Shroud has his opinion on Valorant, and as much to say that his videos of the last few days haven't been particularly tender on the subject. After mentioning some time ago the fact that, according to him, Valorant was coming out "too soon", he continued to give his opinion on the track on which he currently spends many hours in streaming.
The contribution of the Competitive mode for aspiring pros
The Competitive mode of Valorant isn't yet available since it was reset after the end of the closed beta. A few players had of course moved up to the VALORANT rank (to be renamed) and gained the respect of many of their peers as well. For Shroud, focusing on this mode isn't necessarily relevant, and he gives valuable advice to potential players who would like to start the Valorant pro gamer adventure
"I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about how they don’t like the ranked system. But, in reality, the ranked system will never be good. There are too many variables in a game like this, and that’s fine. If you truly want a competitive nature, you go do customs."
He argues quite simply that, even at high levels, matchmaking will rarely give full satisfaction to all five players of a same team — the language barrier, equipment or mastery (or not) of an agent being significant data.
More difficult than CS:GO?
A long weekend rhymes with "lots of content" for streamers, and Shroud took the liberty to compare the required skillcap in CS:GO and Valorant — a comparison that has been made often lately. After stating that he particularly likes the newest Riot Games product, he made one unequivocal statement: Valorant is much easier than CS:GO.
His arguments? The skillcap essentially, you get the idea: "It's obvious enough when you play Brimstone or you play Omen, and you pushed button and you get this old view I want to smoke here, I want to smoke here that right there, can show you how the game kind of dumbed down to make those lesser players be at the top faster."
To contradict this, we could also mention the exodus of players (current or former pros) from Valve's FPS to Valorant. Many organisations, and not the least, have already made a competitive roster for future tournaments.
Nothing will prevent Shroud from thinking that "This game, the skill ceiling, and the potential is much lower than a game like Counter-Strike. This game is trying to reach to people that don’t play FPS."
Original content by Jérémie "Djey" Mathis.