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Riot Games
Valorant character producer John Goscicki talked about how future agents might not have unique kits or abilities. One of the reasons behind such a design decision is that there are a lot of debuffs in the game with KAY/O bringing his own suppression mechanic. Riot Games thinks that adding too many debuffs and effects to the game can ruin a lot of Valorant’s enjoyment. The devs want to keep things simple and fluid and when adding new content like agents, future characters might have kits or abilities that are shared between multiple characters. Here is a quick overview of everything we learnt from the Valorant Episode 3 developer livestream.
Riot Games wants to limit the number of debuffs in Valorant
With agents being added frequently to Valorant, it is important to keep the gameplay enjoyable. Considering the large number of abilities that are in the game, Valorant character producer John Goscicki wants the game to feel engaging and not have debuffs feel too oppressive. A lot of players shared their concerns over how strong KAY/O is as he introduced more debuffs to the game. Goscicki shared that players do not have to worry as the future characters will feature very similar abilities that are being used by existing agents.
Riot does not want the game to feel overwhelming. However, the game will continue to feature unique and diverse characters and expand on the lore even if some of the future agents share some mechanics. The character producer said “There’s a lot of opportunities to add new things to the game where the game isn’t currently overloaded from a lot of debuffs and status effects. We’re really thinking about how we do a lot of this in its early years.”
Riot wants to build up the knowledge players have about all of the existing abilities and make it easier for players to coordinate with each other. He confirmed “No status effect is sacred to a current Agent. It’s just that some are only represented on one Agent currently. So, we’ll see how that evolves in the future.”
The developers want to keep the game as simple as possible and while new abilities aren’t completely out of the question, players can expect to see existing effects being added again through future agents. With Valorant mixing classic FPS elements with abilities, maintaining balance can be difficult and Riot Games may be headed in the right direction with its decision to limit the number of debuffs and effects in the game.
