Riot address Valorant’s map diversity following player backlash

❘ Published: 2022-05-30T15:00:12

Riot Games

Since its release, Valorant has come a long way with regards to the quality of life presented in the game, and map diversity has always been one of the critical (and most contentious) aspects of Riot’s tactical shooter.

Riot Games recently published a blog addressing how far Valorant has progressed in map diversity. Given that the game was initially released with only four maps and doesn’t feature a map-selection tool, many players got frustrated with the map streak that they had to face.

However, with more maps continuously being introduced to the game at regular intervals, Valorant now features a total of seven different maps. Issues arise when players are constantly sent to the same location, being forced to battle it out again and again on maps that simply aren’t their favorites.

Having said that, Riot has finally addressed the map randomization issue, assuring fans that good things are in the works.

Continually playing the same map over and over again can get pretty mind-numbing.

Valorant’s Map Randomness

With map randomness being the topic of the discussion, Brian Chang, a member of Valorant’s competitive team, went on to address the frustration of having to repeatedly play on the same map due to the randomness.

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Brain said, “A common sentiment that we’ve seen in the past is frustration when you encounter the same map multiple games in a row. In a recent survey, over a third of Valorant players responded that it is ‘Extremely Frustrating’ to encounter the same map multiple times in a row.

“This isn’t too surprising. Playing the same map gets stale quickly, and limits the type of challenges that you face in the game. As a result, we wanted to make sure that we could improve the diversity of maps played without compromising the health of matchmaking (by influencing things like queue times or match balance).”

Map Diversity in Valorant

screenshot of a survey conducted by Riot Games.

Results of a survey conducted by Riot Games in the North American region in March 2022.

Given that the community was growing tired of playing on the same map repeatedly, the developers have taken various approaches for map diversity to ensure Valorant’s game health.

Riot has used a fully random map-selection system that was used from the game’s launch until the release of patch 1.08, as well as a pseudo-random map selection system used from patch 1.08 to patch 4.04. While the pseudo-random system was a lot better in comparison to the fully-random system, the low number of available maps was still causing a problem with repetition in consecutive games.

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Although the number of map streaks slowly started declining, it wasn’t until very recently that the developers confirmed a 0% occurrence of a player having to play five consecutive games on the same map. Even the chances of playing on the same map thrice in a row have gone down to as low as a 0.06% chance.

Considering the path that the title is on, it is safe to say that all the issues we faced with map diversity are soon going to be a thing of the past.

So there you have it, that’s all you need to know about map diversity and randomness in Valorant. Make sure to check out our other guides for Valorant: