It’s that time of the year; the new Valorant act is set to launch in the coming days. While many may say that the game has too much going on with all the new agents and abilities, the map pool suggests otherwise. Riot has confirmed that no new maps are entering the competitive map pool in the new act. The present set of maps will remain in the competitive rotation for the whole of this act. Not everyone is happy with the present map pool. The majority of the streams have called out Sunset and Lotus to be removed from Valorant’s map rotation. Keep reading for more information on what you can expect this act.
Lotus and Sunset still remain in the map pool.
Lotus and Sunset both have had mixed reception ever since their launch. Surprisingly, though Lotus received changes since launch, Sunset hasn’t. The annoying Cypher trips on Sunset still haunt many players to this very day. Besides that, the removal of the OG map “Haven” is still frowned upon by the whole community. Everyone expected a quick return with regards to Haven, but nothing has been hinted by Riot so far. For now, both Lotus and Sunset look like they will be in the map mix for the whole of the next act.
Many consider Haven to be the best three bomb site map in the game, labeling the three bomb sites of Lotus as “Second Prize.” The only way players can play on Haven is via “custom lobbies”. While Riot has not yet confirmed whether they might make changes to Haven, the developers hinted towards an overhaul in the past.
Why do map rotations matter?
Map rotations are responsible for keeping the game alive for many reasons. The biggest and most crucial aspect of Valorant is to keep the players happy.
In Valorant, every player’s mentality counts toward the team’s success, unlike solo games. Loading into a game, players often encounter the awkward “can you dodge this map?” question. Most often than not, someone from the lobby ends up closing the game and re-queuing into it assuming they might get a new map. This works most of the time. In certain situations, players in the lobby might have dodged the same map multiple times. If such a scenario happens, it’s most likely that the same set of players will be queued in together on the same map.
Tilted Teammates an ongoing Issue?
Often, playing with random teammates on a map they don’t like leads to a toxic game. Many “map” haters try their luck for two rounds, and if they lose, they end up throwing the game. Yes, Riot does penalize players who intentionally throw a game or if they are toxic to teammates. All said and done, Riot has its limitations in identifying players who are throwing the match. Players are smart in tricking the system with intentional packet losses and blaming their internet for the loss.
I’ve personally run into such a scenario where a player just started downloading a bunch of stuff to crash his Valorant game. He then goes on to try and force a surrender from his teammates, which was unsuccessful. Just one tilted teammate is enough to ruin 30-40 minutes of your day. All this just because he was forced to play repeatedly on a map he doesn’t like.
Riot needs to address the issue of playing with tilted teammates due to map rotation failures. Certain players playing on the maps they hate multiple times during the same day often lead to them just dropping the game. The only way they intend to come back is when the maps they hate are removed from rotation. It is a tricky situation for Riot, but for me personally, I feel the present map pool has been in rotation for a bit too long. It is clear time for a change, and hopefully, Riot doesn’t force us on this map pool for the entire next act
