V
alorant’s influence
grows under Riot’s
steady development.
The dev has been
refining and tweaking
the game since its 2020 release,
dedicated to finding an almost
impossible perfect balance between
its agents, guns, and maps. It’s just
as important for players to be
checking the patch notes regularly
as it is to put the hours into
practicing their headshots.
The latest 4 .05 update made changes
to ‘Brimmy with the stimmy’.
Brimstone is one of the game’s
original cast and has been, for a long
time, a staple agent. Using remote-
deployable smokes and his incendiary
grenades he’s almost always been a
great mover and shaker, despite some
blips where other agents
outperformed him.
Now he’s been nerfed, however,
and his stim beacon has taken a hit.
This ability allows him to place a
gadget on the ground which
increases rate of fire, movement
speed and more in an area. Very
handy, but too handy. To encourage
players having a more considered
approach of when to use it tactically,
Riot has made it more expensive, and
only given the player one use of the
ability each round. That’s quite a nerf.
But that’s part of the development
philosophy. There are gaming
communities that envy the updates
that Valorant and League of Legends
get as, although they’re rarely perfect,
they show that the team is always
there, watching, waiting, and taking
notes on your matches. Complaints
and issues the community have will
at least get a reaction from the team
in due course. It may be a while, and
fixes may need even more fixes, but
Riot will keep tweaking.ACTING OUT
With the 4 .04 patch came Episode 4
Act II. The battle pass and new
agents system is split into Episodes
and Acts. Episodes last six months,
and contain three Acts each. It splits
up competitive play, and each adds
new agents, lore, and gorgeous
cinematics to boot.
With Episode 4 Act II came large
rebalances of many of Valorant’s cast,
from Astra to Yoru. The latter, Yoru,
has constantly struggled to find his
place, crowded out by the abilities of
others. He’s needed a full reworkalmost since his initial release.
Valorant is all about information
detection and denial, and Yoru’s skill
set wasn’t up to scratch to keep up
with the abilities of other agents. Riot
has tried to change that, making his
abilities more disruptive.
Yoru’s Fakeout ability used to send
footsteps out from the player,
attempting to confuse an enemy
team. Players got used to the idea
quickly, and so now Riot has updated
this ability to a full copy of Yoru
instead. This baits players into
shooting at the decoy and revealing
their position to the other team.
Map updates make massive
differences. Valorant’s 5 v5 gameplay
is set on just seven maps and playersknow them intimately. With the
community’s millions of hours of
gameplay, positions and plays get
known for their difficulty. Maps may
be considered heavily attack
weighted, or some defensive points
become difficult to bypass. Big
updates allow changes that may
seem small to a casual player, but can
completely change the meta for
longtime fans. The map Icebox has
had doorway shifts, shipping
containers rotated, and more so that
different agents can feel at home in
its icy domain, changing what
players consider good pushing and
planting tactics.
Even unpopular updates cause a
rotation of good and bad agents by
players’ standards. Astra, for example,
was a must-play for a team’s success
and now she’s been nerfed hard. But
really, the positive aspect of these
changes is that it keeps the meta
fresh. The pain is outweighed by a
resurgence in creativity. New metas
have to evolve and new plans have to
be made. It’s kept the community
talking and reworking their tactics,
once again on their toes.
Valorant relies on constant
updates to work and maintain player
interest. That doesn’t mean the
community aren’t complaining about
Jett’s continued rule over Duelists, or
sceptical of Riot’s anti-cheat’s
effectiveness, but they’re interested.
And Valorant continues to thrive.NEED TO KNOW
RELEASE
March 22 , 2022
PUBLISHER
In-houseDEVELOPER
Riot GamesLINK
playvalorant.comVALORANT
Riot’sshooter continuesto evolve withits community. By Imogen Mellor
IT MAY BE A
WHILE, BUT
RIOT WILL KEEP
TWEAKING
YOU’RE LOOKING RADIANT
The staple elements of an agent’s wardrobeSTRAPS AND
BELTS
They serve no
purpose but you look
cooler, and that’s
what matters.GOOD BICEPS
You’re hauling big,
heavy guns around
with you all day – of
course your arms
look good.GREATHAIR
Unless you’re a
robot, you have to
have a fresh trim for
the battlefield. That’s
the rule.FINGERLESS
GLOVES
There are more sets
of fingerless gloves
here than a crap emo
band gig in 2008.