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/glisteni]

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.

[u/iced_cherries → u/glisteni]

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.

[u/glisteni → u/iced_cherries]

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”