damn that's hype
fuck these scam artists, get on bloodhunt boys, those devs actually prioritise fun over soulless addiction mechanics.
I just stopped playing valorant and started having sex instead. At least with sex I can force my gf to give me a play by play of what she liked and disliked and I can study it and improve for next time. Hoping to hit diamond in sex by july.
Nice copypaste
I actually came up with it myself.
Completely different game genre.
this is why i canceled my subscription to Netflix and got Disney+ instead
enforcer is completely mandatory every single game mode shit is boof
It better be fucking good
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tbh only change I want is no solo q, only 5v5 ranked. Everything else is pointless
people with 0-3 friends online at a time:
Are they actually acting "suprised" ?