We can readily file this one under controversial: Valorant professionals have begun taking to Twitter to air their grievances regarding the newest flavor of competitive first-person shooter, being none other than Riot’s Valorant.
Granted, the term professional may be argued by some, as the full competitive Valorant esport scene is still in its early steps with invitational tournaments being held in parts of the world that offers a rare glimpse in the makings of a competitive scene; a fascinating experience for the younger fans of esports who have yet to experience such a divisive and exciting moment.
Yet players that are being paid to professionally play Valorant from organizations suffice for the term ‘professional players’ and they’re getting a bit annoyed with the gameplay that some has noted to feel less ‘skill based’ and more so either the server working with, or against, your team.
Note that this isn’t coming directly from how Valorant is formed at a foundational level; in an ideal world (and game play environment) Valorant offers exactly as it is supposed to, offering a more casual competitive experience than Counter-Strike while more readily rewarding skill and strategies than titles with a higher TTK, such as Overwatch.
It comes down to server issues, and even slight amounts of ping holding the ability to wildly swing the pendulum of fate for or against players, with few counter-strategies available if any.
Riot has not commented on the notes coming from Complexity Gaming player C0M (the very same from Mythic Reborn T3 in CS:GO), but many members of the community have chimed in with their own experiences in playing Valorant and dealing with ping.
The existence of such a problem is difficult to deny, even if you’re running on far lower ping than anyone else (making you consider picking up the pro mantle as you clean servers with ease), but the issues could stretch farther than that as tournaments continue to be scheduled and planned for online environments.
With no forthcoming news regarding Riot’s plans for their League, it’s presumedly to maintain it’s ‘online only’ status of competitive and tourney play well into the future, encompassing the first quarter of 2021 at a minimum (unless it’s the best-kept secret in the history of esports).
While many are going to be eager to use this as a write-off to the entire title of Valorant, such hasty actions have little merit: Riot Games has shown to operate quickly in certain aspects of the title when things go awry, and continuing to nurture their newest IP is likely a priority for the company.
Which leads the last question on everyone’s mind: when will hit-registry and ping advantage be handled?
