Hey there OP.
I'm aeneia. I'm the researcher who worked on the pricing strategy for VALORANT (of course working closely with other folks, like our Rev Strat Guru SWAGGERNAU7).
I wanted to say thank you for this. A LOT of work went into determining our pricing strategy. And not just a few devs in conference rooms: we ran labs, surveys...made massive adjustments and tweaks...then more surveys, then more tweaks...all to create what you see in the store today.
Being honest, when I first joined the team and heard about our intentions for pricing, I wasn't convinced. I played League of Legends for 8 years and spent $20 that entire time for skins. I'm not a whale, not even close. But once I talked to our players...once I understood how all of our systems work together (Battle Passes, Character Contracts, Bundles, and more things we haven't announced yet!)...it made sense to me. And I've actually come to a place that I feel good about what we've put out there.
I'm working today, so I can't spend all day answering replies, but I am happy to check in and answer whatever questions I'm able to :)

Yolo_Quant

Yep. All my friends got it, it just how it is. Riot did the research and they know what they doing.

Personally I went in and got it because IMO riot deserves. They gave me an awesome game with quality servers and decent anti cheat. Not adding the fact that they are listening to the community.

We're trying our best to deserve your support fam :)

Hanzai-Jikanda

I mean in league of legends, Riot added a feature that basically gives you free skins without paying anything if you play the game. Valorant is still super new, don't expect free skins/ cheap skins this early, they still need to make up for their losses since this is a free game, all that marketing and all the employees working don't come cheap. I'd bet that we will get a system that gives free rewards/skins if you keep playing the game, just like league.

Hey fam! Just a reminder that you do get free cosmetics :) Through the character contracts and free battle pass, you get gun skins, calling cards, gun buddies, sprays, titles, etc. Don't forget to equip those when you get them lol!

Martyks

At least dont force people to spend more than they need for items if they want to support you, you pretty much always need to buy multiple packs because the prices are set in such scummy way.

Do you mean of the VP? Like buying VP bundles? Across all the different content we offer, it would be extremely difficult for us to make sure that there's always a VP bundle that captures exactly the amount players need. And I don't just mean as a game: purchasing in-game currency is done in collaboration with a central Riot team that handles it for League, Legends of Runeterra, and VALORANT. When we've chatted with players about this, we've learned that it's frustrating for a first purchase, but the frustration usually goes away pretty quickly, because it's very, VERY rare that players only buy cosmetics once in their entire lifecycle. It almost always gets put towards a later purchase. Please know, though, that this is something on our radar. We're keeping tabs on how players feel about this, and if we have good reason to prioritize this issue over other issues, we'll do that :) I hope this makes sense!

Greenzombie04

I want to support you buy buying the battle pass but cant figure out how. I like to think I'm tech savvy too.

Oh dude, yeah. This is a problem I'm trying to address right now. Thanks for asking! On the top left corner, you'll see two little wheels. The one on the right is the Battle Pass. Click it. On the bottom right of that screen, you'll see a prompt to buy "PREMIUM" for 1000 VP. That's the premium battle pass. Right now it just looks like you're buying the next checkpoint in the Battle Pass and that's DEFINITELY not what it is lol. Like I said...I'm trying to work with the team to fix that like right now lol.

Hanzai-Jikanda

Oh cool, thanks! Love you guys ♥

We love you too fam ♥

DeathlyMeme

Honestly this is the reason why I have nothing to say in this thread, because it's a perfect system. Have money to spare? knock yourself out buying stuff. If you don't? you get free stuff anyways. win-win

I don't know if it's PERFECT...but we're trying! I appreciate your mentality on this :) Thanks fam!

a_mental_misstep

Fix the battle pass, it's insane.

I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that lol.

a_mental_misstep

The hours needed to complete it in time https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/gvxylc/the_battle_pass_xp_per_level_is_somewhat_absurd_w/ this post explains it pretty well

I'll need to review that to make sure it's accurate, but either way, I can tell you this: When we make tuning adjustments to the Battle Passes, we take lots of things into consideration. Here are a few:

• HOW MANY PLAYERS ARE BUYING THE PAID PASS? If that's lower than we want, then it means players probably don't think it's "worth" it, and that's a problem. It could be that the rewards aren't desirable, the pass requires too many games, lots of things.

• HOW MANY PLAYERS ARE 100%ING THE PASS? For every BP game I can think of, Battle Passes are created with a specific distribution in mind. The final tiers of the Battle Pass are supposed to represent something meaningful. "A top percentage of players earned this." It loses its value if it's too easy to get. So, we want completing the Battle Pass to be a commitment, but not impossible. It's why we grant so many rewards to players along the way: so those who couldn't finish it can still walk away with some cool shit.

• FINALLY, HOW DO PLAYERS FEEL ABOUT THE PASS? If the right number of players are buying and completing the pass, but they're f*cking furious with us about it, that's definitely not okay.

So, if we do decide to retune the XP on the battle pass, it will be after we collect all that information, and that will take some time. We want to make an informed decision on this, not just something quick and reactive. I'm actually releasing a survey in the very near future asking about player feels on the XP tunings! So it's something we're keeping an eye on, and we're prepared to make changes if we see sufficient evidence to do so. I hope this helps :)

EDITS: Formatting, spelling, and a weird word choice lol

a_mental_misstep

Thanks for the reply, I disagree with some of your points but thanks for voicing them.

I think it's important to note, too, that I'm just ONE person on a whole team that deals with this stuff. This is just one part of the perspective that gets brought to the table. These were a few easy-to-communicate ones that came to mind. (I've found that our players want to understand some of the thoughts that go into our decisions, even if we can't explain the whole thing.)

I would love to hear what parts of these points didn't land with you, if you don't mind sharing them. It's just more info for me ;)

ConfirmingBanana

Sounds reasonable:)

And pardon for asking, but does it say anywhere how long this first pass will last? Couldn't seem to find where/when it is due

I...should know the answer to this lol. Let me go look!

ConfirmingBanana

Sounds reasonable:)

And pardon for asking, but does it say anywhere how long this first pass will last? Couldn't seem to find where/when it is due

...I don't see it in the client either.
I'mma go talk to the team about this lol. Great catch! Thank you for pointing it out :)

Sirvulcan12

Top players?

Top players are the ones who buy the giant bundles, why would the top ends of the battle pass not be doable in 10 hours a week? That seems insane.

Do you mean that players who spend the most money are the same players who play the most games? That's not necessarily the case. Lots of players are die hard grind-only. (When I said "top players," I meant those who play the most games.) And I'm not sure off the top of my head how many hours exactly are required to complete the battle pass, so I can't confirm or deny that. I'm sorry I don't have that answer for you :(

Sirvulcan12

Top players?

Top players are the ones who buy the giant bundles, why would the top ends of the battle pass not be doable in 10 hours a week? That seems insane.

OH! I found this on the other Battle Pass thread! From SWAGGERNAU7, one of our Devs: "TLDR: The battlepass will take ~100 hours to complete.

Weekly XP's also scale up in every week to smooth out the experience curves. Just to give you an idea, the first set of weeklies offer 28,350 total XP and the last set of weeklies offer 60,750 total XP. This will help make sure that you're still able to progress through levels at a healthy clip towards the tail end of a battle pass (rather than just stalling out at the later levels)."

Hope this helps :)

a_mental_misstep

The hours needed to complete it in time https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/gvxylc/the_battle_pass_xp_per_level_is_somewhat_absurd_w/ this post explains it pretty well

OH! I found this on that thread! From SWAGGERNAU7, one of our Devs:

TLDR: The battlepass will take ~100 hours to complete.

Weekly XP's also scale up in every week to smooth out the experience curves. Just to give you an idea, the first set of weeklies offer 28,350 total XP and the last set of weeklies offer 60,750 total XP. This will help make sure that you're still able to progress through levels at a healthy clip towards the tail end of a battle pass (rather than just stalling out at the later levels).

Hope this helps :)

(You can see the OP will be correcting the math in a bit)

Rooslin

I don't mind the battle pass model, I just hate that the time needed for the top rewards are calculated as if the player who paid for the battle pass is only playing their game. I play other games, I watch shows, I do other things in my life, the top rewards shouldn't be as exclusive as most games have been making them.

Also I find the current grind for the top rewards tactic is a pretty double edged sword. I end up getting season 1 battle pass (apex, Modern warfare) then I grind the game trying to complete the battle pass and just end up burning out on the game.

The idea of using the battle pass for player retention is not bad but the only dev that I've seen do it well is Valve with CSGO. Weekly missions and you could complete them at you're own pace. Ultimately CSGO's rewards were pretty weak, barring the agents, but overall a much friendlier system then grind atleast 2 hours a day for the next two months.

That's all totally fair, and I get that. I love gaming. I work on this game. But I have a lot of other things I love and want to spend my time doing. And it kinda sucks a bit that my love for the game doesn't substitute time (or money) spent. AFAIK, the weeklies actually roll over, allowing players who have a more binge playstyle to get the same XP gain as players who have a more steady style. You should check out the thread posting in the subreddit about ,athing the battle pass. Riot Milkcow posted something about the XP gain and rollover!

DeejeGT

I don't know if this has already been addressed but I've earned some skins off the battle pass and they just never unlocked for me, also the weekly objectives are bugged, the play a game objective has been fluctuating seemingly randomly, after playing six games the counter was at 4 and I play one more and it's at 1 and so on

Yes! We are considering this an active, critical bug. The team is working on it as I type this :) I'm sorry you're being deprived of your hard-earned content, but we'll get it fixed!

Sirvulcan12

Actually it does a lot, that's a much lower number than I had seen previously.

I'd still love to see events and various other things to possibly lower that number but iirc 160 hours was the lowest estimate I had seen.

Glad I could point you in the right direction :) I'm the researcher who works with this stuff, and I'm actively working on a survey that will be looking at player feels on the Battle Pass. So if you get the survey, be sure to take it!

Murky__

Any news on the blocked battlepass items bug? Should I contact support or wait?

The team is still working feverishly on it >< We know about it, and we'll be able to identify the impacted accounts without you needing to submit support tickets. So no need to submit one!

bobbob9015

Would you guys ever consider selling a contract that doesn't expire that you could slot into your agent contract slot? You could even have them randomized and offered in the store to entice people to grab a good one when it's in the store for them. Like $10 for a 5 reward contract that takes a similar amount of time to unlock an agent. I just want to be working towards something that I can actually complete and feel like I'm getting more for my money. (And I honestly feel like battle passes end up being a bit of a whale trap/manipulative with tier skips)

I'm not sure! But unfortunately, it's not as simple as just slotting another contract in. A lot of dev time goes into building stuff like that, and we'd have to prioritize it against the bajillion other things we're asking our engineers to do. I think it's a super cool idea, though!

Sirvulcan12

That's awesome!

I look forward to the results even if the majority don't feel similar feelings to myself.

:) fistbump!

bobbob9015

I totally understand, just thinking of a monetization option I'd enjoy that seems consistent with the user experience language of the game. i.e. slotting contracts.

Totally! Like I said, I think the idea is brilliant! I just wish we could snap our fingers and implement these kinds of ideas lol

Snonin

Idk if you'll read this, but I got up to go to the bathroom after a game and my 3 y.o. son bought the battlepass with coins I had already purchased. my state reopens on Friday and there's no way I'll 100% it now that I'm going back to work

I don't want my money back or anything to be clear, I'm just saying that you should subtract 1 person from your "battlepasses sold" count LOL. I just wasn't in intending on actually spending the coins on it unless I had gotten some considerable progress before it ends in two months. now I guess I have to

LOL! We'll keep that in mind ;) I hope you get cool stuff from it!!

961136959319

If I wasn't on reddit, I wouldn't even know this game had a battlepass. Even after reading this thread, it took a minute pressing everything in the main menu before I found it. If not enough people are buying the pass, this could be a contributor. I appreciate that the menus in this game are clean and not full of advertisement, but the battle pass could use some love.

Oh absolutely. I'm actively working on this right now lol. Thanks for bumping it!

3nderThe3rd

I would have to disagree with the top tier item being something meaningful that only the top percentage will get. Had I known that was the goal I probably wouldn’t have purchased it.

I believe if we’re paying cash for a battle pass, it’s reasonable to expect that you can comfortably get it in the given time. 20 hours of gameplay a week seems like a rediculous commitment to have to make AFTER investing cash into the pass.

I mentioned this in a previous response, but I’ve paid for battle passes in other games and the first time I can’t complete the pass, I lose interest in all future passes. If I can reasonably acquire all the content I paid for then it’s a waste of money. Maybe Ive just been very fortunate in the games that I’ve played with battlepasses and I’m spoiled to expect that I can acquire content I’ve paid for.

I think that makes sense...if you've got the completionist mindset, it can be super frustrating to feel like the final tier is out of reach. But it definitely shouldn't be 20 hours a week! It should be much closer to 10. (~100 hours over ~2 months, according to SWAGGERNAU7 and Milkcow). I'm curious...does the Battle Pass only feel worth it if you're able to complete it?

kuroi_kaze_

Could you share some insight on including Radianite points in free part of the Pass? As Radianite points are "useless" for both free players (they have no up-gradable skins) and paid pass users (none of Paid pass skins can be upgraded, right?) and for those who bought some simple skins from the shop, as they also aren't up-gradable. So, only people benefiting from Radianite points are those who already bought Bundle and, probably, bought a Pass, yet half of the Free Pass rewards are Radianite points. Is there any other use planed for them in the future for ftp and non-premium skin users? Right now it doesn't seem like a thought out decision.

Hey there! I can't speak to any concrete plans we have (or haven't) made, but I can say for sure that we're aware of this, and we're working on an alternative for our non-evolving-skin players :). There's a long list of things we want to change and polish, but if we ever wanted to get our game out the door, we couldn't have addressed all those things before launch. This BP Radianite issue is one of them. The good news is, our game is live, meaning we aren't stuck with all these issues! And this is up there on our list of things we want to :) Thanks for asking!

3nderThe3rd

I would have to disagree with the top tier item being something meaningful that only the top percentage will get. Had I known that was the goal I probably wouldn’t have purchased it.

I believe if we’re paying cash for a battle pass, it’s reasonable to expect that you can comfortably get it in the given time. 20 hours of gameplay a week seems like a rediculous commitment to have to make AFTER investing cash into the pass.

I mentioned this in a previous response, but I’ve paid for battle passes in other games and the first time I can’t complete the pass, I lose interest in all future passes. If I can reasonably acquire all the content I paid for then it’s a waste of money. Maybe Ive just been very fortunate in the games that I’ve played with battlepasses and I’m spoiled to expect that I can acquire content I’ve paid for.

Thanks for sharing your feels on this. I added an edit to help clarify for other players: I should be clear here: When I say a "top percentage of players," I don't mean some crazy high, 98th percentile thing. If we find that NOT ENOUGH folks are completing it, that's a problem, too! Also, it definitely shouldn't be 20 hours a week! PLaying shouldn't be your part time job lol. AFAIK, it should be much closer to 10. I hope this helps :)

Le_Vagabond

just so you know, not being upfront about that is a problem.

at 10€ for a battlepass that doesn't give back points to buy the next one, I expect to be able to complete it within my normal playtime which means 2-3 matches a day with some days/weeks off. it works on most battlepass games, like Destiny.

when I read "only top players are meant to get the last rewards", to me it reads "your 10€ will only be worth this much and you'll have to choose if you want to be a sucker for 3€ per level" because I can't magically make time appear while working all day, and Valorant isn't the only game I'd like to play if only to not burn out.

when I see the math on Reddit exceeding what I could put in in any realistic scenario, my first and only reaction is to ask for a refund and never buy it again.

Thanks for sharing your feels on this. I added an edit to help clarify for other players:

I should be clear here: When I say a "top percentage of players," I don't mean some crazy high, 98th percentile thing. If we find that NOT ENOUGH folks are completing it, that's a problem, too!

We definitely expect that some folks won't complete it, but that's super normal. Not everyone buys the pass with the intention of completing it. They just think, "If I play the amount I normally play, I'll get back enough stuff to make it worth the $10 I spent on it." I'm one of those people lol. So when I say "top %," it includes those folks too. I hope that makes sense!

DON-ILYA

What about those who play pugs/scrims? Unfortunately, custom games give no experience. To avoid people idling for rewards there can be a simple list of requirements: cheats off, minimum duration of a match - X (e.g., 20) minutes etc.

Oh! Being clearer on the XP requirements is a really good idea. I'll chat with my team and see if we can make that available somewhere (if it isn't already). Thanks for the heads up!

goDie61

Speaking of answers we should know, we should probably be able to see xp requirements of future tiers of contracts and the bp. Would have dodged a lot of controversy.

This is a great point - I think general clarity is a pain point for a lot of folks right now :(

fredripper2727

I'll play like 25h a month ish. How long does the battle pass last or does it last forever. I need to know this cause I dont know if I'll be able to get to lvl 9 (my goal for the vandal dot exe skin)

Unfortunately, I'm not totally sure if you'll be able to get it. It depends on mission completions and things like that. Sorry I can't be of more help :(

gabitoe

I have a question. Will the bp rewards be on the shop for money in the future? Its not clear atleast for me

I'm not sure about that!

3nderThe3rd

Thanks for responding. Seeing devs actively engaging with the community is awesome!

<3 you engage with us every day. It's the least we can do.

DON-ILYA

If you are talking about showing players what they get in terms of XP beforehand - yeah, it's a good idea, but I wasn't even thinking about it.

My suggestion is to give at least some XP for custom matches. So that players, who focus on tournaments/pugs/scrims (thus spend most of their time playing custom games), have a chance to earn rewards too. XP might come at slower rates and there should probably be some requirements like a minimum length of a match (so that people don't use customs to farm rewards), but it's still better than nothing.

Oh! This reminds me to add a question in my survey about player satisfaction with HOW they acquire XP (not just the rate of it). Thank you so much for the thoughtful addition!