Riot shows drop in likelihood of map repetition in VALORANT, will continue to monitor data to prevent map streaks

Riot Games addressed VALORANT’s map diversity in its most recent System Health Series blog today and showcased improvements made to the map rotation system in competitive over the last two years.

The VALORANT System Health Series gives Riot a chance to update fans on the state of various aspects of the game. Today’s post directly addressed how map selection has impacted the game since VALORANT‘s release in 2020. 

By using data collected through players over the last two years, Riot discovered there were multiple instances where players in the competitive queue were seeing the same maps constantly. The developer continued to tweak map selection rates until Patch 4.04, when it implemented a new system for how maps would appear. Riot was confident this system would reduce the number of players that saw the same map three or more times in a row. 

But there was still work to be done, as shown by a survey conducted with North American players in March of 2022. Sixty-seven percent of players said they saw the same map multiple times in a row either “often” or “very often” in competitive. After the survey results, Riot tweaked the map election process again to ensure players would play their least-seen map as much as possible to avoid streaks. Despite the feedback from the community, Riot appears to have no clear plans for a dedicated map selection in competitive queue at this time, but is open to making changes in the future.

“At this point, we feel relatively confident that deterministic map picks alleviate much of the pain regarding diversity in map selection,” insights manager Brian Chang said. “Our most recent surveys also show that sentiment improved after the changes. We’ll continue to monitor our data to see if any additional changes need to be made, but so far, the changes seem good!”