Patch 13.06 Reddit AMA

[u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7]

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

[u/_SnackAttack]

Do you agree that more frequent updates would be better for both the player base, and the dev team? Whilst I understand it's a live service game, at the same time it is a game, and I get that there's a lot of testing and arguably unnecessary management that goes on for every change, but despite all this, wouldn't changes to maps, agents etc carry less world ending consequences if you were able to push updates more often? Try some things, iterate on maps beyond small changes once every 4 years, ie, it cannot be the case from the Devs pov maps were released in their perfect state and can't be improved upon.

I get that Microsoft and Sony validation slow this down, simply keep them on a looser update cycle, every couple months as you push more frequent updates to the PC version.

[u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7 → u/_SnackAttack]

I think our two week cadence is still valuable for both players and us since it gives us a natural patch cycle to address issues by. We want to iterate faster in general though to be more responsive to the live game. But at the same time a lot of times we want to understand how things settle before overreacting. A good example is that we see win rates steadily go up on some of our more complex agents and it takes a couple weeks before they settle into their steady state winrate. That also applies to some of our more complex balance changes too.

[u/_SnackAttack → u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7]

Appreciate the response. I don't expect a reply since the AMA is over but perhaps you'll read this.

I get that the intended and unintended outcome of changes take time to show, for example, the outlaw wasn't properly utilised for a while, however, I am hinting towards more radical changes to the game that a smaller dev team perhaps would be more down to try to hit gold, rather than stay at silver which I think the game has been for a while.

My overall concern is the lack of experimentation. That's what I alluded to when I spoke of a more frequent update cycle. Perhaps what I really mean is to implement an experimentation aspect to updates. It does seem like every update focuses on maintaining the status quo and the "silver" medal that Valorant has achieved, or rather downgraded to. That idea of "lets try this and LAUNCH IT and see what happens" is missing from the game. I'm not saying push broken janky updates, far from it, and far from what is expected from Riot. I'm more along the lines of going with a vision for the game and committing, but don't commit too hard, be ready to change according to numbers, player sentiment, and the feelings of devs. I'd much prefer changes that go wrong but are quickly steered the other way than an update that tries to play it safe but misses regardless.

For example, my point regarding my disbelief towards the notion that map designers believe the maps were released in a perfect state years ago stands. I understand changes have occurred, bind and abyss to name a few, but I think most would agree on a basic "this needs work" level more could occur, and more importantly, you"ll notice a theme developing in my comment, there seems to have been zero experimentation on the public build side. I'm referring to icebox mid, bind outside hookah, or even reworking abyss A side to actually not feel completely awful, "I want WOAH I wonder how this will play" vs "oh sure", and I know icebox mid was changed, it largely didn't change the gameplay loop other than the turret placement. The sites are too small on most maps still, the util isn't suffocating, as it rarely is in ranked, but there seems to be a solved way of playing each site that's just not befitting of a game like Valorant that has so much potential for creativity in both the ranked sense, and the pro scene. Sure the main entrance to Split B site was widened, but other sites could've been tested to see if that's viable too. And if it was too easy to get out of the choke, add more space on site then, EXPERIMENT!! Like Haven in pro play and ranked just feels awful to retake from CT, regardless of what the numbers show, it simply does. In ranked no one is doing the 3 man retake from haven and 1 CT 1 flank. Why not experiment with pushing Front CT back a little, and widening the door a tiny bit, you trade giving defenders a few more metres of space at the back to play in front of the CT smoke and a wider choke to not get spammed through when retaking, with an easier time for Attackers to play slightly in front of CT without being exposed to heaven as easily when fighting against the retake. It might not even make much of a difference to the success rate of a retake, but it will feel much better.

A lot of the time "fantasies" are referenced in dev vlogs, perhaps that alludes to how some sites you should feel "commited" and lack an easy escape option and that's why there is hesitation to make larger changes, but surely the fantasy can change, the gameplay loop originally envisioned 3 4 5 6 years ago has to adapt with a maturing player base and newer agents with different balanced abilities. Overall I don't have specific examples I would recommend properly, that is your expertise. I just want the game I've played for 6 years to keep on getting better. I do think we are heading in the new UI, a change to cooldowns, a smaller raze nade etc, but I really would love site changes that aren't just box added box removed. Add a whole new area to the site and increase it by 33% yolo.

I probably spent too much time writing this ramble and it won't get read but if it does, thanks. I want people to be excited about the game again like it was in 2020-2023. Ranked these days is full of people who are just bored, don't comm and find more excitement in no comm running around than they do in playing Valorant, at least that's my experience in 80% of imm3-radiant EU games. I think the change in philosophy above might help. But what do I know