A VALORANT developer explained today how a glitch prevented Raze’s rocket from damaging a player and how Riot Games resolves these issues.
C9 meL, a player for the Cloud9 White VALORANT team, uploaded a short clip showing how Raze’s ultimate ability failed to damage a player in the match. Typically a direct hit like this instantly kills players, but a bug prevented any damage.
VALORANT developer Riot Nu responded to the tweet and explained how the team approaches these issues and what caused the bug to occur. Riot Nu started by detailing how explosions in VALORANT are approximations of the real world and that VALORANT does not simulate the physics of an actual explosion.
Explosions in VALORANT have an inner and outer radius designers fine-tune. Players within the inner radius are at the center of the explosion and take full damage. Those in the outside radius take diminishing damage based on how far they are from the center of the blast.
The game sweeps the outer radius for any players and ignores those outside of the outer radius. The game also checks for visibility from the center of the explosion because explosions don’t cause damage through walls, and players not within a direct sightline will not take damage.
The player takes damage If the visibility check finds an obstructed path to them. This method usually works, but sometimes the visibility check will fail if the explosion occurs in tight areas. The explosion in the original clip occurred beneath the pallets, and Riot Nu highlighted a failed visibility check in a screenshot.
The bug can be fixed by changing the collision settings on the object or by adjusting the “logic driving the visibility checks to better handle small spaces.”
This explanation serves as an insight into how Riot approaches bugs and how there are often multiple variables causing issues. The bug is also on Riot’s radar, which means it will likely be addressed soon.
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