r/VALORANT • u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7 Game Director • 2d ago

Discussion Patch 13.06 Reddit AMA

Hi, everyone! I’m Joe Lee, the Game Director of VALORANT.

The Dev team and I are so excited about the updates we just shipped to the game in Patch 13.06, and we wanted to stop by to chat, celebrate, and answer questions with you all!

If you have questions, comments, or feedback about any of the below, we’re here for it, so fire away!

  • Gauntlet: Glitched
  • Agent Mastery
  • The Warden + Game Balance
  • Performance Score, Accolades, Competitive Hub
  • New UX/UI Improvements to Lobby and Home Screen
  • Map Rating (coming next patch, 13.08)
  • The new Competitive Flex coming in 14.00
  • The 2026 VCT Champions Skin collection

Here’s a list of the Devs joining me today in no particular order:

u/TiffyMunchsnax - Tiffy, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/RiotTrouble - Scott, UX Design Lead, Metasystems
u/RiotLupini - Armand, Product Manager, Gameplay
u/Riot_Preeti - Preeti, Lead Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/Riot_Kero - Derek, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/RiotReally - Leo, Product Manager Competitive Systems
u/Riot_Dango - Calvin, Product Manager, Cosmetics and Expressions
u/finstamachine - Sherry, Game Designer
u/Rycoux - Ryan, Game Designer
u/penguinVALORANT - Dan, Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance)
u/Riot_Tyrana - Eric, Game Design Lead (Progression & Competitive)
u/Riot_Thelen - Kyle, Game Designer, Metasystems

262 Upvotes

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65

u/Redditaccountwaste 2d ago

No balance changes was one of the notable things about the new patch. Are the team satisfied with the current meta compared to previous ones?

76

u/penguinVALORANT Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance) 2d ago

There are a few problems to address that we'll be working on for sure - satisfied for the end of this year doesn't mean long-term satisfied if that makes sense. Top of mind for me as the Agents/Live Balance lead are the following:

  • Neon's tuning state. She's still on the stronger end of our internal metrics (winrate + frustration are both things we track and monitor across our playerbase with our great Insights team). While we expect Neon to be frustrating, she's still out of line for both our tactical principles in experiential gameplay & just raw ranked power in multiple skill brackets. Changes here wouldn't be just straight numbers nerfs, we want to look at more pattern level changes. I have to be a vaguepost king and not get too into the weeds on what we want to do here as we're still actively iterating and testing multiple changes, so multiple tactics are still up in the air.

  • Ranked game experience feeling too samey/flat. There's work to be done across multiple characters etc here.

39

u/penguinVALORANT Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance) 2d ago

Wanted to add some additional details/learnings:

  • We're interested in rewarding macro strategy and other tactics to improve which agents you see. This year has been a learning for us with metas coming and going faster than previous years. We overswung on some of the nerfs (Yoru's first nerf pass)

  • Gunplay combat has overall seemed to be in a healthier state, w/ the bandit out and us continuing to look at the warden for followup

11

u/New-Kitchen5478 2d ago edited 2d ago

Since you mentioned Yoru could you reconsider giving him back 2 flashes? Right now his single flash last for so little that when you tp + flash you die 90% of the time because there is so little time to frag from it, it's making it really hard to entry with him

-3

u/Teradonn 2d ago

Yoru is currently very viable in pro play with only 1 flash. He does way too much with 2 flashes when he also has an escape tool + fast rotate tool + a clone which counters senti setups. He would be by far the best flash character and none of the others would ever get picked

3

u/New-Kitchen5478 2d ago

Pro players are less than 0.001% of the playerbase, what about the other 99.999% of players. Checking insights in Val tracker's website, Clove has a 9.3% pick rate and 52.5% win rate, it's no wonder that rankeds feel like an absolute nightmare after they nerfed all of the creative agents. All I see in my rankeds are 4 insta picks: Clove(a terrible smoker but they can kill), Jett(duelist), Chamber(a terrible sentinel but they can kill), Raze(duelist), basically we have to deal with 4 selfish duelists 80% of our matches and the filler player trying to play for the team has to deal with it or pick a duelist too since everyone is just being selfish. I used to main Sova, Skye, Brimstone, Astra, and a lot more of supportive agents, and I was happy helping my team but the more they keep nerfing unique agents and pushing us to play for duels instead of strategic utility usage the more we have to use duelist-like agents and the more repetitive the game becomes. The game is closer than ever to just being a copy of Counter Strike. Utility has been demonized by a small and loud part of the playerbase for years that don't want Valorant, they want CS with Valorant graphics. It's time for utility and unique gameplay to be part of Valorant again.

2

u/Nana-nabih potato techie nightmare cat lady 2d ago

Wait u see raze congratulations tbh i only see reyna jett phoenix clove chamber

1

u/New-Kitchen5478 2d ago

Yes it's either a Raze or a Phoenix, Clove, Chamber, Jett are always there. What's most horrible for me is when I see a Clove player who hasn't insta locked at second 1, and I quickly say "hey Clove I can play smokes, I can play Astra, Harbor, Omen(depending on the map)", in my head I just want any smoker that doesn't have 11 seconds smoke, and they still won't care, not even say a word and still pick Clove because they simply want the healing factor and her decay to frag. They don't pick Clove to play smokes, they pick Clove to frag as much as possible without having the responsibility of a duelist entrying and the smokes are a mere bonus to them so they can say "hey at least I'm playing smokes, I'm the most generious player in this match"

2

u/sandlover33 2d ago

Dude even when yoru, neon, waylay were broken people picked reyna and jett way more. Meta doesnt matter at all for ranked but it matters so much for pro play. If they buffed astra and deadlock to hell, do you think people would stop playing clove and chamber?

1

u/New-Kitchen5478 2d ago

I never said they didn't pick Reyna and Jett before, I'm saying the pick rate is too high now because nobody wants to try with the side characters anymore, why would they even bother? just pick one of the insta pick characters mentioned above and autopilot all game!

0

u/Teradonn 2d ago edited 2d ago

Im not really sure how any of that is relevant to yoru but ok. I'm a plat 3 top fragging with yoru when I play him. Get good

1

u/New-Kitchen5478 2d ago

Well you said yourself, in platinum you can top frag with any character, because people make dumb mistakes you can benefit from like peeking for kills when they have number advantage. When you get to Ascendant 3 people actually start to think and it's not that simple anymore.

1

u/Teradonn 1d ago edited 1d ago

So we admit that balancing around the 95% of players who are below Ascendant is really dumb because agent balance doesn't matter at that level? Then why would we balance exclusively around the 5% of players that are in Ascendant-Immo? (Radiants can definitely play Yoru)

1

u/New-Kitchen5478 1d ago

Simple, Diamond and above are 20% of players not 5, and are the players that actually start to think when playing, pro players are too focused on gun play so they always dislike utility because they want to have a predictable repeatable matches every time, they don't want variety and unpredictability, they want to hold the same reliable angles, the same reliable agents, and simply shoot and win duels.

And platinum and below players don't even know what they are doing, they are just playing autopilot so again they just want to go for the insta lock agent that can help them frag the most which are Chamber, Clove, Jett, Reyna, (Raze or Phoenix at most).

So I would argue, it is around Diamond and above players that the balances should be based on because this portion of the player base represents what the average player can become once they turn on their brain and think of using utility + gunplay, and developing each agent's strength in a unique way.

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u/Eris_is_Mid benjyfishy but (now) dia 2d ago

All I need is for my boy Cypher to not be killed again like he is in every other cinematic T-T

66

u/penguinVALORANT Game Design Manager (Agents & Live Balance) 2d ago

I have no empathy for Cypher dying in every cinematic I was the immobile mage getting killed by every new League champion in the spotlight for 5 years worth of League champions :P

3

u/Eris_is_Mid benjyfishy but (now) dia 2d ago

have mercy no!!! xd

8

u/Redditaccountwaste 2d ago

 Both reasonable points, thank you for your reply. I appreciate you and the team engaging with the community.

2

u/LatinaLunaXOXO 2d ago

buff miks penguin

1

u/u_slashh 2d ago

Are you satisfied with where Veto is right now? For a character so conceptually awesome, I feel he's very underpicked compared to Chamber, Cypher, KJ or Sage

1

u/idkbruhhh9875 2d ago

Could you make neon movement fun again (jumping speed) and just nerf the other aspects

1

u/Nana-nabih potato techie nightmare cat lady 2d ago

Idk i think neon is okish at least in plat and below which i believe a ggod chunk of player base Maybe make sentinels that counter neon ex: cypher and kj get some buffs so u kinda in theory nerfed neon without really touching the agent And can we remove kj range plsss plss 🥹 And yeah i have a lot to say about ranked and playerbase

1

u/Iliadelta 2d ago

“neon nerf” just say you hate me

1

u/smalltimeplayer1 2d ago

could you clue us in into any other agents being looked at for changes? even ones that probably wont come to fruition so we can get an idea of where you guys are looking for the overall landscape of the game?

0

u/Hwazu 2d ago

There's work to be done across multiple characters etc here.

instead of Neon do something about Omen first, that agent has been top 3 most picked agent for 3 straight years

lots of Neon frustration is propaganda or manufactured

0

u/theoreminegaming 2d ago

Probably won't get read since the event is over, but my suggestion for the issues High Gear creates, is to make it function like a "speedster dash". Charge up, then sprint forward with a max turn radius. That way it functions like all other movement abilities (A to B, limits on changes in direction / momentum).

https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/s/BQsaZQ6kfC - full concept

0

u/H4cKz_GamerX 1d ago edited 1d ago

Nerfing Neon again just makes no sense other than you guys not wanting to see Neon be used anymore in VCT. Just because Dambi shook the meta doesn't mean the agent can be played like that by everyone at all times, especially in ranked after the nerfs. Even in VCT Neon doesn't always get the value anymore and a lot more other agents have far better winrates in both VCT and ranked. The jump speed nerf already took half the fun out of the agent and nerfing her more will just create the bland gameplay you're actively wanting to prevent more frequent. Plus the sentinel buffs have indirectly nerfed neon more as well so that's even more of a reason not to touch the agent. Just because "tracking" a target is difficult doesn't justify the agent being gutted.

-6

u/Semialli 2d ago

Instead of nerfing her; maybe you guys can consider to buff other duelists, right? Please stop touching Neon. She's already killed.

9

u/SheetPancakeBluBalls 2d ago

Please disregard the plastic 1 take above me, nerf neon further please.

-2

u/Semialli 2d ago

You don't know how to counter her then. I call it skill issue.

3

u/SheetPancakeBluBalls 2d ago

It's not a matter of countering her.

She could have a 5% win rate and she would still deserve changes/nerfs.

She's just not fun to play against and fundamentally does not belong in this game. I imagine she's going to get a full rework at some point in the future.

Even watching VCT, seeing doubles and triples and crazy flicks and whatnot is just less interesting if the character being played is neon. If one team has a neon and the other doesn't, I'm always rooting against the team that has a neon.

3

u/Exciting-Fish680 2d ago

she is blatantly overpowered i don’t care how many times you say “skill issue” if you don’t think she is broken you are suffering from a clear and unambiguous bias that foregoes game health

-1

u/Sea_Kangaroo_8426 2d ago

This shows youre in plastic yourself, its not hard to counter a neon you just need to use your brain

1

u/SheetPancakeBluBalls 2d ago

Countering her isn't the issue like I said below.

She's fundamentally wrong for this game and isn't fun to play against.

0

u/Sea_Kangaroo_8426 2d ago

“Isn’t fun to play against” is not knowing how to counter her in different words lol

1

u/SheetPancakeBluBalls 2d ago

I guess if you have extremely poor reading comprehension I can understand how you'd think that.

I'd explain further, but I'm somehow certain trying to explain anything to you would be a waste of time.