12 agents may only fill the Valorant roster as of the moment, but Riot has plenty of plans in store when it comes to growing that list.
Devs think of the big picture as they hope to introduce dozens of new agents for the next few years— before they hit the ideal number of agents on their roster.
Limited choices
Given Valorant was only released back in June, the hyped Riot 5v5 tactical shooter doesn’t offer players that much variety at the moment.
With only 12 agents to choose from and work with, the number of possible team compositions is only limited.
In the competitive scene, it’s even much more restricted as agents like Cypher and Omen are currently meta picks.
The good news is— it won’t go on like this for long. Riot already confirmed in a previous statement that they are planning to introduce at least six agents in a year, with one new agent at every act.
They’ve been keeping up with their plans so far, with Reyna and Killjoy’s addition to the game. In about a month, a third new agent will make their way in the Riot title!
Continued pace
In their journey to fill the Valorant roster out, Riot devs say they are planning to continue the pace as long as the game is up and running.
However, there will come a time where they’ll be slowing down. Devs believe the perfect number of Valorant agents would be around the 50-60 mark.
Developer ‘Pwyff’ said on Reddit:
“The perfect agent roster balance…honestly I think we’ll start to understand how flexible the agent roster is as we inject more in, so I don’t think we can say ‘100 is crazy’ or ‘100 is great.’ Personally I think ~50-60 feels about right — let’s say 5 per role.”
At 6 agents per year, Riot might estimatedly take six to eight years before they hit the mark of having 50-60 agents in their roster.
Fans have compared the pacing of Valorant to League of Legends, where over 150 champions have been developed so far.
However, it seems like Valorant devs aren’t modelling their agent pacing system on LoL but on another MOBA title— Dota 2.
The two MOBA titles contrast in the way they add heroes and champions, and the devs prefer Dota 2’s hero system flexibility as a model for the FPS title.
“Dota 2 is a great example to me, because each unit is unique, but drafting at the highest levels is about building the right toolbox (or so I think from my armchair),”
“If you have a good, winning strategy, you can draft the S-tier hero for that strategy, but if it’s banned, you start picking up the A and B-tier heroes who, when put together, can still do that function. If Valorant is more like that, I can see it supporting a much larger ecosystem of agents.”
Bottomline, adding more agents to the game will definitely add more strategic depth to Valorant— both in casual plays and competitive ones.
