With a sudden surprise by the Riot Games team, I am looking at how Valorant has changed since its closed beta.
Valorant, Riot Games' first games outside of League of Legends, was the company's first competitive FPS development experience. For the game, which went through a long closed beta process, a gesture was made to the players by moving the release date forward. For about a week, was the full game really ready to come out of the closed beta?
Why did Riot Games decide to release their games directly instead of the open beta process? What level of experience does Valorant offer now and what kind of Valorant awaits us in the future? I will try to answer these questions based on our experience.
Pros
+ Free
+ Total games of this genre
+ Presence of strict rules for cheaters
+ Fun gameplay mechanics
Cons
- Although it is a full version, it feels beta
- Weapon balance and unequal functionalities
- Failure to fully balance the agents
Riot Games had chosen a system that provides access with Twitch drops for these games. You had to watch the game in order to play it in the closed beta version of the game. The idea of gaining access by watching the game was quite logical, actually. If you were curious about the game and what you watched liked it, you could win the right to play. Once you gained access to the game's closed beta, you could download and play the game directly.
Although there were some annoying bugs during the closed beta process, it was thought to be resolved until the full version. For example, it is very important to hear in such competitive FPS games. From your opponent's steps, you try to guess where he is. However, for Valorant, this issue was a bit frustrating. Because your enemies appeared in the opposite position from the direction you heard them.
I don't even remember how many times I was beaten this way. The mobility of the characters, on the other hand, gave a really limited feeling. There was almost no difference between walking and running. As for the variety of weapons, although there were apparently sufficient numbers, most weapons were useless. In other words, there were three or four weapons that were actively preferred in the game.
In general, Valorant, which offers content in this way, resolved many errors during the beta process. Let's see what this production has changed, developed and come across since the beta process.
How is Valorant doing now?
First of all, there is not much difference in the interface part of the game, except for location changes. Everything is in place, obviously, even with this new positioning, the field control has been made more functional. You can easily access your friends and quickly enter the game.
The first thing I noticed when we came across the encounter and came to the agent selection screen was the agent animations. When you choose the agent you want to play, animations have been prepared in a different way for each one. These animations, on the other hand, show some of the abilities of the characters, and they say a word of their own. After this point, when the match starts, we see a few changes.
The audio accuracy problem, which I just mentioned above and one of the most annoying errors, is now resolved. So if a character's voice comes from the right, that character doesn't come out from your left. This arrangement even increases the enjoyment of the game.
In addition, you may encounter some in-game interface problems during matches in Valorant. So much so that in certain encounters, your character's abilities and health indicator completely disappear from the screen. It was a rare problem that I had for about 20-30 hours of play time. It can get really annoying when you come across it though.
Some dots left intact
There are almost no changes to the game's weapon balance. Weapons that are actively used during the beta remain popular in this version as well. The use of weapons, on the other hand, is not the usual type. Frankly, I wish Valorant was a production with gun balance.
The main reason for this instability in weapons is that the recoil dynamics of the weapons are a bit weird. Obviously, with a lot of guns in this game, even if you are aiming in the right place, the bullets can point at very ridiculous positions. These dynamics, which provide "lucky shots" most of the time, can sometimes undermine the enjoyment you get from the game.
Valorant also has the feature of passing bullets through walls, which is found in other games of this genre. However, this system works a little differently. The guns' bullets are logically planned so that they pass through the corners of the doors and thin walls. Still, the structure of some walls can keep this rule flexible.
For example, when you squeeze it through a wall that is both thin and between two doors, the bullet reaches your opponent. In fact, although it should not go through in longitudinal terms, your calculations turn out to be wrong, and you are left with a hit.
What about the gameplay dynamics?
Valorant is a game where every bullet you shoot counts. This requires you to plan your game strategy well and put it to life correctly with your team. Because the smallest mistake you make ends up dead and thus losing the tour. Your reflexes are of great importance in this regard.
Every decision you make is of great importance, as there are fewer rounds in every match you participate in, compared to other similar games. If you make the wrong decisions and keep losing rounds, your team economy really collapses. When it comes to this point, it may take a great miracle to get back into the game.
Especially playing on the attacking side on all maps is a struggle in itself. Area control can be achieved much more easily while on the defender side. While most Spike areas have multiple ways to enter, almost all of them are through narrow gates. If you're not careful, your opponents can punish you instantly.
Despite all these difficulties, it is possible to set up Spike with the right steps. Here, too, we run into another minor problem. Once the spike is installed, the sound becomes quicker as the explosion approaches. So far everything is very good, no problem seems to be. However, these sounds can be very surprising at some point.
For example, you run away from a Spike that you think you don't have a time frame to solve, but you actually see that there is still time to explode. This time, you don't have time to go back and you lose the tour. Of course, it could be just because I was paying too much attention. However, when you do encounter it, it can be a little annoying.
What's new in Valorant?
As you know, Valorant was completely unavailable for a week before transitioning from closed beta to full version. During this period, Riot Games had the opportunity to introduce a few content to be added to Valorant. These contents included a battle ticket, a new map, game mode, and character.
The battle ticket system that accompanies us at the exit of the game is actually something we have seen in the game lately. With these tickets available in two different versions, you get in-game cosmetics and content as you play. The Valorant war ticket, which comes in two different forms, paid and free, fulfills this task properly.
Ascent, Valorant's new map, adds a new two mechanics to the game. While putting the use of the environment into our lives with doors that can be opened and closed, it also provides the opportunity to pass through some breakable areas. Obviously, the Ascent has a transition with only one breakable glass, but this is also at a critical point. This road, which leads to one of the spike building areas, is one of the passages that should be used carefully.
Doors that can be opened and closed are obviously not very effective either. These doors, which can be broken very quickly with a few bullets of the opponent after closing, provide minimal benefit to your team. Yet when your team lacks Sage's ability to create walls, he's a mechanic who comes to your aid. It wouldn't be bad to see a few similar environmental factors on other maps as well.
Spike Rush, Valorant's second game mode, which was added with its release, offered a much faster experience than I expected. First of all, the matches consist of four rounds in total, and your equipment selection is randomly determined during the pre-tour preparation period. In this mode, where all members on the attacking side have a Spike, the location of the ability spheres in the environment has been changed with various effects.
By collecting these special effect orbs, depending on the type of orb, you can put your opponent at a disadvantage and provide various enhancements for your team. For example, a sphere in this mode instantly makes your team's ultimate abilities available. Or another sphere, for a short time, reduces your opponent's health to a level that you can beat in one hit.
What is new agent Reyna up to do?
One of the most exciting developments about the release of the game was that Valorant will be out with eleven agents in total. Reyna, who surfaced days before the game's release, suddenly caused the actors to be excited. Being the first new agent to come to the game was obviously the biggest factor of this.
After about two months, a new agent, besides the basic agents, was joining. In the promotional video of Reyna, although we didn't see all of her skills or gameplay in great detail, it was more or less clear what kind of gameplay she would offer. When this character joined the game, everyone competed with each other to play.
All of Reyna's talents are focused on dealing with rivals directly. As you defeat your opponents, you can collect the remaining spheres from them to restore your health points or gain immunity for a short time. Likewise, another skill that serves this purpose is the eyeball left in a field. This ability blinds the opponents who look at it in a short time in the area you are sending.
Reyna's ultimate talent is her ability to be named the empress. With this ability, the bullet rate of your gun increases and it becomes easier to see your opponents. Moreover, when you collect the spheres that fall from your opponents in this form, you can gain short-term invisibility and movement speed. In addition to one-on-one conflicts, Reyna appears as an agent who is effective against the opponent.
How does Valorant work with the Vanguard anti-cheat system?
First of all, the impact of the Vanguard anti-cheat system on your computer should be minimized. The reason I say it this way is because your computer needs to be restarted from scratch to use this system. This method actually has an understandable reason.
To keep cheaters away from the game, these people are banned directly from their hardware. The problem here is that this system, which remains open even when you are not playing the game, can have control over your computer's hardware.
Many gamers talk about their computers getting too hot and their various hardware temporarily not working due to this application. We can say that these problems have been solved to a great extent. However, during the time I played, I experienced several warming up and restrictions on mouse button control. Since it is a new system, I think these will improve over time.
Final decision
Valorant is a game that tries to include the best features of many games of its kind. Frankly, it has been doing this successfully until now. However, there are still many issues to be resolved in the game.
The skill balance between the agents in the game is an important issue here. The functionality of some characters is very important to others and makes these characters indispensable. In addition, the gameplay of these agents is important, as well as their stories.
We know the origin of all Valorant agents. Yet they are not at the level of deep character stories that let us dive into the game. We know that the Riot Games team cares about this issue and is doing it well. For this reason, I am sure that we will see a deeper background story for these characters in the future, although not for now.
Despite all of this, Valorant didn't really make me feel like a game out of beta. Obviously, it would be much better to have an open beta that all players can access after the closed beta. Although it is a very nice production, it seems like it needs a little more time to process all these elements.
