VALORANT
Valorant is a 5v5 character-based, tactical first-person shooter game. It’s one of my favorite games because of its diverse set of characters (Agents) and addicting gameplay, so I decided to blend my passion for gaming with my design skillset.
Overview
This personal exploration takes a look at the remake process and how to make it a better experience for players. A remake is when a match ends in a draw due to a disconnected player.
INSIGHTS
This entire sprint was laid out in Figma using a modified version of a Remote Design Spring Template shared by Alexandria Goree, a Senior Product Designer at Spotify.
View the Figma file here.
Is the remake experience even a problem?
Yes. I fervently read several Reddit threads, all posted within the past year, expressing negative feelings toward the remake itself and the process.
Competitors
I researched 4 first-person shooter games that stand as Valorant’s biggest competitors.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Rainbow Six Seige
Apex Legends
Dota 2
And just for fun, League of Legends too
What I Uncovered
No one has nailed down the Remake.
Most of these games don’t have the option to remake, only to surrender (which Valorant also has).
There is very little information from the developers of these games about what happens when players surrender and how it affects their gameplay (with the exception of League of Legends).
Exploitation of remakes and surrenders is acknowledged by players, not just the game developers.
Problem
After diving into Valorant reddit threads and online forums, I identified the problems and shortcomings of the current remake user experience.
User Profile
Who are we solving for? Who’s behind the screen? Who insta-locked a duelist only to make their Sage move on to site first?
The user journey below explores a common pattern.
Meet Brian.
Brian is in his mid-twenties and plays Valorant after work when he has time. He’s able to play a couple games a night to relax and have fun.
SCENARIO
Matt wants to leave a match due to the fact that his team has one less player than his opponents.
How Might We?
A How Might We question is a way to frame the challenge we’re trying to solve in a way that will help us spark new ideas. These questions helped guide initial ideation and early design decisions.
Ideate
There are two main exercises I utilized in the ideation phase: Crazy 8s and a Solution Sketch.
CRAZY 8s
Crazy 8s is a quick sketching exercise that challenges people to generate ideas in eight minutes.
The eight sketches I did pose solutions for a couple of problems identified. One solution is the remake UI (mostly sketched on the left column). The second is letting people join in-progress games (mostly sketched on the right column).
SOLUTION
SKETCH
Solution Sketches are meant to articulate a particular idea (sometimes more than one) further.
The Solution Sketch I did depicts an end-to-end solution for when players disconnect.
PROTOTYPE
After doing research, ideating, and narrowing down key concepts I thought were worth pursuing, I got to prototyping! The following redesigns were created in Adobe Photoshop.
User Feedback
Since much of my initial research was scouring Reddit threads and reading tons of comments made about the remake process, I went back to Reddit and this demographic to get feedback.
Posting on Reddit
To get feedback from players, I posted my remake redesign on the Valorant subreddit. My post can be found here.
In 12 hours, I received 201 upvotes, a 97% upvote rate and 7 total shares.
What They Liked
The design
The number of votes needed for the votes to pass
That the vote is not anonymous
What They Didn’t Like
A bit too verbose
Window of time to remake is too short
That the vote is not anonymous
In the next iteration, I would 1) reword pieces to see if it could be more concise, 2) expand the remake window time, and 3) revisit the anonymous vote to weigh its pros and cons.
Successful sprint?
Overall, was this a successful sprint? Yes!
The success metrics at the beginning of the sprint were as follows:
1. 200 upvotes for the redesigns on Reddit ✅
2. Positive Comments ✅