With Valorant now a fully launched game, Riot Games now has the endless chase of game balance to look forward to. Just how the team is going to approach that process is outlined in a dev blog that promises a balance focus that is driven not only by data but also by player emotion.
While the tenets of this balance focus promise to work towards making Valorant fair for every player, they also recognize that not every player will be happy with the changes and that the devs won’t be seeking a perfect 50/50 balance. “When everything is 50/50 across the board the decisions per session become less meaningful—you could say… robotic and formulaic. The human element of making decisions provides decision points that players can weigh the tradeoffs of,” reasons the post.
Balance decisions are approached through a “balance radar” process that collects hard metrics and player sentiment, all framed by the game’s design philosophy to create a set of “bounds.” This effectively helps the team see what parts of the game fall outside of those bounds and work to correct them. The post reads like half-platitude and half-informational, but might be worth the read for fans regardless.
