“Every time I pick up the ‘Elderflame’ skin set, it distracts me. Every time. I kind of like dragons, so, serotonin is easy on that,” one of our respondents was asked and whether thought skins help you win the game. “Then I’d be overly skin-focused, miss every shot, spend a round and sometimes even a match.”
“All dragon skins are bad. Remove them from the game” said another. Well, that’s a pretty bold start for us trying to answer Valorant’s question of “are skins a win?”
Valorant is a tactical shooter that pits five attackers against five defenders, with similarities to games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Rainbow Six Siege. As each team attempts to lock down or retake a site, players must combine skill, communication, and their character abilities to ensure victory. Whether or not the power of friendship is on your side, arguably the most important aspect of Valorant is strategizing with your team.
This may be easy for some players, but for others, Valorant becomes an endless loop of waking up and leaning into bed with a winner’s mindset. I’m not leaning because I’ve lost three games in a row. I tend to spend a lot of money on RGX 11z Pro skins for my spoilers, only to find it’s more detrimental to my gameplay than providing me with many of Valorant’s “targeting bot” players claiming these skins will instill in you.
As a free-to-play game, Valorant needs to monetize itself in some way. Riot Games does this by regularly rolling out weapon skins and battle passes. There’s no market like CS:GO: if you buy a skin, you’ll have it for life. Buying is also stressful, as you can’t scroll through all the available skins and choose. Instead, Valorant has a storefront that rotates four random weapon skins unique to each player every day, and every two weeks with new skin packs that are the same for every player.
Occasionally (about once every two months or so), Valorant also hosts a Night Market: an event that gives each player six random discounted skins to peruse. That’s how I ended up with an Origin operator skin that I hated – I couldn’t stop checking if it had a satisfying spin animation.
Now, what comes to mind when I mention winning games? And, what if I say Valorant is winning? Pay-to-win means that players who buy Valorant skins (the only items in the game other than the agents themselves that can “affect” the actual gameplay) pay for their fancy cosmetics out of their own pockets so that they can earn more than their opponents won with standard weapons. More victories. After all, the skin wins, right?
Well, Valorant is not about winning. Any of the developers behind Riot Games cosmetics will probably tell you (I’m not sure they can say the same about League of Legends, though). While the weapon is loud and flashy, with interesting check animations, the weapon itself is basically the same for all players, no matter what it looks like. When I reached out to Riot Games to ask its opinion on the topic, a spokesperson kindly shared, “Even with all the different customizations we do in Valorant, we make sure everything — especially weapon skins — is Neither are designed to interfere with gameplay. While the characteristics of customizing weapons through skins (models, animations, visuals, audio) may change, these characteristics are not intended to provide players with a positive or negative advantage. If we find Any skin that does cross that line, know it’s accidental and we’ll adjust.” I don’t want to say I told you, but, I told you.
A Riot spokesperson continued: “Also, it’s important to note that other players will only see model changes to your skin. All other changes from the new reload/equip animations to visuals and sounds will only apply to yours Personal play experience without affecting other players (i.e. spoilers with different skins always sound like spoilers to enemies).” Simply put, no skins change your targeting, damage output or recoil, only You can see the FX your weapon skin has.
However, many — even esports legend, Michael ‘Shroud’ Grzesiek — raised their hands to joke about Valorant’s coolest skin, saying they had the potential to win.
While it’s fair to say that the “skin wins” mentality is just that, there’s no denying that skins can be a positive psychological stimulus for players in certain situations. In a tactical shooter like Valorant, I’m a firm believer that your mindset at the time of the game is as important as your skills; that means positive mental stimulation can make the difference between winning and losing, right?
https://clips.twitch.tv/AstutePrettestTriangleBIRB-VXPDWy2PyuZj45KQ
Although the objective position is that Valorant skins are not winning money, there are still many players around the world who believe that skins affect gameplay, and this does not necessarily apply to Valorant. There are plenty of silly reasons for this – including being “blinded” by shiny skin lying on the floor at a critical moment and dying as a result – but there are also plenty of valid ones.
So I decided to survey a group of Valorant players to see what the community consensus is on pay-to-win skins.
A player named Callum S stated that he logically disagrees with the idea that Valorant skins are pay-to-win. Although, he did admit that he thinks “certain skins may be more distracting from other players” and he’s not alone. Reddit user Axtaze added that cosmetics “are used in sports, shootouts, [or] ability”.
Even more interestingly, Axtaze continued, “My teammates who use the skin always put me at a disadvantage because they switch on the skin every five seconds to show off the skin.” This is all too familiar to me. My friends do it, I do it, I’ve seen professionals do it (though not in tournaments). Sometimes, we really need to spin our RGX Fireflies or show off our Celestial fans, and sometimes, we’ll die from it. Then again, maybe it’s not the skins that we need to blame, but the players. I’ll get my hands on this one, but there’s no denying (for some players, more than others) that certain skins can interfere with their gameplay.
Especially with some skins – such as RGX 11z Pro, Reaver, and Prime – many players insist they give you some kind of “targeting bot”. A lot of times, players say it’s a joke, but some insist it’s helpful. One anonymous player shared that they “experienced the feeling of a skin-equipped ‘targeting bot'”, but it didn’t take long for that feeling to go away. There’s no evidence that this vaguely defined aura of “aiming the robot” actually improves gameplay, but if I were to guess, the positive mental stimulation that comes with using the shiny new skin might have an impact on how you play. Perhaps another anonymous player put it best, saying that any effect the skin does have is nothing more than “just a placebo or selective perception.”
I mean, if you’re spending £90 on a bundle, or even £45 on a melee weapon, then you’re probably going to want to see the benefits, so to speak, even if they’re a placebo effect. But what about those times when those skins might put your team at a disadvantage?
A close friend of mine, and a regular on my team (as long as she can get pulled from CS:GO) is JQ, who shared with me: “Suppose, you can kill a distraction cheaply because they get A skin they’ve never seen before, and they’re more focused on that than actually playing.”
At low levels, this happens quite often. In some cases, the player can even be lured by placing the skin on the ground. JQ continued, “I think some of the weapons I’ve picked up from enemies have been distracting so much that my eyes tend to the skin over the gameplay.” Players seem to spend a lot of time dealing with skins they’re not used to Too much time to think about it instead of where the enemy is. This doesn’t make the skins fundamentally winning, though, it just makes them a little annoying at times – mostly at lower levels and people who aren’t too familiar with the game.
Dan, the CEO of The Goose House, believes that sound is a major factor in the skin, aside from the shooting animation. “I do believe the sound of the weapon firing is the main factor. I think the perfect example is obviously the Prime Vandal. It sounds like it’s firing a laser, and when people think of a laser, they associate it with precision, It might convince them that their shots were more accurate.”
I agree with what Dan said, pointing out that weapon decorations may make players “believe” that they are playing more accurately. This seems to be the theme of most players I’ve interviewed.
Last but not least, Eden, the heroic coach at the Guild Academy, made a very interesting point about skins. “I think certain skins help keep track of your jetting patterns,” Eden said. “You can see the bullet’s tracer has a different color on certain skins to accentuate them more, which can help you differentiate where you are What to do.” Eden then concluded, “It’s the same as changing the color of the crosshairs, other than that, there’s a satisfying or different sound that some people might not like, and the skin doesn’t make much of a difference.”
Good news for everyone involved. No one wants to play a competitive game if they feel their opponent has an advantage in any sense, right? However, I do think it’s important to keep analyzing cosmetic items in video games. While there isn’t a general problem to identify yet, we’ve seen the predatory emergence of loot boxes in video games, and how this type of in-game gambling can take advantage of the most impulsive players, and it’s important that we leave – from any possible Practices that affect the game itself or the player’s progress.
The consensus in the Valorant community seems to be how specific weapons “feel” using VFX and SFX contribute to their gameplay. Skins, on the other hand, can only be a distraction from an ongoing game.
Although, the same players often point out that they know it’s nothing more than pure psychology – most players agree that skins that are purchasable in Valorant won’t give you target bot skills or make you suddenly hack in the game (I Said the most, because some of the people I’ve spoken to must have insisted it’s true).
That being said, skins in Valorant aren’t a win, and while they can affect all players in one way or another, it doesn’t require the attention of the entire community. In my humble opinion, Riot Games has done a great job of letting people show off their unique styles and interests in the game without compromising the gameplay, and we can only hope it continues to do so.
