Lessons from other games – part 2 (exploring Valorant)

I had a post about COD Mobile earlier, and now I've started playing Valorant along with my friends. Here are my thoughts and observations about the gaming experience compared to Dota:

1) Its kinda p2w but not entirely. Unlike Dota, not all characters are unlocked by default and you can either pay exorbitant prices to play them or you can grind those characters. Dota is so much better in this aspect since we have access to all 120+ heroes from day 1. Meanwhile in Valo, new players have access to 8 characters of the 20 available

2) Skins are kinda p2w because of their sound/sights although I'm not good enough at the game to comment on this. More experienced players say that the skins, which are really expensive, make a difference. You get almost no free skins in this game.

3) There is no replay system. You can't even spec your friends. Something we take for granted in dota is dotaTV and this feature simply doesn't exist in valo. Sometimes I don't want to play and I simply want to spec other people. This isn't possible without third parties like twitch or discord.

4) Rampant smurfing: I thought dota was bad – somehow valo is even worse cos creating new accounts is so easy.

5) Chill vibe and games: Whether its unranked or ranked gaming, most games have very little toxicity. The player base is also really kind towards new players. I am almost always the worst player in the team and I never get any shit. Well almost. But compared to Dota, its nothing.

6) Matchmaking takes seconds. You find games in an instant. There's no waiting. You don't have to wait for people to accept games. The difference between dota and valo matchmaking is quite noticeable.

I got into it cos I went to a cafe and they didn't have dota on the machines so we ended up playing Valo. Its been pretty nice actually and a welcome change from the mental fatigue of dota although I find myself going back to dota from time to time, mostly cos I suck at Valo. Although cafes not carrying dota is a pretty worrying sign for the future of the game since that means that new people aren't playing it.