Valorant developer details changes coming to the Operator

In a recent edition of Ask Valorant, Riot Games revealed that it was looking into ways to “smooth out” the Operator experience. Many players feel that the gun is too powerful and, in the right hands, can win a game. That makes all of the other elements of the game feel less important, which is bad. Very bad. Also, it appears that Riot has finished smoothing, because Valorant game designer Nicholas ‘Nickwu’ Smith revealed the upcoming changes to the Operator in an interview with Lucas ‘Mendo’ Håkansson of Team Liquid.

The interview is an hour and 15 minutes long and full of interesting insights about Valorant. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, here are the changes to the Operator that Smith revealed.

Valorant Operator changes

The first change is the price. The Operator will cost 5,000 Creds, up from 4,500. That’s a significant price increase. Players will need to be very confident that they can get value out of the gun before losing it to the enemy team. The price increase also means that there will be more rounds where players simply won’t have enough cash to purchase the gun.

Gameplay wise, scope movement speed has been reduced from 76% to 72%. Plus, the scope dead zone has been upped from 30% to 50%. So, you will become less accurate sooner after moving. You will also be inaccurate for slightly longer after landing from a jump or fall. To compensate for all the nerfs, the Operator does receive one buff. Its fire rate has been increased from 0.75 to 0.6. However, its equip time has been nerfed from 0.3 to 0.5 seconds.

The final nerf to the Operator is a massive one. The damage the weapon will do to legs has been decreased from 127 to 120. While seven points of damage doesn’t seem like a lot, the difference is that now a player with full health and light armor can survive a leg shot from an Operator. That’s a big deal.

The Valorant team was reluctant to make hasty changes to the Operator. However, Smith said that players have become too proficient with the gun on attack, leaving players with very few ways to counter it. He acknowledged that it was frustrating to play against, which isn’t good for the game. So, you can expect to see the Operator changes in the next patch.