How are VAL Agents Made? - Game Developer Lobby talk with Ryan Cousart of Riot Games VALORANT

Ryan Cousart created Gekko, Neon, Yoru, Kayo and is also working now as a Senior Game Developer - Live Balance team! I am incredibly honored that I stole 2 hours of his time to have this chat with him. Hope you guys will enjoy it!

Ryans socials:
https://x.com/rycoux

👾 You will find me live streaming on 👉 Twitch.tv/LotharHS 👾

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🐥Twitter.com/LotharHS 🐥

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
0:29 Life as a VAL Designer
6:33 Amount of New Content in the Game
8:28 Balance Responsibilites
9:48 Agent Design Trivia
14:26 How much work is in a REWORK?
18:28 Does Community influences Balance changes?
26:09 State of Chamber at Release
29:40 Neons Power level and Other Agents
32:40 Neons Movement Changes
35:07 Agents Accesibility and Yoru lol
36:50 Ryans Favorite Agent
37:39 Harbor
39:46 Color Blue and Magic The Gathering
42:54 Why is Ranked and Pro disconnected from each other?
50:00 What happens when an agent is too strong?
53:04 Raze Talk
54:10 Are some agents only for Ranked?
57:13 Reyna Rework
59:17 Playstyle of different Players
1:01:40 Tejo Power Level and overall impressions
1:07:15 Map design affects Agent Design?
1:11:27 Is Viper gonna get buffed?
1:12:40 Future of Balance
1:13:40 Stun Changes
1:18:00 How Important is Lore when designing Agents?
1:22:40 Ryans words to the Community