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Riot games may have finally fixed the problem with players having to play the same map over and over again in Valorant. In yesterday’s System Health Series post, Riot games discussed how they’ve tried to advance the map diversity mechanism over the past couple of years. As Valorant was released with only four maps at launch, quite a lot of players complained about having to play a map over and over again in the competitive queue.
Valorant doesn’t feature a map selection tool, and many players have been frustrated with having to play multiple matches in a row on the same map. Riot Games has launched quite a few maps at regular intervals, and Valorant now features a total of seven maps. However, a long-standing complaint by the community has been the dearth of map diversity when matching up in a competitive queue, and players are forced to battle it out again and again on maps that simply aren’t their favorites.
Having said that, Riot Games has finally addressed the map randomization issue and have assured the Valorant community that good things are coming their way. The Valorant Heath Series has addressed a wide range of important topics pertaining to the game. The current blog article goes over the lack of map diversity that could very well be fixed permanently.
Riot Games addresses the lack of map diversity when matching up in competitive queues in Valorant
With map randomness being the topic of the discussion, Brian Chang, a member of the Competitive Team on Valorant, addressed the frustration players face upon having to play on the same map due to the randomness of the map selection algorithm. Chang 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 on the same map gets stale quickly and limits the type of challenges that you face in the game."
Brian also explained that map diversity has evolved over the past couple of years since Valorant’s launch. Up until patch 1.08, the map selection algorithm was completely random back. With only four maps available, namely Ascent, Haven, Split, and Bind, each had a 25 percent chance of being picked for matchmaking. So with only four maps available, repetition was quite a common occurrence.
The developers at Riot Games needed to change something to sort out the map diversity issue. On the whole, they implemented a “pseudo-random” selection system in patch 1.08, which favored maps that had not been played by the 10 players in the lobby. According to Chang:
"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).”
If the majority of players have encountered a specific map more than once, it is heavily deprioritized. While Riot Games wanted to increase map diversity, the selection itself was a weighted random choice. What this meant was that while the probability of a repeat map might be lower for most players, a few players would still be burdened with repeated maps.
The introduction of more maps was surely helpful in balancing out the issue. Icebox, Breeze, and Fracture were added later on and helped with map diversity. The percentage of three map streaks decreased further with the introduction of more maps for Valorant players by Riot Games.
The most recent introduction was the deterministic map system rolled out in patch 4.04 on March 2 this year. Previously, Riot Games had identified several occurrences where players encountered the same map multiple times by conducting surveys as well as through the in-game system.
The map selection mechanism was further tweaked in patch 4.04. They implemented an algorithm that would actively seek to prevent previously selected maps. If a particular map showed up in a player's recent history, it would be moved from the map selection pool entirely. This criterion would now be applied to all 10 players in the lobby, and the system would select the map that everyone had seen the least of recently.
The improvements made so far
The new system has proved to be incredibly effective thus far. So far, zero players have seen the same map five times in a row. The chance of playing the same map three times in a row has also gone down to as low as 0.06%.
Riot Games will continue to receive input from players around the world to improve their experience. At this point, the developers feel relatively confident about the system but will continue to monitor and implement changes as and when necessary.
