🪬Riot Junebird

👊 Senior Game Designer @Valorant working on Agents and Game Balance ⚙️ I designed Waylay 💎 Be nice :)

[penguin @penguinVALORANT]

https://t.co/EDqJloO3Gc

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@AnderzzTV Thanks! :D

[Coleman Palm (Altombre) @Altombre]

Hey yall - thank you for the feedback. We're bringing back Skirmish 2v2 starting tomorrow (March 19th)!

[VALORANT @VALORANT]

https://t.co/Z7wFN4tXnc

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

Thank you all - Santiago was incredible everyone was so kind and curious about how we make agents. If anyone has more questions I’m happy to talk about it if I can.

Really nothing quite like the LATAM crowd - y’all go crazy.

[sapphics like: @sapphicslike]

raze and killjoy

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@porridgeorge Appreciate the sympathy. Don’t worry - I love my job and I won’t be turning down opportunities to represent the agent design team because of twitter commenters. :)

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@JTayy_ We have statistics about everything that we use to help us make decisions.

Without going into specifics, stim is a powerful effect generally and one that punches above its weight compared to how the average person perceives it.

[Alex Wheeler @RiotCindyr]

We’ve been working on this for a long time. We reworked buffs and debuffs, added assist banners, and revamped supportive UX throughout the game for Miks. Big shoutout to the whole design crew for this one.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@AnderzzTV What do you mean “texture of the patch around it” 🤔

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

Hey there, Val gameplay designer here.

Just want to call out that we make changes to agents because we feel they are correct for the game and we believe make the game better, not simply to just drive engagement for new content.

Unfortunately these changes leaked without context (and we have more changes coming!) but we never have a secret agenda other than making changes we believe are correct generally and are aligned with our goals for those changes.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@WendlerTV Gl!!

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@2016archive @Altombre We love it too! Our team is comprised of Val players who play daily just like you.

We think Val is played best as a team, and part of that is ensuring our agents that thrive with more team play are worth picking over our more self sufficient characters.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@Hystariea @Altombre Very simply - yes! We believe the experience of playing Valorant is better when you have variety in each game.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

Hey there!

Clove has been since launch the agent with the highest win rate across all MMRs. This is reflected in their pick rate as well, as Clove is an ever-present part of the ranked experience for players right now.

Character diversity makes the experience of the game better overall, and hopefully these changes help that.

And I think it goes without saying I love my fellow enbys 💜

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@onlyakio @Altombre Hey there Val game designer here.

There are more changes to come in this patch and future patches. Unfortunately some pieces of those updates leaked, but expect more in this and subsequent patches.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

I can’t talk about things we have planned for the future but we’ve heard this sentiment from players loud and clear.

We try to handle problems in the live game holistically and from multiple angles. Right now agents like Yoru, Waylay, and Neon are in a state of balance where they are making it tough to be a sentinel player, which we believe to be a large contributing factor in sentinels being weak.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

I can’t talk about things we have planned for the future but we’ve heard this sentiment from players loud and clear.

We try to handle problems in the live game holistically and from multiple angles. Right now agents like Yoru, Waylay, and Neon are in a state of balance where they are making it tough to be a sentinel player, which we believe to be a large contributing factor in sentinels being weak.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

@onlyakio @Altombre Hey there Val game designer here.

There are more changes to come in this patch and future patches. Unfortunately some pieces of those updates leaked, but expect more in this and subsequent patches.

[🪬Riot Junebird @JuneBird_]

Hey there, gameplay designer on Val here.

Our goal is never to simply reduce creativity on an agent. In Yoru’s case we are removing options that are splashing too deeply into other roles causing a reduction in pick diversity. Yoru is simply over-tuned, and a consequence of that is having access to a wide variety of gameplay patterns that are atypical for duelists in general such as map wide rotation, long term space holding, and flexible flashes that are as strong selfishly as they are at supporting teammates.

All told, we do have to make calls around what is appropriate for the role and game holistically, and sometimes that does mean removing options. Give it a shot in game - if it turns out we overswung on this nerf we will be keeping an eye out for all of your feedback after you try out the changes.

Some more context is here as well:

[Coleman Palm (Altombre) @Altombre]

Hey all - want to share some of the philosophy behind the updates to Yoru and Clove. We strive for balance that supports healthy pick diversity at all skill levels while rewarding coordinated teamplay - and currently, we believe that Clove and Yoru are too powerful overall (1/4)