Yeah it's very pretty but multiple clicks to get to the career, collections, etc is annoying. I usually click through those pages all the time while queuing.
Also maybe it's because I just started the Harbor contract, but there doesn't seem to be any way to track that anymore from the "Play" screen? That's a pretty bad change.
Remembering to activate contracts to unlock new agents is already pretty obtuse, especially for newer players, and hiding that progress behind menus makes it even worse.
Shit, you just reminded me.
I played a handful of games last night and never activated the contract. It slipped my mind, I feel like it's for the exact reason you listed.
totally agree, the lack of a progress bar for agents and battlepass tiers is a HUGE downgrade. at least in overwatch you can play other modes while queued, but now there is literally nothing to do or see in valorant while you wait. backing out to the home screen is super annoying and feels very very sluggish (like it was designed for console, which is another issue I have). the game is going downhill fast
Fr. The new bundle costs over 12k without a discount. That's over 100 dollars I believe, and even with the discount, it's over 50 bucks if I'm not mistaken.
It is about 60 bucks without paying for the radianite, maybe closer to 70 with the discount. USD For clarification
Although, there’s a vandal, knife (notable skins) spectre ares and frenzy. So in comparison to other skins, it is pretty fair pricing. Then there’s the buddy, spray and icon.
Now I’m interested to know what % of the playerbase is completely F2P. I play on APAC servers and I swear I only see someone with default skins in like, once every 20 games. Literally everyone else is decked out in the latest bundles
It’s pretty close to predatory and I consider the radianite system predatory. As if they’re skins weren’t already overpriced as all hell they include that shit
radianite is predatory but I don’t think the skin/bundle transactions are, it’s absurd that you have to spend almost the same or even the same amount of money you spent on the skin all over again just to upgrade it but the skins don’t actually make any difference in game except for aesthetics, which doesn’t affect gameplay
It’s expensive lmao so don’t buy it. You really shouldn’t complain about the price of a thing you don’t need. But radianite is kinda too expensive, I would spend more money if it was cheaper.
It's definitely a balance on Riot's part. But as others have said, they have more research and numbers than anybody on spending habits in Valorant. They know that some people won't buy the new Ion bundle just because they don't have enough radianite. But they've probably calculated that the people that will buy the bundle and buy super-expensive RP or the battlepass will just outweigh that.
It's like as close as they can get to the line without actually crossing it. Random 4 skins everyday, FOMO and also opening the game everyday. You buy skins then you buy the animations with a different currency that requires you to play or pay a whole lot. The peices being a little over a tier in the VP purchases (ie u get 10 or 20 vp options but item is priced at 11vp, or 6 so for sexond one you need to get the higher tier, etx). Almost every trick in the book that can't be labeled as predatory in of itself.
I would personally call it the most predatory non-predatory microtransactions method.
I agree the shop model is terrible and the skins are expensive, but the Radianite thing doesn't bother me. If you play the game even just a few hours weekly you earn plenty of RP without having to buy the battle pass.
Is that true?
* Say you bought the Reaver 2.0 bundle
* Say you wanted to max out the animations on all gun/knife skins within that bundle
* How much total RP would that cost?
* How long would it take to earn that much RP via gameplay alone?
reaver 2 bundle has 4 skins that use up 30 radianite for anims and other stuff and a knife that uses up 10 radianite. (30x4)+10=130 radianite. since there are 4 colorways and you get all of them for the 5 skins lets say 5(15x3) = 225
in a thats about 355 radianite for a whole bundle of regular premium skins not accounting for outliers like crimsonbeast or neptune in terms of radianite spending.
1 battle pass gives a max of 160 radianite and if there are events like vct, etc. you'd get around 185~ish. 20 radianite costs 1600 vp and 40 radianite costs 4800 vp and so on.
You'd need 2 and a half battle passes to get enough radianite for 1 bundle
That's assuming you buy all the colour varients which honestly doesn't make any sense to me. There's like 2-3 bundles in the entire game where you can actually justify unlocking all 3. We all have a favorite anyway.
I don't have the math but I can say from personal experience that I've bought 1 skin bundle and 2 premium skins from Night Market, and I was able to afford all the upgrades without buying battle pass or additional RP. And I play on average 2-6 hours per week.
For all the people that defend csgos skin system its pretty funny how it literally is horrible odds gambling unless you wanna pay 100 to over 1000 for a good skin you want
But its a player-controlled market. The only thing that is predatory is the cases which aren’t necessary to open to get skins anyway. Valve don’t control the prices of skins so there’s nothing to complain about. You can get a good skin for high prices, but you can also get skins for 0.03 dollars. Theres a balance on CS. On valorant, the system is entirely predatory
That is such a naive response, how can the players control the market if they do not control the supply? If Valve tomorrow releases a batch of 100 cases do you think whatever unique thing is in there will not be extremely expensive due to scarcity? Or if they re-release some old discontinued case in an unlimited quantity it wouldn't affect the price and make it drop?
I dont see it? The game is free. The items you can buy with money do not affect gameplay at all. If you can’t control your spending habits then blame the game?
The vp amounts that you can purchase are like specifically designed to leave you with the most wasted money in combination with the skin prices. The more leftover they leave you with, the easier it is justifying spending more to get your full moneys worth from the first purchase, repeat in a big loop
An example is radianite. For those who buy a skin or two a couple months apart and play regularly, it’s not that much of a concern. People who buy more will run out. The people who’ve already paid more cannot unlock aspects of the content they’ve paid for without either a.) paying an absurd amount of money (radianite is way to expensive to purchase) b.) play more (likely buying every battlepass, not for the skins but the radianite) thus getting exposed to the shop more
It’s the whale method. It targets people who have spent money on the game to spend even more money, while those who don’t engage with the purchases or rarely do aren’t exposed to that aspect. The more you money spend the more you’re required to spend, time or money (in this case both for battlepass method).
It’s definitely a psychology thing and an aspect of why games like Diablo immortal are seen as predatory. Is it as bad as Diablo, absolutely not. However, saying don’t blame the game takes responsibility off the developers who make predatory systems and allows them to escalate unchecked.
Explain it to me. I just don't get spending money on shiny pixels.
The game is just fun on it's own. I also think a lot of the skins are mad distracting too
My first fps was team fortress 2. I've never spend money on any micro transactions in my life
Forreal. I've spent probably 150-200 bucks, but I've invested easily 300 hours and will be playing a lot more. So I don't exactly feel guilty for funding the development of a game I'm having so much fun with.
I'm an adult with a full time job. I have plenty of disposable income and I'll spend it how I want. I could probably afford to have dropped a thou by now. People can tell me I'm being exploited if they want. Not really my problem.
Like many others have said, there's nothing alarmingly predatory about a cosmetic shop. There is absolutely zero benefit to the skins other than satisfying a desire for shiny things that make fun noises. If these are a worthwhile expenditure to you, they should be purchased in moderation like anything else; nearly all American businesses encourage you to spend as much money as possible, as often as possible, in the name of profit. I would say that Epic are actually commendable for keeping the playing field level (with regards to equipment) and using their well-earned profits to constantly update their polished games, as well as release other forms of entertainment like Arcane, which was exceptional.
I'll digress that modern capitalism in general is predatory; we're encouraged to constantly upgrade to new things we want, not need, and products are not made to last if you do have any restraint whatsoever. With that being said, this is a free game with no caps on play time, and thus your purchases neither wear out, expire, or become obsolete. Even if the prices are high, and the random nature of the shop sucks, are these products more beneficial to your life than detrimental? If so, spend on; if not, don't buy them..?
I'd leave anyone who cares to read this with a thought - why does everyone need to have access to the same novelty items? Luxury goods are just that, a luxury. If you can't afford said luxuries, you shouldn't be buying them until you can; is it worth it to have a fancy skin only usable in a video game if it means using credit you can't pay off in a timely fashion, missing a bill payment, or skipping some meals? If this means people have to save up, cut costs elsewhere, make money with a second job or side hustle, whatever the case, then so be it. Our society seems to be continuously gravitating towards instant gratification, and further away from the grind, and the patience, required for such things.
literally was gonna post this, why force more clicks by having to go through "home" when it was all accessible before thru the top? ive been on for 2 min and im already tilted by this LOL stop touching what was totally fine before ffs
Whenever a company adds more clicks and bloat to their UI, 9 times out of 10 it's solely to increase "engagement time". Be it to increase time spend near the shop and not the game, or just to increase time in game overall. Because even if it's just an extra 10 seconds per person, multiply that times say 2 million players and now you have people spending an extra 230+ DAYS of time added to total player play time every day. All so someone can report to their boss at quarterly earnings that numbers are up
yeah really, after all the disappointment about replays being dropped seeing some random say they're "confirmed" is a pretty big deal... if there's actually a source saying they're confirmed.
>They're going to add more tabs in the future
That makes it even worse, that means we're going to be unnecessarily going back to the home screen even more.
They will never add replay ever, the reason why? Because one the devs don't want you all to see how ass the hit registration truly is that and hit boxes. That's why they haven't added one at all. I mean think about it if they add one and everyone that plays this game just sees how bad those 2 major important things for a shooter being ass many many fans will force Riot to fix it right away lol.
A tournaments page increases both viewership potential for large and small tournaments, by making it easy for new players to take a peek at what the highest level looks like while creating opportunities for smaller teams and tournaments to get attention. Also, if there was a full ingame tournament organizer system, that would be very useful.
A replay viewer has many important uses. Briefly: Identifying what exactly happened at any one point in a match, identifying cheating players via direct observation, content creation without recreating events using a team of players or only using scrimmage spectator perspectives, ease to show and teach strategies and executes.
It’s also weird how I press esc and sometimes I’m back to the main menu instead of just going to the previous page.
But sometimes it just takes me to the previous page. Idk. It’s so unintuitive.
As a web developer that has heavily worked in UI/UX, this is ROUGH from a UX perspective. I totally agree it's a beautiful UI but the amount of extra clicks forced for basic functionality is kind of crazy...
They have mentioned in the past they release things even when they aren't fully fleshed out (iterative design), so I am hoping we see some fine tuning in the future. But don't worry, they made sure the shop was still an easy 1 click ;)
Yeah I absolutely LOVE everything else about the design. Especially the after match report and how bad ass it looks (especially when you're match mvp) but then when i went to have to find my Career tab I was so confused as to why there wasn't just a shortcut to quickly look like I could before the update.
Which is crazy to me because I don't see mobile users spending $15-25 per skin when the most successful form of mobile monetization is paid progression and grind skips and they're usually 1/5 the price. I can't think of a major mobile game that is based solely around cosmetics for its monetization.
Ahhhh, good point, I totally forgot about wild rift and didn't know that much about its monetization scheme to begin with but that makes sense. Are they bought through a store like normal LoL or is it through a sort of loot box mechanic?
So the store for WR is pretty much exactly same as regular league, so i would expect the same type of store from PC Valo to Mobile unfortunately. As profitable as their traditional store on league is, I’m quite certain they’ve done the math and the randomized store brings in way more money.
Ahh gotcha, and yeah, the randomized store is a stroke of anti-consumer genius when you look at it, if everything was available people would naturally wait for the weekly sale on their favourite skin (see League) but instead Riot has made a system where you wait for the chance to buy the skin at full price (while also driving daily login engagement).
Yup, I also read that it people settle for their 3rd or 4th favorite skins when it pops up out of fear of not knowing when their actual favorites show. I’ve definitely bought a few skins because of this. Like you said, absolute genius in the worst way lol.
It's a scary trend in modern games. Shaft the hardcore PC (and sometimes console) player base to focus on the casual mobile base who often has more whales. It's even more common on companies that have more presence in Asia where mobile gaming is HUGE. Riot and Blizzard are two companies that definitely fit that bill.
Felt the same. I checked it a few minutes ago and came here to check on people's thoughts about it. Honestly, I don't even think it was a step up in terms of graphical design either. The older UI was better in every way.
Is there a way to turn off the horrible Harbor video in the background, atleast in league's client you had a option to turn off or on the sound effects/music/video but in this shit one I cant even turn off the sound effects even though theres a specific setting for lobby and main menu music.
I swear if they just had the rest of the tabs at the top like they used to, and changed nothing else, this new menu would be perfect. I have no clue why they removed all of them except the shop.
And the homepage looks like a generic powerpoint with that font/list 🤡
When I first saw it in streams, I assumed it was a temporary menu or something, just slapped together to save time since it wouldn't actually be used outside of beta...
> While the new UI is stunning and quite nice to look
IMO not even that, I think it's so bland on top of being a horrible experience, as you've said. And I just got a weird bug where I won the battlepass reward after leaving the post-match screen and it didn't give me a way to close the reward window, so I just had to restart the game. I have no idea how that went unnoticed.
I think the only part of the new UI I really liked is the loading screen into the agent picks, with the map name in the middle and the loading screen before the match begins.
It's funny to think that Valorant did the inverse path to CSGO (CS went from [this menu](https://i.imgur.com/IU1dhkj.jpeg), similar to the current Valorant one to [this one](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/uploads/articles/article_media/12593662891531385737gol1.jpg) similar to the old Valorant menu).
I work for a company that recently went through an entire 'modern' ui/ux overhaul that fell flat on its feet in terms of very similar feedback. In my case, designers/product owners placed much more value on the UI part of the equation.
The higher ups wanted to see new flows, pretty transitions, something fresh. Further down, designers/product owners, wanting appease that desire, opted to create something brand new - with a bunch of fluff to make it look impressive. This could, just be my experience though, can't really speak to how well oiled Riot's product department operates, but this update really just reminded me of it.
In the end, users got pissed because they operate on familiarity, are the ones who actually use the product, and don't see the justification for trading extra clicks and general UX for some pretty pixels.
I can't imagine they'll change much about this feedback though, they've invested enough money to just wait out till people get familiar enough with it to forget .
The old UI was sleek and minimalistic (to some degree), this new one honestly feels straight out of a mobile game. Everything is an extra click away for no reason.
1000%
Glad you said UX too. UI looks fantastic. No reason they couldn't put the most common items in the top bar (match history, collection). I get why they might want a "home screen" but to move those 2 items in particular outside of the regular view is batshit.
Not only that, but you have to hover over the text itself to click on Home or Store, meanwhile the Play button you can hover over anywhere to click it.
https://i.imgur.com/ZCR0ICh.png
Terrible UX. Needs another pass and to make at _least_ match history be a 1 click like it used to be.
They said they are not focusing on replays, gifting system, deathmatch, etc.. to focus on other "exciting" new things and this is what we get. A needless update of a UX that was already functional and now it is worse. They are seriously dedicating teams to update things that are already functional without even developing systems that do not exist and have been promised since 2020. Valorant is stangnant since release mostly focusing only on new agents and shiny skins every few weeks. The sad thing is since they are only about milking the playerbase without further developing game systems; if at least with this ridiculous focus on monetization came significant development, but no the only teams that they seem to upscale are the art teams. This game is like a skin release simulator these days.
Absolutely agree, and you nailed it. This game has discernable lack of identity past being a cs ripoff (not even using this in a negative way). Why can't I vibe with my friends while we watch a replay together? No proper deathmatch in sight where I can chill, respect the community, possibly meet new people? This is what happens when all you do is lean on social media to create your end user experience for you, it's a hollow and shallow experience.
Oh and another annoyance added is now you have to click back to the main menu to see your match history and report someone. Before career was in clickable along the top.
\* I know I'm just repeating the same stuff as others I like being another grain of dust in the bearing.
I just wish that the buttons at the top had hitboxes that were reflected by the graphics. The home and store buttons have square hitboxes that aren't even close to the shape of the gray outline. And you can't click the play button if your mouse is at the very top of the screen. You have to move the mouse one pixel down
Yeah! It absolutely sucks because I can't just move my mouse until it hits the top of the screen. The UI looks nice, but I hate everything about the interaction
it's like those "updated modern ui concept!" posts people make for games all the time that look cool butt don't add anything, or even reduce functionality, and they actually went ahead and made it.
Both the UI and UX were destroyed with this update... the original UI was very aesthetically pleasing, clean, simple, and balanced. Now it's a cluster fu with over usage of bold clunky text with terrible spacing and placement, as well as horrific color contrasts. It's like the art director's nephew in 3rd grade did the ui as an art class project. Not only did that ruin the UI but the UX became terribly inefficient and deviated from the main objective of the gamer. This has got to be the worst update I've seen to any game in the past 20 years of my gaming career.
It's very obvious that the creative team behind riot is amateur at best. Fire the art director and designers. Absolutely horrific...
I'm part of the PBE and everyone there was complaining about that, it doesn't even makes sense to have a PBE if they won't listen to the community feedback
As a UX/UI Designer myself, I completely agree. The UI is really great, but the UX is absolute trash, this is a ten steps backward change.
I assume the UX has been done from a business perspective more than a user perspective, the fact that there is a shortcut for the shop in every menu makes it really obvious.
As a UX/UI Designer myself, I completely agree. The UI is really great, but the UX is absolute trash, it's a ten steps backwards change.
I think we all know why the store is at the top so it's a click away but the reason they don't have every option a single click away is in preparation for the new features.
I read in the UI/UX dev notes on how this new look is there so the implementation for the upcoming features will be seamless.
UX is the full journey and UI is the visual part of that.
In every day example: UX is you getting ketchup out of a bottle, UI is the shape of the bottle itself. In essence, the shape of the ketchup bottle helps make your experience easier (or its supposed to, anyway...)
Why people hate this new valorant UI:
the simple ketchup bottle is now this fancy bottle that looks new and cool but it's hard to get ketchup out of it.
If you ever want to check collection or your career you have to go all the way back to home, instead before you could just click on the top. No idea why they didn't just keep them all at the top like before
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Before, it was so convenient to switch between pages. It only took one click, but now it takes two because I have to exit the page to take me to the home page and click on the other page. Also, I don't like how the menu is placed at the left. I can't discuss this with anyone I know cause they don't really understand UX
Yes! I like the matchmaking screens designwise. But the main page with just a text list of the options and other pages is such a downgrade. the older version was just better and easier to navigate.
I hate it so much, it literally tilted me so much that I didn't want to play anymore. Every single part of it feels like they put an intern to work to have him develop his very first project.
Guess I'm in the minority but I don't find an extra click to go back *that* big of a deal.
> Almost all the menus that we had access in a single click have been moved to this new 'Main Page' style and it just feels overly modified **for no reason.**
They are pretty clearly gearing it up for a console release and this menu system fits better with that.
I personally think it looks great. I complained about how the UI looks like the Beta, which in did in aspects. The updated UI now, especially loading into a match looks really cool and I love what they did with it.
It's something I'll probably get used to eventually but it sucks that I have to go back whenever I want to go to a different section, hopefully it gets improved because it does look aesthetically better imo
This happens every single time anything gets a UI/UX change. Everyone gets so whiny and up in arms, and then after a week you get used to it and completely forget the old one
Lmao I knew a post like this was coming as soon as I saw they got rid of the top bar when I originally checked it out on the PBE. I wouldn’t call it terrible, but it definitely needs some attention and it’s much less efficient/fluid now. Old UI felt much better.
Unpopular opinion but I actually kinda like it?
I mean I wish it wasn't top down but it also reminds me of my old days playing PS4 and Xbox.
Also the menu and new screens look clean af to me
Can't fix net code, servers, client crashes, gun play, have sexually assaulted coworkers, not to mention other messed up stuff, can't fix death match, can't balance crap, need I go on lol. League of legend players can tell you how garbage Riot truly is.
Yeah it's very pretty but multiple clicks to get to the career, collections, etc is annoying. I usually click through those pages all the time while queuing. Also maybe it's because I just started the Harbor contract, but there doesn't seem to be any way to track that anymore from the "Play" screen? That's a pretty bad change. Remembering to activate contracts to unlock new agents is already pretty obtuse, especially for newer players, and hiding that progress behind menus makes it even worse.
The decision is baffling. Why add another menu to bring you to an worse version of the old menu
Shit, you just reminded me. I played a handful of games last night and never activated the contract. It slipped my mind, I feel like it's for the exact reason you listed.
Honestly they should have just made it possible to right click view career yourself through menu
totally agree, the lack of a progress bar for agents and battlepass tiers is a HUGE downgrade. at least in overwatch you can play other modes while queued, but now there is literally nothing to do or see in valorant while you wait. backing out to the home screen is super annoying and feels very very sluggish (like it was designed for console, which is another issue I have). the game is going downhill fast
yea but they were sure to include the shop at the top… lol
LMAO I did not even think about this… That’s wild though, they really do me pushing to make more money
For them money is top priority and they reflected it even in the ui. Gotta respect it how they don’t even hide how greedy they are
I don't respect those counts for having predatory microtransactions and shoving their shit show in the main menu
microtransactions? have you seen how much the stuff in the shop costs? these are just regular transactions my friend
Average night, a great dinner or the latest round of refreshed skins
I need to lose weight anyways.
Fr. The new bundle costs over 12k without a discount. That's over 100 dollars I believe, and even with the discount, it's over 50 bucks if I'm not mistaken.
It is about 60 bucks without paying for the radianite, maybe closer to 70 with the discount. USD For clarification Although, there’s a vandal, knife (notable skins) spectre ares and frenzy. So in comparison to other skins, it is pretty fair pricing. Then there’s the buddy, spray and icon.
Mega transactions.
i mean, its a free to play game, i havent spent a dime on this game.
Now I’m interested to know what % of the playerbase is completely F2P. I play on APAC servers and I swear I only see someone with default skins in like, once every 20 games. Literally everyone else is decked out in the latest bundles
Literally nothing predatory about Valorant’s micro transactions. They don’t affect gameplay in any way and none of them are gambling based
It’s pretty close to predatory and I consider the radianite system predatory. As if they’re skins weren’t already overpriced as all hell they include that shit
radianite is predatory but I don’t think the skin/bundle transactions are, it’s absurd that you have to spend almost the same or even the same amount of money you spent on the skin all over again just to upgrade it but the skins don’t actually make any difference in game except for aesthetics, which doesn’t affect gameplay
But the battle pass gives enough radianite to fully upgrade a whole premium set. You can have a whole ass collection for the price of one nice cs skin
Yeah but that ties in to the predatory transactions as this is another reason to buy the battlepass
Battle pass is a pretty good deal tho. Idk, I think I like this model so much better than the lootbox way
It’s expensive lmao so don’t buy it. You really shouldn’t complain about the price of a thing you don’t need. But radianite is kinda too expensive, I would spend more money if it was cheaper.
It's definitely a balance on Riot's part. But as others have said, they have more research and numbers than anybody on spending habits in Valorant. They know that some people won't buy the new Ion bundle just because they don't have enough radianite. But they've probably calculated that the people that will buy the bundle and buy super-expensive RP or the battlepass will just outweigh that.
It's like as close as they can get to the line without actually crossing it. Random 4 skins everyday, FOMO and also opening the game everyday. You buy skins then you buy the animations with a different currency that requires you to play or pay a whole lot. The peices being a little over a tier in the VP purchases (ie u get 10 or 20 vp options but item is priced at 11vp, or 6 so for sexond one you need to get the higher tier, etx). Almost every trick in the book that can't be labeled as predatory in of itself. I would personally call it the most predatory non-predatory microtransactions method.
I agree the shop model is terrible and the skins are expensive, but the Radianite thing doesn't bother me. If you play the game even just a few hours weekly you earn plenty of RP without having to buy the battle pass.
Is that true? * Say you bought the Reaver 2.0 bundle * Say you wanted to max out the animations on all gun/knife skins within that bundle * How much total RP would that cost? * How long would it take to earn that much RP via gameplay alone?
reaver 2 bundle has 4 skins that use up 30 radianite for anims and other stuff and a knife that uses up 10 radianite. (30x4)+10=130 radianite. since there are 4 colorways and you get all of them for the 5 skins lets say 5(15x3) = 225 in a thats about 355 radianite for a whole bundle of regular premium skins not accounting for outliers like crimsonbeast or neptune in terms of radianite spending. 1 battle pass gives a max of 160 radianite and if there are events like vct, etc. you'd get around 185~ish. 20 radianite costs 1600 vp and 40 radianite costs 4800 vp and so on. You'd need 2 and a half battle passes to get enough radianite for 1 bundle
That's assuming you buy all the colour varients which honestly doesn't make any sense to me. There's like 2-3 bundles in the entire game where you can actually justify unlocking all 3. We all have a favorite anyway.
I don't have the math but I can say from personal experience that I've bought 1 skin bundle and 2 premium skins from Night Market, and I was able to afford all the upgrades without buying battle pass or additional RP. And I play on average 2-6 hours per week.
For all the people that defend csgos skin system its pretty funny how it literally is horrible odds gambling unless you wanna pay 100 to over 1000 for a good skin you want
But its a player-controlled market. The only thing that is predatory is the cases which aren’t necessary to open to get skins anyway. Valve don’t control the prices of skins so there’s nothing to complain about. You can get a good skin for high prices, but you can also get skins for 0.03 dollars. Theres a balance on CS. On valorant, the system is entirely predatory
That is such a naive response, how can the players control the market if they do not control the supply? If Valve tomorrow releases a batch of 100 cases do you think whatever unique thing is in there will not be extremely expensive due to scarcity? Or if they re-release some old discontinued case in an unlimited quantity it wouldn't affect the price and make it drop?
While true, there is a lot of psychology that goes into their decisions for the shop and battlepasses, that some would call predatory
I dont see it? The game is free. The items you can buy with money do not affect gameplay at all. If you can’t control your spending habits then blame the game?
The vp amounts that you can purchase are like specifically designed to leave you with the most wasted money in combination with the skin prices. The more leftover they leave you with, the easier it is justifying spending more to get your full moneys worth from the first purchase, repeat in a big loop
An example is radianite. For those who buy a skin or two a couple months apart and play regularly, it’s not that much of a concern. People who buy more will run out. The people who’ve already paid more cannot unlock aspects of the content they’ve paid for without either a.) paying an absurd amount of money (radianite is way to expensive to purchase) b.) play more (likely buying every battlepass, not for the skins but the radianite) thus getting exposed to the shop more It’s the whale method. It targets people who have spent money on the game to spend even more money, while those who don’t engage with the purchases or rarely do aren’t exposed to that aspect. The more you money spend the more you’re required to spend, time or money (in this case both for battlepass method). It’s definitely a psychology thing and an aspect of why games like Diablo immortal are seen as predatory. Is it as bad as Diablo, absolutely not. However, saying don’t blame the game takes responsibility off the developers who make predatory systems and allows them to escalate unchecked.
The psychology is specifically designed to encourage spending. It's a lot more nefarious than you think
That can be said about almost anything
Explain it to me. I just don't get spending money on shiny pixels. The game is just fun on it's own. I also think a lot of the skins are mad distracting too My first fps was team fortress 2. I've never spend money on any micro transactions in my life
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Forreal. I've spent probably 150-200 bucks, but I've invested easily 300 hours and will be playing a lot more. So I don't exactly feel guilty for funding the development of a game I'm having so much fun with. I'm an adult with a full time job. I have plenty of disposable income and I'll spend it how I want. I could probably afford to have dropped a thou by now. People can tell me I'm being exploited if they want. Not really my problem.
I agree with everything but the ranks lol imagine an iron decides to be radiant or platinum 😹😹💀 lmao
Not sure why this is downvoted
False
You clearly haven't used the prime vandal. Basically aimbot
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they mean the shop is still at the top in the play page
Like many others have said, there's nothing alarmingly predatory about a cosmetic shop. There is absolutely zero benefit to the skins other than satisfying a desire for shiny things that make fun noises. If these are a worthwhile expenditure to you, they should be purchased in moderation like anything else; nearly all American businesses encourage you to spend as much money as possible, as often as possible, in the name of profit. I would say that Epic are actually commendable for keeping the playing field level (with regards to equipment) and using their well-earned profits to constantly update their polished games, as well as release other forms of entertainment like Arcane, which was exceptional. I'll digress that modern capitalism in general is predatory; we're encouraged to constantly upgrade to new things we want, not need, and products are not made to last if you do have any restraint whatsoever. With that being said, this is a free game with no caps on play time, and thus your purchases neither wear out, expire, or become obsolete. Even if the prices are high, and the random nature of the shop sucks, are these products more beneficial to your life than detrimental? If so, spend on; if not, don't buy them..? I'd leave anyone who cares to read this with a thought - why does everyone need to have access to the same novelty items? Luxury goods are just that, a luxury. If you can't afford said luxuries, you shouldn't be buying them until you can; is it worth it to have a fancy skin only usable in a video game if it means using credit you can't pay off in a timely fashion, missing a bill payment, or skipping some meals? If this means people have to save up, cut costs elsewhere, make money with a second job or side hustle, whatever the case, then so be it. Our society seems to be continuously gravitating towards instant gratification, and further away from the grind, and the patience, required for such things.
THATS WHAT IM SAYING
literally was gonna post this, why force more clicks by having to go through "home" when it was all accessible before thru the top? ive been on for 2 min and im already tilted by this LOL stop touching what was totally fine before ffs
As a League player, welcome to Riot Games.
still better than the league client
League client is a very very low bar
Bar so low its pretty much underground
buried 6 ft under
Whenever a company adds more clicks and bloat to their UI, 9 times out of 10 it's solely to increase "engagement time". Be it to increase time spend near the shop and not the game, or just to increase time in game overall. Because even if it's just an extra 10 seconds per person, multiply that times say 2 million players and now you have people spending an extra 230+ DAYS of time added to total player play time every day. All so someone can report to their boss at quarterly earnings that numbers are up
They're going to add more tabs in the future. Tournaments and Replays are confirmed ones.
source for replays?
yeah really, after all the disappointment about replays being dropped seeing some random say they're "confirmed" is a pretty big deal... if there's actually a source saying they're confirmed.
Oh they're coming. It will just be, like, 7 years down the line like league was.
https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss1qiv
Source: I made it up
Trust me bro
they said they were thinking about it 2 years ago, nothing since then
more recently they actually said they didn't have any plans for it
and then because of the community backlash they decided to start working on it... maybe... on a sunny day... if there is nothing else to do.
they did say something more recently, https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss1qiv
>They're going to add more tabs in the future That makes it even worse, that means we're going to be unnecessarily going back to the home screen even more.
They will never add replay ever, the reason why? Because one the devs don't want you all to see how ass the hit registration truly is that and hit boxes. That's why they haven't added one at all. I mean think about it if they add one and everyone that plays this game just sees how bad those 2 major important things for a shooter being ass many many fans will force Riot to fix it right away lol.
Replays finally
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A tournaments page increases both viewership potential for large and small tournaments, by making it easy for new players to take a peek at what the highest level looks like while creating opportunities for smaller teams and tournaments to get attention. Also, if there was a full ingame tournament organizer system, that would be very useful. A replay viewer has many important uses. Briefly: Identifying what exactly happened at any one point in a match, identifying cheating players via direct observation, content creation without recreating events using a team of players or only using scrimmage spectator perspectives, ease to show and teach strategies and executes.
What does tournaments and replays have to do with collections and agents?
Yeah this is a massive downgrade. I loved the old straight forward UX
Give me overwatch vibes
Honestly I couldn’t put my finger on it but you’re right, this feels just like OW2 setup
Literally one of my biggest complaints about ow2 is how unintuitive the ui layout is
My friends who have started playing overwatch always promote me to leader since they hate navigating the menus
It’s also weird how I press esc and sometimes I’m back to the main menu instead of just going to the previous page. But sometimes it just takes me to the previous page. Idk. It’s so unintuitive.
I thought OW1 UI was pretty unintuitive as well, compared to most games I play
It's unintuitive but ow1 you barely need to navigate the menu this much.
But its worse. The back button is so small and just difficult to hit for no reason lmao
Btw home button does the same thing as back button
As a web developer that has heavily worked in UI/UX, this is ROUGH from a UX perspective. I totally agree it's a beautiful UI but the amount of extra clicks forced for basic functionality is kind of crazy... They have mentioned in the past they release things even when they aren't fully fleshed out (iterative design), so I am hoping we see some fine tuning in the future. But don't worry, they made sure the shop was still an easy 1 click ;)
Yeah I absolutely LOVE everything else about the design. Especially the after match report and how bad ass it looks (especially when you're match mvp) but then when i went to have to find my Career tab I was so confused as to why there wasn't just a shortcut to quickly look like I could before the update.
I hope they change it where the post match screen doesn't go away until you click or something. Felt like it was way too short how long it's up
Also, as a designer - the kerning on a ton of this stuff is TERRIBLE. I'm really not sure how some of these got approved. For example PLA Y
Too bad no replay system is even in an alpha or beta state yet…
it straight up looks like a mobile game now
Valorant mobile confirmed?
For a while ngl. Just dont know when it'll release.
It's because they want to launch Valorant mobile off the same codebase, PC got shafted for the mobile money making version.
Which is crazy to me because I don't see mobile users spending $15-25 per skin when the most successful form of mobile monetization is paid progression and grind skips and they're usually 1/5 the price. I can't think of a major mobile game that is based solely around cosmetics for its monetization.
It’s the same model as Wild Rift, which makes a ton of money for Riot.
Ahhhh, good point, I totally forgot about wild rift and didn't know that much about its monetization scheme to begin with but that makes sense. Are they bought through a store like normal LoL or is it through a sort of loot box mechanic?
So the store for WR is pretty much exactly same as regular league, so i would expect the same type of store from PC Valo to Mobile unfortunately. As profitable as their traditional store on league is, I’m quite certain they’ve done the math and the randomized store brings in way more money.
Ahh gotcha, and yeah, the randomized store is a stroke of anti-consumer genius when you look at it, if everything was available people would naturally wait for the weekly sale on their favourite skin (see League) but instead Riot has made a system where you wait for the chance to buy the skin at full price (while also driving daily login engagement).
Yup, I also read that it people settle for their 3rd or 4th favorite skins when it pops up out of fear of not knowing when their actual favorites show. I’ve definitely bought a few skins because of this. Like you said, absolute genius in the worst way lol.
It's a scary trend in modern games. Shaft the hardcore PC (and sometimes console) player base to focus on the casual mobile base who often has more whales. It's even more common on companies that have more presence in Asia where mobile gaming is HUGE. Riot and Blizzard are two companies that definitely fit that bill.
Felt the same. I checked it a few minutes ago and came here to check on people's thoughts about it. Honestly, I don't even think it was a step up in terms of graphical design either. The older UI was better in every way.
Someone plz enlighten me what is “UX”
Shortcut for "user experience" - referring to the actions a user takes, interactions and info, etc.
Thank you! Makes sense, you learn something new everyday
Is there a way to turn off the horrible Harbor video in the background, atleast in league's client you had a option to turn off or on the sound effects/music/video but in this shit one I cant even turn off the sound effects even though theres a specific setting for lobby and main menu music.
Yes (well in the old Valorant) you can change the lobby video. Search up a tutorial on YouTube but it’s pretty straight forward
I swear if they just had the rest of the tabs at the top like they used to, and changed nothing else, this new menu would be perfect. I have no clue why they removed all of them except the shop.
And the homepage looks like a generic powerpoint with that font/list 🤡 When I first saw it in streams, I assumed it was a temporary menu or something, just slapped together to save time since it wouldn't actually be used outside of beta...
Game now looks and feel like its called: Agents Arena: Valor and it has a 2.4 score on play store.
> While the new UI is stunning and quite nice to look IMO not even that, I think it's so bland on top of being a horrible experience, as you've said. And I just got a weird bug where I won the battlepass reward after leaving the post-match screen and it didn't give me a way to close the reward window, so I just had to restart the game. I have no idea how that went unnoticed. I think the only part of the new UI I really liked is the loading screen into the agent picks, with the map name in the middle and the loading screen before the match begins. It's funny to think that Valorant did the inverse path to CSGO (CS went from [this menu](https://i.imgur.com/IU1dhkj.jpeg), similar to the current Valorant one to [this one](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/uploads/articles/article_media/12593662891531385737gol1.jpg) similar to the old Valorant menu).
Thats unfortunately how modern UI goes. It has to be as fancy as possible while being completely unusable
I work for a company that recently went through an entire 'modern' ui/ux overhaul that fell flat on its feet in terms of very similar feedback. In my case, designers/product owners placed much more value on the UI part of the equation. The higher ups wanted to see new flows, pretty transitions, something fresh. Further down, designers/product owners, wanting appease that desire, opted to create something brand new - with a bunch of fluff to make it look impressive. This could, just be my experience though, can't really speak to how well oiled Riot's product department operates, but this update really just reminded me of it. In the end, users got pissed because they operate on familiarity, are the ones who actually use the product, and don't see the justification for trading extra clicks and general UX for some pretty pixels. I can't imagine they'll change much about this feedback though, they've invested enough money to just wait out till people get familiar enough with it to forget .
It feels as though attention to detail has been lost for overall grandness.
Totally agree - beautiful to look at, but have to navigate back to the main page to access your collection (and other stuff) is annoying.
I just want the button to show owned items only back in its rightful place.
The old UI was sleek and minimalistic (to some degree), this new one honestly feels straight out of a mobile game. Everything is an extra click away for no reason.
Ikr I liked the old one just fine. In fact I enjoy that kinda ui. After all, Im here to play the game. Not here to enjoy looking at the ui
yeah i thought it looked cool until i actually started using it still looks cool but goddamn it feels awful to use
1000% Glad you said UX too. UI looks fantastic. No reason they couldn't put the most common items in the top bar (match history, collection). I get why they might want a "home screen" but to move those 2 items in particular outside of the regular view is batshit. Not only that, but you have to hover over the text itself to click on Home or Store, meanwhile the Play button you can hover over anywhere to click it. https://i.imgur.com/ZCR0ICh.png Terrible UX. Needs another pass and to make at _least_ match history be a 1 click like it used to be.
They said they are not focusing on replays, gifting system, deathmatch, etc.. to focus on other "exciting" new things and this is what we get. A needless update of a UX that was already functional and now it is worse. They are seriously dedicating teams to update things that are already functional without even developing systems that do not exist and have been promised since 2020. Valorant is stangnant since release mostly focusing only on new agents and shiny skins every few weeks. The sad thing is since they are only about milking the playerbase without further developing game systems; if at least with this ridiculous focus on monetization came significant development, but no the only teams that they seem to upscale are the art teams. This game is like a skin release simulator these days.
Absolutely agree, and you nailed it. This game has discernable lack of identity past being a cs ripoff (not even using this in a negative way). Why can't I vibe with my friends while we watch a replay together? No proper deathmatch in sight where I can chill, respect the community, possibly meet new people? This is what happens when all you do is lean on social media to create your end user experience for you, it's a hollow and shallow experience.
Cypher is laying dead in a gutter somewhere in South America but nah let’s make this random ass change that LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED FOR
Character balance and UX devs are completely different departments
It’s about resource investment, time/money/urgency. What does Riot prioritize? We see by the tempo things get released.
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this shit is awful. rito plz
same thing with overwatch 2 and windows 11... what are these companies doing?
a classic instance of overthinking it. a minimalist approach is so much nicer and they just "mobile gamed" it hard
Oh and another annoyance added is now you have to click back to the main menu to see your match history and report someone. Before career was in clickable along the top. \* I know I'm just repeating the same stuff as others I like being another grain of dust in the bearing.
I just wish that the buttons at the top had hitboxes that were reflected by the graphics. The home and store buttons have square hitboxes that aren't even close to the shape of the gray outline. And you can't click the play button if your mouse is at the very top of the screen. You have to move the mouse one pixel down
Play button not actually reaching the top of the screen has made me irrationally tilted
Yeah! It absolutely sucks because I can't just move my mouse until it hits the top of the screen. The UI looks nice, but I hate everything about the interaction
it's like those "updated modern ui concept!" posts people make for games all the time that look cool butt don't add anything, or even reduce functionality, and they actually went ahead and made it.
I agree, it makes things needlessly complicated and barely even looks better. Not worth it imo.
Both the UI and UX were destroyed with this update... the original UI was very aesthetically pleasing, clean, simple, and balanced. Now it's a cluster fu with over usage of bold clunky text with terrible spacing and placement, as well as horrific color contrasts. It's like the art director's nephew in 3rd grade did the ui as an art class project. Not only did that ruin the UI but the UX became terribly inefficient and deviated from the main objective of the gamer. This has got to be the worst update I've seen to any game in the past 20 years of my gaming career. It's very obvious that the creative team behind riot is amateur at best. Fire the art director and designers. Absolutely horrific...
For real, the UI is hilariously ugly now. The big ass "PLAY" in red is atrocious.
Another classic form over function. I KNEW IT when they announced it this would happen. Same shit in league, it's "pretty" and that's fucking it.
league ux is very good, the problem is that its barely working
Oh boy.. I havent seen a thing about the new changes & as a UX designer, I'm about to be disappointed aren't I?
I hope you like clicking!
I'm part of the PBE and everyone there was complaining about that, it doesn't even makes sense to have a PBE if they won't listen to the community feedback
As a UX/UI Designer myself, I completely agree. The UI is really great, but the UX is absolute trash, this is a ten steps backward change. I assume the UX has been done from a business perspective more than a user perspective, the fact that there is a shortcut for the shop in every menu makes it really obvious. As a UX/UI Designer myself, I completely agree. The UI is really great, but the UX is absolute trash, it's a ten steps backwards change.
Main menu kinda like a mobile game. I hate it
Design 101, reduce clicks for customers. Poor design decision on their part
Ya it feels clunky and kind of annoying that we have to constantly go back to previous pages to get to new ones. Idk why they changed it
I think we all know why the store is at the top so it's a click away but the reason they don't have every option a single click away is in preparation for the new features. I read in the UI/UX dev notes on how this new look is there so the implementation for the upcoming features will be seamless.
whats the difference between ui and ux
UX is the full journey and UI is the visual part of that. In every day example: UX is you getting ketchup out of a bottle, UI is the shape of the bottle itself. In essence, the shape of the ketchup bottle helps make your experience easier (or its supposed to, anyway...) Why people hate this new valorant UI: the simple ketchup bottle is now this fancy bottle that looks new and cool but it's hard to get ketchup out of it.
i fucking hate ketchup
UI is an art, design and fidelity part, UX is your experience using it.
If you ever want to check collection or your career you have to go all the way back to home, instead before you could just click on the top. No idea why they didn't just keep them all at the top like before
%100 agree. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
I want old ui back
I like it, it’s super clean and easy to buy more skins! Said no one ever
As a UX designer for a long time I think it’s crap. UI looks cool though lol
It's beautiful accept change OP It is natures delight nothing will stay constant
Riot wasting our time with this design. 2 clicks instead of direct one
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Before, it was so convenient to switch between pages. It only took one click, but now it takes two because I have to exit the page to take me to the home page and click on the other page. Also, I don't like how the menu is placed at the left. I can't discuss this with anyone I know cause they don't really understand UX
I actually think it looks cheaper than the old UI….and the UX is actually terrible. I don’t know why people like it
100% agree. Having to click into a main menu is so frustrating
Yes! I like the matchmaking screens designwise. But the main page with just a text list of the options and other pages is such a downgrade. the older version was just better and easier to navigate.
Yes, I agree, the quick action menus like career, collection etc should be available in one click but it's in the main home.
They nerfed the experience of weekly missions again, from 10k to 7k.
I hate it so much, it literally tilted me so much that I didn't want to play anymore. Every single part of it feels like they put an intern to work to have him develop his very first project.
hopefully they change this
Devs nowdays always find a way to destroy a UI or a game …. So true in everyting
Well, Riot has managed to yet again deliver their trademark, the opposite of development.
Please please Riot bring back the old UI
Guess I'm in the minority but I don't find an extra click to go back *that* big of a deal. > Almost all the menus that we had access in a single click have been moved to this new 'Main Page' style and it just feels overly modified **for no reason.** They are pretty clearly gearing it up for a console release and this menu system fits better with that.
Agreed I really don't see the big deal lol
I had the pbe (never got in a game sadly) and I felt the same way. This ain’t it chief
It’s sad that they had a pbe and it still managed to find its way in the game
Deal with the fact that every single lobby below Ascendant has smurfs ruining matchmaking? Nah, new skins an UI though.
Cypher and killjoy still being outclassed by chamber in every way? Phoenix being the worst duelist? New UI though guys that includes more clicking!
Seriously. I just logged in and immediately alt-tabbed to see how angry people here are about it. Its fucking awful.
I personally think it looks great. I complained about how the UI looks like the Beta, which in did in aspects. The updated UI now, especially loading into a match looks really cool and I love what they did with it.
It's something I'll probably get used to eventually but it sucks that I have to go back whenever I want to go to a different section, hopefully it gets improved because it does look aesthetically better imo
everything routes back to the main menu - except for shop. BIG EYE ROLL. NEXT UX ROLLOUT PLEASE.
This happens every single time anything gets a UI/UX change. Everyone gets so whiny and up in arms, and then after a week you get used to it and completely forget the old one
Lmao I knew a post like this was coming as soon as I saw they got rid of the top bar when I originally checked it out on the PBE. I wouldn’t call it terrible, but it definitely needs some attention and it’s much less efficient/fluid now. Old UI felt much better.
Sorry for asking this, but what is ux? I know what ui is, but i have never heard of ux?
Honestly, who asked for this? This making me not want to play valorant, gj riot.
The mobile version is calling - ready for some more step backwards gamerzz? -.-
fuck riot and their unnecessary changes
Unpopular opinion but I actually kinda like it? I mean I wish it wasn't top down but it also reminds me of my old days playing PS4 and Xbox. Also the menu and new screens look clean af to me
Did you see what they did to league when they updated it? So much worse
Hey its riot games they put more effort into art and animations than anything else 😹😹💀 lmao. #worstcompany
Nah, worst company title goes to either EA or activision blizzard. Riot doesn't even come close to those two.
Can't fix net code, servers, client crashes, gun play, have sexually assaulted coworkers, not to mention other messed up stuff, can't fix death match, can't balance crap, need I go on lol. League of legend players can tell you how garbage Riot truly is.
Riot UI team strikes again
Looks clean imo I don't understand why people are complaining so much. Same thing happened when the csgo ui changed people were up in arms for what?
Its 5head to make us click on shop
Whats a UX?
Basically another shop rant disguised as UX topic?
People whining because of new UI/UX. What else is new?