Strafing Bots in VALORANT’s Practice Range Pose a New Challenge for Players
Practice sessions in VALORANT’s Practice Range have become unexpectedly challenging as strafing bots have become more mobile. While this is beneficial for warming up before ranked matches, players are struggling to hit their targets.
A Reddit post from Oct. 5 by a player named u/iAmSyther highlighted the frustration of trying to hit a strafing bot in the Practice Range. The accompanying slow-motion clip showed the player aiming at the bot’s head but consistently missing shots, which is concerning.
While the post originally aimed to highlight bullet inconsistency, other players were surprised by the bot’s increased movement. “I’ve been playing VALORANT for over a year and have practiced strafing numerous times. This is the first time I’m seeing bots move like this,” one player commented. Like many others, I was also taken aback by this change.
It appears that Riot Games made an update to the Practice Range bots to enhance their movement, but failed to include this information in the patch notes. While most players welcome the change for better practice, they are baffled by their inability to hit the moving bots.
Another player attempted to explain the issue from a technical perspective, mentioning the potential role of system variables such as latency and ping, combined with VALORANT’s 128-tick servers. They stated, “What you see is interpolated gameplay from the server. The bot is actually slightly ahead of where you see it,” which does make sense.
After the release of Patch 7.07 on Oct. 3, several similar reports surfaced regarding players’ inability to consistently hit bots in the Practice Range. This suggests that the update may have inadvertently caused some issues on the server side. Riot should address these concerns to prevent players from questioning their skills further.
VALORANT’s ranked mode is already frustrating enough when it comes to aiming, and now even the Practice Range bots have become a challenging addition.
VALORANT, Practice Range, strafing bots, gaming