Game Director - MARATHON , Former Game Director - VALORANT. My statements and views are my own and do not reflect those of any current or past employer.
To dispel confusion, there will be more drops continuing throughout the week (and likely beyond) Also the amount of drops we give is not a fixed amount, but rather flexible around how many people we are servicing at any given time against capacity.
@summit1g
Hey summit, I totally understand, some things in there were super tilting and it was a rough game. We’re looking across the board at all the agents right now to figure out how to get them in the right place so we’ll take a look at Raze too, don’t worry. Thanks for the games :).
Hey everyone, It's been hectic, so I haven't had a lot of time to post. To answer the biggest question: rated (competitive mode) will likely be out some time next week. We're spending this week putting together that release and making sure it is good. =)
For everyone having a rough night where you get the same map too many times in a row: We're working on a solution to make the map selector less likely to RNG you into the same map over and over.
With the (somewhat rocky) release of ACT 2, I want to take a moment to thank all our players who have joined us on this journey to evolve and iterate on VALORANT. You are always on our mind and we are always working to continue to improve the game. Thank you!
Update: bad news. We are investigating a reported issue in which players can every once in a while spawn in the opposing team's spawn point. We are actively trying to fix this and get it out as fast as possible, but will not turn on competitive until it is fixed.
For everyone playing, thanks for giving us a lot of great feedback and looking into some balance tuning and fixes in upcoming updates while we continue to drive towards launch. For those who are still waiting, we’re working on getting more of you in. Thanks for sticking with us.
With Act III having launched, I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our players coming along with us for this long journey we have ahead. VALORANT is growing with your help and your support, so from the bottom of my heart, Thank You!
Day 2 has still been insane. We are learning a lot from players and those of you who are following the action. We’re taking constant steps to ensure the granting process improves as we continue to roll out more. Thank you all for staying engaged, even if it’s been a tough wait.
There is a platform outage currently affecting multiple Riot games, including VALORANT. Many players will be unable to log into the game. We're working on it diligently to get it back up and running.
Hey everyone, on the design side we are currently analyzing the ranking system top to bottom. We’re looking into changes that will improve many aspects of competitive, but have not committed to any solutions yet. Thanks to everyone for their feedback!
It has been about a month since VALORANT went live. So far we’ve been working hard on improvements and more for upcoming releases. Just wanted to take a second and say thank you everyone for continuing to support us and deliver the feedback we need to evolve. <3
It takes the effort of a village if not a small nation state to make an event like Masters 2 happen. Let's all raise a cup to the behind the scenes heroes on the VALORANT esports and esports production teams! Thank you!
Some clarity: there is no patch 0.48, the next patch will be 0.49. Rated mode will go live as soon as we're confident in the stability of that that patch on live. Current ETA for 0.49 is sometime next week. Will let you know more specifics as we get closer.
Official:
#VALORANT
Game Director
@RiotZiegler
is leaving the team, to start work on a new project.
"You’ve made my time as your Game Director a truly joyous and memorable experience."
Andy Ho will take over as Game Director:
For clarity: When we rollback a patch it means we put the game files back to the last state it was in, this means we remove some files, change some files back to what they were. In terms of progress you made, that stays, as it is saved to the account. Hopefully that helps!
Currently evaluating stability and tracking any issues with the patch as it goes live across different regions. Based on what we see we will turn on competitive tomorrow after all regions have the patch or later this week. Will update you later today.
We've brought the servers down and with less than 6 days left to launch, we are working hard to get everything ready. Thank you to everyone who played in the beta. Not only did you bring us valuable feedback, your support is what fuels our passion to develop VALORANT. Thank you!
There are a few ui changes likely incoming in either the next patch or the one after and we wanted to preview this one so you all can wrap your mind around it before it goes live.
The position of the settings menu is changing from the upper left to upper right.
Please continue to help us by using the in game reporting tool when you see egregiously disruptive behavior. We dislike removing anyone from our game experience, but we regrettably have had to do so in several cases. As a matter of policy we won't discuss who we have actioned on.
9 days away from launch! Excited, nervous, thrilled. Just played the most recent build yesterday. It is looking quite awesome. We’re very much looking forward to sharing it.
There are some major internet issues happening globally at the moment leading to disconnects and game issues in VALORANT (and other games). We're working with our partners to get the issue resolved as fast as possible.
We’ve fixed a few of the critical issues blocking competitive, and will be rolling out competitive in the next 24 hrs across regions. A more detailed schedule of turn on times for each region will be incoming.
VALORANT (forever all caps) Season 3 is on the horizon! Just want to give a shoutout to all the VALORANT developers and Rioters who worked on this one. It took a ton of effort, and we're all excited for you to experience it.
So we are about 4 weeks in, and I wanted to give a shout out to our players for giving us a ton of great feedback. We're reviewing thoughts on the ranked system, constantly iterating on our anti-cheat and social efforts, and improving gameplay and performance all with your help!
Congratulations to all the winners of First Strike!! It has been super exciting to see you all play at such an amazing level of play! Thank you for showing us all what VALORANT can be when you dedicate your passion and time to mastering it. Much <3.
Today we’re celebrating the life of Bruno the corgi. You may have seen him in-game as a Gun Buddy, but he was also a good boy IRL before he passed last year.
Next time you’re top fragging, give Good Boy Bruno a little pat on behalf of us and his hooman, Yash.
I can not express how unimaginably humbling player interest in VALORANT has been. We’re fixing things we could only have discovered by starting this journey, and we’re listening and preparing more info to address concerns. Today has been (for many reasons) a crazy experience.
Day 1 of Closed Beta has been incredible but humbling as we scale our servers. For now, we have to pause stream drops until tomorrow morning (PT). We'll let you know as soon as they're back. We hear your questions and concerns about CB access and will clarify as soon as we can.
Hey everyone! Fun update: for the last 9
Months I’ve been working on Marathon as the game director. We’re still baking, but I’m excited to share with you more info on the game as we get closer and closer to bringing it to all of you.
Busy week 2, we’ve been working on a lot of fixes, balance, and discovering new issues (thanks to all of our closed beta players!) Meanwhile we are also finishing things and scaling as we push towards summer. Thanks for everyone who’s been active in the VALORANT community! <3
Congratulations to all the fine developers at
@Treyarch
for the release of the Black Ops Beta. Making games is hard, and I know you all worked hard to make it come to life. <3
We fixed the issue last night and have re-enabled Haven for the competitive queue. It should be back in the rotation now. Apologies for the interruption and thanks for sticking with us!
By "spicy" I mean we definitely expect some strong feelings about how the next agent plays. I'm looking forward to impressions as you all get eyes on it.
Heads up! Our platform team has put in a new system will be going live soon that will inform players if they have been banned and for what reason when they log in. If you're someone this affects, you'll receive a message that looks like something this (with appropriate wording):
A lot of you have been asking for more info about when the rated mode goes live: Basically, when the patch goes live we want to make sure everything is stable, that there are critical issues compromising gameplay. Then once that's all clear, we're going to turn the queue on. =D.
We're going to be sending out a fix in the coming hours that could address some of the connection errors players are seeing. Apologies for the hiccups, we're tracking it aggressively.
Recap Part 2: Additionally we will be taking down the servers on the 28th and reopening them on the 2nd, to reset accounts, refund purchases, and prepare servers for the new influx of players. Thank you to all of our players so far who have helped us get this game ready!
We’ve been overwhelmed with the response we’ve gotten from players both wanting to play the game and stick with it. We’re learning from you all and working to expand the beta over time. Thanks for staying engaged with us.
One week in. A couple notes as we get into the weekend.
1. Drops are running 24/7. If you've watched a lot... take a break! CB access comes even when you're offline.
2. We hear you on demand. We've already increased CB server capacity +25% and are tracking down more internet.
As it is Father’s Day in the US today, I’d like to thank all of our players worldwide who are parents and the parents of our players, who take the time to perform one of the most noble acts in this world: to raise their children with genuine love and care. Thank you!
Thanks to everyone who helped us find some new hit reg issues we introduced in the latest update. We're fixing them as we speak and they should be in the next update. Stay tuned!
Regarding the weird timer in the store, the issue was a timer reset issue for the sovereign skin line that was meant to last 2 weeks but only had it for one. Moving forward most of our featured skin lines will correctly have ~2 week timers. Apologies for the confusion.
While we’re at it, a special thanks to the innumerable amount of casters, publishers, esports and broadcast staff who came together to make this happen in such a complicated environment during this pandemic. You are all the heroes of First Strike. <3.
Agreed! I'd also just in general say, please be civil to anyone you meet in the game, most people are learning, and it can be frustrating for a variety of reasons, but it's harder to both learn, improve, and teach when you're speaking or hearing vitriol. (Fancy word +1)
Happy New Year to all the amazing VALORANT players across the globe! Thank you once again for the unparalleled passion and dedication I’ve seen from you all this past year. I’m looking forward to the awesome things we will do together in 2021!
We've banned a pile of VALORANT closed beta account sellers and botters to free up more entitlements. Tracking more. Don't buy accounts, you might lose them!
For further clarity on solo duo: we are not closing any future options permanently. If we need other solutions, we will embrace that with your feedback and help. Please give the upcoming post launch system a shot, and help us with your feedback.
There was an issue that went live this morning that allowed for players who had noclip bound to use it in normal games. Until we can fix this on the game side and redeploy (which we're working on as we speak) we've disabled cheats, which effects observer on custom games.
Despite all the chaos with the build, let's appreciate how creative our community can be with this amazing image (credit for finding this to
@RiotSuperCakes
) :
"Winning or losing a match has the biggest effect on your rank. If you aim for something other than winning (like KDA), and you lose matches because of it, your rank will trend downward."
This is true, we've debated it and I've seen the math.
Esports is something we should build together with players, devs, and organizations in constant discussion, iterating on its future. This is what we believe! Also... here’s some words on that:
We know VALORANT has the makings of a global esport, but want to make sure we're building it right - and together.
@RiotMagus
talks first steps toward building the VALORANT esports ecosystem and our community tournament support:
For everyone missing their match history gains and losses indicators for competitive fear not, it's a bug, we'll be bringing it back in action next update.
To clarify on solo duo queue: we want to create a system that is fair for both teams and individuals to play in while avoiding the downsides of creating two queues (longer queue times, asymmetrical queue health). We are continuing to working towards that.
For those of you who want leaderboards in game, we're currently working on that feature (surprise face)! We don't have an ETA yet, but we are working on it. Will update you when we get closer to landing it.
It has been a hectic day, to recap: We're going live on June 2nd with launch, we teased our new character (I'm expecting some people to hate and some to love the way this one plays), we announced a shorter game mode at launch, and there will be a new map (teased in the CG tease).
Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know that after 12 great years at Riot, this week will be my last week. I am departing with a heart full of gratitude for Riot Games and all of you for the amazing memories we've shared together. Will update very soon with my next home.
Update on rated mode: We've run into some of those unexpected service issues and bugs we don't want to compromise the rated experience. We're working on them, but until they're fixed we won't be turning it on.
For those asking for ranked to be turned on - not today, sorry. We're evaluating on a day-by-day basis based on server stability and competitive integrity of the queues (e.g. no uncounterable exploits). Today is not that day. Will let you know tomorrow.
It has been an exciting day so far! For those of you who have access, congratulations! For those who haven’t by the end of the stream day, don’t be discouraged! A lot more drops are coming on when we go live April 7th and will continue to roll out following April 7th. Much <3.
There have been a lot of questions about how you are seeded in rated: Your required unrated games have an effect on who we place you against to determine rating. We then are able to quickly converge on the performance of your first few games in rated to determine your rank.
Congratulations to the team at Treyarch for the release of Black Ops Cold War! Much <3 from the VALORANT side. (Note, I messed up and called it Black Ops 5 the first time, so this is a repost/edit)
As we near the end of this thanksgiving weekend in The United States, I wanted to say I am thankful for our amazing community, and thankful for all of your passion and dedication. Much love to all of you.
Sometimes when I'm playing the game, I accidentally refer to agents by their old dev names. If you're in a game with me, it must be confusing. Many apologies.
Clearing up some further confusion: This hidden lurker that appears at the end of a match scoreboard some times is an old concept for Raze. Her head appears when something broke and the right character portrait doesn't show. Somewhere in our backlog is a fix to make it not this.
If you are ever curious about the anatomy of bugs that crop up and how we tackle them
@RiotNu
walks us through the whole process in this thread about a bug we introduced recently with patch 1.11 and resolved with the help of players. Read below:
Let's talk about this bug. It should have never reached players, but it does have an interesting root cause and game dev lesson. The defect was live for several hours on Tuesday morning in NA, LATAM, and BR after we patched 1.11. We rolled back to 1.10 to mitigate. (1/21)
There seems to be some issue with chat services (and the social panel, parties etc.) in VALORANT and LoL that we're looking into currently. Apologies for the interruptions.
Regardless of your personal political affiliations, let's celebrate gaming and all the impact it has on society today. Thanks
@IlhanMN
@AOC
! If you're a US citizen reading this, please remember to express your right to vote. It's important that your voice is heard.
Don't know if everyone reads the patch notes so I'm gonna highlight my favs:
"You will no longer enter the “walking accuracy” state when transitioning from run to stop"
This should make it so players have to more deliberately stop when choosing to fire accurately on a target.
Congrats to the Dev Team
@Bungie
for the launch of Destiny 2: Beyond Light! It's always tough launching a new thing, and even with the hiccups I know you're working hard to make it happen for the players. Much <3.
To dispel some myths: Taking info from your unrated play (both performance and wins) only determines the types of player we think you should play against to get rated. Your wins and performance from there is up to you and what determines rank.
If you're looking to play down to the wire, the last time you can queue for a Ranked match before Act III starts in NA is at 4:30 AM PT on October 13th.
This is the more detailed schedule of ranked turn on times. Thank you for sticking with us and we wish you the best of luck out there on the competitive front!
We know nobody's been asking for it, but ranked is finally coming in the next 24 hours. We're staggering our rollout per region and at off-peak times to monitor stability.
KR, OCE & APAC — 1:00PM PT 6/24
NA/BR/LATAM — 2:00PM PT 6/24
EU, RU, TR & CIS regions — 8:00PM PT 6/24
Also for a bit more clarity: Rating is about who you play against and how you win/fare against them, not about how many numbers of wins you accumulate. As you play, you will see your rating change based on how well you master defeating similar or more highly rated players.
Here’s more information regarding the beta. We’ve been jamming to collect as many concerns as we can to address. Please take a chance to read it when you can:
LAUNCHING —
In 12 hours - Korea, Japan, and most of Asia-Pacific
In 18 hours - Europe, Turkey, MENA, Russia, and CIS countries
In 25 hours - North America, Latin America, and South America
EPISODE 1: IGNITION.