Ever since Riot Games launched the closed beta of VALORANT, players have been constantly complaining about how overpowered the operator feels in this game.
Furthermore, professional VALORANT players like 100T Hiko shared his frustrations as in high-level competition pro players are literally double or triple stacking the gun. The general consensus among most VALORANT players is that pro players are literally abusing the gun at the moment.
Even Shroud thinks the operator is being a little bit too effective in the game. As there are still not enough utilities in the game to counter an operator more effectively, most players still think that the operator is just OP. Shroud even suggested some possible fixes to this problem by either introducing new agents with more flash/stun abilities or increasing the price of the gun.
Riot Games think the operator isn’t OP:
In a recent question and answer session in Riot’s official blog, Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith, the Game Designer of VALORANT explained that the operator isn’t “too OP”. According to Nickwu, the sentiment comes from the lack of tools that would have made countering the gun more efficient.
“We think the Operator isn’t “too OP” but do believe that the feeling sometimes comes from a lack of personal agency against the weapon (for Agents that don’t have tools to break line of sight for themselves), coupled with an overwhelming amount of team coordination to effectively counter an Operator“, Nickwu on why the operator isn’t “too OP” in VALORANT.
As of now, Riot Games still believes the operator isn’t broken. Therefore, they aren’t planning on a nerf any time soon. However, they did explain that Riot actually playtested the Operator with watered-down stats and it just doesn’t work that well.
The Operator—like all weapons, maps, Agents, etc.—is a part of our continuous holistic review of the state of the game, and we’ll make changes in the future if we feel it’s needed. No changes now doesn’t mean no changes ever.
Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith, Game DesignerAdditionally, Nickwu thinks the operator needs to feel powerful and effective as it is one of the more expensive weapons in the inventory and requires a pretty steep skill ceiling. However, just like everything with VALORANT, agents’ abilities and weapons are always being monitored. Just because they don’t have any plans in the near future to address the operator doesn’t mean that they will never change the operator in the future.
