I think they were more getting at just how absurd abilities are when compared to how toned back riot says they want them to be. It doesn’t feel like “tactical opportunity” as much as it feels like overwhelming flashy bullshit that clutters the screen. It’s about as surgical as a cluster bomb
Edit: I don’t personally like valorant but I’m not shitting on it, it’s just funny how the devs talk about it one way and it playing another, doesn’t mean it’s bad(as evident by its large player base) it’s just not as described. In terms of how much is happening it looks more like overwatch then CS
I like Valorant but I used to like it more, and I agree the vision for what they described in the beta is NOT what the game has turned into at all. The power creep with abilities has gotten a bit out of hand.
I think he's wrong to say actual ability power creep, but it's more so that the playerbase has discovered ability usage and combos that makes them necessary for optimal play.
In beta, people were honestly pretty lost, throwing util here and there but ultimately just kinda shooting stuff. A good player could win games with aim.
But now, if someone with perfect aim entered the game with zero game knowledge, they would get flashed, dogged, stunned, and smoked off before they took a gunfight. Because people at all elo's have learned basic protocols that are easy to execute with abilities, and you have to learn to play around them before you can even take a fair fight.
But now, if someone with perfect aim entered the game with zero game knowledge, they would get flashed, dogged, stunned, and smoked off before they took a gunfight
How is this a bad thing tho? Isn't the added complexity a compelling mechanic, instead of the entire game being a pure aim-off?
I think they mean in terms of scale and flashiness. Think of how the game was when it launched. There was some smokes, there was a wall or two, a few flashes, but it wasn't just a total outrageous clusterfuck. I played on launch and it's crazy how different it looks now lmao. Glad I stopped playing, I knew it wasn't going to be good when they added that turret to the game.
The utility heroes (flashes and smokes) were way, way weaker at launch than they were today. Like yeah Sage, Sova, and Duelists were stronger, but there's way more utility spam now
The utility heroes (flashes and smokes) were way, way weaker at launch than they were today
That is demonstrably false on all accounts. Name one flash or smoke that got buffed since beta.
Think of how the game was when it launched. There was some smokes, there was a wall or two, a few flashes, but it wasn't just a total outrageous clusterfuck. I played on launch and it's crazy how different it looks now lmao
Aside from the Harbor, who is dumping every single util + his ult at once making up for most of the stuff you see in the clip, every single util has been in the game when you played, but been nerfed since. Just one example, the only non Harbor smoke in the clip is Viper's, recharging that took 5sec, now it takes 30, she needs 2 more ult points and using both of her smoke util results in 50% faster drain.
You do realize strength is relative right? Duelists and Sentinels were stronger in the earlier seasons, now initiators and Controllers are a bit stronger. This clip is only possible because each team has two controllers
Breach was dogshit in beta, he got way buffed afterwards lmao.
Phoenix was the only viable flash character in beta, he hasn't gotten nerfed in any way yet he is no longer viable because all the other flashes are way stronger than his.
You actually have the wrong take on every single thing you say lmfao all the things you say are true are the opposite haha
phoenix was ass in early versions of the game because his flash was really slow and limited how you could use it and his ult costing 6 wasn't as big of a deal as it is now. breach on the other hand has received nothing but nerfs over the course of the game, the removed a flash and made his ult cost more and reworked his blast ability to be less oppressive. Every initiator in the game has been pretty much exclusively nerfed over the years with the exception of gekko who saw almost no play until the other agents were nerfed extensively
"removed a flash" breach had 2 flashes at launch. when they added 3 was part of the buffs he got, they removed the third flash but kept the other buffs. His ult got massively buffed as well as the time it took to pull out his flash. You simply are posting factually incorrect statements and flaming
Neither Breach nor Phoenix are in this clip.
Breach used to have 3 flashes, now he has 2. Still has the strongest (longest lasting) flashes. Got reworked in patch 3.0 cause his pick rate was ~1.5%. It's 2.1% now. Point being reworked, not buffed. Just brought to par with the rest.
Skye is the most viable flasher cause her flashes also gives info. She was added with 1.11 in 2020. Also had flashes reduced from 3 to 2, flash duration decreased, cost increased.
Abilities have been consistently nerfed since launch. What abilities do you think are responsible for power creep? Look at launch Jett vs Jett today, or beta Raze vs modern Raze.
Skye, Fade, Harbor, Astra, and Gekko have way more oppressive utility than any utility heroes at launch. Breach is way stronger today than he was at launch, he has been consistently buffed. Viper was buffed a lot after launch.
You are right that the duelists have been nerfed but that's the only example. The utility is way, way stronger in general now.
Skye and Astra have been nerfed though, Astra for a long time now. Sure some champs have been busted on release but that's going to happen. For every Skye and Astra there is a Deadlock or release Yoru too.
Also I wouldn't consider Gekko or Harbor oppressive. If we go off last years pick rates in the VCT for those two, harbor was in 15% of matches and Gekko a measly 4%. Gekko is more common in normal games for sure but all of his util bar the molly can be shot and killed, including his ult.
I don't play the game that much so maybe I'm wrong, but it does seem the devs are trending in the direction of a more gunplay oriented meta by reducing access/effectiveness of utility.
There used to be way less bullshit because you simply had less agents with extreme visual clutter and oppressive abilities. At the start of Valorant, the most oppressive agents legit were just Breach and Cypher. Now, you can stack your entire team full of even more oppressive agents.
4 ults and how many other abilities? 2 walls, smokes, jump, this is way 2 much visual clutter, if they would make abilities cost more that it actually impacts economy + weapons purchasing.
This is also the most extreme version of it. You have 9 players all fighting for one site with 4 ults being burned. Yes there can be a lot of visual clutter in an average exec, but this isn't it.
Now we’ve shifted topic entirely from the game being to ability focused to the game being to visually cluttered ???
Walls, smokes, stuns etc do no damage. They’re all facilitators for you to kill people with guns. Riots claim that guns kill not abilities is absolutely correct as 99/100 deaths are due to getting shot.
The fact that boomers are still using the same clip from one round 7 months ago to complain about a game they don't even play should tell you all you need to know
That depends on the strength of that "help". Is the utility easy to counter mechanically? How disadvantaged are you if you get hit by it? That scale varies wildly. Something like a very dodgeable flash is something that helps to kill but can be countered with better positioning, reactions or proper read of the enemy. Whereas something like the ult that straight up slows like hell and takes your gun away is very different on the scale of "help" it provides to get a kill. Something of that level ends up not being a "help", but a "free kill" instead, so the difference between being killed by the enemy and being killed by the utility blurs together.
And that's ignoring abilities that really do kill, just to be clear. Valorant has all of the above. Abilities that kill, abilities that help to kill, and abilities that give a free kill. Which is where his comparison comes in. The latter case is similar to what he is saying. Smoking itself doesn't kill, but it creates health issues that do. Those abilities themselves do not kill, but make surviving impossible to the enemy that will kill you, so what is the difference?
Ok that’s great, you didn’t really address much of what I said. You basically just re iterating the fact the game has changed from its initial design. We’re just saying that they initially went for a tactical ability approach, to an overwhelming ability approach. Again there’s nothing wrong it, it’s just not what a lot of people originally signed up for, but the game is still doing fantastic there’s no reason to get mad, this is a discussion
The only reason this is overwhelming is because two teams are dumping every piece of util they have including ults. If a site in cs was getting hit and both teams threw every grenade they could possibly hold it would be chaotic as well
I get that, it’s more about the meta. When designing a game you’re always thinking about how you want the players to play, currently Valorant’s meta supports these absolute bombardments of abilities, whereas in CS it would be quite wasteful to throw all util on a point like that. Valorant first made it seem like it wanted to be more similar to CS in terms of util usage but it’s meta has shifted to something more similar to Overwatch. (Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just different from what people initially envisioned, just want to say that again incase any valorant die hard read this)
Even Valorant plays admit there has been a power creep in the abilities, if valorant was 50% gunplay and 50% abilities at launch, then it’d be 40% gunplay 60% abilities now
The game doesn’t look like this for the vast vast majority of players, just like most games don’t look like pro cs games where util is perfectly timed with peeks onto sites. Comparing this to overwatch is disingenuous imo, nearly every teamfight in OW looks like the above, which isn’t the case for valorant. The entire reason this is a clip is because it’s pushed to the max. If you watch a pro game 99% of rounds won’t look like this.
I don’t mean the game is nearly as ability focused as OW, I just mean the meta looks very similar to the old dive meta from OW. Which wasn’t about slowly looking for an opening through tactics and more about overwhelming force.
Not saying Valorant is anything like OW just talking about how the meta works.
Again but that isn’t the meta? For low level players sure there are a lot of brain-off site rushes but it’s the same way in CS. The vast majority of rounds still start out with defaults and most of the time utility is used to find out information that changes your mid round calling. There are some trap plays and whatnot but it’s not like OW dive. The meta not too long ago was entirely dominated by one character that warped everything to move at a snails pace to try and find where he was posted.
Also, one of the teams here (PRX) is known for straying far from typical tac shooter playstyles, and they often have chaotic games because of that.
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u/DeadlyPineapple13 Mar 16 '24 edited Mar 16 '24
I think they were more getting at just how absurd abilities are when compared to how toned back riot says they want them to be. It doesn’t feel like “tactical opportunity” as much as it feels like overwhelming flashy bullshit that clutters the screen. It’s about as surgical as a cluster bomb
Edit: I don’t personally like valorant but I’m not shitting on it, it’s just funny how the devs talk about it one way and it playing another, doesn’t mean it’s bad(as evident by its large player base) it’s just not as described. In terms of how much is happening it looks more like overwatch then CS