In yesterday’s news, Riot Games outright disabled Neon from VALORANT due to an issue with an NVIDIA graphics setting, essentially turning into wallhacks while playing Neon. Neon’s Fast Lane ability was pretty significantly bugged, with Riot forced to disable it due to its extremely uncompetitive advantage.
We reached out to PR, but the answer came to light after checking post-match summaries for some VCT games yesterday evening.
Pro players are still playing Neon in VCT matches
However, the agent is playable in LAN settings in VCT, with many qualifiers in regional playoffs giving players the chance to run the character. We’ve seen it in yesterday’s EU playoff series between Team Liquid and Vitality. While that event was in person at the Riot Games Arena in Berlin, where the LEC is based, it was away for the MKOI Roadshow at the moment. In a LAN environment, that’s pretty fine, with referees and hardware controls in place to prevent obvious cheating and exploits.
However, that can’t be said in NA, which just had its NA Challengers finals hosted online, with players’ webcams in their rooms. Here, Neon is indeed active in the games, with M80 and Shopify Rebellion in their best-of-five series.
It raises a question of competitive integrity, as Riot loses control over whether a player can exploit that or not. The VCT tournament realms run on patch 12.8, which is the same live patch Neon is disabled on with the live game, so the power is in players’ hands not to cheat.
Of course, this is a bit of a competitive integrity issue, with the agent remaining available in pro play. It’s also a competitive integrity issue if Riot disables it during the most intense part of the season for Challengers players and VCT playoff teams.
Neon is an extremely important part of the meta, with its fast-paced, shotgun, and aggro playstyle becoming very prominent. A quick stats check so far reveals how significantly far ahead Neon is, showing how strong the agent is given its playstyle and abilities.
Any significant ban on the agent will also cause major meta issues, given how crucial the agent is to pro teams that are training on it.
What the VCT handbook says
In the VALORANT handbook, Riot can choose to disable an agent in pro if it so wishes, thanks to the following rules:
- Section 4.4.3 – Additional Restrictions: “Additional restrictions (e.g., disabling certain weapons) may be added by League Officials at any time before or during a Match, if there are known bugs with any items, agents, skins, or abilities. The restricted period for new agents and maps may be extended or reduced at the discretion of League Officials.”
- Section 4.6.15 – Restrictions on Gameplay Elements: “Restrictions may be added at any time before or during a Match, if there are known or suspected bugs with any agents, skins or maps, or for any other reason as determined at the discretion of League Officials.”
So far, it seems Riot acknowledges the bug but chooses to trust players to play it as normal, both online and at LAN. But any significant bugs used in person can be used to roll back rounds, in addition to then banning the agent moving forward.
Either way, Riot seems to be a bit damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t, with no real winning. Hopefully, no cheats happen because of this, and players and Riot trust in each other go well during a significant part of its esports calendar.
Riot is planning on nerfing Neon come the next patch, with clips online showing the reduced movement speed and aggression capable on shotguns. Either way, Neon won’t be a problem, both bugs and balance much longer.