State of the Agents - May 2021

Our Character Producer goes into planned 3.0 Agent changes and who’s coming in Episode 3.
Dev
John Goscicki

Hey all!

It’s May? June? When is this coming out? What is time any more? Well it’s time for another State of the Agents.

THE VIPER EXPERIMENT

Per the last State of the Agents, Viper’s recent balance was a test of a new approach where we go all-in with Agents that are struggling. Now that the newest version of Viper has been out for a while, we’ve had enough time to evaluate whether this first attempt worked. 

We’re noticing that Viper’s niche is more distinctly carved out across all skill bands. Now that we’re seeing her playrate increase, we’ll monitor to see if she’s still too oppressive post-nerf, as both sides are playing against her utility. 

Y’all should be able to appreciate and succeed within the unique playspace that each Agent occupies, and this approach for Viper is a nudge in that direction. That said, there are some rough edges here we may need to smooth out. 

FUTURE BALANCE

We are looking into releasing updates to Breach, Skye, Yoru, and Astra. 

  • Breach / Skye
    • The goal here is to provide Breach and Skye with more self-sufficiency, to do so, we’re looking to remove their ability to dish out 3 consecutive flashes.
    • For Breach we are looking to balance power across his kit, instead of it all sitting on his flash.
  • Yoru
    • We’re exploring an increase to the power within his unique playspace.
    • One of the big opportunities here is to make “Fakeout” a more impactful ability.
  • Astra
    • The galaxy brain Agent provides a specific playstyle to the game, but we’re looking to take some steps to add more counterplay to some of her play patterns that are too oppressive in coordinated play.

Barring resource constraints or development hiccups, you should start to see these changes roll out around Patch 3.0, and hopefully no later than 3.02.

NEW AGENTS

As you saw the latest Act, there was no new Agent bundled with the launch of Breeze. To reiterate; this is because we're prioritizing quality over speed—VALORANT is a game played on the slimmest of margins and we want to make sure everything we put out has the level of refinement you expect.

That said, expect a new Agent for Patch 3.0 :) 

This time around we are throwing in some abilities that should feel familiar to folks who’ve played traditional FPS games their whole lives, but with added elements that will make those recognizable abilities unique within our roster. This is an Agent who’s utility can create moments where you must rely on your gunplay.

Our hope is that the @*&#*&!(&H! #$ &*! *%# &@! *U&^A! “@*!!*(@@*&^” (@&* ^@!^& &@! *&# &^C#^ANG W*^@ $O )(E&# *N@! S!T#$

Huh, I’m sorry my keyboard just stopped working there… oh well. The new Agent is coming soon enough, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you think when they finally say hello! 

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