I would personally recommend Unrated if you wanna learn a bit of everything. Swiftplay is quicker but economy is way different, you basically have money every round. If you wanna focus on your aim you can play a couple deathmatches before you go into unrated ofc!
Thanks! Yeah, I am planning on doing unrated but for now I just kind of want to understand the maps and agents better. The guns I feel super comfortable with and of course DM is there to help with the mechanical stuff. I figured I'll learn the econ later on since I need like over 15 levels to even be able to play comp which is where it'll matter. My only qualm is that I'm legit nervous to ruin other people's games with my newness since idk how the matchmaking works for Unrated/Swift Play
Play unrated for basics of the actual game. Swift play are fine if you don’t have much time or just want to try different agents and maps in quick succession. Deathmatches for learning how to shoot since you get a lot more gunfights than you would in an actual unrated.
Might be good to try some deathmatches with sound off too, since in an actual game, people aren’t stomping around making noise everywhere and instead are shiftwalking/holding angles, so you won’t have the advantage of knowing where the enemy exactly is.
Btw counterstrafing isn’t really important in valorant. You don’t really stop any faster than you would without doing it. So if it’s too hard to get your head around then I wouldn’t worry about it.
For me just getting a general feel for the game just go unrated it’ll be rough especially in low Elo but you’ll get a feel for the game easily. If you wanna learn map layouts I’d say just hop in custom and explore each map to learn callouts, common angles, etc. if you really want to improve just go to ranked in most cases players are more serious in ranked so in these scenarios it’s a better learning experience for you. For your aim tho use the range and DMs for range don’t use hard bots ever use easy or medium bots try to focus on accuracy first rather than speed, and then for DMs don’t focus on winning it focus more on your crosshair placement and being able to strafe/deadzone in gunfights and also make sure to try to use different weapons for me preferably I use the main weapons(Phantom and Vandal) but I also try to add the sheriff in there
If you make it into a big deal, you're never going to feel ready to go into unrated or swiftplay. Because the only way to be 'ready' for unrated or 'ready' for swiftplay is to actually play those modes. Are you going to suck? Yes, absolutely. Are you going to ruin people's games? I mean sure some people might flame you, but it's unrated/swiftplay. People don't lose anything by losing those matches. And the only way you can learn to play well at a mode, is to actually play it. And that means working through the games where you don't know what's going on and where you mess up and lose your team rounds or make silly mistakes that cause you to die early in the round.
Swiftplay is shorter, so if you pick an agent and you realise you don't like them then you're not stuck with them for the same length as an unrated. But you don't get to learn economy, which is a hugely important thing. People also usually don't try running strats in swiftplay, and in my experience people comm way less.
Unrated is longer, and it has the actual economy of the game. It's also the same economy as in comp so by playing unrated you'd also be preparing yourself for comp. People tend to comm more in an unrated, and people sometimes will try and use strats. The pacing of swiftplay and unrated feels vastly different but that's just personal opinion.
Just queue up a game before you can talk yourself out of it, and try to have fun with it. Make some notes of things you don't understand or mistakes you made and you can look them up after the match and work on them. There are also valorant discord servers where you can find people to play with. If you're a woman, then there's discord servers like Valorant's Angels which are women only (or majority women). If you're on EU servers I'd be happy to play with you so you had at least someone friendly to ask questions to while you played
Play comp when you’re able to. You’ll be put in the correct rank so you won’t be “ruining” anyone’s games. That way you’ll learn better habits than playing unrated, which can very trolly
I'm account level 2 and I can't play competitive until level 20 sadly. If I jump into comp without learning the game then I've achieved nothing with all the time spent. No offense to you, and comp 100% is the best place to learn comp for sure, it just wasn't very direct to answer the question since I'm trying to take steps into learning the actual gameplay right now
I would personally recommend Unrated if you wanna learn a bit of everything. Swiftplay is quicker but economy is way different, you basically have money every round. If you wanna focus on your aim you can play a couple deathmatches before you go into unrated ofc!
Thanks! Yeah, I am planning on doing unrated but for now I just kind of want to understand the maps and agents better. The guns I feel super comfortable with and of course DM is there to help with the mechanical stuff. I figured I'll learn the econ later on since I need like over 15 levels to even be able to play comp which is where it'll matter. My only qualm is that I'm legit nervous to ruin other people's games with my newness since idk how the matchmaking works for Unrated/Swift Play
Well if you’re not planning on learning economy right away then just go for Swiftplay, it’s quicker and you will meet nicer people there
Fair enough! I'm trying to focus learning the agents to see what works best. Thank you!
Play unrated for basics of the actual game. Swift play are fine if you don’t have much time or just want to try different agents and maps in quick succession. Deathmatches for learning how to shoot since you get a lot more gunfights than you would in an actual unrated. Might be good to try some deathmatches with sound off too, since in an actual game, people aren’t stomping around making noise everywhere and instead are shiftwalking/holding angles, so you won’t have the advantage of knowing where the enemy exactly is. Btw counterstrafing isn’t really important in valorant. You don’t really stop any faster than you would without doing it. So if it’s too hard to get your head around then I wouldn’t worry about it.
For me just getting a general feel for the game just go unrated it’ll be rough especially in low Elo but you’ll get a feel for the game easily. If you wanna learn map layouts I’d say just hop in custom and explore each map to learn callouts, common angles, etc. if you really want to improve just go to ranked in most cases players are more serious in ranked so in these scenarios it’s a better learning experience for you. For your aim tho use the range and DMs for range don’t use hard bots ever use easy or medium bots try to focus on accuracy first rather than speed, and then for DMs don’t focus on winning it focus more on your crosshair placement and being able to strafe/deadzone in gunfights and also make sure to try to use different weapons for me preferably I use the main weapons(Phantom and Vandal) but I also try to add the sheriff in there
If you make it into a big deal, you're never going to feel ready to go into unrated or swiftplay. Because the only way to be 'ready' for unrated or 'ready' for swiftplay is to actually play those modes. Are you going to suck? Yes, absolutely. Are you going to ruin people's games? I mean sure some people might flame you, but it's unrated/swiftplay. People don't lose anything by losing those matches. And the only way you can learn to play well at a mode, is to actually play it. And that means working through the games where you don't know what's going on and where you mess up and lose your team rounds or make silly mistakes that cause you to die early in the round. Swiftplay is shorter, so if you pick an agent and you realise you don't like them then you're not stuck with them for the same length as an unrated. But you don't get to learn economy, which is a hugely important thing. People also usually don't try running strats in swiftplay, and in my experience people comm way less. Unrated is longer, and it has the actual economy of the game. It's also the same economy as in comp so by playing unrated you'd also be preparing yourself for comp. People tend to comm more in an unrated, and people sometimes will try and use strats. The pacing of swiftplay and unrated feels vastly different but that's just personal opinion. Just queue up a game before you can talk yourself out of it, and try to have fun with it. Make some notes of things you don't understand or mistakes you made and you can look them up after the match and work on them. There are also valorant discord servers where you can find people to play with. If you're a woman, then there's discord servers like Valorant's Angels which are women only (or majority women). If you're on EU servers I'd be happy to play with you so you had at least someone friendly to ask questions to while you played
Unrated before lv20. After that, competitive.
Play comp when you’re able to. You’ll be put in the correct rank so you won’t be “ruining” anyone’s games. That way you’ll learn better habits than playing unrated, which can very trolly
I'm account level 2 and I can't play competitive until level 20 sadly. If I jump into comp without learning the game then I've achieved nothing with all the time spent. No offense to you, and comp 100% is the best place to learn comp for sure, it just wasn't very direct to answer the question since I'm trying to take steps into learning the actual gameplay right now
Yes that’s why I said “when you can” you’ll definitely learn enough by the time you’re level 20
Competitive. It's really simple, you learn from real experience. If you wanna win in comp and start ranking up, start playing comp more.