|
 VALORANT is the new free-to-play economy/round-based tactical FPS from Riot Games, best known for a small indie title called League of Legends. Much like Counter-Strike, the game involves two teams of five players alternating between attacking and defending on one of several maps with multiple bomb sites for the attacking team to choose from. At the start of each round, players who did not survive the previous round purchase weapons and equipment with the money they gained from the results of the previous round. Also much like Counter-Strike, weapon recoil is built around predictable spray patterns when standing still and screen-wide inaccuracy when moving. The game was released on June 2, 2020, and is free to play much like League of Legends, with five of the twelve "agents" being available for free out of the gate and the remainder acquired by playing games with each agent (or paying Riot a pile of your hard-earned local currency if you don't like fun). So, is this a character based shooter like Overwatch? Nope. A character's abilities are purchased and expended like grenades in Counter-Strike, and ultimates build up over the course of multiple rounds instead of just being on a timer. This is intended to prevent ultimate-based snowballing. On top of that, few of the characters shown off so far have abilities that radically alter the map or deal direct damage, meaning that the overwhelming majority of damage in this game is going to be through the gunplay which appears to be a nearly 1:1 copy of CS:GO's. Seriously, look at this buy menu from the alpha gameplay preview. You can almost immediately map each gun on there to one in classic Counter-Strike:  There are some differences -- no side-based weapons, one-shot headshots with full armour on two different ARs (one of which has no distance falloff but slower rate of fire, smaller magazine, and costs more), and the shotguns actually look like decent eco options (one of them has air burst!). Half and full armour are effectively an extra 25 and 50 HP each. Abilities replace grenades to make utility and defensive options unique across different team comps. And there's no defuse kit despite the only confirmed game mode so far being bomb. So far, the Beta has the following agents:
Monetization is more like League than CS:GO. Gun skins, unlocking agents without grinding, possibly character skins in the future... And of course, if you want to spend a pile of money, knives and other fancy melee weapons. There will not be loot boxes; Riot has explicitly confirmed this. You can unlock a new agent for free by going halfway through any agent's contract (basically, just play the game with them to unlock rewards); skipping to that point in a contract can be done for a roughly lunch-equivalent amount of your local currency. Riot seems pretty thoroughly intent on making this a real competitive game with a professional scene like League and CS:GO have. Most organizations in the CS scene have already declared their intent to field one or more teams in the professional Valorant scene, and former pro CS prodigy Brax (known back in the day as swag) has been signed to T1 Entertainment as a pro player and content creator already. What are other parts of the 'net saying about this game? /r/VALORANT is more like /r/ViperFanArt. Games journalism is split on "this is going to dethrone CS:GO" and "this will die in 6 months". People who haven't actually watched the gameplay round that Riot uploaded think it's going to be Overwatch. No one cares what 4chan thinks. Goon Discord: https://discord.gg/KGTADTM When it gets closer to launch (or when we have some more gameplay footage or whatever) I'll update the OP with some more images and links and actual stats. For now, have the unabridged footage of a round from a testing match that Riot posted a while ago that has been overanalysed to hell and back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8amyzDHOKw MAPS AND CALLOUTS There are four maps in the rotation! Ascent is the newest, and seems like a pretty solid CS formula map. Bind is another CS formula map but has a one-way teleporter from short A to short B/top mid and a one-way teleporter from the top of long B to the back of long A. Haven is the most unlike CS, with three bomb sites and a shared mid between B and C. Split makes use of height differences quite a bit, with ropes that you can quickly (or silently) use to safely move between height levels of the map in certain chokepoints. Blitz.gg has a full interactive map viewer with callouts and handy ability usage points and stuff. It seems to not suck. https://blitz.gg/valorant/maps Quick callout maps in the above order:    
Kazinsal fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Jun 9, 2020 |
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 06:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:02 |
|
|
Looks fun
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 07:35
|
|
|
Should've opened the OP with "No Methanars, not even one."
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 09:16
|
|
|
njsykora posted:Should've opened the OP with "No Methanars, not even one." I genuinely considered making the subtitle "No, Methanar, you can't post here either" but I thought that would be needlessly harsh. e: actually I don't know if carrying over a threadban to a pseudo-spinoff of a thread is even a thing that the mods will do in retrospect Kazinsal fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Mar 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 10:07
|
|
|
Kazinsal posted:I genuinely considered making the subtitle "No, Methanar, you can't post here either" but I thought that would be needlessly harsh. I understand the sentiment but as this is a brand new thread and Methanar has not posted like they did in the LoL thread I am willing to put him on posting probation here. Methanar if you post badly in this thread as you did in the LoL thread you will not get off lightly. Think of this as a place you can prove your posting contributions are worth being part of discourse. I will not hesitate to probate you properly as well as threadban you from here if you begin treating this like the LoL thread again. Take heed of this please.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 21:44
|
|
|
Really like the idea of buying use of abilities
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2020 22:54
|
|
|
Whats the draw? It seems weird to me to put obviously non-modern spell like abilities into a tactical shooter game. If this was shadowrun then sure, but its not. I can't think of a tactical shootmans game that has that. It usually seems to be arcadey-overwatch-like hero shooter and tarkovichs'n'CTs as the primary divide in shooters. Maybe their will be a market for it but the choices made in presentation and design seem weird.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2020 01:58
|
|
|
Pretty excited tbh
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2020 02:05
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Whats the draw? This is how I feel, I was expecting some sort of hook or gimmick but it just looks like CS with an Overwatch skin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2020 19:10
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Whats the draw? It seems weird to me to put obviously non-modern spell like abilities into a tactical shooter game. I mean, the inclusion of non-modern spell like abilities seems like a sign that it is Shadowrun-esque to me but 
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2020 19:35
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Whats the draw? It seems weird to me to put obviously non-modern spell like abilities into a tactical shooter game. It's an aesthetic that appeals to people who aren't into the tacticool brown and camo modern warfare stuff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 08:11
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Whats the draw? It seems weird to me to put obviously non-modern spell like abilities into a tactical shooter game. People love pres butan abilities in shooters. It's hard to design good gameplay, but easy to hook people on metered dopamine rewards. IDK if this game will succeed because that poo poo is so antithetical to the spirit of CS, but there's a shitload of money for them to make if it works. COD tacked it on to an arcade shooter with a realism aesthetic and made tons of money, Overwatch tacked it on to a class-based shooter with an arcadey aesthetic and made tons of money, Apex tacked it on to a BR and made tons of money, why not try the same poo poo with CS? Riot has all the financial and social resources to try to force something like this to succeed, so there's not much reason for them not to try.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 08:25
|
|
|
I think most of them being similar in aspects to different types of grenades and fairly realistic traps (and purchased like grenades in CS) helps make it a bit more grounded. The idea of "CS:GO meets Shadowrun" is one that I myself like the idea of and I think sorta fits the feel they seem to be going for here. My biggest concern when they were first talking about the game's ability was the ultimate snowball effect you get in Overwatch where a whole team blasting off ults at once is a "50/50 chance to win game" button, but they all seem fairly mundane and the most it seems they can do is give you an extra chance to clutch a round. This is a big deal in a best of 3 game, but in a best of 25, not so much. Rainbow Six: Siege has "pres butan" abilities on 40+ characters, and while some of them are realistic (breaching thermite, drone jammers, blowtorch, throwable remote cameras) some of them are pretty out there (holographic drone projectors, nanomachines son, a dude who's so beefy he can jump a 6 foot vertical and kool-aid man through walls). It's still considered a competitive tactical shooter.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 08:37
|
|
|
came in expecting the hit battle royale reboot of maxis' greatest title, simulation ant, but i guess our universe does not deserve that
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 08:40
|
|
|
Armadillo Tank posted:Whats the draw? It seems weird to me to put obviously non-modern spell like abilities into a tactical shooter game. I mean the draw for me is CS but not made or run by clowns, which is almost entirely dependent on whether the big game they're talking on anti-cheat and latency is true or not. If the core gameplay is good then the additions to the CS formula will probably be fine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 09:18
|
|
|
its fun to press a button and have your guy go pew pew and shoot lasers or magic or whatever
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 17:27
|
|
|
Worth noting the Valorant Twitter account has been putting up short videos showing character abilities. https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1235617949270056965 https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1238148065132982276 https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1240684543499218945 https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1243221256440369152
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2020 19:31
|
|
|
Closed beta April 7th, invites via Twitch drops (same system they used for Legends of Runeterra). https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1244670730110935042
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 20:30
|
|
|
njsykora posted:Closed beta April 7th, invites via Twitch drops (same system they used for Legends of Runeterra). wait am I gonna have to watch some random rear end streamers then?
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 20:48
|
|
|
frajaq posted:wait am I gonna have to watch some random rear end streamers then? In the grim darkness of the second millennium, there is only engagement.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 21:32
|
|
|
I think it’s not impossible for this game to succeed, but a lot of the hype around it seems to be working off a picture of counter strike from like 15 years ago. As incompetent as Valve is they actually did a very good job with CS:GO. There’s a tiny fraction of the number of hackers you had on the wild open server browser of 1.6 circa 2005, the weapons are vastly more balanced in that guns besides the m4/ak/awp are actually worth using, the matchmaking servers aren’t spectacular but they’re decent, they exist, and they're sufficient for casual players. They’ve added new gamemodes that are actually fun for casual play and have the skin ecosystem, they've made new maps like overpass that have actually been taken up by the playerbase and are better designed than ancient legacy maps like nuke and train There’s probably still low hanging fruit in appealing to casual players, and making the learning curve for how the competitive game is actually played less steep and less reliant on a body of esoteric knowledge kept by the playerbase (basic stuff like how to peek, how to position, how to use grenades is not taught in game anywhere and you basically need to watch youtube videos by random people in their basement to learn it) but there’s a hell of a lot less than there was 10 years ago. Many of the problems Riot claims to be solving were solved already either by Valve themselves or by third party community, which seems like a problem if that's the core pitch of your game. Having character abilities that act as replacements for grenades, and a greater variety of them, could be interesting, but they could also gently caress it up pretty easily icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Mar 31, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 21:40
|
|
|
frajaq posted:wait am I gonna have to watch some random rear end streamers then? If it works anything like the Legends of Runeterra beta, here's what you do: 1. Go into your account settings in Twitch and link your Riot account. 2. Put some streamer on in the background. 3. Drop the volume as low as it will go before muting it so you can't hear their dumb streamer poo poo. 4. ??? 5. Beta!
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 21:46
|
|
|
If you're lucky then you'll find a streamer who does what Disguised Toast did for LoR keys, just puts a previous stream on repeat for several days for people to leave in the background until they get a key.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 21:51
|
|
|
Kazinsal posted:If it works anything like the Legends of Runeterra beta, here's what you do: seems like the way to go, I can only have the faint hope the ones I regularly watch are gonna play it + have the drop stuff enabled, but if not I'll do that lol e: nevermind quote:For now, space is limited to players in Europe, Canada, United States, Turkey, Russia and CIS countries. frajaq fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 30, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2020 21:53
|
|
|
Warcraft 3 mod in cs1.6 loving ruled so abilities in a tactical shooter is fine imo
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 00:03
|
|
|
Really surprised nobody seems to care about this game On the forums. It’s drop day on twitch for those trying to get into the beta.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 22:29
|
|
|
Mister Fister posted:Really surprised nobody seems to care about this game On the forums. It’s drop day on twitch for those trying to get into the beta. It's hard to say too much about the game without a broad number of people getting access. Hoping I'll get a key, but it's a bit of a long shot. Game does look sick from what Twitch Rivals is showing off, at least.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 22:39
|
|
|
Mister Fister posted:Really surprised nobody seems to care about this game On the forums. It’s drop day on twitch for those trying to get into the beta. I care  Been watching n0thing's stream on my second monitor all day, he's doing breakdowns of other streamers' footage and the game is looking really good. Absolutely loving the combined setup and buy phase in freezetime. Haven't gotten a drop though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 22:42
|
|
|
Idling a stream for the slim chance of getting a key but I'm not gonna get my hopes up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 22:43
|
|
|
Reminds me of 1.6 more than CS:GO. Like it seems you can't jiggle peek or swing out super fast.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 23:19
|
|
|
Yeah it's hard to really talk in any detail about the game until some of us have at least played it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2020 23:28
|
|
|
I got a beta key to my account! Now what
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 00:08
|
|
|
The REAL Goobusters posted:I got a beta key to my account! Now what Download the game from the site and log in with the Riot account linked to Twitch.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 00:20
|
|
|
poo poo, did we really only get one goon with an invite today?
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 06:51
|
|
|
I got one left a stream open for half an hour in the background
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 07:33
|
|
|
I forgot about this completely, no beta key for me, RIP I'm kind of meh toward the game anyway. Will probably give it a shot if it's F2P.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 08:03
|
|
|
Yay, we have more than one.FrostyPox posted:I'm kind of meh toward the game anyway. Will probably give it a shot if it's F2P. It will be. Riot has said it'll be similar in its monetization to League, though they're still trying to figure out how they want to handle character skins, if they want to do them at all. Gun skins are gonna be the big thing, and no loot boxes so it won't be funded CS:GO style with underage gambling revenue.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 09:23
|
|
|
Kazinsal posted:Yay, we have more than one. That's good. Worth a shot when it's released or goes into open beta, then
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 11:23
|
|
|
I also have a key for the 7th, pumped! Are goons going to congregate in a specific discord?
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 14:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:02 |
|
|
Kazinsal posted:It will be. Riot has said it'll be similar in its monetization to League, though they're still trying to figure out how they want to handle character skins, if they want to do them at all. Gun skins are gonna be the big thing, and no loot boxes so it won't be funded CS:GO style with underage gambling revenue. I find their reluctance about character skins to be a bit strange. CS:GO has something similar, right? Have characters/skins etc. made CS:GO harder to play before or something?
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2020 15:01
|
|
