Riot Games answers two major questions and one crosshair query in this week’s edition of Ask Valorant. Apparently, people sometimes need to pee or poop during Valorant matches, so one player would like a pause button to do his or her business. Practicing in the shooting range while waiting for games has been a question asked since day one and Riot finally gives a solid answer.
As for the minor crosshair query, players want to be able to share their settings so they can copy other people’s crosshairs. The Valorant team responded by saying it has plans in the works for further crosshair customization and that sharing settings with teammates and friends is a good extension for the feature.
When nature calls
Steven Eldredge, a Senior Producer for Valorant, revealed that the team has already done some experimenting with in-game and pre-round pause options. He goes on to say that it is unlikely to ever be an option to pause during a round because it negatively impacts the competitive integrity of the game. Understandably so. When you suddenly have a minute or so to make decisions that you should have had seconds to make, the game changes.
However, the Valorant team is exploring a pre-round pause option. Riot is confident this won’t impact gameplay or the outcome of engagements. Eldredge doesn’t give an eta for this feature, so plan your pees and poops accordingly for now.
What to do while you queue?
Lead Games Mode Producer Jared Berbach steps in to answer the long-time question, why can’t players use the practice range while queueing for a match? The answer, it turns out, is a matter of efficiency. Berbach reveals that entering the practice range costs Riot the same on the server-side as a standard 5v5 match. With the added downside of the practice range only serving one player instead of 10.
Riot prefers to reserve its server horsepower for unrated and rated competitive matches. However, Berbach believes there are other solutions that will give players the time to train they are after, while not costing Riot valuable server power. The ability to enter FFA Deathmatch while you wait, for instance.
Berbach says Riot still has a bunch of technical stuff to figure out before it can make this a reality. But he assures players that the team is working on it and hopes to have it done early next year.
Valorant Act III [ADD LINK] starts today. There’s a new icy map called Icebox. A new support agent named Skye has been added to the roster. Plus, there’s a new Battlepass packed with awesome cosmetic rewards for players to get stuck into.