Andy Ho, Valorant Global Executive Producer: We want to make the best competitive shooter mobile game possible!

Recently, Valorant Mobile officially launched the mobile game trial session, with a large number of guests interacting with the audience to experience the new shooting experience brought by Valorant Mobile Game.

In this demo, we also interviewed Andy Ho, Global Executive Producer of Riot Games Valorant, and Jin Yibo, CEO of Tengjing Sports, Tencent Interactive Entertainment, and Valorant Mobile Game Publisher.

Q: Hello, I have two questions for you, Valorant games have been popular now, what is our positioning for Valorant mobile games this time? What user groups are mobile games expected to anchor?

Jin Yibo: The first question is that the market expectation is that the product will be successful, and we are doing well in the entire terminal game, while Valorant's mobile game is exactly the same IP as the terminal game. Because Valorant IP is so appealing in its own right, we want to be able to expand the IP to a larger audience. You can see that our promotional slogan is "Let's Washou Show", which can be played anytime and anywhere, hoping to make users who like competition happy anytime and anywhere.

Target users, because we are the same IP, if you try to play, you will know that the sense of competition of mobile games is still very strong, I think it is still positioned as a user who likes competition and likes our trendy IP: he may be a terminal game user who has played our game now, and he can also experience it on the mobile terminal. Maybe he hasn't played a terminal game, but he has been in contact with our Valorant, whether it's our IP or e-sports, if you are interested in our IP, you can also try it.

There are also these potential users who like very pure competitive confrontation and competitive experience, and I think there may be many people who have not been exposed to it, especially on the mobile side, and have not been exposed to such a competitive shooting mobile game, so these users are also the target users we hope to target. I hope that the product will be a long-term success.

Q: I would like to ask Andy Ho, what the PC side wants to present is a "refreshing and hardcore" shooting game experience, compared with the refreshing and hardcore of the PC game, what kind of experience does the mobile game want to bring to players? Thank you.

Andy Ho: We all know that the PC game has a very good shooting experience, and we don't just want to do a formal restoration of the mobile game, we want to truly restore the most essential content of the PC game, and truly restore it to the mobile game. There are a few very important points on the PC: including giving all the decision-making power to the player, the player can use their infinite creativity to create very highlight, and we also hope that such moments, when everyone looks at your screen and can feel suffocated, the moment of team glory that cheers for you, can be perfectly displayed.

Now there is a trial of our mobile game outside, if you go to see the game screen or game scene shown in our mobile game, there will be a feeling of numbers, I hope you can feel the same experience as Valorant terminal game, welcome to see more.

Q: I would like to ask Mr. Jin Yibo, at present, mobile games are fast-paced as the mainstream, how does Valorant mobile games expect to develop a social ecological experience in the future, and how to strengthen the social functions of games through product features?

Jin Yibo: We also attach great importance to social networking, and we also attach great importance to terminal games, and it has a more convenient platform on the mobile side. Of course, our company's games, like WeChat, QQ's relationship chain has been opened, we have a tag system and the black team are built into the game, so that our users can find teammates to open black anytime and anywhere. In addition to the game side, there are also some good systems in the terminal game that will continue, including the palm tile, you can find your own tile partner or tile friend club, which is some of the designs in the terminal game, and we will also do it in the future mobile game.

There will also be a lot of offline activities, including today's trial meeting, although it is a bit of a closed invitation, but we also have an open-air stage. From yesterday to today, I also saw a lot of players taking photos with our Coser, which is very lively, and I think that in the future, we will also do these activities together with mobile games, which means that there is a good system inside the terminal and a good tool outside the terminal, and we will usually do various offline activities across the country, so that everyone can find the happiness of social experience anytime and anywhere.

Q: I would like to ask Mr. Jin Yibo, the anti-cheating performance of the terminal game is very good, do you have the confidence to achieve the same excellent anti-cheating environment in the mobile game?

Jin Yibo: If you say that I have confidence, I definitely have it. If you play the terminal game now, you will know that our anti-cheat is very powerful and continuous, you know that we have been investing heavily in security, if you play our entire Tencent game mobile game, you should know that our entire system is very strong for the anti-cheat of mobile games. Therefore, from our mobile game and the entire company system, including the continuous communication with the company's internal security department, they will now give a lot of resources to ensure the game experience of players.

There are probably three more effective means of confrontation. First of all, it is the confrontation of technical means, which has been doing for a long time and increasing investment, and we have always been very agile to follow up the technical confrontation of plug-ins. The second is the ban in the game.,In fact, everyone knows the end game.,The ban on this cheating game account is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.,Of course,I've been receiving a lot of people saying that the ban time is not too much.,But it's still necessary to do it very strictly.。

In addition, we will cooperate with the public security organs to crack down on plug-in gangs at the source, and we have had very large cases from last year to this year, and we will continue to do this in this regard. Whether it is from the determination of the terminal game or the ability of the entire company, I hope that if you spread and write articles, you must say: we are very confident to achieve the same excellent anti-cheating environment. Thank you!

Q: I would like to ask Mr. Andy Ho, for our Valorant mobile game, the most important thing in the early stage of the launch is to catch up with the progress of the mobile game, in fact, we also experienced such a stage when the mobile game was first launched, so how do we do the same thing on the mobile game, and in the end, the ideal state we want to achieve is to ensure that the mobile game has a synchronous content update?

Andy Ho: We're glad that Photon can be found on Valorant Mobile and we worked with us on this game, which is a new project developed from scratch, from all aspects of the game, from its performance, controls, systems, functions, and the rework of each asset, in fact, it is a completely independent process.

At present, we are about to enter the stage of large-scale testing, in this stage we can hear feedback from a very large number of players on the current state of our game, so we will continue to optimize based on these player feedback, how to plan and plan for future mobile game updates, I hope this test can bring us more information, so that we can do better in the future, the goal is of course to create the most suitable experience for Valorant on mobile games as much as possible.

Q: Valorant Mobile proposes the development concept of "lowering the threshold and restoring the experience", but there are obvious differences between mobile users and PC users in terms of operating habits and scenario requirements, can you give an example of what mobile user-friendly improvements Valorant Mobile has made or new optimizations in the future?

Jin Yibo: I'll answer this question first, and Andy Ho will add it when the time comes. We must have done some optimization of the mobile game, but the goal is to restore the competitive experience, but we will have some unique systems to help users better adapt, for example, we have an academy system, with a lot of novice guidance content in it, which can teach you to be able to get started quickly.

There is also the fact that we have some hero skills, there is a release form that is more in line with the mobile terminal in adaptation, and the entire UI is designed to be more convenient to operate on the mobile terminal, in principle, it is to use fewer buttons to achieve the cool operation of the terminal game, so that everyone feels that it is very difficult to operate on the terminal game, and it can be achieved through fewer key operations on the mobile terminal, but these optimizations are still based on the restoration of the competitive experience of the entire Valorant terminal game, whether it is the restoration of the IP experience, or the adaptation of the operation feel, We have done a lot of optimization on this, and how to optimize it can be experienced in the game.

I asked at the demo just now, and they are generally very satisfied with the restoration of the terminal game, but they have made some optimizations based on the mobile terminal. In the future, we will continue to optimize based on user feedback after launch, but the essence remains the same, hoping to restore the operation, shooting, and heroes of the terminal game. To add, we've had some debates before, whether to make it easier for players or stronger adsorption, including Fist, Photon and we all think that the core of Valorant is still the realization of refreshing operation and high sense of competition, we are relatively not the same as other mobile games, so easy to play casually, the whole concept is the same as everyone. Andy Ho can also add.

Andy Ho: The most important thing is that we put a lot of thought into making sure that the controls are the biggest difference between PC and mobile games, we want the player to have all the control over the gameplay, and when the player is doing what he wants to achieve, he will have a very clear, concise and clear way to help him better achieve what he wants to do, rather than spending time on the control itself, so that he can naturally achieve the kind of operation he wants to present in his mind. On top of this, including all the custom keybindings, we give players a lot of flexibility to make all kinds of custom adjustments.

At the same time, when it comes to skill sets, we also know that a character may need more skill sets to use, and we put a lot of effort into making sure that his controls are easier for players to achieve.

In addition to controls, we also had a high level of competitiveness for the overall performance of the game, including reducing input and output latency, which is a key part of keeping Valorant's ethos alive, and all of these things together want players to be as close as possible to the experience they had on a PC, both in terms of control and performance.

In the past two days, I have seen a variety of players invited to experience the mobile game, which also confirms that our current game is in a good state, we don't want the platform itself to restrict players from doing what they want to do, and the game itself is not a barrier between the player and the Valorant experience.

We invited two types of players this time, one is that they have played the Valorant PC game, although they are not mobile game players, but they know what to do when playing mobile games, and they are very smooth to bring out the operations on the mobile game.

Another type of player may be a loyal user of the mobile game, but he may not have played it or do not know about Valorant, but when he sees how the Valorant game is played, they can easily do what Valorant needs to do on the mobile game, and they also have a very smooth transition. There should be no such barriers between the player and the game experience, and our most important effort is to remove this platform barrier and control barrier, so that players can have all the control over the game experience and enjoy the game to the fullest, rather than being limited by the platform or other things.

Q: There are two questions for Andy Ho, the first question is that we have seen some new modes added to Valorant Mobile Games, what is the opportunity for Valorant Mobile to join the new mode? The second question is, does this mean that Valorant will introduce more new ways to play or compete in entertainment or competition?

Andy Ho: We had to do Valorant mobile games for two big purposes. First, try to bring the complete experience of Valorant on the mobile game as much as possible. Second, another big goal, this is not a ported and copied game, but a new mobile game for mobile players, in this case, of course, we will do the best thing for mobile players and platforms, and the mode is also part of it. We're about to enter the mass testing phase, and as I said, we're really looking forward to seeing what kind of feedback so many mobile gamers can give us, and all of that feedback will definitely be the strongest foundation for us to continue to build a better mobile gaming experience for mobile gamers, so we're really looking forward to what the future holds.

Q: I would like to ask Mr. Jin Yibo a question, what are the more specific landing methods for the form of hand-to-hand feeding, will you worry about the loss of players caused by different clients, and how to deal with it?

Jin Yibo: I'm not worried, since it's feeding each other, everyone must grow each other, it's a great honor that Valorant mobile game and PC game are the same IP, players like this IP, like this competitive gameplay, mobile game is a better supplement, so that PC game players can play anytime and anywhere if they still want to play. Because I've also asked a lot of players for their opinions, they think it's true that Valorant is also on the phone, in addition to the controls, there may be some differences between the mouse, keyboard and the control of the phone, but when some other positions are selected and hero skills are released, many things are similar. The goal is definitely not to lose money, but to hope that he can have a better replenishment.

In addition, new users, many users who were originally interested in IP, because our IP is really still very trendy, very cool, the PC environment and mobile games are very different, some players have less experience with mice and keyboards, but are willing to come to the mobile phone to try, which is equivalent to adding a lot of these users who like IP.
We need end-game users to be able to like it on their mobile phones, so there is no problem of churn, and the goal is to give Valorant the entire ecosystem and the entire IP with more users, more and more convenient platforms, which is our goal.

In the future, we hope that the users of the entire Valorant IP can feel the same experience, the only difference is that the controls are different, whether it is the game content or the feeling of trendy competitive IP. We are confident that after the upstream is launched in the future, our IP users will definitely be more, and the goal will definitely be very large, and the final goal is to become a popular lifestyle.

I just said why do we do more offline? In fact, users' desire for social networking is not only online, but also in the offline future, we will also do more interesting activities in the distribution and market, so please look forward to it, after mobile game users join, we can do a wider range of scenarios and platforms, so the future mobile game launch is also a good supplement to Valorant IP.

Q: Andy Ho, how did we balance the low-barrier gameplay with the core experience in Valorant Mobile Game? Because I learned in the terminal game that many heroes have some more accurate operations, as well as more advanced operations such as emergency stop and body method, which is difficult to present on the mobile side, but if the operation is successful, there will indeed be strong positive feedback, what is the general idea of our balance?

Andy Ho: Actually, the optimization of all these things is in a lot of details, just talked about the design including the control, from the UI, the design of the UX, and the game's current performance, technology, multi-touch recognition, etc., these details have a lot of innovation in the control, we spent a lot of thought.

On the other hand, what we really want to do is to understand why the player is doing this, and on the PC game or now Valorant, we break down his motivation and actions step by step, and see what kind of series of decisions make him make such a decision.

For example, taking Jiefeng as an example, Jiefeng's E skill may be easier to complete on mobile games, because WASD on terminal games requires input and output in two directions, but at present, it is a joystick key on the mobile game Jiefeng that can control more directions, in fact, there are more possibilities, and it will also make it easier for players to release more skills. Similarly, because of the characteristics of the joystick, operations such as spinning and jumping may be easier for players to use in mobile games than in terminal games, and there are differences in performance in various places. The most important thing is that we know why the player is doing this? We try to bring these actions to the mobile gaming experience in a variety of ways.

A very important point is that we did not take a simplified way, that is, simply make this thing very simple, as you just said, this kind of high-end operation must have a certain threshold to operate out to feel that sense of achievement, so we very deliberately avoid making any decisions for the player, hoping that the player has the highest control over all the decisions in the game, nothing is what we do for him, and only the relatively threshold of things is really brought to the player. I think the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that players bring is also incomparable.

Q: In order to compete with these products, what are the differentiating strategies of Valorant mobile games in terms of hero design, map mechanics, or combat rhythm in order to compete with these products?

Andy Ho: We think Valorant itself has a very unique flavor or temperament, including a very different style, as well as the whole IP, and most importantly, the gameplay of the game, all the gameplay design we do, including the launch of each hero, all hope to become a tool in the hands of the player, so that he can restore these three scenarios as much as possible in a relatively highly centralized decision-making environment, where every decision has a very big change, and where each decision can bring great success. Let the player be able to do what they want to do in this scenario.

One of the things that we often talk about Valorant is that every teammate has the potential to be the most important person in the game, and that every teammate can play his or her part. At the same time, Valorant is designed by anyone to have a chance, and if you show up at the right time and in the right place, you can potentially beat the best Valorant players in the world. Based on this situation, we believe that the creativity that Valorant brings, and the freedom to make decisions and judgments, all make up Valorant's unique gameplay.

Q: You mentioned "building an ecosystem with trendy competition as the core", can you reveal the future layout priorities of e-sports events, support or cooperation with corresponding content creators?

Jin Yibo: E-sports is definitely a very important feature of Valorant, we will still do it, but we are already preparing for the public competition and college competition, and we are still discussing it in more depth, as I just said, I hope that Valorant IP is a whole, and I also hope that Valorant mobile game players can also appreciate the game of our terminal game, the game is very good-looking, and this ecology is.

Second, in terms of ecological content support, some of our current plans for terminal games will also be covered, and even more efforts will be made to cover the creation of mobile games. The content of the whole mobile game is different because of the control.,So in the teaching in a lot of demonstrations,I just said that a very cool operation needs a better creator to do the content.,This part should not be announced now.,There should also be a relatively large resource to support.,Even in this area will be greater to increase efforts.。

Third, cross-border cooperation, we will have a very special cross-border cooperation on mobile games, and we are also communicating, not long ago we also announced a strategic cooperation with OnePlus mobile phones, and now we are about to start testing, if we are close to the launch, we will have more news announced, but there must be a lot of cooperation, thank you.

Q: Last question, what are your visions and expectations for Valorant mobile games?

Andy Ho: We want to make the best competitive shooting mobile game, and bring together all the players who are in mobile games, like competition, and have the pursuit of competition to our game.