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Riot Games is considering adding a cascade agent select to Valorant to prevent players from insta-locking agents. Insta-locking has been a prevalent issue in the game, causing general frustration and unbalanced team comps. Jonathan Walker, Senior Competitive Designer at Riot Games said that the team was working on the new system to combat this issue. The cascade agent select system will let players select their agents one at a time with a 10 second window to make their choice. If the first player doesn’t pick an agent, the next player in line gets a chance to choose. The first player will get another chance to pick later. As of now, it is not clear when this system will go online in Valorant but players will likely have to wait till later in the newly launched Act Three.
Community reactions to Valorant’s Cascade Agent Select
The Valorant community had mixed reactions to the proposed system. While some players welcomed it as a way to combat insta-lockers, others felt this system was only suitable for games with larger rosters.
Others suggested a role queue system like that in Overwatch, however, that could force players into a certain team composition.
According to ValorLeaks, Riot has sent out surveys to players to get their direct feedback on the system in its current form. Riot may go for an approach similar to their other IP, League of Legends and make a separate queue for this system. We’ll have to wait and watch how the system is ultimately implemented.
Act Three has gone live on Valorant a few days ago on April 27th with Patch 4.08. The patch added a new Initiator Fade to the roster. Jett’s dash changes have also gone live, some buffs to Neon, a nerf to Sova, some minor bug fixes, and changes to the five-man ranked stacked system.
