Taking damage before a round begins is the worst way to start, and VALORANT players just don’t see the point in it being a feature.
In particular, unlucky VALORANT players caught mucking around can actually take damage from falling from a particular height before the round starts, leaving bruised gamers at an immediate disadvantage.
Almost as one, the community has decided players should be “undamageable” before the round begins in a lengthy Reddit discussion on March 26, and not many fans of the hero shooter seemed to disagree. So many have joined in one voice, in fact, that players are now expecting Riot Games to listen and make some changes.
On the March 27 Reddit post, users agreed the feature made little to no sense and was more damaging than helpful. While it may not be a necessary change, it seems the majority of the community would welcome it with open arms.
Players recounted horror stories where they’d “hopped mindlessly to B site on Split and broke my ankles jumping off heaven.” One VALORANT fan pointed out players can “die before (sic) round starts on Split” by jumping off heaven multiple times. Most users agreed their “ankles would appreciate it” if Riot tweaked the feature.
Others, however, believed it’s part of the game for a reason. The feature encourages precise movement and punishes players for making mistakes, which is what happens constantly throughout the game. Losing health before the round starts teaches new players “tread carefully with jumping,” and the “fall damage is entirely on you.” Another player bluntly called the hypothetical change “babyproofed.”
This feature has been a part of VALORANT since the beginning, and only recently has it become the talk of the community. The most recent VALORANT patch saw upgrades to performance, UI, audio, and a whole new character to shake up the meta, it’s not difficult to believe that removing fall damage could be an easy change.
If Gekko can change bomb-planting forever, the Riot devs can likely change this. You never know, we may see it in the next patch—but we wouldn’t hold our breath.
