While Valorant has become one of the most popular FPS on the planet, players were left irritated by the state of patch 1.11, which was subsequently rolled back. As a result, Riot are rethinking their update “cadence.”
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The shambolic release of patch 1.11 in Valorant has been wholly accepted by Riot. It was quickly rolled back after launch, as a number of game-breaking bugs were taking hold.
Players complained about the badly implemented patch, which saw some stuck in left-hand mode amid a mountain of other chaotic glitches.
Riot Games, however, have used their weekly ‘Ask VALORANT’ column to address the patch 1.11 situation, hoping to provide fans some insight into why the patch was so faulty.
“Patch stability has been really bad”
Responding to a question regarding Riot’s recent string of poor patch performances, Senior Producer Arnar Gylfason starts off by saying “oof, yeah, this one stings”.
Citing a series of reasons for the patch’s abysmal performance such as requirements for “internal process improvements,” “philosophical changes” and “investment in tooling and infrastructure,” it seems that Riot has had a lot on their plate.
With Gylfason promising a “thorough investigation” into what went wrong, Valorant players can only cross their fingers that this doesn’t happen again.
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Less Valorant Updates?
As a result, Riot says one of the options they’re considering is “maybe slowing down a bit.”
“We’ve been rigorously keeping to the two-week patch cadence since even before we started our Closed Beta,” Gylfason explains. “Even with the logistical challenges of working from home, the team has been—and continues being—incredibly passionate to get content and features out as quickly as possible, including moving up our maps release schedule.
“But it’s time to take a breath and take stock of what we need to do internally to make sure that our efforts are sustainable and hitting the quality bar you, our players, deserve.” This certainly sounds like Riot will considering moving away from their two-week update schedule, at least while the team is working from home.
How does the new patch affect First Strike?
One of the other main topics of this week’s Ask VALORANT is the discussion around how patches will be scheduled around the game’s new esports sector. Riley Yurk, manager of Valorant’s Esports strategy, explained that this hadn’t quite worked out as planned due to the time differences in different regions.
The main issue was with the NA qualifier schedule being so drawn out, with Yurk explaining that the NA events clashed with the developer’s intentions to bring out patch 1.12 midway through First Strike when the qualifiers are largely over. To rectify the situation “the remaining 16 teams will conclude the tournament on patch 1.10” to ensure competitive integrity.
However, Yurk goes on to highlight the importance of patch 1.11 to the future of Valorant esports, especially because the introduction of the new map Icebox allows for a “true Best-of-Five experience” for the main First Strike event. Polarising as the map is, it’s going to be a key part of First Strike whether fans like it or not.
While the issues with the patch were clearly infuriating to a lot of players, it seems that Riot are doing their best to ensure that it never happens again. With Gylfason wishing players a solemn for their “patience, understanding, and support,” all we can do is hope that we never have a repeat of patch 1.11.
