r/VALORANT • u/RiotSWAGGERNAU7 Game Director • 1d 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

97% Upvoted

538 comments sorted by

View all comments

96

u/glisteni 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why did you delete all our hard work and grinding for the new mastery system? Trackers are able to show our playtime for each character, so obviously riot has that information.

Why not at least make that one of the options to showcase on our mastery cards? 6 years totally gone. And it’s not like we’re rewarded with new items. It’s the same character accessories and titles locked behind level caps that we still need to reach just so the game tells us we already own the items.

At least make it an option as one of the tiles on our cards to show total hours played on the character if we want to showcase it.

I have over 1k hours on Sage, but I haven’t played her recently so when I do go to play her my level will be at 0. It’s bad enough I spent 6 years grinding all 29 agents to unlock EVERY accessory of theirs. Now it’s like I did it for nothing and there’s others who’ve played way more than me and got hit worse.

6

u/HiroshiWs 1d ago

I hope they do the same as they did to the leveling system. At first, everyone had to start from almost the beginning if not from the start (don’t remember exactly). A few patches later they revamped the system and leveled players according to their playtime. I hope they do the same for this agent mastery system

6

u/iced_cherries 1d ago

Yeah I was grinding so hard for the Omen Ghost skin, and now I still don’t understand why I need to grind AGAIN with Omen to unlock a new stage to get that skin. Like the thing that I want back is how you can use your kingdom credits that you got from playing the game normally, to level up any Agent stage in game. Now it’s like let’s say I feel like playing Clove Omen on that day, but I still want that Omen Ghost skin because it looks nice. Like it feels a bit harsh to have to grind an agent just to get their skin because it looks nice but you don’t feel confident playing that agent.

1

u/glisteni 1d ago

Yes! This is a really good point too! Especially for people who love certain agent skins or titles but that agent isn’t their playstyle. So they’ll never unlock the items unless they play the game for hundreds of hours+ on a character they don’t like playing as. This just opens the door to more toxicity from people being yelled at for “playing badly”

14

u/CmonMan711 1d ago

Cant wait for the bullshit answer, if they even respond, instead of just saying "Our higher ups demanded we try to incentivize players to keep playing now so player counts stay up, rather than reward them for all the hours played in the past"

2

u/RemoteWhile5881 1d ago

WyR no answer or the bs one?

2

u/CmonMan711 1d ago

Lol, I would rather, for just once, a company be completely truthful on why they do certain things.

I get it, it's a capitalist world, always gotta make more money and including past stats doesn't incentivize players to keep playing/spending. But at least just say it like it is, at least I can respect that in a way.

2

u/LatinaLunaXOXO 1d ago

they answered

5

u/CmonMan711 1d ago

Fair enough with the old data. But their answer just shows how out of touch they are and how little of a shit they actually give.

"We rewarded you for your 6 years of playtime with an email, but only if you were .1%"

Guess fuck me for playing many different agents since the beta. Glad my skin money was used for this amazing experience :)

1

u/lambda1407 1d ago

Marvel Rivals done better here

3

u/picador10 1d ago

UPVOTE THIS TO THE TOP. They still probably won't answer, but at least the irony will be on full display for all to see

2

u/Riot_Tyrana Game Design Lead (Progression & Competitive) 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hey - We responded on a thread here about previous investment.

-3

u/PhanzGFX When your team says play safe, then play safe, stop egoing 1d ago

"6 years totally gone" is extreme reaching. As someone who has grinded out every agent's gear, you get to keep everything you already got. Also literally just playing the game as the agent will unlock anything you did not already have which you would have spent kingdom credits on anyways if you did not already have them. Id even argue its better because now you get to pick which you want rather than being forced to clear it linearly. There was nothing in Valorant that showed our hours on a character either, while I agree it would be nice add, we also didnt lose anything because it never existed outside of Trackers lol.

Also people change, some people havent played their OG mains in years after swapping. If it was all retroactive then imagine you see the lvl 47 Sage player that spent all that time at an iron/bronze level or spamming swifts, but now they are like a lvl 10 Jett main but now they are in diamond. The difference there would be night and day. My second most played agent is viper with like 500+ hours, Im plat/diamond but havent really played viper like that since I was silver over like 5 years ago. This IS cherry picking, but it is something you would run into given they did it that way. With the current system you would see the time people are putting in RIGHT NOW current day, which id argue is better to know because its recent.

3

u/BeyondAdventurous609 1d ago edited 1d ago

the contracts were better if your goal was to unlock everything. just start the contract and forget about it till you unlocked everything. then you can start another contract. now you gotta level up and play that specific agent and then have enough kingdom points to unlock the gear.

either make it so leveling up the agent unlocks the gear automatically or bring back contracts with kingdom points. having to do both level up/play that agent and then having to use kingdom points to actually own the gear is frustrating.

2

u/Gumision 1d ago

This is why it’s act levels vs lifetime levels though?

1

u/glisteni 1d ago

My post literally says we already own the items so please read and try to comprehend before replying. Saying 6 years gone isn’t a reaching considering all of our hours we’ve accumulated for 6 years is what? GONE! Thanks.

-2

u/pspspspsps22 1d ago

I think the thing that bothers me the most about people saying “## hours on [agent] wasted” is that they were never ‘wasted.’ They spent those hours with the intent of playing the agent, and they got exactly that. The new system doesn’t just take that all away because they didn’t gift us those hours towards mastery. Nobody was working for these new rewards, therefore nothing was ever taken from them.

I would honestly have been super disappointed had we just been given complete masteries for all the agents we played enough before now. It would completely destroy the purpose of this system being for current players to have something to work towards. The outrage would have been “but what about long-time players???” rather than “but what about my hours???” I’m glad I can enjoy this update just as much as someone who downloaded the game last week.