This is going to be a fairly long one so I'll break it into three distinct sections you can pick and choose from each with their own tl;dr for your convenience.

The first topic will be gameplay and how things have changed since the early days from the perspective of someone whose been around since then.

The second topic is going to be on the community and how different it has become since the first day of launch up until the day of this post.

The third topic is going to be about the ranking system and the ways it has changed for better or worse and where I think it stands now.

---------------- Topic 1: Gameplay ---------------

tl:dr - the gameplay was once aimed to create an environment in which team composition mattered as much as your aim and your game sense. This blatantly isn't the case anymore. Every character added after launch with the exception of Killjoy and Astra have a flash-bang of some kind and the emphasis on kill count over good team coordination has made the game feel less team oriented and more egocentric.

Riot famously stated early in valorant's infancy that abilities were meant to encourage gunplay. This surely was true for the most part but there was one exception: Raze. In valorant's start raze had 2 grenades and her blast-packs did 75 damage flat. Her ultimate killed from miles away and the drop off range for it's damage was practically nothing. There was nothing about raze that encouraged gunplay. Raze since then has seen significant reductions in damage but still her utility hardly encourages her team to push anything as it more often will simply end up harming them.

It isn't only raze I'm singling out here. Since the start of the game riot has introduced 1 new sentinel, 1 new controller, but 2 new duelists, and 2 new initiators. Although it isn't a huge amount of difference, it still encourages a more duelist centered game that encourages riskier plays and less cooperation. Keep in mind this MAY BE the intended path for the game so I'm simply stating the way things have shaken out so far.

Mechanically the introduction of Kay/o brings into play the concept of forcing people to use their weapons over their abilities. Dependent on the quality of player this ability to disable enemies can prove useful in lower ranks. The unfortunate fact however is that once you make it so far as silver gunplay really does factor in more than abilities and so this mechanic steeply drops off as you climb the ranks. Similarly to this Yoru sees a steep drop off as well as his abilities can mostly be predicted by a well experienced player. He throws a flash-bang then teleports so you look away then snap to his head.

In my opinion the best mechanic in this game is neither shooting or abilities. It's the massive variety of different methods available to communicate with your team. Pings can save a life. A danger ping signaling an enemy or a flag ping to mark the planted spike an incredibly important part of the game and in my over a years experience, using effective communication to establish flanks or warn your team is always going to give you a massive advantage over the other team.

Effective communication, as a sidenote should never be yelled, it should be concise, and it should always be polite. It's hard to communicate as a solo queue because so many people refuse to use game chat and on the other hand those that do usually abuse it or don't provide any good information. I find it is ALWAYS better for me to rely on my own game sense and skill by muting those kinds of players rather than leave comms open so they can berate my crosshair, or my aim, or any other little nitpicky thing. Your team needs you to give them good information and lots of post-death pings as you flick through everyone's perspective's so don't make that comment about crosshair, just let them know that your other teammate hears them planting on a different site.

---------------- Topic 2: Community---------------

tl;dr - The community has gotten much MUCH bigger and as painful as it is to admit, much MUCH better. Aim trainers exist, experience happens and as the game has grown so too has it's player base meaning it's much harder to compete for high placements. Also smurfing has infested this game to a actionable level and needs urgently to be addressed.

In the beginnings of valorant there wasn't a huge player base. The odd twitch key system meant access was restricted to the lucky few. Back in those days it was, and this isn't to be derogatory to people who've earned their ranks, very easy to get Gold 3 and higher. Whether it was intended or not I know because I've seen it, but there are a few of my friends with high Gold and low Diamond accounts that they'll never touch again because they aren't in those skill levels they just got that rank during the beta. The community has gotten substantially better at the game which in itself is not a bad thing, but it has led to some problems.

A few friends have rightfully complained about what I'll call, the barrier to entry. Coming from little shooter experience into valorant is, in the words of videogamedunky, like walking into 'nam. The skill level of bronze level players now rivel the skills of gold players back in the day. This is a difficult problem to address and leads to a loss of potential players that are scared off by the high skill level needed to compete.

Rampant throughout the low ranks are our good friends, the smurfs. No there are no blue men eager to greet you in Iron rank, just high level players who have made a free second account in low rank which have come to click your heads and God damn do they. Playing against a Smurf is INFURIATING. It's terrible to know that no matter what you do, that person is simply just better than you. Unfortunately sometimes this isn't even the smurfs fault. That's right, sometimes through sheer bad luck alone high rank players will lose a lot of matches and end up 3 or 4 ranks lower than they should be. This highlights again the fact that communication and teamwork are more important in higher ranks than just aim because frankly at that level everyone is snapping to heads anyways.

What riot has done is encourage queueing in groups of 5 so that you can maximize communication. Unfortunately it seems that in contradiction to this they implemented a system for "balancing" that queues large parties against higher ranked opponents. This is a broken feature. Communication is available to everyone and so is fair grounds across the board. Players shouldn't be punished for utilizing communication by way of putting them against harder opponents especially when this doesn't make the ranking system less forgiving.

There has also been a rise in toxicity I've noticed with players that are egotistic and, what I would call, "unsolicited coaching". Most people have encountered this person at some point. They die early in the round then watch and critique your every move right up until you die at which point they yell "I told you so's" without ever actually contributing any helpful information. It's hard to deal with this because I'm some cases it seems genuine, like they want to help. In others is obvious they think they're better than you and that you need to be taught how to play the game. In the former case I find it's best to just ask them to stop back seat coaching while they're dead and then mute them if they won't. The latter type I mute on the spot and keep them that way the rest of the game. Have confidence in your own skills and knowledge and know that no matter what their "call-outs" won't be helpful so it isn't worth unmuting them. And if you think you might be the type of person who does this to others then it's good to recognize that and promptly STOP doing it. There's no judgement here if you're an unsolicited coach but I assure you your team would be much more thankful for you to just give then a call-out along with a relevant ping and leave it at that.

---------------- Topic 3: The Ranking System---------------

tl;Dr - the ranking system has led to a weird phenomenon where the tops and bottoms of the ranks are where you find the really good players while everything in-between is a jumbled nightmare. ELO hell is real and it turns out it's just all of comp in valorant. That being said the recent updates have made progress and hopefully the system will see good reforms to come.

The ranking system has had a huge number of tweaks since launch, However until the most recent update with the introduction of Kay/o the ranking system was very heavily stacked against you. Losing a match would cost much more then you'd gain from winning one. In addition, getting kills was largely rewarded as the more you got the higher on the boards you'd be and the more ranking points you'd get. This encourages play as duelists to try and frag out as many kills as you can but potentially at a detriment to the team. Killing the other teams least impactful player and then dying is much less important towards winning than killing their more impactful players and dying.

But what is an impact player? It's not set in stone but generally if someone on the other team is largely responsible for them winning a round then that is an impact player. A viper who can deploy acid to the bomb to win rounds or a jet that can clear a site are two examples but it isn't character specific. A brimstone with tactical awareness giving good call-outs is just as impactful.

Ranking systems for free to play games are tricky because with a skill curve so vast it's almost unimaginable that you wouldn't have smurfs. Unsurprisingly valorant does and the current system does little to combat this.

Unfortunately being in iron and bronze rank can actually be a lot harder than being in high silver or gold. The amount of smurfs in these games means that you are more likely to encounter a high rank player the lower your rank which is as absurd as it sounds.

A lot of smurfs for instance won't even try to hide the fact. They'll go 40 - 50 kills and maybe 3 or 4 deaths in a game and then announce their real rank at the last second before the game ends and it definitely doesn't encourage people to keep playing. After all why would anyone play a new game if the lowest rank in that game is already way too hard.

Despite all this the most recent update featuring Kay/o has brought a reform for the ranking system that seems a bit more fair and a bit less punishing. It's hard to say as the update is still new but it looks like the ranking system is getting more balanced towards progression and hopefully this change will bring about a more fair way to climb the ranking ladders besides hiring a Smurf to carry you or outright buying a high rank account.

With that I'd just like to give a thank you to anyone who spent time reading through this, I know it's quite a lot. Keep in mind this isn't really meant to be a huge critique just a measure of how I feel about different parts of the game I've held an intense love/hate relationship with for the last year or so.