While waiting for Valorant Act 3, a lot of excitement has accumulated. It not only came with a new map, but also introduced a brand new agent named Skye , all coming to servers on October 27.
However, Act 3 did not live up to the community's expectations, and Valorant's 1.10 patch came with some of the most disruptive bugs in this game. Bug issues in the game, especially stuttering and visual lag, make Valorant unplayable at the moment. The problems with the new Curtain don't end there , however, as players have found issues with the new map Icebox .
Don't get us wrong; There's really nothing wrong with Icebox in terms of map design . It's a fairly unique map compared to the rest of the Valorant arenas, and its expansive structure with lots of entry points weakens most of the Operator's potential and makes it harder to defend.
The design of Icebox changes the way players play the game and the enormous possibilities of vertical movement make it a very complex map to learn. The problem lies in the fact that a large part of the Valorant community does not want to take the time to learn about it. Every time Icebox crashes into map rotations, players skip their turn and exit the game because most players feel that the competitive match experience will be heavily impacted.
One Reddit user wrote:
" I've played 15 unrated games since Icebox went live. I played Icebox once. I need ~3 lobbies before my game starts because everyone escapes when they enter Icebox."
" Icebox " is exactly like an open target pitch in terms of map design: it's a bigger map, much more open, with thousands of angles and corners, and there's also the height difference that needs to be closed. It's a nightmare because it's not like any of the other maps, and while I like that they've taken this new approach, I'm personally starting to fear worse and more boring designs as a player. "
Queue times at higher elos are incredibly long and players escaping the Agent selection screen aren't helping much either, so next to an already hard-to-play map like Icebox this makes things even more frustrating for those who want to learn the map.