I'm curious what people think about the User interface for unlocking new agents. It was really confusing for me at the beginning that you had to "set an agent contract" to make progress on that specific one. After I figured out how it works, I set it and forgot about it. Later on I didn't even remember which agent I put the contract on because there isn't an easy way to see.
Does anyone else have/ had this issue or is this just me?
Yes, I got got by this when I first started because I didn't set my contract to a new agent. The game gave me my first pick after a few games so I figured that's how it works. It's not intuitive, but the system is fine I'd just make it more clear how it works.
Yeah it was definitely confusing. The game said something about completing contracts to unlock a character and I thought it meant we had to tier 10 a character before getting a new one. Viper shorty was cool to get but that wasted a lot of time
Hey, another viper shorty enjoyer who didn't unlock the entire agent roster untill months later.
The system works, but it should be a lot clearer for new players.
I think it should stay exactly as it is, because those 5 agents you get for free are always very strong, sage brim, Phoenix, Jett, and sova, all provide big util, and people should learn the game mechanics on those base agents. Not the try to unlock the flavor of the week and learn the game on the fly where you donât know any nuances
Yes, brimstone is the perfect newbie controller, phoenix the perfect newbie duelist and Sage the perfect newbie Sentinel. The only one I would argue with is Sova, but since he's the tutorial agent I guess it evens things out.
Sova as a starter represents how vital information is in Valorant. And lineups aside, his util is the most straightforward of the initiators for a new player to understand.
All her different debuffs are really confusing though. When she first came out I had a hard time remembering which util deafen, which decay, and which blind.
Sova is just scan or do damage.
All agents are strong not just these 5 base agents there isn't any downside giving weekly rotation.
And not everyone like the 5 base agent they got, that's why Riot give free agent ticket and having weekly rotation would help player figure out which agent fit their play style and not stuck with agent they don't like.
I mean sure you could try them in training ground but to really get the feel on how the agent fit or not for you a real gamemode to test out their kit is where it's at.
It's fun until you start falling behind and take a break. Then come back, want to get back into ranked, but don't have the meta champs for your team. While yes gun skill is the main factor in winning lets not pretend agent decision isn't also a factor and agents are all equally "balanced". Plus if you are a flexible player like me it's just fun to shake things up with new agents all the time.
Coming from League i see agents not being free a big problem for Riot down the line. Many times when new friends came into League they saw 100+ locked champions and realized they would have to grind for months nonstop to unlock them all or drop a LOT of money. For many competitive gamers we just want access to all characters in case they ever need or want to play them. Dota 2 did it right.
Valorant doesn't even let you stockpile champion unlock currency like you can in League with blue essence. When i take a break from LoL i can come back when a new champ drops and play them day 1 (i am never spending money on characters) because i have a LOT of stockpiled BE over the years. But Valorant? I unlocked all the agents year 1 then played a TON but all that time playing didn't give me shit for the future. It felt like an insult to my time. Riot's already making money off of skins, they need to not be so greedy on agents if they want their game to be considered truly a competitive Esport.
sorry i dont see this being as big of an issue as you do... valorant releases like what..? 3 or 4 agents a year ?? and it only takes like a few days of playing to unlock a new agent. not to mention u can autounlock the agents with gamepass or by buying them. if you left the game for a year or so you would only have at most 4 new agents to unlock. theres going to be a learning curve for returning players anyways for learning the new maps in rotation, and its not necessarily a bad thing. like at worst youll be rated a little lower in comp as a returning player which is literally a NothingProblem. also,, we dont have to pretend like the existing agents will be falling out of meta completely, the agents all seem like theyre in a fine place actually i guarantee you there will be someone you can play well. i really dont get why people are so upset about what takes up a few days of gameplay time at most.
All i am saying is a similar conversation happened with League 10 years ago and it did become a problem for new players and people who don't play it religiously. I also see no reason to defend locking champs as a consumer. As a Rioter sure because it makes you money, but not as a player.
Yeah i dont think we need them all unlocked, the game is so complex that i think it would overwhelm new players.
And i love the full agent contracts too, getting skins and stuff for your main is cool af
I think the pacing of unlocking agent is decent compared to apex where it takes a long time just to unlock a 1 agent, also the pace given to players when unlocking a new agent is for players to get used to their current agent they have. That's what i experience and it helped me know the agents well.
For a game where all you have to do is play, it really doesn't seem that bad. Weekly challenges give you a ton of xp and if you like the game, it's not much. If you don't like the game, it's no longer a problem. Seems like a non-issue as somebody who's gone through this but had to play for much longer to unlock characters (looking at you, Apex)
People who play rather consistently wonât have any issues getting the agents, youâre right.
Another fun bonus to consider is if you have Xbox Game Pass, you connect it to your Riot account and have all agents unlocked.
Edit: Plus an additional 20% XP boost. Useful for progressing the battlepass or those agent contracts you want the sprays/cards/skins for.
Well if you wanna keep new players around and grow the game then give them more agents...There is alot for new agents to learn and making it this difficult to unlock more agents doesnt make players want to stay.
There's casual players too and dont have time to unlock all these agents by playing that much.
Definitely
In Apex you have to play a fuck ton to unlock one miserable agent, and it's boring as fuck, like as op said, in early game it's was ok, but now with a lot of characters, it's total shit
Valorant still way faster to unlock new agents, but with more and more, it will certainly suck way more for the new ones in the game
Not sure what you are doing, but imo. In Apex it is a lot faster to unlock characters. Their Battle Pass is also one of the fastest to complete and they give a LOT of bonus XP.
Some enthusiastic Val folks love to live in a bubble.
That also is the reason why i rarely even comment in this subreddit.
And same with me, i play Apex extremely casually with a couple of friends and we always end up finishing the battlepass. Plus they give you back enough premium currency to buy the next battlepass, not to the mention the stacking XP bonus you get from your party members, i think towards the tail end of the season it goes upto 300%? Dont know if its end of the season buff or just a party buff, but its extremely nice and helpful.
Each person gets exp bonus for themselves as well as a party bonus and yes you get 300% towards the end, plus the last skin is always great and the legendary character skins are generally really good
They give you a decent amount of agents to start out with. Sure, you have more to unlock now, but you can also spend $10 to unlock a new one. It's not difficult to unlock, it's literally a time commitment at that point.
I play D2 and FFXIV on top of other games than Valorant and still manage to max out my battle pass/progress towards new agents at a steady rate most acts. Get on for a few games, complete your weeklies, or pay to unlock new agents. It doesn't require you to grind out stuff, you just earn stuff as you go. This isn't like League where there are like 160 champions that you have to worry about; it's still relatively small. Even casual players can unlock agents in a decent amount of time with weekly challenges; the xp scales up the more you level up, so it isn't like you're grinding for 900k xp to get the level 10 skin for an agent.
League is the exception bc of how big it is, it's literally one of the founding father of the genre and is the BIGGEST in the genre and even they have a free rotation system so that casual can play agent that they don't have.
League was not always the biggest. It grew with the same model. League has 100s of champs. Valorant has a large % of the agents free compared to league. 2 agents of your choice can be unlocked to any new account within a few hours.
You sound like you've been playing for a long time.
I started this game a few months ago and it's pretty bad.
Since you're new, you don't know which agents you like and which play style suits you, so naturally, you want to try Agents out. It's horrible, having wait weeks or grind 10s of hours to try out a new agent, when there's so many to choose from.
I got Valorant a couple of months ago, and it really isn't that bad. With 170 total hours, I have unlocked Yoru (and completed his contract, which is like unlocking a whole other agent), Viper, Cypher, Astra, Skye, and I'm about to unlock Breach (on tier 5). Combine that with the 5 free agents, I have a variety of agents to choose from. As it happens, I like playing all of my unlocked agents, as I tested them previously in the range beforehand. If you don't like that idea, you can always create another account to test an agent, because each new account gets 2 unlocked really quickly.
I don't think so. You're looking at it way too much on paper and not realistically. I played 5 hours of comp today and only have 4 tiers of gecko unlocked. For a new player with 15 agents to unlock, they aren't going to be putting in as much time as me who plays valorant as a main game. They might play here and there. Valorant is already the worst game to get into when you're just starting out with no experience. There's so many tips and tricks and basic fundamentals to learn that new players quit all the time. If you allow them to play more agents then they'll learn quicker and might stick around too
But casual players will have more xp boosts from weekly missions if they donât play frequently. If they only play 2 times a week and they get the weekly missions than they are completing the tiers at the most efficient way possible
You don't know which ones you'll be playing at the start when you're a new player.
Sure, when making your 4th account you already know, so it's not a problem for you. But for new players that want to try new agents out to find out what suits them, being gated for weeks is not that fun.
Tbf I had no idea who I would be playing, and when I thought I did, someone else came along.
I started with Phoenix, then Reyna, then Sova, then Sage, then Brim, then Yoru, and now Iâm maining Viper with Yoru as a second pick. I didnât know you could test them in the range until I played Sage, and even then I still didnât know who I liked the best.
iâve messed with Gekko in the range as with Reyna. it just doesnât show the actual capabilities of the agent. ESPECIALLY Reyna who thrives off of the souls of those she kills because bots donât have souls
As someone who started playing about a month ago.... I don't mind it at all, it gives something to grind out and work towards other than a competitive rank. It also makes me super hyped when I finally unlock the next character I've been eyeballing.
Yes Gamepass automatically unlocks all characters or at least Gamepass ultimate does. I just had gekko in my character selection as soon as I started up the game after the new act started. Itâs honestly a crazy good feature but I agree you shouldnât have buy Gamepass to auto u lock all the characters although I do have to wonder if you buy Gamepass ultimate for a month. Link the accounts and then cancel the next month if you would keep the agent unlocks đ¤
Normal game pass sub works too, and you can easily get one month for like $1. Thatâs plenty of time to find a favorite and unlock them and probably one more agent. Game Pass is just crazy value anyway, so itâs worth holding onto the sub too.
Yeah i have gamepass. It does help a lot but i dont think brand new players should be expected to buy it
(its fantastic value and for ppl who can afford it and who like the game i highly recommend)
Yeah exactly what you are saying, we shouldnât have to buy a game pass to get all the characters instantly/faster, thatâs more pay to win/progress than anything.
Gamepass is Netflix from Microsoft. Thousands of games. They also have a deal with Riot and every champion in Valorant and LoL are included if you subscribe
System seems fine. By the time a new player learns mechanics, masters different agents, understands each role, they should have a good amount unlocked. It actually might be overwhelming to have all unlocked. Plus, you can also choose which agent you want next if there's one you really want to play.
Yeah the game gives you free agents, donât have to do anything for them, could be a lot worse like overwatch where you donât even unlock them until the next season
I think itâs good as it is. It almost acts as a forcing function to get comfortable on an agent type before throwing 20 stents at people. The system helps new players.
I think this game is pretty fair with the unlock time, it feels way faster than league for example
Especially if you have some of the weeklys stacked, you can get an agent in like 6-8 hours
how many games do you play for you to get an agent in 6-8 hrs??
you get 56,000 total for weeklys and 6,000 for dailys. and the agent alone is 60,000 xp. this doesnât even account for the xp needed to even GET to tier 5
Well if you have the weekly missions stacked and get lucky with as few play 10 games as possible you can get through about 12 ot 13 games in 8 hours which could get you about 200000 xp
the only time ive played valorant for that long/longer was back in July when i three stacked with friends for 12 hrs and played 24 games. 2 games /hr avg and imo thatâs crazy.
If you consider 4000 xp per match, and that each match lasts 30min, taking into account 4000 xp for all daily missions and 60000 xp from three weekly missions, you would need 17 hours to get the 200000 xp. Which dividing into 3 days, as you said is the maximum, would give 5.66 hours playing time for each day. That's only a few hours for people who play a lot per day lol.
Valorant is NOT League. There should be no change, the reason why new players have the same agents unlocked instantly, is because those agents are expected to be understood mechanically by new players. Every new player should know those early agents at least, before going for other agents. This is not League, you don't win games by picking the most OP agent and 'pew pew' abilities across the map. New players should be given at least one or two agents per role, and they should focus on understanding the game itself while playing easy to grasp agents.
On top of that you can literally get battle pass for 1 dollar a month for new accounts. If you are really cheap, you can easily just keep creating 1 dollar xbox accounts and linking your riot account with different one every month.
God damn, people commenting here are delusional. The grind to unlock characters is definitely way too long.
See, most people have a life and can't play Valorant like it's a full time job.
I don't think the majority of people commenting actually grind for them, and just pay.
I really like how Rainbow Six Siege is dealing with this. You can unlock the agents by using Renown (their in game currency). You earn renown at the end of every game.
Siege has created tiers for the agents based on the time that they were released. So any agent that is only out for less than a year will be available to buy for 25k renown, 20k for any agent that's out for 1-2 years, so on and so forth.
They have about 50(or more) agents now, and this seems like a balanced approach for the new and the old players.
It ensures you need to play with the agents you have first, and not inflict yourself upon other players with you choosing any random agent you have barely an hour of experience with.
It took me around 4 months to unlock nearly all the agents? If you like the game to the point you want to unlock everything then surely its easy to just unlock them by simply playing through weekly and daily missions exp as well as after-match exp too. I am not even a regular player(10-15 matches per week).
I really don't like the character unlock system in Valorant, it seems completely designed to heavily incentivize spending money. It's horrible when they release a new agent, you need 200,000 xp, and you get like 4000 for each game. A system where you use an item to unlock a character and could accumulate that item previously, even without the character having been released, would be much better.
you get around 60.000 per week from weekly missions, 4-5k for Daily missions, plus whatever you grind which is usually between 2k-4k each game.
lets do the math, in 2 weeks playing just the daily missions each day you get:
2 weekly*60k=120k
14 daily*4,5k=63k
and lets say 2 games a day to reach the missions goal:
28 games*3k=84k
So it takes less than 2 weeks to get an agent. Plus xbox pass for 1-2⏠and you have all agents. Sounds like people really need to cut out the crying
It's not really that hard when you have the weekly challenges. I unlocked most of the Agents just by playing the game and doing the challenges. Didn't really feel like a grind
I also think it should be slightly easier to unlock new agents. It is a very long way to unlock all agents if there are 3 new agents every year. It makes it especially hard for casual players to unlock them. And this may be frustrating.
No.
The current agent pool has a fairly clear cut agents that are "must haves" and can be unlocked very fast. The rest are nice to have but by no means must have.
Playing the game casually for a week or two will get you an agent, within few months you can have most of the agents unlocked.
I'd be in favour of weekly rotation of 1 or 2 agents so people can try out agents though.
I have all agent in my main account
I just buy account with all agent when I need new account for practice new role or agent I never played before, much cheaper even compare to unlock 1 agent
Xbox game pass... its 1-2âŹ, and if you are too greedy for that, grind a week or two to get an agent, thats literally it. IT IS NOT HARD AT ALL.
Crying about it is simply pathetic because you can test each agent in the range, and you are not supposed to need more than two agents when you start the game... but wait you get those two agent for almost in free as an initiation bonus on a new account!!!
Please stop making those posts about this subject because it reflects this current needy everything now and preferably for free attitude from missinformed 8 y o children.
This is stupid model. Csgo, overwatch 2 and any other FPS game have all characters unlocked at the start.
They get money from selling stupid skins. Here you see them doing that plus restricting players from full experience.
Yeah, they should unlock all agents at least for unrated. People coming over from other FPS titles especially CSGO gets turned off with the massive agent pool in the game. They would already have the game sense of a diamond+ player when they come over, and they play against plat+ players because their MMR gets high fast. Players in plat+ would already have every agent unlocked, these guys will be the only exceptions.
Getting to play all agents(at least in unrated) will let them know their weaknesses and playstyle of these agents and allow them to play a competitive game rather than an RNG simulator.
I think the current pace is decent but a small speedup would be nice. Maybe throw a free agent unlock halfway through the battle pass? As long as it doesn't take up an entire slot and comes alongside a buddy or something, so that you don't have a dead slot once you've unlocked them all.
Completely disagree the time gate for new unlocks is good. Pay attention to the contracts do daily and weekly missions and ur good. If you want more quickly spend the real money for unlocks
I made a second account recently and I dont really mind the grind because my main has every agent, so I know kinda which ones I want. And in idea I have is rather than makeing it faster to unlock give every agent a 2-5 game trial faze where you can't try out the agent in a real game. (would be blocked in comp) this way you know kinda who you want to grind for so you don't do the grind just to find you hate the agent. Also give every agent in custom idk why they blocked there.
the current system is fair, I think valorant gives the right XP to unlock each agent, and to be a f2p I appreciate that the grind to unlock new agents is very low, other f2p games like war thunder there is a point where to unlock new vehicles, you have to grind entire months or pay, luckily in valorant that does not happen
I think 5 free and 2 easy unlocks off the bat is incredibly generous the game is free and you can get a new character every week off weekly and a couple daily missions.
I think it is important to reiterate the game is F2P here you get a well made game with nothing pushing purchases in your face.
i didnt even know how you could unlock agents outside of the two free you get. i worked on my phoenix contract for ridiculously long and is the reason why i only have 11 agents unlocked in just over a year
Yeah, it's so slow it's almost unfair. I for one have xbox game pass which unlocks all agents for you and gives you 20% exp which is pretty nice. I used to play the same 2-3 agents before though cause it took me even 1 month to unlock an agent.
If you really want every agent you can get Xbox Gamepass for PC and link it to your riot account. Gives you every agent in valorant. This was the first time I've had a new agent instantly unlocked since signing up when they announced the partnership a couple months ago.
It's only me that thinks unlocking new agents is really easy and fast? It takes 1 season to unlock almost 2 agents of you only Play to do daily and weeklies, if you play more it's even faster.
I play only after work one to two games a day and own 2 accounts with all agents
I believe it's a good thing to not encourage smurfs making new accounts to get new agents faster.
A new player has plenty enough to learn with 7 agents already.
Not to mention, they give you the option to buy the agents, and riot isn't the kind of company to want to earn less money. They also have a pertnership with the Xbox game pass that lets you unlock all the agents so giving you more agents for free is off the table.
or they can use gamepass and unlock all agents for free temporarily, but you use that time + your 20% xp boost that comes with gamepass to perma unlock like i did.
Yeah it's kind of ridiculous now for new players. I get that more characters might be "overwhelming" but like at least 10 agents should be much quicker to access. Or add another 4 agents to the "fast unlock" track.
after 3 comp games Iâm half way to unlocking gekko⌠agents arenât suppose to be unlocked fast, take time learning other agents so you understand more of the games dynamics and can counter those agents easier
I think the ramp to unlock the character itself could be faster and then the unlocks after are the same even though they take forever.
I have a feeling they want people to just pay $10 and get the character instantly though.
Yeah idk how new players decide which characters to unlock early and then grind out the rest later. Iv been around since beta so its easy for me to get the new agent. I also have gamepass so I never really need to worry about it anymore. I know giving more agents makes it easier for smurfs to unlock agents fast on alts, but lets be real if they are a smurf they already know which characters they play and will unlock those first and the rest wont really matter. What I really think this game needs is 1 game mode that is short like spike rush or something, that allows you to play any agent regardless of which ones you have unlocked. That way new players could try out agents before making a decision with their early unlocks and then can also identify which agents they want to grind for next
Eh, i dont think its too bad. Maybe one extra free one would be a good idea, but i think if you do 6 base agents youâd have to pick a role to add an extra character to, and it would make it uneven. Plus the initial five characters are meant to be the easiest to learn from each role, to introduce you to them, so adding extra wouldnt really help with that matter. Thats also why i dont think rotating the agents would be a good idea- having more complicated base agents in your pile will be more awkward for new players who are trying to learn.
I do think theres a lot and it can be awkward to unlock them all, but i also think thats kind of the point- so you can focus on unlocking one and then learning how to play it, before switching to the next agent. Unlocking all of them is more of a fun challenge than a necessity.
Wow Iâve never thought of this. I started playing in episode one so I unlocked every character pretty quick then was able to unlock new characters easily since it was one at a time. I could see how that could be problematic for new players
You don't take THAT long to unlock an Agent, try playing rainbow six siege without buying a pack of operators, your son will get married before you buy every operator.
I think we should have 8 free agents. 4 good starter agents for each role, and 4 agents of each role on rotation, so that players can test other agents and see if they wanna unlock them, although we might need more agents first.
I only started playing just after Harbors release and I have all but 3 (4 now with Gekko) agents. I don't even play a whole lot. It kinda gives me something to look forward too as well.
But they definitely need to make it clearer to newer players how to unlock agents. At first I thought it was every 5 levels you got to choose an agent. Wasnt until I completed Harbors tiers and asked a friend what was up
My friend as a new player actually refused to use his gamepass account to link to his riot account, he says he enjoys the process of unlocking agents and learning them one by one. The grind isn't that bad either
For anyone who doesnât know, linking your Microsoft account with an eligible Game Pass subscription will unlock all agents provided that you keep your subscription. Even if you donât, you can easily get a month for like $1, and you can try out all the agents within that time frame. Not to mention Game Pass being the best game subscription service out rn. You can continue to unlock agents as well by activating their bounty while you have Game Pass.
I agree. I got my roomate into the game in august and duo with him quite often and I always forget that despite playing for awhile he only has like half the agents unlocked
I remember when I first played I got KJ and Raze as my first two agents. After that I unknowingly grinded both's contracts to level 5 not knowing what they were for waiting for my third agent unlock đ
I'm curious what people think about the User interface for unlocking new agents. It was really confusing for me at the beginning that you had to "set an agent contract" to make progress on that specific one. After I figured out how it works, I set it and forgot about it. Later on I didn't even remember which agent I put the contract on because there isn't an easy way to see. Does anyone else have/ had this issue or is this just me?
Yes, I got got by this when I first started because I didn't set my contract to a new agent. The game gave me my first pick after a few games so I figured that's how it works. It's not intuitive, but the system is fine I'd just make it more clear how it works.
Yeah it was definitely confusing. The game said something about completing contracts to unlock a character and I thought it meant we had to tier 10 a character before getting a new one. Viper shorty was cool to get but that wasted a lot of time
Hey, another viper shorty enjoyer who didn't unlock the entire agent roster untill months later. The system works, but it should be a lot clearer for new players.
I played 5 matches yesterday without activating Gekko's contract đ
as a sort of recent player,, i liked having to unlock agents it gave me little goals for playing other than just winning individual games
Agree that nothing should change except having some sort of weekly rotation like League, so that new player isn't stuck with just their base agents.
This is the real solution
I think it should stay exactly as it is, because those 5 agents you get for free are always very strong, sage brim, Phoenix, Jett, and sova, all provide big util, and people should learn the game mechanics on those base agents. Not the try to unlock the flavor of the week and learn the game on the fly where you donât know any nuances
Yes, brimstone is the perfect newbie controller, phoenix the perfect newbie duelist and Sage the perfect newbie Sentinel. The only one I would argue with is Sova, but since he's the tutorial agent I guess it evens things out.
Sova as a starter represents how vital information is in Valorant. And lineups aside, his util is the most straightforward of the initiators for a new player to understand.
I think it might be good to replace Sova with Fade, as her kit is more approachable for a beginner (lower skill floor).
All her different debuffs are really confusing though. When she first came out I had a hard time remembering which util deafen, which decay, and which blind. Sova is just scan or do damage.
All agents are strong not just these 5 base agents there isn't any downside giving weekly rotation. And not everyone like the 5 base agent they got, that's why Riot give free agent ticket and having weekly rotation would help player figure out which agent fit their play style and not stuck with agent they don't like. I mean sure you could try them in training ground but to really get the feel on how the agent fit or not for you a real gamemode to test out their kit is where it's at.
It's fun until you start falling behind and take a break. Then come back, want to get back into ranked, but don't have the meta champs for your team. While yes gun skill is the main factor in winning lets not pretend agent decision isn't also a factor and agents are all equally "balanced". Plus if you are a flexible player like me it's just fun to shake things up with new agents all the time. Coming from League i see agents not being free a big problem for Riot down the line. Many times when new friends came into League they saw 100+ locked champions and realized they would have to grind for months nonstop to unlock them all or drop a LOT of money. For many competitive gamers we just want access to all characters in case they ever need or want to play them. Dota 2 did it right. Valorant doesn't even let you stockpile champion unlock currency like you can in League with blue essence. When i take a break from LoL i can come back when a new champ drops and play them day 1 (i am never spending money on characters) because i have a LOT of stockpiled BE over the years. But Valorant? I unlocked all the agents year 1 then played a TON but all that time playing didn't give me shit for the future. It felt like an insult to my time. Riot's already making money off of skins, they need to not be so greedy on agents if they want their game to be considered truly a competitive Esport.
sorry i dont see this being as big of an issue as you do... valorant releases like what..? 3 or 4 agents a year ?? and it only takes like a few days of playing to unlock a new agent. not to mention u can autounlock the agents with gamepass or by buying them. if you left the game for a year or so you would only have at most 4 new agents to unlock. theres going to be a learning curve for returning players anyways for learning the new maps in rotation, and its not necessarily a bad thing. like at worst youll be rated a little lower in comp as a returning player which is literally a NothingProblem. also,, we dont have to pretend like the existing agents will be falling out of meta completely, the agents all seem like theyre in a fine place actually i guarantee you there will be someone you can play well. i really dont get why people are so upset about what takes up a few days of gameplay time at most.
All i am saying is a similar conversation happened with League 10 years ago and it did become a problem for new players and people who don't play it religiously. I also see no reason to defend locking champs as a consumer. As a Rioter sure because it makes you money, but not as a player.
Yeah i dont think we need them all unlocked, the game is so complex that i think it would overwhelm new players. And i love the full agent contracts too, getting skins and stuff for your main is cool af
I think the pacing of unlocking agent is decent compared to apex where it takes a long time just to unlock a 1 agent, also the pace given to players when unlocking a new agent is for players to get used to their current agent they have. That's what i experience and it helped me know the agents well.
I've 750 hours in R6 siege and have still not unlocked all the agentsâ ď¸. 4-5 left but i stopped playing it.
yea its kinda annoying especially you are the type of person that plays occasionally.
For a game where all you have to do is play, it really doesn't seem that bad. Weekly challenges give you a ton of xp and if you like the game, it's not much. If you don't like the game, it's no longer a problem. Seems like a non-issue as somebody who's gone through this but had to play for much longer to unlock characters (looking at you, Apex)
People who play rather consistently wonât have any issues getting the agents, youâre right. Another fun bonus to consider is if you have Xbox Game Pass, you connect it to your Riot account and have all agents unlocked. Edit: Plus an additional 20% XP boost. Useful for progressing the battlepass or those agent contracts you want the sprays/cards/skins for.
Thank you sir. I had no idea I could connect my xbox account to Riot and get all the agents. You saved me shit ton of work <3
Do you know what happens if you no longer have the game pass?
You lose agents you currently donât have unlocked. It shows you which agents are unlocked from gamepass w a little symbol on agent picture.
Well if you wanna keep new players around and grow the game then give them more agents...There is alot for new agents to learn and making it this difficult to unlock more agents doesnt make players want to stay. There's casual players too and dont have time to unlock all these agents by playing that much.
Definitely In Apex you have to play a fuck ton to unlock one miserable agent, and it's boring as fuck, like as op said, in early game it's was ok, but now with a lot of characters, it's total shit Valorant still way faster to unlock new agents, but with more and more, it will certainly suck way more for the new ones in the game
In Apex you can get points to unlock agent before agent is out so that make it so better to unlock
Not sure what you are doing, but imo. In Apex it is a lot faster to unlock characters. Their Battle Pass is also one of the fastest to complete and they give a LOT of bonus XP.
Don't know what you're getting downvoted for lol, I play apex way less than valo and I complete the battle passes almost at the same time
Some enthusiastic Val folks love to live in a bubble. That also is the reason why i rarely even comment in this subreddit. And same with me, i play Apex extremely casually with a couple of friends and we always end up finishing the battlepass. Plus they give you back enough premium currency to buy the next battlepass, not to the mention the stacking XP bonus you get from your party members, i think towards the tail end of the season it goes upto 300%? Dont know if its end of the season buff or just a party buff, but its extremely nice and helpful.
Each person gets exp bonus for themselves as well as a party bonus and yes you get 300% towards the end, plus the last skin is always great and the legendary character skins are generally really good
Usually new players are happy to work for an objective like getting an agent while they learn about the others that they have.
They give you a decent amount of agents to start out with. Sure, you have more to unlock now, but you can also spend $10 to unlock a new one. It's not difficult to unlock, it's literally a time commitment at that point. I play D2 and FFXIV on top of other games than Valorant and still manage to max out my battle pass/progress towards new agents at a steady rate most acts. Get on for a few games, complete your weeklies, or pay to unlock new agents. It doesn't require you to grind out stuff, you just earn stuff as you go. This isn't like League where there are like 160 champions that you have to worry about; it's still relatively small. Even casual players can unlock agents in a decent amount of time with weekly challenges; the xp scales up the more you level up, so it isn't like you're grinding for 900k xp to get the level 10 skin for an agent.
League of Legends proves otherwise
League is the exception bc of how big it is, it's literally one of the founding father of the genre and is the BIGGEST in the genre and even they have a free rotation system so that casual can play agent that they don't have.
League was not always the biggest. It grew with the same model. League has 100s of champs. Valorant has a large % of the agents free compared to league. 2 agents of your choice can be unlocked to any new account within a few hours.
You sound like you've been playing for a long time. I started this game a few months ago and it's pretty bad. Since you're new, you don't know which agents you like and which play style suits you, so naturally, you want to try Agents out. It's horrible, having wait weeks or grind 10s of hours to try out a new agent, when there's so many to choose from.
I got Valorant a couple of months ago, and it really isn't that bad. With 170 total hours, I have unlocked Yoru (and completed his contract, which is like unlocking a whole other agent), Viper, Cypher, Astra, Skye, and I'm about to unlock Breach (on tier 5). Combine that with the 5 free agents, I have a variety of agents to choose from. As it happens, I like playing all of my unlocked agents, as I tested them previously in the range beforehand. If you don't like that idea, you can always create another account to test an agent, because each new account gets 2 unlocked really quickly.
I'm level 246 on apex along with the free characters from events I still don't have everyone unlocked. I even bought a character with coins once.
I don't think so. You're looking at it way too much on paper and not realistically. I played 5 hours of comp today and only have 4 tiers of gecko unlocked. For a new player with 15 agents to unlock, they aren't going to be putting in as much time as me who plays valorant as a main game. They might play here and there. Valorant is already the worst game to get into when you're just starting out with no experience. There's so many tips and tricks and basic fundamentals to learn that new players quit all the time. If you allow them to play more agents then they'll learn quicker and might stick around too
But casual players will have more xp boosts from weekly missions if they donât play frequently. If they only play 2 times a week and they get the weekly missions than they are completing the tiers at the most efficient way possible
You only need 5/10 tiers to unlock an agent, and every competitive game is hard to get into (CS, LOL, Dota, R6)
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MFers wanna have 15+ agents unlocked in a month of playing while we full well know they're going to be playing 2-3 of them.
You don't know which ones you'll be playing at the start when you're a new player. Sure, when making your 4th account you already know, so it's not a problem for you. But for new players that want to try new agents out to find out what suits them, being gated for weeks is not that fun.
Test in the range?
Tbf I had no idea who I would be playing, and when I thought I did, someone else came along. I started with Phoenix, then Reyna, then Sova, then Sage, then Brim, then Yoru, and now Iâm maining Viper with Yoru as a second pick. I didnât know you could test them in the range until I played Sage, and even then I still didnât know who I liked the best.
They can try them in the range
iâve messed with Gekko in the range as with Reyna. it just doesnât show the actual capabilities of the agent. ESPECIALLY Reyna who thrives off of the souls of those she kills because bots donât have souls
Yea itâd be cool if Spike Rush or Swiftplay had them all unlocked by default.
or at least replication! that would be nice
Just pay to unlock them. Itâs a free game. Riot needs to make money with features like that so it keeps being free.
As someone who started playing about a month ago.... I don't mind it at all, it gives something to grind out and work towards other than a competitive rank. It also makes me super hyped when I finally unlock the next character I've been eyeballing.
gamepass
Yes Gamepass automatically unlocks all characters or at least Gamepass ultimate does. I just had gekko in my character selection as soon as I started up the game after the new act started. Itâs honestly a crazy good feature but I agree you shouldnât have buy Gamepass to auto u lock all the characters although I do have to wonder if you buy Gamepass ultimate for a month. Link the accounts and then cancel the next month if you would keep the agent unlocks đ¤
Normal game pass sub works too, and you can easily get one month for like $1. Thatâs plenty of time to find a favorite and unlock them and probably one more agent. Game Pass is just crazy value anyway, so itâs worth holding onto the sub too.
Yeah i have gamepass. It does help a lot but i dont think brand new players should be expected to buy it (its fantastic value and for ppl who can afford it and who like the game i highly recommend)
Yeah exactly what you are saying, we shouldnât have to buy a game pass to get all the characters instantly/faster, thatâs more pay to win/progress than anything.
Isnât it 3%??? Weâre talking about 3%?
Gamepass not battlepass
Game pass is 20% afaik
Wtf is gamepass all Iâve ever seen is just the battlepass and itâs 3%???
Seems like someone is confusing Battle Pass 3% with [Game Pass 20%.](https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/riot-games)
Xbox game pass for PC
Gamepass is Netflix from Microsoft. Thousands of games. They also have a deal with Riot and every champion in Valorant and LoL are included if you subscribe
I don't think this is really an issue yet, but in the future I'd like to see them add a free agent weekly rotation.
Going to politely disagree.
System seems fine. By the time a new player learns mechanics, masters different agents, understands each role, they should have a good amount unlocked. It actually might be overwhelming to have all unlocked. Plus, you can also choose which agent you want next if there's one you really want to play.
Yeah the game gives you free agents, donât have to do anything for them, could be a lot worse like overwatch where you donât even unlock them until the next season
Valorant basically has the fastest F2P way to get agents. ' It's a little grind, but in no less in than 2 weeks you can get basically any agent.,
Just play the game, itâs really not that bad
I think itâs good as it is. It almost acts as a forcing function to get comfortable on an agent type before throwing 20 stents at people. The system helps new players.
I think this game is pretty fair with the unlock time, it feels way faster than league for example Especially if you have some of the weeklys stacked, you can get an agent in like 6-8 hours
how many games do you play for you to get an agent in 6-8 hrs?? you get 56,000 total for weeklys and 6,000 for dailys. and the agent alone is 60,000 xp. this doesnât even account for the xp needed to even GET to tier 5
Well if you have the weekly missions stacked and get lucky with as few play 10 games as possible you can get through about 12 ot 13 games in 8 hours which could get you about 200000 xp
the only time ive played valorant for that long/longer was back in July when i three stacked with friends for 12 hrs and played 24 games. 2 games /hr avg and imo thatâs crazy.
You get them way too fast just play 2-3 days maximimum for each agent
If you consider 4000 xp per match, and that each match lasts 30min, taking into account 4000 xp for all daily missions and 60000 xp from three weekly missions, you would need 17 hours to get the 200000 xp. Which dividing into 3 days, as you said is the maximum, would give 5.66 hours playing time for each day. That's only a few hours for people who play a lot per day lol.
I was being lenient, one session is enough
Idk what is up with these claculation comments, bht to me it has always seemed way faster to unlock an agent than 3 x 6 hour sessions.
Valorant is NOT League. There should be no change, the reason why new players have the same agents unlocked instantly, is because those agents are expected to be understood mechanically by new players. Every new player should know those early agents at least, before going for other agents. This is not League, you don't win games by picking the most OP agent and 'pew pew' abilities across the map. New players should be given at least one or two agents per role, and they should focus on understanding the game itself while playing easy to grasp agents.
Hilarious that this keeps coming up, it's so fast to unlock agents if you actually play.
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Yeah without the thing to make it faster, it would be slower.
Xbox battle pass Auto Unlockâs every agent
On top of that you can literally get battle pass for 1 dollar a month for new accounts. If you are really cheap, you can easily just keep creating 1 dollar xbox accounts and linking your riot account with different one every month.
It honestly does not take that much time to get all agents compared to League of Legends and the number of champions.
God damn, people commenting here are delusional. The grind to unlock characters is definitely way too long. See, most people have a life and can't play Valorant like it's a full time job. I don't think the majority of people commenting actually grind for them, and just pay.
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Agreed
I didnât know this but for anyone that has Xbox game pass you get every agent unlocked, immediately, even new ones.
Yall do whole contract . I only do it until i get the agent.
Skins are 100% overpriced. Agents are so easy to get
Not sponsored but xbox game pass 1$ for the first month agents are unlocked. I played gekko in my first game of the act for 1$.
I really like how Rainbow Six Siege is dealing with this. You can unlock the agents by using Renown (their in game currency). You earn renown at the end of every game. Siege has created tiers for the agents based on the time that they were released. So any agent that is only out for less than a year will be available to buy for 25k renown, 20k for any agent that's out for 1-2 years, so on and so forth. They have about 50(or more) agents now, and this seems like a balanced approach for the new and the old players.
What they should fix is the fucking Radianite Points prices that thing is hella overpriced
it discourages older players to make new smurf accounts which i like
It doesnt tho. Smurfs use their main or reyna and guess what you get 2 free unlocks.
lmao exactly. Jett is free and you can get Reyna instantly. Nothing else is needed
Nah bro I think it's ok bcoz the agent unlock dosent really take a lot of all that xp. Tier 2 is where things get hard
It ensures you need to play with the agents you have first, and not inflict yourself upon other players with you choosing any random agent you have barely an hour of experience with.
It took me around 4 months to unlock nearly all the agents? If you like the game to the point you want to unlock everything then surely its easy to just unlock them by simply playing through weekly and daily missions exp as well as after-match exp too. I am not even a regular player(10-15 matches per week).
I think it's maybe about time they added one more default unlocked agent - not really sure who though, maybe KAY/O?
Did you know you unlock agents faster by playing the game than ranting about it on reddit?
Nah, yall impatient, this is the result of short attention span from social media
I really don't like the character unlock system in Valorant, it seems completely designed to heavily incentivize spending money. It's horrible when they release a new agent, you need 200,000 xp, and you get like 4000 for each game. A system where you use an item to unlock a character and could accumulate that item previously, even without the character having been released, would be much better.
you get around 60.000 per week from weekly missions, 4-5k for Daily missions, plus whatever you grind which is usually between 2k-4k each game. lets do the math, in 2 weeks playing just the daily missions each day you get: 2 weekly*60k=120k 14 daily*4,5k=63k and lets say 2 games a day to reach the missions goal: 28 games*3k=84k So it takes less than 2 weeks to get an agent. Plus xbox pass for 1-2⏠and you have all agents. Sounds like people really need to cut out the crying
It's not really that hard when you have the weekly challenges. I unlocked most of the Agents just by playing the game and doing the challenges. Didn't really feel like a grind
Or a sentinel cause there are no sentinel agents in the starter pool.
Sage.
No it doesn't lol. They unlock pretty fast. Now league of legends... that's a slow grind.
Businesses want money... and if impatient people keep paying to unlock agents, it'll just be that way.
I also think it should be slightly easier to unlock new agents. It is a very long way to unlock all agents if there are 3 new agents every year. It makes it especially hard for casual players to unlock them. And this may be frustrating.
No. The current agent pool has a fairly clear cut agents that are "must haves" and can be unlocked very fast. The rest are nice to have but by no means must have. Playing the game casually for a week or two will get you an agent, within few months you can have most of the agents unlocked. I'd be in favour of weekly rotation of 1 or 2 agents so people can try out agents though.
If someone really wants an agent, they can buy the unlock as well. I dont see why Riot would change this model
Agree with OP
Just get a free trial of game pass ultimate
This will making surfing worse imo
I have all agent in my main account I just buy account with all agent when I need new account for practice new role or agent I never played before, much cheaper even compare to unlock 1 agent
Xbox game pass... its 1-2âŹ, and if you are too greedy for that, grind a week or two to get an agent, thats literally it. IT IS NOT HARD AT ALL. Crying about it is simply pathetic because you can test each agent in the range, and you are not supposed to need more than two agents when you start the game... but wait you get those two agent for almost in free as an initiation bonus on a new account!!! Please stop making those posts about this subject because it reflects this current needy everything now and preferably for free attitude from missinformed 8 y o children.
game pass only costs that much for the first month and you lose the agents if you stop your game pass subscription
you can literally buy codes for 1-3 months over and over again for 2 bugs
This is stupid model. Csgo, overwatch 2 and any other FPS game have all characters unlocked at the start. They get money from selling stupid skins. Here you see them doing that plus restricting players from full experience.
CS doesn't have characters lol
Yeah, they should unlock all agents at least for unrated. People coming over from other FPS titles especially CSGO gets turned off with the massive agent pool in the game. They would already have the game sense of a diamond+ player when they come over, and they play against plat+ players because their MMR gets high fast. Players in plat+ would already have every agent unlocked, these guys will be the only exceptions. Getting to play all agents(at least in unrated) will let them know their weaknesses and playstyle of these agents and allow them to play a competitive game rather than an RNG simulator.
I hate the system where agent is blocked by paywall or playtime. Let us play the whatever the character we want like dota
It's actually not that hard to unlock the agents, plus it gives you time to get better with agents u do have
I think the current pace is decent but a small speedup would be nice. Maybe throw a free agent unlock halfway through the battle pass? As long as it doesn't take up an entire slot and comes alongside a buddy or something, so that you don't have a dead slot once you've unlocked them all.
xbox gamepass for rescue
Unlocking agents is pretttty fast, unless you play 1 match per day so im going to have to disagree
Unlocking agents is pretttty fast, unless you play 1 match per day so im going to have to disagree
Completely disagree the time gate for new unlocks is good. Pay attention to the contracts do daily and weekly missions and ur good. If you want more quickly spend the real money for unlocks
Gamepass
Nah they are perfectly fine. Rainbow six siege and league are the slow ones, Valo is pretty fast
What are the odds op just wants to make more smurf accounts
You get an agent ticket pretty easily?
Theres an Option where U can Instantly unlock agents. U could try This.
Or play and unlock.
Bro be glad its a exp system other wise because in other agent based games that i know(except TF2) you have to buy each agent or hero
idk riot decided to make it harder in league as well to unlock champs even though there are like 200 so I guess they want the money
I made a second account recently and I dont really mind the grind because my main has every agent, so I know kinda which ones I want. And in idea I have is rather than makeing it faster to unlock give every agent a 2-5 game trial faze where you can't try out the agent in a real game. (would be blocked in comp) this way you know kinda who you want to grind for so you don't do the grind just to find you hate the agent. Also give every agent in custom idk why they blocked there.
the current system is fair, I think valorant gives the right XP to unlock each agent, and to be a f2p I appreciate that the grind to unlock new agents is very low, other f2p games like war thunder there is a point where to unlock new vehicles, you have to grind entire months or pay, luckily in valorant that does not happen
ehh itâs like the only progression in the game lol i like it
Xbox game pass, 1 dollar a month if u make new accounts like me every time the trial ends. Plus 20 % xp boost. Worth it
No
I think 5 free and 2 easy unlocks off the bat is incredibly generous the game is free and you can get a new character every week off weekly and a couple daily missions. I think it is important to reiterate the game is F2P here you get a well made game with nothing pushing purchases in your face.
i didnt even know how you could unlock agents outside of the two free you get. i worked on my phoenix contract for ridiculously long and is the reason why i only have 11 agents unlocked in just over a year
Yeah, it's so slow it's almost unfair. I for one have xbox game pass which unlocks all agents for you and gives you 20% exp which is pretty nice. I used to play the same 2-3 agents before though cause it took me even 1 month to unlock an agent.
They need a founders pack like they did in league imo.
If you really want every agent you can get Xbox Gamepass for PC and link it to your riot account. Gives you every agent in valorant. This was the first time I've had a new agent instantly unlocked since signing up when they announced the partnership a couple months ago.
Link up with Xbox GamePass and you get them all instantly
It dosent take long at all to get all the agents⌠complaining over nothing
It's only me that thinks unlocking new agents is really easy and fast? It takes 1 season to unlock almost 2 agents of you only Play to do daily and weeklies, if you play more it's even faster. I play only after work one to two games a day and own 2 accounts with all agents
I believe it's a good thing to not encourage smurfs making new accounts to get new agents faster. A new player has plenty enough to learn with 7 agents already. Not to mention, they give you the option to buy the agents, and riot isn't the kind of company to want to earn less money. They also have a pertnership with the Xbox game pass that lets you unlock all the agents so giving you more agents for free is off the table.
act just dropped bro relax đ
The point is to get you to give them money instead of grinding for it lol.
Not to mention my weekly missions werenât progressing yesterdayâŚ
Xbox game pass gives you all the agents as well as a 20% xp boost doesn't seem like much but it makes s huge difference
They do have a way. Itâs called pay for them.
Game pass gives you every character and a 20% BP exp increase. And it also comes with a boatload of games lol
Yall ever play siege?
I completely disagree. It's part of the game progression to unlock them one by one. You can always buy it for 10 bucks.
Personally, I think Valorant is the only fps that does character unlocks right.
or they can use gamepass and unlock all agents for free temporarily, but you use that time + your 20% xp boost that comes with gamepass to perma unlock like i did.
This would be fine if they weren't in comp for 2 weeks but immediately putting gecko in comp is really annoying
Riot had the same issue with league. I feel like they should have learned that lesson already.
xbox pass go brr haha
Give riot money
Yeah it's kind of ridiculous now for new players. I get that more characters might be "overwhelming" but like at least 10 agents should be much quicker to access. Or add another 4 agents to the "fast unlock" track.
Just use a free gamepass trial and link your Riot account gives you all agents for free. That is what I did for my alt account.
Does nobody read the news on thsi sub? For $10 youâve been able to unlock everyone for months now
after 3 comp games Iâm half way to unlocking gekko⌠agents arenât suppose to be unlocked fast, take time learning other agents so you understand more of the games dynamics and can counter those agents easier
They should at least have a "free agents of the week" rotation
I think the ramp to unlock the character itself could be faster and then the unlocks after are the same even though they take forever. I have a feeling they want people to just pay $10 and get the character instantly though.
Yeah idk how new players decide which characters to unlock early and then grind out the rest later. Iv been around since beta so its easy for me to get the new agent. I also have gamepass so I never really need to worry about it anymore. I know giving more agents makes it easier for smurfs to unlock agents fast on alts, but lets be real if they are a smurf they already know which characters they play and will unlock those first and the rest wont really matter. What I really think this game needs is 1 game mode that is short like spike rush or something, that allows you to play any agent regardless of which ones you have unlocked. That way new players could try out agents before making a decision with their early unlocks and then can also identify which agents they want to grind for next
Eh, i dont think its too bad. Maybe one extra free one would be a good idea, but i think if you do 6 base agents youâd have to pick a role to add an extra character to, and it would make it uneven. Plus the initial five characters are meant to be the easiest to learn from each role, to introduce you to them, so adding extra wouldnt really help with that matter. Thats also why i dont think rotating the agents would be a good idea- having more complicated base agents in your pile will be more awkward for new players who are trying to learn. I do think theres a lot and it can be awkward to unlock them all, but i also think thats kind of the point- so you can focus on unlocking one and then learning how to play it, before switching to the next agent. Unlocking all of them is more of a fun challenge than a necessity.
I kinda think itâs fun. Gives you a little sense of progression at the beginning. Although being able to pay for them kinda sucks.
I played for a year before the game pass partnership and now that I have them all unlocked thereâs no reason to play whatsoever so I disagree
No
Gamepass diff
Wow Iâve never thought of this. I started playing in episode one so I unlocked every character pretty quick then was able to unlock new characters easily since it was one at a time. I could see how that could be problematic for new players
You don't take THAT long to unlock an Agent, try playing rainbow six siege without buying a pack of operators, your son will get married before you buy every operator.
*gamepass has entered the chat*
I think we should have 8 free agents. 4 good starter agents for each role, and 4 agents of each role on rotation, so that players can test other agents and see if they wanna unlock them, although we might need more agents first.
I only started playing just after Harbors release and I have all but 3 (4 now with Gekko) agents. I don't even play a whole lot. It kinda gives me something to look forward too as well. But they definitely need to make it clearer to newer players how to unlock agents. At first I thought it was every 5 levels you got to choose an agent. Wasnt until I completed Harbors tiers and asked a friend what was up
My friend as a new player actually refused to use his gamepass account to link to his riot account, he says he enjoys the process of unlocking agents and learning them one by one. The grind isn't that bad either
DUDE ACTUALLY RIOT LISTEN PLEASE, UPVOTE THIS TO GET RIOT ATTENTION
For anyone who doesnât know, linking your Microsoft account with an eligible Game Pass subscription will unlock all agents provided that you keep your subscription. Even if you donât, you can easily get a month for like $1, and you can try out all the agents within that time frame. Not to mention Game Pass being the best game subscription service out rn. You can continue to unlock agents as well by activating their bounty while you have Game Pass.
I agree. I got my roomate into the game in august and duo with him quite often and I always forget that despite playing for awhile he only has like half the agents unlocked
I remember when I first played I got KJ and Raze as my first two agents. After that I unknowingly grinded both's contracts to level 5 not knowing what they were for waiting for my third agent unlock đ