The issues with VALORANT post-launch

Riot’s newest child VALORANT is finally out of beta. The first patch came with a multitude of changes and improvements but also with what I consider to be some pretty glaring VALORANT problems and flaws.

The biggest flaw that I can’t believe they omitted from the full release, a vote kick option. Given this game’s comparison to CS:GO, for understandable reasons, a vote kick option is an essential tool to have. If somebody throws the game with damaging abilities on friendly players, all you can do is grin and bear it. Because players cannot get kicked for doing intentional team damage with abilities, this becomes even more difficult.

Similar to the complaint above, when an AFK player gets kicked, no bot or replacement appears. Granted, controllable bots in CS:GO are lacking, but at least players can control the bot upon dying, providing an extra life. In VALORANT, you will be stuck in a 4 vs. 5 until the game is over.

VALORANT Reyna

With the first post-beta patch came a new VALORANT agent, Reyna. Her identity lets her absorb orbs that drop after she kills an enemy and uses them to charge abilities. I think that one of her abilities, Leer, is a big VALORANT problem and needs to be nerfed.

Reyna’s Leer equips an eye that, when cast, makes enemies nearsighted when looking at it. It’s basically Phoenix’s flash and Omen’s nearsighted abilities combined. With Phoenix’s flash, enemies will only be affected when looking at its pop. That means you’ll be fine if you peek the second after it pops. But with Leer, enemies can’t peek that area until the eye is completely gone. Sure, you can shoot it to destroy it, but more often than not the eye is thrown higher up, so by the time you move your crosshair to shoot it, an enemy Reyna has already peeked and killed you. The fact that you’re immediately half-blind leaves enemies almost entirely vulnerable to the Reyna who will peek the second you’re blinded.

I think a fair remedy to this while also keeping Leer’s functionality would be to project the eye in a horizontal line. With this, players only need to slightly move the crosshair to shoot the eye, as opposed to in the sky.

Addressing VALORANT Complaints

These VALORANT problems are likely to be fixed soon since Riot Games holds a good track record of quick patches. Just today, eight days after the game came out, they released a surprise patch fixing many bugs, character, and map issues. They even modified some map locations to match what players traditionally call those areas of the map. It’s clear they listen to fans and these grievances will be eventually be addressed.

Written by Gabriel Ionica