Valorant, Riot‘s take on the competitive first-person shooter is trending a lot lately. It is one of the most-watched games according to Twitch. The game is often described as a Counter-Strike clone with hero elements put in. While that is a serviceable introduction, but it doesn’t do the game justice. The game has some nuances and tweaks that make it a lot different than it’s Valve competitor.
The Skill Ceiling
Recently while watching one of Shroud’s streams, I came across this question about the skill ceiling in both of these games. Shroud stated that Counter-Strike has a much higher ceiling than a game like Valorant. While explaining his take on the matter, he goes on to tell that some agents like Brimstone or Omen that can put defensive smokes accurately from any part of the map significantly dumbs down the skill ceiling.
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While I agree with him to some extent, but this isn’t necessarily the full story. There are some dumbed-down easy to play agents like Brimstone or Raze, but there are also agents like Sova and Jett. These agents have really powerful kits and abilities. While not the easiest to use, they can own the playing field with a lot of practice and dedication. These agents, in my opinion are the best definitions of what a Valorant agent should strive to be.
These agents have the most tactical depth to them and hence, are a part of the current meta. While the answer to the question about the skill ceiling is quite blurry, I genuinely think that Valorant has a higher skill ceiling than Counter-Strike, despite some weird agent design choices on behalf of Riot Games.
Maps And Timings
The maps in Valorant are a lot different than what Counter-Strike offers. While the lead level designer of Valorant has worked on popular CS maps before such as Cache, but they are quite fundamentally different. Maps in Counter-Strike follow a design philosophy of 4 square map design where most of the areas are connected via tunnels, opening a bunch of tactical possibilities for takes and rotates. Valorant’s map design philosophy is quite different as it believes every map should have a unique gimmick. Bind has teleporters while Split has no mid.
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How rounds start is also drastically different. In Counter-Strike, all players are immobile during the buy phase after which the round starts. Both teams have to be quick and precise in deciding which positions to take. This adds yet another layer of depth to the combat and a lucky spawn point can give you a huge advantage against your foes.
Valorant’s rounds start with both teams having control of certain positions on the map during the buy phase. Some areas are locked off by walls until the round starts. This gives the defenders ample amount to take positions stripping one more layer of complexity and mastery regarding these tight timings.
Movement And Gunplay: Valorant VS CS GO
The movement and gunplay are probably the topics that have the most similarities. In both the games, movement is a joy with extreme responsiveness and a sense of mastery to them. Positioning in both of these games is as important as one’s pure aim. I don’t know whether it’s the map design or the game’s infancy, but most players tend to be a lot more comfortable peeking aggressively in Valorant in almost all levels of play rather than what you see in Counter-Strike. Now that I think about it, it’s most probably because of the ability to heal oneself after a bad engagement.
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On the surface, both games have the same classes of weapons, with familiar recoil patterns. The biggest difference in the shooting is the ability to aim down sights in Valorant. Both games have sophisticated mechanics such as movement and jumping inaccuracies, but they are somewhat less significant in Valorant than Counter Strike. You are more likely to get kills by spamming and running than you would get in Valve’s shooter. On the other hand, tagging, that is, the stopping of your player on getting hit is more hard in Valorant than Counter Strike. This somewhat invalidates my previous point about aggressive peeking, but it is what it is.
Community And Custom Game Modes
Disclaimer: Valorant is still in its early stages and is evolving rapidly, hence a lot of stuff about this will change in the future. With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. Without a doubt, CS is a community game first. The game itself was first made as a mod of Valve’s Half-Life. Thus, Valve gives it’s player a whole bunch of tools to have their own fun in the game. There are a lot of custom servers with community-made maps and custom game modes, anywhere from B-Hop servers to purely Dust 2.
On the other hand, Valorant is still very closed. There is no option to create and play custom maps. You can host custom games, but it is pretty barebones as of now.
