Riot Games has released the patch notes for Valorant update 9.07, and they are underwhelming to say the least.
Not for the first time this year, the new Valorant patch is set to change nothing of note, with the most important parts of the patch notes being some bug fixes and tiny changes to competitive modes. There’s basically nothing that will actually change your experience in most matches, unlike some more recent patches.
I feel like I’ve written similar patch notes updates quite a few times this year already, which tells me it’s time for Valorant to move away from its rigid patch schedule and just release updates when there is something worthwhile to change. Releasing a patch every two weeks is great for a game like League of Legends, which always needs at least one or two changes, but for Valorant which has a smaller pool of characters to balance and a reasonably stable meta, it feels like overkill a lot of the time.
I also think it would improve the life of fans, as it can be pretty disappointing to see a tiny set of patch notes when you were hoping for a more significant change. It’s just one of those small things that can make a bad day worse, and it seems like there’s little to gain.
Looking at the 9.07 notes, there’s seemingly nothing that couldn’t be delayed for another two weeks and included in the next patch. Assuming that there is something a little more significant in the next set of patch notes, these updates can just be thrown in at the end as a bit of extra info, that won’t get players’ hopes up of significant changes.
I’m obviously not advocating for a Dota 2 style of patch schedule where updates come seemingly at random with little warning, because that’s annoying for everyone. But I feel like the Valorant team shouldn’t be afraid to skip a patch or two if there’s very little going on.
Of course the more positive side of this argument is that Valorant is in such a good place that it clearly doesn’t need a big balance patch every two weeks. When a game works as intended, which for the most part Valorant does, there isn’t really any need to change it, as there is just as much chance that you will mess things up instead of making them better.
So, my message to Riot Games is to consider if each Valorant patch is really worth it, and to sack one off if it doesn’t feel important enough.
