Many have compared Valorant to games like Overwatch and while the tactical team shooter genre seemed crowded the game has managed to carve out its niche. Players have largely enjoyed the emerging team shooter and this is partly due to the reliable servers that have given fans a consistent experience. However, there is a way that players can exploit servers to give themselves an advantage.
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The ’ Network Buffering’ setting in Valorant is intended to help players who are experiencing network delays, however, it can give them an unfair advantage. The setting lowers how many files are uploaded to the server and as a result players can appear to be stuttering on opponents’ screens while experiencing smooth animations. YouTuber Battle(non)sense investigated the setting and found this issue, they went on to explain, “When they change the setting, it causes their player model to stutter on my client. This setting doesn’t affect the animation smoothness of how they see other players, but how smooth their player model moves for everyone else.” Many players can imagine how difficult it is to hit a stuttering target and how it may negatively impact the game.
The YouTuber summarized “When you choose the Moderate or Maximum Network Buffering setting, then it decreases how frequently your client sends data to the server. Fewer updates sent means your player model stutters for other players, and you have more network delay.” With that said, the technique does not seem to be without its flaws and may not give players easy wins.
It seems that this stuttering issue is not currently impacting the game and players may not have to worry about this ruining their experience. However, many will hope that one of Valorant’s frequent updates will address this problem before it is manipulated by other players. If the game does begin having players stutter their way to victory many will expect it to be fixed properly and this video allows the team to address the stutter before it is a wide-spread problem.
This is a unique issue and one that is not normally found in most online games as they usually cause the stutter to happen on the side of the player who is experiencing latency. It will be interesting to see how Riot Games address this problem, and whether updates will change Valorant or build on the existing issue while safeguarding it from cheating.
Valorant is available now on PC.
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