Valorant Developer Explains Why An Explosion Sometimes Doesn’t Kill Enemies
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Ever wondered how you survived a frag that exploded right next to you? Or how Raze’s rocket could not even deal the slightest bit of damage? C9 meL had a similar confusion after one of her recent Valorant matchups when she had a close call with Raze’s ultimate ability. Even though she was the fortunate one, she posted the clip on Twitter to ask the developers about the weird encounter.
Riot Nu on Twitter, the Principal Software Engineer working on Valorant’s engine, came to meL’s rescue. Nu clarified that this indeed is a bug, and the developers can fix it. However, in a thread of tweets, Nu also explained why this bug happens so often.
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Yes! It's a bug, and we can fix it.
Games are built on approximations of the real world for performance reasons. VALORANT doesn't simulate the physics of a real explosion. This bug is a case where our approximation falls short. (1/9) https://t.co/4NGRMMRtEn
— Riot Nu (@RiotNu) February 11, 2021
Valorant fell short in approximating real-life physics
According to Nu, games like Valorant try to simulate concepts of real-life physics. However, due to various technical barriers, they can’t always do so. Therefore, they have to work for the closest approximation. Nu also explained in his thread of tweets how the blast radius of explosives in the games work.
Players within the outer radius that are outside the inner radius take damage that diminishes as they get further away from the center of the explosion. In this screenshot, the inner/outer radius sizes are visualized by the black/cyan spheres. (3/9) pic.twitter.com/9G5nHjHdb4
— Riot Nu (@RiotNu) February 11, 2021
The developer posted a screenshot depicting the inner and outer blast spheres for explosions. The damage is the highest in the inner sphere, whereas players are safe from the explosions in the outer sphere. The engine uses a complex technique to determine players’ position and their proximity to the blast radii.
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The engine, therefore, tries to find an unobstructed path between the player and the blast. If there is one, players take full damage from the explosion.
Obstructions such as crates usually bug explosions
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In the clip meL posted, he is standing behind a set of crates. These crates, or other such items, usually obstruct the path that the engine needs to determine the damage to players. With its absence, players are in a blind spot and end up avoiding damage from the explosions.
This approach usually works. In very tight spaces like under the pallet in Mel's video, the visibility check fails and the player does not take damage. The pallet effectively eats the explosion. It's a bit more difficult to see; I've circled the failing visibility checks. (8/9) pic.twitter.com/CL9bNtFCTd
— Riot Nu (@RiotNu) February 11, 2021
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However, this does not mean that it is a perpetual glitch that players can exploit. The developers have a solution for such problems related to the blast radii of explosives. They can identify such spots in the game as players report them and modify the engine accordingly.
Hopefully, as players keep reporting such incidents, Valorant developers fix the explosions. Raze’s ult can be the game-changer in a lot of situations, and it is a shame to see it go to waste.
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