Valorant devs give update on Raze balance, anti-cheat and more

Bill Cooney

Valorant developers have put out their first post in new a weekly series of blog updates about what they’re focusing on during the beta, and also gave fans more info on the controversial anti-cheat system.

To mark the two-week point of Valorant’s closed beta, Riot devs gave fans a blog post containing more information and their thought process behind the April 21 patch.

Devs also discussed their Vanguard anti-cheat system, which has caused quite a bit of controversy on its own over the last few weeks. Without any further delay, let’s see what the team behind Riot’s new FPS had to say so far.

Valorant's Raze.
Raze has been a controversial topic of conversation since the April 7 launch of the closed beta.

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Why nerf Raze?

Without a doubt, Raze has proven to be the most controversial Valorant agent of the beta so far, with a large number of players complaining she was too powerful.

However, her kit got a major nerf on April 21, with her Paint Shell grenades being reduced from two charges to one, and the addition of a two-kill requirement to use the ability again in the same round.

“Raze has been a polarizing character in VALORANT,” lead game designer Trevor Romleski admitted. “We’ve seen feedback ranging from ‘Raze is fine’ to ‘Pls delete now.’ This has also raised the question about lethal damage from abilities in VALORANT, and when (if at all) does it make sense.”

“The value of lethal abilities is to create temporary areas of denial that require opponents to quickly reposition from that space,” he continued. “We don’t expect the common case of lethal abilities to be outright killing the opponent, especially at higher levels of play.”

Raze was the first new agent added to Valorant, and quickly became the game’s most divisive character.

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Romleski said that developers expect outright eliminations from lethal abilities to decrease once players learn their cues and how to deal with them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not doing anything to help.

“It is on us to provide you the proper audio and sound cues, information, and windows of time for you to react properly,” he stated. “You should feel that you’re equipped with the proper gameplay information, and that when you die and your opponent makes a good play: it’s on you.”

Hacker detected on monitor in Valorant
Vanguard, Valorant’s anti-cheat system, runs from your PC’s start-up, which some users feel is too invasive.

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What’s the deal with Valorant’s anti-cheat?

The blog post also addressed what developers said were misconceptions about Valorant’s “Vanguard” anti-cheat system, which starts running as soon as your PC boots up, and some players feel is too invasive.

Despite player concerns, devs didn’t address this issue directly, but the game’s anti-cheat lead Paul Chamberlain did say he’s “confident that the current approach is a good one for now.”

Valorant has only been out in closed beta for two weeks (even though it feels like a lot longer), but it’s clear developers are working to improve it even more for players. Whether that means more Raze nerfs to come though, remains to be seen.

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About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.