VALORANT Patch Notes 8.0

Hey! I can give a little context here. So, first off, this is a pretty simple change and something we'll be gathering feedback on; definitely open to reevaluating this if there's a lot of criticism here. To share some of the reasons why we wanted to pull the entire modes ecosystem into one pool:

• Right now, the majority of players who play Swiftplay still play it as a side mode, with Unrated or Competitive being their main way to engage with VAL. We've seen feedback from these players that Swiftplay games on maps outside of the map pool can feel "wasted", as they're not relevant to their main game experience, and they're mainly looking for ways to get fast reps of the VAL experience (warming up for ranked, practicing a new agent for Premier, etc.). By bringing all modes into the map rotation, we ensure that games remain relevant for folks who are also engaging in our Unrated/Compet queues, which are the vast majority of players who play these modes.
• For players who pretty much only play Swiftplay or Spike Rush (a very small number, but they do exist!) we feel there's an opportunity to tie them into the broader VAL ecosystem more. Right now, map rotations don't matter for Swiftplay/Spike Rush primary players; the game essentially never changes. We think there's value in some shakeups to the meta now and then, and have felt that 7 maps is a good number to ensure you're not playing the same map every game, but that we can rotate out the active map pool and still make the experience feel different as a result. We don't want Swift/rush players to feel like they're not part of the broader ecosystem, and we want them to also be able to get excited about map rotations and goings-on in the VAL episode/act structure. We'll be gathering feedback on this one; totally understand the concern around going from 10 maps to 7, but our hope is that we can get everyone similarly excited and engaged in the current rotation.
• The final point is more of a long-term view; one other meaningful audience for Swiftplay in particular is new players. Right now when new players join VAL, Swiftplay is a common place for them to go - the mode is less punishing when you die, you get consistent economy to try out abilities and weapons, and you get fast reps so you can try out several different agents quickly. However, the number of maps can actually be detrimental here; learning new maps in a tac shooter is hard, and trying to learn 10 at once is more difficult. It can also be confusing for these players having different maps available in different queues, as the rules aren't consistent or super clear. An obvious reply is "put new players in their own map pool" but that also carries a ton of complexity and its own problems - how well does that map to the live pool? How do we ensure fast, but fair matchmaking? When do they graduate from the onboarding pool into whatever the size of the long-term Swift/rush queue would be, and how do they make that leap?

Right now, it's all still fairly manageable - 10 versus 7 isn't a huge gap - but VAL isn't going to stop releasing maps anytime soon. In a world where we have 15 or even 20 maps, any of these buckets of reasoning could feel more pressing as well. So, we wanted to try this push - to get everyone on a consistent map rotation, with a shared experience and relevance, while maintaining enough variety from game to game - to see how well it mitigates some of these problems and how well it's received. If it's seen as net negative, we'll definitely reevaluate. Thanks for the feedback!

I talk about this call on the other VAL subreddit here for a bit of context.

I think this is a reasonable take fwiw, it's something we've talked about. We just wanted to try the universal consistent approach first to see how it went.

Hey, totally a reasonable question. The biggest cost you pay here is match quality/matchmaking for both queues. In this scenario, generally players in both queues for Swiftplay - all maps and compet-pool-only maps - would wait in queue longer for games that are likely lower quality in terms of being balanced teams. Especially if you start also trying to do party balance like avoiding putting 5-stacks against solo queuers, etc.

It's not impossible if both queues are extremely popular, but it falls apart really fast and is pretty difficult to maintain. Queue health is something we internally have to be pretty diligent about maintaining; it feels bad to be in badly balanced games and it feels bad to wait in queue for awhile, especially for a 10-15 minute experience. So, it's all a balancing act.