Twitch powerhouse Jaryd ‘summit1g’ Lazar has explained why Valorant’s current aiming system does not do enough to punish players, especially when they are moving and shooting.
As Valorant’s closed beta approaches a month old, many players are still doing their best to gain access to Riot Games’ FPS. However, for those who have had sustained access, a general consensus is emerging as to changes players want to see Riot implement.
With nearly ten years at the top of Twitch, summit1g is uniquely qualified to comment on aspects of the game that need adjustment. He has previously commented on the watchability of Valorant but, on April 22, turned his attention to the game’s aiming system.
Summit was in the game’s shooting range, when he quickly realized that Valorant does not penalize players for strafing while they aim. Despite strafing and counter-strafing fairly quickly, the veteran streamer’s crosshair did not expand in size.
“This right here is hogwash,” he said. “That’s just ridiculous. Look how accurate that is, you see that? See that. Why? Why? Why? In a game that should be like this to shoot – you should be having to counter-strafe to shoot like that. That’s where the skill comes into Counter-Strike.”
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While most games punish players for aiming while they are moving, Valorant, at least in its current beta build, has no such feature. Essentially summit is arguing that it’s too easy for players to hit shots while strafing, and there is no sufficient punishment for aiming while moving.
“It’s like, your ability to counter-strafe,” he continued, “accurately make decisions around corners, get punished for your problems, you’re not gonna get as punished when you’re going like this.”
“Counter-strafing is not very good in this game either, it stops on a dime far too quickly,” he finished. “There’s no reason to it… you can just shift right when you stop. In fact, someone was telling me yesterday… that some people were binding their shoot and their walk button to the same bind.”
With Valorant only in its beta, we can expect a multitude of changes before it receives a wide release. However, the changes summit is requesting would see a near overhaul of the game’s current strafing mechanics to stop players from being able to move back and forth while maintaining laser-like accuracy. It’ll be interesting to see what changes, if any, Riot decide to make.