Guns, abilities and team economy in VALORANT

Riot Games' new FPS, VALORANT, starts with its closed beta and with it a whole new path of players towards the improvement that represents the competitive world. An analysis of the game can be done in two sections: Macro management and Micro management.

Macro management: concentrating on strategy (sites to attack, team rotations, choice of agents according to the map, etc.) and economy (when to buy and what to buy, how to affect the economy of the rival, etc.)

Micro management: Individual skills (aim, ability management, game sense, etc).

The micro and macro managements are related to each other, knowing what is our economy for the round (and the following rounds) can serve as an indicator for what strategy to use, something similar happens with the available abilities and what elements to buy.

In this edition, we will make an incipient analysis about one of the factors of the economy in VALORANT and what factors to take into account to develop a plan around it. To understand the economy we must first understand how we receive Creds (monetary unit of VALORANT) within the game.

The Creds

Each player starts with 800 Creds with the following buy menu including all the weapons and abilities each Agent can buy.

With just 800 Creds the first round is a sidearm battle with the possibility of light armor or abilities.

Depending on the result of the round we will get the following Creds:

• Winning round: 3000 Creds
• Losing round: 1900 Creds
• Losing two consecutive rounds: 2400 Creds
• Losing three consecutive rounds or more: 2900 Creds

The outcome of each round is the main factor of your economy and will determine your strategy as the game goes by. Other elements that end up complementing the Creds we receive per round:

• Kill: 200 Creds
• Plant the Spike: 300 Creds each player
• Defuse the Spike: 0 Creds
• Losing the round for time out always gives us Creds no matter which side we play

Referring only to the Creds: The difference between winning and losing is not that big. In the losing streak, there are only 100 Creds of difference; I insist, talking about won Creds, in general economic terms the difference is going to be bigger taking into account who survives and the weapons they keep. It is also important to note that heavy armor costs 1000 per round to maintain (since heavy armor works as effective health if we lose some shield in a round we will most likely want it back).

This can be an indicator of fewer ECO rounds (an ECO round is where you avoid buying for the next round by buying better weapons or abilities). You can start thinking about some strategies with these numbers. For example, if the first round leaves you with 100 Creds in your reserve, it is very likely that you will have a second round with SMGS and Heavy Armor (2000 Creds allow you to buy Heavy Shields + Stinger) leaving you in a not-so-unfavorable situation in front of the winning team who will not have Creds to buy Rifles + Heavy Shields.

The other variable that is going to be important in the economy are the abilities and ultimates. An important fact about abilities and ultimates is that unless you use them they will still be available even after dying in a particular round.

**The abilities and ultimates **

You can think about the ECO rounds (or buying a little) but with the ability purchase, you can look for an opening over the enemy team and if you get a numerical advantage over them or a positioning advantage, invest in the round using the abilities.

If you don't get that opening, the abilities remain available for the next round. You have to take into account, the skills that all characters have at the beginning of each round, their Signature ability, this is an incentive to try something every round.

Finally, there are the ultimates. Ultimates have a different economy. You can't buy them, the amount of charges needed to use them is between 5 and 7 points and the points are recharged in various ways:

• Getting a Kill
• Being killed
• Planting the Spike
• Defusing the Spike
• Ultimate orbs that are in different places on the map.

Getting a kill and being killed is a way to keep the charge of ultimates balanced (at least on a net basis). For every point a team gets, the opposing team gets one point of ultimate charge. The big difference is that the team that is making the casualties can concentrate those loads on a single agent allowing them to use their ultimate earlier.

Planting and defusing the spike tries to follow a similar logic, but this mechanic slightly benefits the attackers, who have the possibility to plant the spike after winning the round (even being fast enough the spike can change hands to benefit the ultimate charge of a particular agent). Defusing the spike tries to balance this mechanic a bit, but in this case defusing the spike only balances the advantage situation in which the attackers were placed.

Finally, the ultimate orbs that are found to be collected on the map, is the most dangerous way to get ultimate points and can not be done if the round is finished (the orb disappears instantly when there is a winner).

The economy of skills and ultimates will be the most complicated to adapt to that of games like Counter-Strike. VALORANT is in an early and at a discovery stage, many of these things can change, but the macro and micro mechanics cannot be left out when performing this type of analysis.

VALORANT is a team game and our Creds are a resource that can be optimized if we share it. Thinking about purchasing as a team, helping a partner who needs a weapon and synchronizing when the team buys; can give us the edge we need to win. With this in mind there are some interesting numbers to keep in mind when we are shopping:

• 3900 Creds: That's the minimum amount we need for a Vandar or Phantom with Heavy Armor. The cost of the abilities varies depending on the agent (The range of Creds needed is between 400 and 800 Creds).
• 5500 Creds: Heavy Armor Operator, if we want all the abilities this can go from 5900 for agents like Omen or Viper to 6400 Creds for others, like Jett.

These numbers are important to take into account when planning an ECO (we must take advantage that when we are buying it warns us about the minimum amount for the next round).

With that in mind we can see when to invest in the current round and not be left with a bad economy for the next round.