🪬Riot Junebird

Hey yall - thank you for the feedback. We're bringing back Skirmish 2v2 starting tomorrow (March 19th)!

Thank you all - Santiago was incredible everyone was so kind and curious about how we make agents. If anyone has more questions I’m happy to talk about it if I can. Really nothing quite like the LATAM crowd - y’all go crazy.

raze and killjoy

@porridgeorge Appreciate the sympathy. Don’t worry - I love my job and I won’t be turning down opportunities to represent the agent design team because of twitter commenters. :)

first of all, i already hate this agent. secondly, the comments on this are fuck all to do with the agent. with all of the criticism riot has been getting lately they've borderline shot this person out of a cannon into hellfire. i really feel bad for them.

@JTayy_ We have statistics about everything that we use to help us make decisions. Without going into specifics, stim is a powerful effect generally and one that punches above its weight compared to how the average person perceives it.

I'd love to know if there's some internal statistics on the effect of combat stim in Valorant in general - how much does it actually increase frag potential, and does that change as you get into higher Elo and 1 taps are more common?

I'll be very happy to be proven wrong, but Miks feels kind of like the inverse clove The support fantasy is definitely a big niche in the casual playerbase, but I think the abilities are a little too weak to measurably help actual frag potential at the top level

We’ve been working on this for a long time. We reworked buffs and debuffs, added assist banners, and revamped supportive UX throughout the game for Miks. Big shoutout to the whole design crew for this one.

@AnderzzTV What do you mean “texture of the patch around it” 🤔

Rumoured Yoru nerfs are pretty much 1:1 what I've suggested/hoped for up to this point. I think the only thing that might be cause for concern is the texture of the patch around it.

Hey there, Val gameplay designer here. Just want to call out that we make changes to agents because we feel they are correct for the game and we believe make the game better, not simply to just drive engagement for new content. Unfortunately these changes leaked without context (and we have more changes coming!) but we never have a secret agenda other than making changes we believe are correct generally and are aligned with our goals for those changes.

Main reason for the nerf is to make the new smokes agent popular in rank.

@WendlerTV Gl!!

@2016archive @Altombre We love it too! Our team is comprised of Val players who play daily just like you. We think Val is played best as a team, and part of that is ensuring our agents that thrive with more team play are worth picking over our more self sufficient characters.

That’s fair, I just think ranked will go right back to triple duelist instalock like it was before clove because their solo carry potential took a heavy hit. I would be more than happy to be proven wrong because I really do love this game but at the end of the day people will be people

Hey all - want to share some of the philosophy behind the updates to Yoru and Clove. We strive for balance that supports healthy pick diversity at all skill levels while rewarding coordinated teamplay - and currently, we believe that Clove and Yoru are too powerful overall (1/4)

@Hystariea @Altombre Very simply - yes! We believe the experience of playing Valorant is better when you have variety in each game.

@Altombre Honestly so many agents like harbor even post rework are still almost never picked in comp. What's the goal to actually get agents like that picked?

Hey there! Clove has been since launch the agent with the highest win rate across all MMRs. This is reflected in their pick rate as well, as Clove is an ever-present part of the ranked experience for players right now. Character diversity makes the experience of the game better overall, and hopefully these changes help that. And I think it goes without saying I love my fellow enbys 💜

this feels enbyphobic what did they even do

@onlyakio @Altombre Hey there Val game designer here. There are more changes to come in this patch and future patches. Unfortunately some pieces of those updates leaked, but expect more in this and subsequent patches.

I can’t talk about things we have planned for the future but we’ve heard this sentiment from players loud and clear. We try to handle problems in the live game holistically and from multiple angles. Right now agents like Yoru, Waylay, and Neon are in a state of balance where they are making it tough to be a sentinel player, which we believe to be a large contributing factor in sentinels being weak.

@Altombre i understand your point but we need sentinels buffs asap and i want to believe that you know this and you are woking on it

@Altombre Nice philosophy behind the changes if im being honest, nice work but i have a question. Are these the only agent balances that we will be seeing in patch 12.05?

Hey there, gameplay designer on Val here. Our goal is never to simply reduce creativity on an agent. In Yoru’s case we are removing options that are splashing too deeply into other roles causing a reduction in pick diversity. Yoru is simply over-tuned, and a consequence of that is having access to a wide variety of gameplay patterns that are atypical for duelists in general such as map wide rotation, long term space holding, and flexible flashes that are as strong selfishly as they are at supporting teammates. All told, we do have to make calls around what is appropriate for the role and game holistically, and sometimes that does mean removing options. Give it a shot in game - if it turns out we overswung on this nerf we will be keeping an eye out for all of your feedback after you try out the changes. Some more context is here as well:

I wish we traded reductions in power for a boost in creativity on Yoru. Fell in love with the agent because of the trickster playstyle he can have and some of the mind games he can put down. 15sec Gatecrash. Less OP map omnipotence. The goal is to make it more brawly and intentional in usage rather than an always online cross map rotation tool that dictates how teams approach the first 30 seconds of the game. In that case can we make it so that you can't hear if he took the TP from his location again? We trade creativity in controlling the map for a majority of the round, timing your TPs correctly and making good decisions, for creativity in fighting, with shorter timed TPs that can break ankles and have him be a strong agent in executes and brawls like he was supposed to be. No creativity in his gameloop, just an overall loss in power, makes the agent less fun to play. I don't want to lose the original power fantasy this agent has in combination with making him also generally weaker. Down to make him weaker but lets keep him fun.

Hey gameplay designer here for Val! I’ve seen this sentiment a few times over the last week but I want to clarify that it was not the goal of the patch to buff duelists for viewership. When our team makes changes it’s because we believe those changes support a thesis that makes the game better. For our year end patch we were responding to player sentiment that utility was outshining gunplay in an unhealthy way, which we agreed with. We never make changes just for the sake of it or for artificial engagement. We can’t see the future so sometimes we are off target and course correct later, but all of our changes are made to make Valorant better.

me on the inside vs outside #VALORANTMasters