Valorant players want fix to “ridiculous” first-bullet inaccuracy

The Valorant community has been experiencing a first-bullet inaccuracy, particularly with the Vandal, that shows how on-target shots can quickly turn into misses at the worst times.

Since the beta, Valorant has had strange hit reg issues that made some firefights hard to navigate- but people are finding that the RNG, meaning the ‘random number generator’ used to determine events in games, for the first-bullet found in some guns can compromise the competitive integrity of the match.

“I don’t understand why there is so much RNG in hitting shots, this is a tac shooter,” one person wrote. “It really takes away from the competitive aspect when there is so much RNG.”

Missing close shots because you couldn’t control the spray pattern or straight-missing is one thing; but user ‘BlueSpark_2000’ showed that aiming a crosshair squarely to an opponent’s head doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be a headshot.

The first-shot accuracy is better in some guns, like the Guardian, than others such as the Vandal.

“The vandal’s First bullet inaccuracy is ridiculous,” they wrote. “I started to tap-fire the enemy Sova in the head while we were BOTH not moving and he was looking in a different direction while using the operator and the bullets just kept going to the sides of his head.”

The moment conjured a memorable CSGO meme of the same nature, as the clip showed the player’s green-dot crosshair mostly over the opponent who was on the other side of Haven’s C site.

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While the player felt the Sova should’ve been eliminated, the missed shots gave the opponent enough time to retaliate. The defender still died, but not before returning an Op shot that took BlueSpark_2000 down from 150 HP to 23.

“Honestly, I don’t know why first bullet inaccuracy with the vandal is so bad or why it’s even a thing in the game in the first place,” BlueSpark said.

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This ignited a larger conversation about Valorant’s first-bullet accuracy, and now people are looking to Riot Games to address the issue. Riot dev ‘Classick’ previously said weapons like the Vandal “have some unreliability at very long ranges,” but it’s not working out for a lot of people.

As Valorant develops, it will be interesting to see how the studio responds to more calls for a fundamental change to the first-bullet accuracy mechanics.