Valorant to have a dedicated coach slot in the future

Fariha Bhatti Published 24/02/2021

Valorant developers have responded to the call for a coach’s slot, confirming that party sizes will allow a sixth man to analyze the game.

Riot’s tactical shooter strictly follows a five versus five format. The ten-man lobby doesn’t allow more players to inspect a match like in other FPS games, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Players are on their own once they enter the server in a cut-throat 5v5 match.

Most recently, Valorant developer tehleach revealed that a party size larger than five calls for extensive client work. Currently, the game allows only a ten-man party, curbing new modes and additional members to join mid-game. This limitation has largely impacted how professional games work as coaches, analysts, and other relevant pro team members are barred from inspecting a game.

Valorant devs planning new deathmatch mode, talk pistols-only

NRG’s coach Chet “Chet” Singh came forward and pointed out shortcomings in Valorant, one of them being a coaching slot.

List of things that need fixing or adding in Valorant IMO:

1) Changes to Bucky, frenzy, and stinger (price or stats or both)

2) adjustments to Net Code (favors wide swinging atm)

3) coach slot + replay system

4) no voice ban people in ranked

5) lower OP price a little
— NRG Chet (@chetsingh) February 14, 2021

His tweet was soon followed by NRG’s pro player Sam “s0m” Oh, who said that excessive skin additions are no longer required, devs should focus on creating a coaching slot in-game. Unsurprisingly, Valorant devs responded to the pro team’s coach and assured him that a sixth slot is in the pipeline.

Esports strategist Riley Yurk expressed his excitement for coaches to become a more significant part of pro games.

hope it’s not a surprise but coach slots are on the way. we’re excited for coaches to be a bigger part of matches.
— Riley Yurk (@rileyurk) February 23, 2021

Despite being a new game, Valorant has quickly matured into a proper esports in the past few months. Through tournaments like Valorant Champions Tour and First Strike, the game has drawn giant organizations to dip toes in Valorant esports.

Valorant teams already have polished rosters super headed by coaches. However, these coaches are improvising with live streaming and other indirect methods to analyze games. Chet also touched on the replay system that is another crucial element in pro teams to rework their tacts. Without a replay system and a coach to inspect a game first-hand, strategizing can be a nuisance. An official slot in-game won’t only benefit the teams from a technical standpoint but also polish Valorant’s nascent esports.

There’s no exact due date for the coach slot to go live, but it seems that it’ll arrive soon as developers are already playing around with party sizes and new game modes, as revealed in a recent AMA session.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

View full profile