Valorant Beta – How do we feel after 300 games

The Valorant Beta has been the hottest event in the past month. Gamers, Streamers and Athletes have all flocked towards Riot’s new shooter. Esports.net did not lag behind either. We quickly “stumbled upon a key and have been on and off grinding and reviewing the title for over three weeks. With over 300 games, about 100 of which were ranked, we attempted to gain as much data and intel about the upcoming title and share our views on how Valorant plays and feels.

First up, thank you to Riot’s drop system and Summit1G for providing us with a mint condition Valorant key early in the giveaway.

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How Playing Valorant Beta feels

Lets get things going by describing how playing Valorant Beta feels. We are not alone when we say that Valorant closely resembles Counter-Strike 1.6 in many aspects. The character movement, weapon feel, shooting and wall-banging are all eerily similar to CS 1.6. While the game does have the Overwatch-esque feel to it with all the abilities and spells and whatnot, the game still relies heavily on pure aim and movement fundamentals.

There are currently 10 playable agents for choosing and 3 competitive maps. While we wont get into all the agents and their specific strengths/weaknesses and OPness, I can rank the ones I personally had most success with in both Normal and Ranked play.

1. The overall MVP pick in all scenarios is Sage, according to my match history. This Agent is the only one in the game that can heal friendly players and even resurrect fallen comrades with her ultimate. Sage is also a must pick in almost every Ranked game I have played to date.
2. The most Kill heavy Agent in the game is definitely Raze. The grenade tossing, bazooka wielding Brasiliera has all four of her abilities in the Damage Dealing category and each of them can easily one shot enemies. The amount of kill pressure Raze has on any of the maps and in both Defender and Aggressor scenarios is unparalleled by any of the other nine agents.
3. Finally, the most game enabling Agent out of the ten is Breach. While it takes some getting used to, Breach offers push/pull and control abilities on each map that can stop attackers in their tracks or make defenders move out of position with ease. Playing against a good Breach is a nuisance for every player on your team.

Apart from these three picks, the rest of the agents and their castable spells are only an overlay to a pretty straightforward run and gun game. Yes some can utilize current in-game bugs to gain advantages but overall none of them feels too strong compared to the others. Do keep in mind this is only a subjective view as some players probably find great sucess with other Agents we might have found underwhelming.

The three maps, named: Heaven, Bind and Split, all feature bomb planting scenarios similar to Counter-Strike. The maps are not overly creative and do have a pretty straightforward feel to them. Peeking and corner checking is hard due to the sheer amount of boxes and deep angles players could be hiding in, and the way maps are designed is only focused on the sites and nearby areas. Spawn points and walkways between sites are unimaginative and only serve a purpose for rotations. However, we recognize this is just the start of the map pool and changes will come as the Beta moves forward.

In the end, one game impacting problem is the run and gun mechanic. Since day one players have been complaining about the un-natural accuracy of your first shot while moving, which makes some game scenarios unfair. Even former pros complained about it only days into the Valorant beta.

EsportsTalk made a nice clip cutout for everyone. Riot is yet to address the issue or give a definitely answer if the current aim mechanic is final or there will be tweaks to the spraying patterns and first shot accuracy.

Bugs Galore

We are fully aware the game is in Valorant Beta and finding bugs and exploits is the meal of the day. But when you introduce Ranked play and a competitive setting the Keyboard smashing simply cannot stop. Several of the bugs that we are about to share have happened numerous times over the past few weeks. Some I chose not to share cause I am currently pushing for Immortal rank and I’d like to exploit them myself. :(

Over the past month several game-breaking bugs were fixed including Sage’s wall placement on top of textures and Cypher’s camera which can see through walls, or even equip weapons. Several game breaking bugs are still exploited even in Ranked Play. Most noticeably Omen’s teleport out of the map on Split and Bind.

There is probably hundreds more little bugs that are present on just the three maps available for play. And knowing that Riot is likely going to add more Agents and Maps even before the Beta finishes and when the game goes live, we have to wonder.. What is Riot’s plan for the mind numbing amount of dedicated players trying to find every single exploitable aspect of the game, and how quickly are they able to respond with fixes.

On top of that, the Riot Vanguard anti-cheat program has been acting up lately, making the game unplayable for many. Luckily we did not have an issue with our PC cause of it, but it did refuse to run the game several times. Nothing a PC reset didn’t fix, but definitely something that was not intended to happen.

Stats from Valorant Beta

Lets share a bit of stats:

• I won 210 out of 300 matches.
• The most effective weapon out of all used was the Vandal
• The most played Agent was Sage with 172 games
• The total KDA ratio was 3.1
• I am currently at Diamond 3 rank on the soloqueue
• Over 250 games were played in full solo mode
• I am definitely recommending the game to anyone interested in a new exciting FPS

Competitive Valorant

Sadly, I did not get to play Valorant in a competitive setting over the past month. Mostly due to the fact that “boomers” like me have too much others things to focus on. We did however play a few matches with line-ups formed by former CS 1.6 pros and WCG / ESWC era attendees from over a decade ago. It was not the ESPN Valorant Invitational, but at least I got a feel of how five fully coordinated units scaled up in a match with identical comps.

The fact is, when player aim is almost at the same level, and everyone has a spatial and rotational awareness, Valorant becomes a game where abilities play a huge role in round outcome. Some rounds were clutched by microns of ill placed smokes and walls. Looking to the future, we can only imagine how much this game is going to grow and evolve as the competitive scene evolves.

We are also not alone in this. Esports pros are turning and pledging to Valorant left right and center.

Find out more about: Valorant Betting Sites