Skill floor vs. skill ceiling: VALORANT community reacts to new smoke changes

Another day, another issue that has divided the VALORANT community. This time around, Riot Games has thrown the player base for a loop by introducing controversial changes to Astra, Brimstone, and Omen smokes that indicate when the smoke will dissipate, including a shiny new visual and audio cue.

Some players are standing firm on the opinion that this change was unnecessary and that it will only lower VALORANT‘s skill ceiling. Others believe that Riot is making the game easier across the board, even though smoke timing is an important part of strategy that should be learned by highly skilled players.

Others, however, agree that these changes raise the skill floor since players don’t have to memorize timers for smokes and can focus on making a play with the new information that they were given.

For example, former Fnatic strategic coach Martin “Anderzz” Schelasin compared the change to when Riot added timers to the jungle camps in League of Legends and how some players were upset because they believed learning and tracking jungle timers was an essential part of being a high-level jungler.

“Tracking smoke timings is a basic skill, it shouldn’t be a point of noteworthy skill expression. Rather, how you problem solve and play around those timings is,” Anderzz said. “This change just removes the basic arithmetic/counting check, and allows increased focus on the real skill expression of what you do with the windows that are created.”

Ultimately, this change will give lower-ranked players a better chance to keep their cool when they are surrounded by smoke since they don’t have to guess when the ability will disappear, while higher-ranked players can create interesting plays around smoke timers with their teammates, offering new gameplay opportunities along the way. Regardless, expect Riot to continue tinkering with the various mechanics in VALORANT as usual.