How Valorant Made up for League of Legends’ Misses
Riot seems to have the formula down for team-based battlers, but they haven’t always hit their shots right off the bat. |
Riot seems to have the formula down for team-based battlers, but they haven’t always hit their shots right off the bat. Today, we’re looking at a few key ways that the Valorant creator has learned from and improved on those key things to greatly improve the Valorant team, player and competitive experience.
Optimizing for different PC setups
If you’re lagging, your FPS is dropping, or if your obvious skill-shot/headshot didn’t hit then you’re in for a world of tilt. And if you’ve ever played League of Legends, I’m sure you can relate to other players suffering: Cheaters, leavers, servers and balancing issues. And despite Riot’s incessant efforts to “fix” the game to appease the players, the countless patches sometimes only made things worse.
There’s no point in trying to fix the gameplay if we can’t even play the game in the first place.
As feedback is a gift, the company has learned many valuable lessons throughout the years. This is demonstrated in the optimization of Riot Games’ team-based tactical shooter: Valorant.
Competitive integrity, anti-cheat and quality of life for teams
Valorant’s powerful anti-cheat system, with the game’s outstanding deployment, insures a smooth experience.
To make sure the game itself never gets in the way of players, and lag free gaming session, Riot bolsters:
- Top-tier 128 tick servers (standard servers such as CS:GO’s are 64 tick).
- Worldwide spread of data centers.
- A tested insurance that at least 70% of the players have 35ms at all times.
“It’s all about Competitive Integrity.” For each defeat and issue that happens during a match, Rioters are making sure that players feel responsible. No cheater on the enemy team, a peeker’s advantage, or an enemy agent being “broken.”
With Valorant, if your losses are yours, then your victories will be as well.
AFK timers and Riot’s AFK rating
Riot’s implemented systems succeeded in more than halving the AFK rates in 2021. This was achieved by focusing on making the detection process heavily scalable.
That and making sure that the sanctions for AFKing are fair and forgiving by creating an “AFK Rating”. The system studies each account’s AFK behavior and punishes them accordingly.
Everyone’s favourite ‘comeback story’
Be it a losing game, or a fall out of favor with the audience, comebacks can be powerful. After all, it’s not missteps or failed attempts that define success, but learning from them. More importantly, using the lessons to cross the finish line.
Riot Games has a long way to go, but Valorant is a huge step in the right direction. As such, Riot Games made up for League of Legends’ shortcomings throughout the years. With tools in hand, Riot should be ready for their upcoming titles, yet only time will tell.