Riot’s Dev Team Responds to Backlash Over Recent Ask Valorant Blog

Riot Games and the Valorant developer (dev) team faced immense backlash from the community following the publication of the recent Ask Valorant blog post on 19th May. The majority of the criticism and disappointment stemmed from Riot not having any plans to implement an in-game replay system, a feature that the community has been asking for since day one. Now, a day later, the Valorant team responded to the backlash and promised to answer questions that the players might have about the state of the game.

What did the Ask Valorant blog say?

In its recent blog, the Valorant devs spoke about the following systems within the game and the possibility of these coming to fruition:

• Map pick and ban system

• Gifting in Valorant

• In-game replays

• Report feedback from Riot

• Alternating skins on attack and defense

• Creative content like Arcane for Valorant

In short, Riot Games stated that it was either working on some of these systems or that it has no current plan of bringing them about to the game. The biggest disappointment for the community was the lack of an in-game replay system. About this, game production member Steven Eldredge said, “The shortest answer today is that there is no plan for a player-facing version of a replay system, as of now.”

He added that Riot’s current exploration is on other features like ways to track and reward Agent progress, player behavior tools, and different ways to collect in-game items.

Notably, in 2020, the devs said, “Yes! This [in-game replay] is something that we're interested in exploring soon. Whether it's to study previous matches for tactical advantages or to create spicy memes, we know that players will find a wide range of interesting uses for a system like this.”

Additionally, Riot also said that it would be highly unlikely that maps pick and ban systems appear in normal competitive matches. The company also stated that the gifting system for Valorant was on the backburner because it was prioritizing other things and that it does not have a timeline for it.

Riot Games gave a similar answer to the question of receiving instant feedback for reporting an AFK player. Players can look forward to receiving an in-game message when a player reported for AFK-ing gets punished. “We're working on this now! No exact date to share, but we’ll fix this so that if you report someone and they get punished, you will always receive a message,” confirmed the Social & Player Dynamics team.

Similarly, the dev team did not commit to the idea of alternating skins on attack and defense sides. Riot also stated that, as much as it wants to explore the lore of Valorant, fans should sit tight since it does not have any immediate plans for a show like Arcane for Valorant.

Valorant team’s response

On 20th May, Valorant dev team member Arnar Hrafn Gylfason posted a Twitlonger in response to the backlash. He acknowledged the issues highlighted by the community and said that it was rough to read the responses. Gylfason added, “We understand your frustration and we know we haven't been communicating as much [about] what we've been working on. While we've been on track [with] shipping maps and agents recently, we haven't been giving you reasons to get excited [about] the future, just excuses for what we're not doing.”

He further stated that the Valorant team would be providing some better answers as to where the game is at and some of the future plans in store. “It'll take a couple of days to pull together so hopefully, you can bear with us until next week. love - the valorant team.”

Players can expect to see another blog post in a week’s time to understand the state of Valorant and what systems or changes the devs are prioritizing.