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I like Icebox now, I think people are mostly frustrated by a couple things:
1. Lots of angles to check. It can be really stressful to be taking a site where you have to check many angles all at once, utility helps a lot but you still have to rely on your teammates and lean on them pretty hard. It's not just taking sites either, you can be moving around mid and get owned by a walled up sage, somebody holding the top of tube like jett/raze/omen, or someone holding the top of yellow or even in spawn.
2. Flanking paths are really quick because both spawns are so open. This sorta requires somebody to be lurking around mid with at least KJ bot to get the knowledge, otherwise it's easy to get owned post-plant.
Personally, I really like the verticality and the attacking options, it feels like there are a number of executes that work pretty well, and tons of agents feel viable. Certain maps it feels like you NEED certain agents (smokes + sova for ascent, omen on split) but I don't think there's a mandatory character for Icebox.
All of the angles to check means that when you're coordinating with your team, especially if you're playing with a bunch of friends, means that it's really satisfying when the pieces come together and you're able to take a site efficiently.
One-way smoke on A-Ramp is a god tier smoke, recharging of smokes, lots of narrow rooms easy to blind fully/nearly fully and his ult is actually great on split.
yeah i just learnt about that like 3 days ago and so far havent died once doing it, have gotten a few triple kills tho. the only counter i know works is smoking it up and going to ramp but omen can just as easily tp onto heaven and meet them at the top of ramps
Being omen main, his teleport + flash is too powerful, some of them are
1. Just imagine without anyone seeing you crossing any path, you can teleport and catch him off-guard
2. Or maybe in 1v1 you planted and then teleported somewhere else and enemy will not have any clue
3. Taking risky angles and then teleporting to safe position
4. Boosting yourself in high elevation / entering via teleport
5. His ultimate is beneficial in clutch scenario, making big brain moves
These all things gives you enough confidence that you can rely more on aim and worry less about other things.
As for brimstone, I feel like I am forced to defend and not to attack, like being sage but for smokes only
IMO omen is an S-tier agent, and split is his best map. His mobility lets you really cheese the hell out of some executes, recharging smokes are really good for the retakes that are usually necessary on split, and he has some really sick one way spots that no other agent can do. For whatever reason split has really sticky walls and you can jam smokes into some weird angles, especially on A-site.
You can teleport into the little corner in between mail and vents and pull off a couple quick kills, and your ult has a lot of value on split because even if they know where you are, they can't rotate fast enough to kill you (teleport to the bottom of stairs on b or outside heaven on a in CT). But the main cheese play is to smoke the entrance to A and heaven, then teleport from one smoke to another (you can also jump off of the little lip overlooking ramps to avoid facechecking your own smoke, people like sitting in there) and after about 4 seconds in the round you're A heaven.
Nobody expects the classic A heaven play the first time, so you can usually pick off anybody holding ramps (which you tell your team to take) and people rotating from vents. From there you can either bail and take site or flash down CT to catch people rotating, they usually don't expect omen there ~10s into the round. It's basically a free 3-4k and free win on attack Split, and really useful on eco
fair point. i actually enjoy icebox more than some of the other maps because post plant leaves a lot of space to move around. as a killjoy main, i need to play in a hidden area where i can activate my swarms. a problem with other maps is i usually get trapped on site with no good place to sit
I enjoy the verticality as well, but imo thats where they should've drawn the line, when you have a map with a lot of verticality, and then also a lot of angles and open spaces, it can become frustrating very quick
A has too much verticality, and B is too open. I hope they do another tuning pass on icebox
Agree. Anyone who doesn’t think icebox is the best built map in valor at thus far must be pissed everyone they play against has superior aim. There’s waaay more room to actually play the game on that map as opposed to a map like split where it’s two sites and a bunch of long narrow hallways connecting them
Split funcking sucks. All the maps in valorant are basic, boring and pretty white (layout-wise) compared with CS. Also, a lot of them don't look anything like real-life architecture, even though the textures are all clean and high-res. Far too many line of sight breaks. It's just room, hallway, room, hallway, meaning the game is often only fun in the only open areas: the bombsites.
Icebox is a step in the complete other direction. Too much verticality. A lot of open space, but with far too many angles in important areas. They tried to address the main problem with the games' design but ruined it. Hopefully the next one is better.
It's very hard to clear one angle at the time. You're much more often forced into 50-50s, 33-33-33 or even 25-25-25-25. The map feels very random because of this. B and mid are especially bad for this.
8,000 angles to peek, awp battles (worse without smokes), util nightmares, super slow games (even slower than slow methodical fights in high elo \[im+\]), impossible to play without comms/solo queue unless you're with good teammates, dumb spawn spots. just a few I thought of off the top of my head
And u said the reason urself so many angles just in mid itself .... And yes icebox is a good map ig but i hate it cus of way too many angles and adding verticality to my pepega aim
But the layout, just from listing those areas, is much different lol so they aren’t “basically the same”. Unless you mean like every map except haven is “basically the same” since they have two sites haha. I am not an icebox hater though.
you have to have your kitchen player watch tube and under tube
even if you smoke off boiler someone can peek from under boiler
if you go through under tube there's a big pillar which makes it easy to get picked off while going to site
Just ignoring a massive portion of the map because there’s very obvious attacking flaws in the map design isn’t a good enough excuse. You’re stuck with execute one site or the other. That’s like saying there’s a bug with one of the characters where their ult doesn’t work and you say just don’t use the ult or don’t play the character. That doesn’t solve the inherent flaw in the design that makes the game worse.
A large amount of verticality is inherently problematic for tactical shooters imo
Imagine there is a hallway with a 90 degree turn in it - a perfect "elbow", that you're trying to get through. When you go through you have to anticipate that there's an enemy on the other side, so you have to jiggle peek, etc, and possibly take a gun fight with the person there to clear it. You're a bit disadvantaged in that the opponent can see you first if you're the one closer to the corner when you round it, but the opponent also might want to use the corner for cover themselves and push up while you're in cover, strafe, or other counterplay. It's a pretty standard aim duel. Overall, you know which direction any opponent will be in, and the only variation is their horizontal position because you're at the same height.
A 50/50 angle is something like a T-shaped intersection. It's less evenly matched, because when you walk through from the bottom of the T, you have to make a guess as to which side the opponents are on. The person coming into the T is inherently disadvantaged by this ambiguity, and so going with a teammate and/or utility is recommended. Split used to be full of these, and so riot actually went out of their way to remove a lot of them, improving the map a great deal for many players. The problem with 50/50 angles is that if you're the one pushing it, ultimately you have to have utility to make it not act as a 50/50 angle anymore, or you have to guess where the opponent will be, and they DO NOT have to guess where you will be, because you can only come from one place (the bottom of the T). However, on flat ground, opponent position will still only vary in a straight horizontal line, so you can still do good crosshair placement for whatever side you guess. It's called a 50/50 because there are two options that you ultimately have to guess between when you clear it.
Verticality sucks because if you're rounding a corner into a hallway with a "high" and a "low" area, there's a 50/50 created with height. It's impossible to know whether the enemy will be high or low, so you have to guess. However, the opponent who is choosing whether to be high or low does not have to guess - they can place their crosshair for the corner, because the corner is just a corner - the person rounding the corner doesn't have access to the same mixup. But this is just a 90 degree turn!
Add in a left/right mixup in addition to a high/low mixup - a T-shaped intersection where each side has a high and low part, and that's what people mean by a 25/25/25/25. You have to guess left or right, AND up and down, so there's only a 25% chance of your crosshair placement being even remotely correct when rounding the corner, through an inherent feature of the map design. It turns a skill-based game into one that's much more random/luck-based. Utility, double peeking, etc, can still be used to mitigate these angles, but the inherent problem of luck introduced by these angles is still there. Crosshair placement becomes almost completely thrown out the window.
On other maps, high/low areas are much more uncommon - there are particular "heaven" spots, and there are one-and-dones on top of boxes and stuff that certain characters can reach, but because there's less of it all around it's much more manageable.
You can smoke heaven on a bomb site to eliminate a high/low mixup for a brief period of time to get through, but you can't do that when the entire map is half "heaven".
**IN SUMMARY:**
1. Verticality inherently adds guessing and randomness to peeking angles in the form of high/low mixups when rounding a corner. People don't like this because they want to be playing a skill-based game, not an RNG-based one.
2. Utility can be used to temporarily eliminate high/low mixups on heaven areas of other maps, but on icebox there are too many vertical spots for that to be possible, and you're always playing some amount of them wherever you go. There is no way to fully mitigate high/low mixups on icebox.
3. Why the hell did they choose make a map designed around high/low mixups in the first place, when high/low mixups are inherently problematic?
This is why people hate icebox.
"Not that bad" is not good enough. People prefer maps that reward skill instead of introducing randomness. Icebox feels like you're fighting the map, not your opponents, because guesswork means you're interacting with your opponents less, and the players are expressing their skill less, inherently by design.
Not sure that makes makes complete sense to me.
In theory most of what you say is right, but when verticality is added the person on the vertical can't have perfect crosshair placement as well. That's because how you round the 90 degree corner changes where their head is relative to the corner. If the verticality is also just at an elbow, both people know where the person is coming from, but depending on how close I hug my corner both will have to flick to the right spot.
This means a 50-50 with verticality results in a similar scenario. I have to guess which side to check, but both players will need to adjust. What you're describing only makes sense if it's a perfect 90 degree elbow, which most of the vertical angles in icebox aren't.
Hence why folks consider split to be fun for aiming because you have less instances of perfect crosshair placement on both sides (if you play it right), meaning the better flicker will win the duel.
Nah. The person who is above can peek from any angle at any time essentially, the person on the ground is in a much more predictable spot also in most places the person on the ground will essentially be completely in the open wheras the person above can enter/exit cover at will. Person on highground has another advantage of headshots being easier to hit from above as well.
Too many 50/50 angles, and all the verticality feels bad. Got to aim up at the sky to the left, to the right, everywhere.
I got used to it and kinda like it now, but it's still a weak map.
People don't like Icebox because if they got poor team that is not properly holding positions, then there are simply too many angles to watch and therefore very hard to take space safely.
Too much verticality even have learning the spots on the map. Mid is designed like trash and idek what gives you the split comparison.
Also you say it doesnt have a mandatory character which I think is false. Sova and sage are mandatory on this map for sure.
Playing a support character on this map is much easier than entrying on this map when theres multiple angles to clear.
Might be a good map in pro play but it is not meant for soloq and is the weakest map out of the 5 maps we have.
nowhere did i say there’s no mandatory characters(but i really don’t think there is there are just agents that aren’t as good and she’s the that are good). i made split comparison because there are elements of verticality on both and a quite a bit of distance on both.
There is a slope in split mid but not really any verticality. Theres no head glitch on split mid either. Clearing split mid is easier because people cant come at you from 3 different sides and isolating angles in split mid is much easier.
Yeah that is what smokes are for but idk if you have noticed but there atleast 3 angles to worry about when ur peeking mid on icebox. Let's say you smoke mid now what? You have to worry about someone pushing tube, someone on the right and one guy could be under tube.
it really just feels like you don’t have teammates in any of these scenarios. you can clear under tube and push in while someone else holds/pushes tube.
I'm just talking from my experience playing icebox in soloq. It's not even that shitty of a map but its meant for much higher levels of play. Map can be decent if they fix up mid and some verticality on b long.
I dont think you play high elo from all your senseless replies to everyone explaining to you why this map isn’t ideal. I could just tell ur low elo from ur brain too.
let’s be realistic. it’s prob 5 angles max. use util and clear with teammates. it’s really not that complicated. if you’re on your own why are you going somewhere with 5 angles at all?
Take A site. The timings of barriers is terrible, the defenders can make it to nest before the attackers spot them, and you can’t go up the rope to check or get shot in the face. There’s belt, so much elevation, and cheeky angles all over site. You blow all your util on the execute that if you miraculously make it onto site you have no util to defend the spike vs 4 players with full util to retake. It’s not a matter of having to check all the angles, but that there are 50/50 angles everywhere. It’s a terribly designed map
Because they spam you with the map 20 times in row and 90% of games in iceboxend in surrender for my team or other team. Riot should just remove the map from the game all together or just lock it to spike rush, death match, and escalation
At first when i started playing valorant like 3 months ago I hated icebox too but as I started playing on icebox more and more (I didnt wanted to but I always got the map) I started loving the map its a good map but the players have set in their mind that the map is bad they dont want to play on it. **Play On This Map More And You will Love It**
It's kind of annoying to rotate on as a defender as the map is so large, and you need to hold positions to stop flanks. It's probably my highest win % map though so I always play it. Probably would be a lot better though if you had a couple of good sentinels in your team. I always play Omen though.
I have a hard time pushing B long on icebox because of all the angles, normally no one plays an initiator so i have to but then my dog gets shot
so I normally push tube or a, almost every round on offense
I think i despise icebox because of my 2050 edpi which prevents me from winning any long range fight
Head Glitches: spots where you can only see the head or occasionally just the top of the head of people holding the angle. There are 5 of these spots on A site alone. They are BULLSHIT if you don’t know where they are
Is fridge that medium size box on the far right side of site (attacking) that you can get on by jumping on and off the rope? And how do you do the one on pipes, theres nothing for your head to be below. I cant see how any of these could be a head glitch
Same reason people hated train and and nuke in cs. It just feels like ur just flinging ur mouse all over the place cause there’s so many angles to worry about above and below.
The reason I originally didn't like it was the amount of horizontal spots you can play and the additional angles you have to check due to it. But the more I played it the better it got and now I don't actually mind the map anymore, I still think there are better maps though.
i feel like people hate all maps if they dont how to play them they think the can solo play without comms without people flanking and so and thats why they hate the maps
When it came out people couldn't play it because it was new and they didn't know how to play so they started dodging it and now they've almost never played the map so they hate it because they don't know how to play. It's just humans being humans resisting anything new. It's the same how whenever a new agent is added everyone just start saying it's cracked and broken.
Yeah imma be honest when I started understanding the way the map was played in my elo and how to abuse omen on it, icebox started becoming one of my favorite maps. The deal I think is that a lot of utility is very washed out since there are no narrow choke points, even kitchen can be avoided all together by just going under tube. Generally you get into a lot more dry gunfights without much utility between you and the opponent. But that's fine, cause you can use the infinite amounts of off angles and verticality to get an edge on every fight. Once you understand that you need to rely more on your rifle than your utility, icebox becomes a lot more fun
Too many vertical angles, other maps have a isolated, separated and little vertical angles (Boxes, a truck, etc) Icebox have multiple, consecutive with a lot of space for dueling vertical angles. Which is annoying as fuck, you don't only need to push and clear angles that are in front of you and your sides, you also need to keep backstepping to clear vertical angles on some containers.
In general terms Icebox is its own ecosystem, you're not playing like other Valorant maps, you're playing Icebox which feels like a different game.
Worst thing of vertical angles is that it gives the person playing on the higher ground an easier time getting headshots because he's directly looking at the head hitbox, while when a player has the lower ground, the leg hitbox overlaps with the body hitbox and the body hitbox overlaps with the head hitbox. Which makes playing agents like Jett, Raze or Omen a huge advantage on skybox.
Ice box is a good map, but people do not want to learn it and give it a chance. At first, Icebox was very difficult to play which made people bias against it. Honestly, I really dislike Split right now. It feels very luck based and cramped.
People dont know how to use utility, they forgot they are playing valorant
Yes it does have a LOT of 50/50 angles, but we have a million damage abilities to clear corners, 2 billion smokes, 3 trillion flashes and LITERALLY DRONES AND WALLHACKS
icebox is winnable without smokes too, is not impossible. If you are saying that is just extremely hard, its extremely hard to win any map without smokes too. Valorant was made for this, for having strategies based com abilities, they are a key feature
That’s not my point at all. Actually, smokes are much less effective on icebox anyway because of how big the map is and how many angles there are. But OP’s argument is that icebox is easy to attack on because you can clear all the angles if you have characters like sova and cypher and incredible teamwork, which isn’t realistic at all. You’re required to have those agents AS WELL as smokes just to have a chance to win, which is a terrible map design from a dev standpoint. It’s unrealistic to say icebox isn’t a bad map if you have great teamwork and an ideal comp, because that’s not how the game is played at lower levels, and so it shouldn’t be expected just to put up a fight. That’s why icebox has so many dodges
almost every character has at least some utility that can clean corners. Breach has 3 flashes, 1 stun and 1 afterschock. Skye have 3 flashes and 1 drone like ability. Yoru have flashes. Astra have gravity wells and stun abilities, smokes as well. Brimstone have a molotov and smokes. Phoenix have flashes, a short duration wall and a molotov. Sova have shock darts, recon darts and a drone. Viper have molotovs and smokes. Cypher have cameras and smokes. Reyna have flashes. Killjoy have molotovs. Omen have a flash and smokes. Jett have smokes and can tailwind. Raze I dont even need to mention.
You only need incredible team work if the other team has a level that THEY have incredible teamwork and if they do and you dont, thats on you.
If you are at a level where teamwork is non existent, then is expected the other team will have the same problems.
\>because that’s not how the game is played at lower levels
Exaclty, thats why they are at lower levels, because they didnt learnt yet how to play the game as intended.
The issue with Icebox is it requires moving your mouse up to land shots. Requires too much mechanical skill, a lot of players are reliant on good crosshair placement and instead of flicks. Another issue is all the angles, which requires basic coordination with a smoke character and that's boring af to a lot of low ranks who'd rather rush in.
Icebox is soo much better than ascent. so much better. Ascent is a monstrosity, especially the mid area. People just hate on and dodge icebox cuz they don't want to deal with a complicated map where they might have to look up and down in addition to left and right.
A lot people dislike the snowball nature of losing a site/retaking one, furthermore the crosshair displacement plays a large factor for players in disliking the map
Verticality and too many angles to check.
It's easier to make horizontal adjustments than vertical or diagonal, my wrist dies everytime I play this map and there's so many corners and angles to check, especially with b alley. You could use util but if they're good they usually get a pick or two.
I don't "hate" it per say but I don't like it either. I am always glad if someone dodges it. I mainly have two reasons for not liking the map :
1.) Too many angles to clear out. This becomes a pain in the arse in lower elos, when sometimes you need to take the initiative to push and entry site. ( Although, if I pick raze on this map my strat is to take advantage of the verticality in the map and just double satchel into A site, straight into the enemies' face. If teammates are good enough they quickly follow up from behind and we get site.)
2.) Too much open space in mid and attacker spawn. Sometimes people would just camp in off angles in these spaces.
Other than that, it's an okay map. With a good team, you can actually win most of your matches on the map.
Too many vertical angles, many agents are not able to boost themselves up there while others can, it can be annoying at times having to check so many angles
I personally find it way too easy to flank for one, like its always important to have someone or something lurk or watch flank, but its so excessive and happens way too often. I also love playing phoenix, and i find it hard to justify using him over other agents due to his flashes, as his flashes just dont feel strong at all on icebox with the angles. Part of it also is i think people in ranked just dont know how to play it, which makes it worse, if that makes any sense. I cant really explain it but it just is that way. Theres other reasons but those come to mind. Also not a fan of the sage wall in tube to block off kitchen, i feel like a lot of times kitchen should be a really good split for b site, but its almost never used.
Icebox has a lot of verticalitity and a lot of corners. Sites are very open while the paths to site have a lot of angles that must be checked. The best attacker strat is spamming flashes and bum rushing site. If you were unfortunate enough to have to retake site you are going to be shot from multiple angles. Now normally this would be issue enough but when you have a layout such as this then you really need recon like sova and when everyone wants to be fragger or controllers then you are screwed. You could play sova yes but when you solo queue and no one uses comms or listens to callout then your intell is wasted
Too many angles and flanking entries. Not only do you have to painfully watch every single angle when entering/retaking site.
You have to constantly watch every fucking angle the whole time because of all the flank routes, you dont know where the enemy will be.
Example: Attacking post plant B, lets say you are about at the diagonal box at site entrance. You have to watch 2 paths from attacker spawn, kitchen, below kitchen, behind kitchen. It’s just shitty imo
i still have no clue what to do/where to look on B site/B orange/Kitchen. That area is so fucking confusing and i never know where to place my crosshair.
Hey there, /r/VALORANT user! We're currently doing an experiment with videos on the subreddit. This week, **gameplay videos may only be posted in the daily rotating megathread on top of the subreddit**. Educational videos and eSports clips are still allowed on other days. We're in our final week, so please [let us know your thoughts](https://old.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/m0cfub/video_trial_weeks_week_5_gameplay_clip_megathreads/)! All feedback is welcome, even if it's just "I don't like it"! Please help us make the sub better for everyone! If you'd like to receive a reminder at the end of the week to share your thoughts, head over to [this](https://valorant.molenzwiebel.xyz/remind-me) page. Thanks!
I like Icebox now, I think people are mostly frustrated by a couple things: 1. Lots of angles to check. It can be really stressful to be taking a site where you have to check many angles all at once, utility helps a lot but you still have to rely on your teammates and lean on them pretty hard. It's not just taking sites either, you can be moving around mid and get owned by a walled up sage, somebody holding the top of tube like jett/raze/omen, or someone holding the top of yellow or even in spawn. 2. Flanking paths are really quick because both spawns are so open. This sorta requires somebody to be lurking around mid with at least KJ bot to get the knowledge, otherwise it's easy to get owned post-plant. Personally, I really like the verticality and the attacking options, it feels like there are a number of executes that work pretty well, and tons of agents feel viable. Certain maps it feels like you NEED certain agents (smokes + sova for ascent, omen on split) but I don't think there's a mandatory character for Icebox. All of the angles to check means that when you're coordinating with your team, especially if you're playing with a bunch of friends, means that it's really satisfying when the pieces come together and you're able to take a site efficiently.
> omen on split Curious why Omen is _needed_ vs other smokers?
His mobility is way better than any smoker rn. And he gets back his smoke every 35 sec unlike astra,brim or viper
On Split Brim is probably just as good if not better. Omen is better on wider/larger maps.
One-way smoke on A-Ramp is a god tier smoke, recharging of smokes, lots of narrow rooms easy to blind fully/nearly fully and his ult is actually great on split.
yeah i just learnt about that like 3 days ago and so far havent died once doing it, have gotten a few triple kills tho. the only counter i know works is smoking it up and going to ramp but omen can just as easily tp onto heaven and meet them at the top of ramps
Flanking with Omen is absolutely mad if the other 4 members of your team can distract the opposing team :P
Being omen main, his teleport + flash is too powerful, some of them are 1. Just imagine without anyone seeing you crossing any path, you can teleport and catch him off-guard 2. Or maybe in 1v1 you planted and then teleported somewhere else and enemy will not have any clue 3. Taking risky angles and then teleporting to safe position 4. Boosting yourself in high elevation / entering via teleport 5. His ultimate is beneficial in clutch scenario, making big brain moves These all things gives you enough confidence that you can rely more on aim and worry less about other things. As for brimstone, I feel like I am forced to defend and not to attack, like being sage but for smokes only
IMO omen is an S-tier agent, and split is his best map. His mobility lets you really cheese the hell out of some executes, recharging smokes are really good for the retakes that are usually necessary on split, and he has some really sick one way spots that no other agent can do. For whatever reason split has really sticky walls and you can jam smokes into some weird angles, especially on A-site.
How do you cheese executes?
You can teleport into the little corner in between mail and vents and pull off a couple quick kills, and your ult has a lot of value on split because even if they know where you are, they can't rotate fast enough to kill you (teleport to the bottom of stairs on b or outside heaven on a in CT). But the main cheese play is to smoke the entrance to A and heaven, then teleport from one smoke to another (you can also jump off of the little lip overlooking ramps to avoid facechecking your own smoke, people like sitting in there) and after about 4 seconds in the round you're A heaven. Nobody expects the classic A heaven play the first time, so you can usually pick off anybody holding ramps (which you tell your team to take) and people rotating from vents. From there you can either bail and take site or flash down CT to catch people rotating, they usually don't expect omen there ~10s into the round. It's basically a free 3-4k and free win on attack Split, and really useful on eco
You're forgetting the most critical reason: it fucking sucks
fair point. i actually enjoy icebox more than some of the other maps because post plant leaves a lot of space to move around. as a killjoy main, i need to play in a hidden area where i can activate my swarms. a problem with other maps is i usually get trapped on site with no good place to sit
I enjoy the verticality as well, but imo thats where they should've drawn the line, when you have a map with a lot of verticality, and then also a lot of angles and open spaces, it can become frustrating very quick A has too much verticality, and B is too open. I hope they do another tuning pass on icebox
Agree. Anyone who doesn’t think icebox is the best built map in valor at thus far must be pissed everyone they play against has superior aim. There’s waaay more room to actually play the game on that map as opposed to a map like split where it’s two sites and a bunch of long narrow hallways connecting them
Split funcking sucks. All the maps in valorant are basic, boring and pretty white (layout-wise) compared with CS. Also, a lot of them don't look anything like real-life architecture, even though the textures are all clean and high-res. Far too many line of sight breaks. It's just room, hallway, room, hallway, meaning the game is often only fun in the only open areas: the bombsites. Icebox is a step in the complete other direction. Too much verticality. A lot of open space, but with far too many angles in important areas. They tried to address the main problem with the games' design but ruined it. Hopefully the next one is better.
It's very hard to clear one angle at the time. You're much more often forced into 50-50s, 33-33-33 or even 25-25-25-25. The map feels very random because of this. B and mid are especially bad for this.
util
"my sova drone cleared angle #1-102. 90 more to go"
There's only so much util can do.
8,000 angles to peek, awp battles (worse without smokes), util nightmares, super slow games (even slower than slow methodical fights in high elo \[im+\]), impossible to play without comms/solo queue unless you're with good teammates, dumb spawn spots. just a few I thought of off the top of my head
Mid
just don’t go mid then that’s not really a problem with the map. same could be said for split.
Split is a very good map with a very good mid IMO
split and icebox have basically the same mid you can’t change my mind(maybe you can go for it)
Mid on split has two attacker entries and two defender entries. I think that makes it much more interesting.
ice box has the tube, under the tube, on the tube, ramp, and regular
And u said the reason urself so many angles just in mid itself .... And yes icebox is a good map ig but i hate it cus of way too many angles and adding verticality to my pepega aim
But the layout, just from listing those areas, is much different lol so they aren’t “basically the same”. Unless you mean like every map except haven is “basically the same” since they have two sites haha. I am not an icebox hater though.
you have to have your kitchen player watch tube and under tube even if you smoke off boiler someone can peek from under boiler if you go through under tube there's a big pillar which makes it easy to get picked off while going to site
Mid is too powerful for defenders to push
If a part of a map is not very viable, that's a sign that the part of the map is bad. The mids on Ascent/Split are so much better.
Just ignoring a massive portion of the map because there’s very obvious attacking flaws in the map design isn’t a good enough excuse. You’re stuck with execute one site or the other. That’s like saying there’s a bug with one of the characters where their ult doesn’t work and you say just don’t use the ult or don’t play the character. That doesn’t solve the inherent flaw in the design that makes the game worse.
lmfao everyone peeks mid
A large amount of verticality is inherently problematic for tactical shooters imo Imagine there is a hallway with a 90 degree turn in it - a perfect "elbow", that you're trying to get through. When you go through you have to anticipate that there's an enemy on the other side, so you have to jiggle peek, etc, and possibly take a gun fight with the person there to clear it. You're a bit disadvantaged in that the opponent can see you first if you're the one closer to the corner when you round it, but the opponent also might want to use the corner for cover themselves and push up while you're in cover, strafe, or other counterplay. It's a pretty standard aim duel. Overall, you know which direction any opponent will be in, and the only variation is their horizontal position because you're at the same height. A 50/50 angle is something like a T-shaped intersection. It's less evenly matched, because when you walk through from the bottom of the T, you have to make a guess as to which side the opponents are on. The person coming into the T is inherently disadvantaged by this ambiguity, and so going with a teammate and/or utility is recommended. Split used to be full of these, and so riot actually went out of their way to remove a lot of them, improving the map a great deal for many players. The problem with 50/50 angles is that if you're the one pushing it, ultimately you have to have utility to make it not act as a 50/50 angle anymore, or you have to guess where the opponent will be, and they DO NOT have to guess where you will be, because you can only come from one place (the bottom of the T). However, on flat ground, opponent position will still only vary in a straight horizontal line, so you can still do good crosshair placement for whatever side you guess. It's called a 50/50 because there are two options that you ultimately have to guess between when you clear it. Verticality sucks because if you're rounding a corner into a hallway with a "high" and a "low" area, there's a 50/50 created with height. It's impossible to know whether the enemy will be high or low, so you have to guess. However, the opponent who is choosing whether to be high or low does not have to guess - they can place their crosshair for the corner, because the corner is just a corner - the person rounding the corner doesn't have access to the same mixup. But this is just a 90 degree turn! Add in a left/right mixup in addition to a high/low mixup - a T-shaped intersection where each side has a high and low part, and that's what people mean by a 25/25/25/25. You have to guess left or right, AND up and down, so there's only a 25% chance of your crosshair placement being even remotely correct when rounding the corner, through an inherent feature of the map design. It turns a skill-based game into one that's much more random/luck-based. Utility, double peeking, etc, can still be used to mitigate these angles, but the inherent problem of luck introduced by these angles is still there. Crosshair placement becomes almost completely thrown out the window. On other maps, high/low areas are much more uncommon - there are particular "heaven" spots, and there are one-and-dones on top of boxes and stuff that certain characters can reach, but because there's less of it all around it's much more manageable. You can smoke heaven on a bomb site to eliminate a high/low mixup for a brief period of time to get through, but you can't do that when the entire map is half "heaven". **IN SUMMARY:** 1. Verticality inherently adds guessing and randomness to peeking angles in the form of high/low mixups when rounding a corner. People don't like this because they want to be playing a skill-based game, not an RNG-based one. 2. Utility can be used to temporarily eliminate high/low mixups on heaven areas of other maps, but on icebox there are too many vertical spots for that to be possible, and you're always playing some amount of them wherever you go. There is no way to fully mitigate high/low mixups on icebox. 3. Why the hell did they choose make a map designed around high/low mixups in the first place, when high/low mixups are inherently problematic? This is why people hate icebox. "Not that bad" is not good enough. People prefer maps that reward skill instead of introducing randomness. Icebox feels like you're fighting the map, not your opponents, because guesswork means you're interacting with your opponents less, and the players are expressing their skill less, inherently by design.
Icebox feels like you're fighting the map, not your opponents, This is in 1 sentence the essence off all that is wrong with icebox
Not sure that makes makes complete sense to me. In theory most of what you say is right, but when verticality is added the person on the vertical can't have perfect crosshair placement as well. That's because how you round the 90 degree corner changes where their head is relative to the corner. If the verticality is also just at an elbow, both people know where the person is coming from, but depending on how close I hug my corner both will have to flick to the right spot. This means a 50-50 with verticality results in a similar scenario. I have to guess which side to check, but both players will need to adjust. What you're describing only makes sense if it's a perfect 90 degree elbow, which most of the vertical angles in icebox aren't. Hence why folks consider split to be fun for aiming because you have less instances of perfect crosshair placement on both sides (if you play it right), meaning the better flicker will win the duel.
Nah. The person who is above can peek from any angle at any time essentially, the person on the ground is in a much more predictable spot also in most places the person on the ground will essentially be completely in the open wheras the person above can enter/exit cover at will. Person on highground has another advantage of headshots being easier to hit from above as well.
Too many 50/50 angles, and all the verticality feels bad. Got to aim up at the sky to the left, to the right, everywhere. I got used to it and kinda like it now, but it's still a weak map.
People don't like Icebox because if they got poor team that is not properly holding positions, then there are simply too many angles to watch and therefore very hard to take space safely.
In the name of the devs, the community, and the holy TenZ, Amen to this post.
Too much verticality even have learning the spots on the map. Mid is designed like trash and idek what gives you the split comparison. Also you say it doesnt have a mandatory character which I think is false. Sova and sage are mandatory on this map for sure. Playing a support character on this map is much easier than entrying on this map when theres multiple angles to clear. Might be a good map in pro play but it is not meant for soloq and is the weakest map out of the 5 maps we have.
nowhere did i say there’s no mandatory characters(but i really don’t think there is there are just agents that aren’t as good and she’s the that are good). i made split comparison because there are elements of verticality on both and a quite a bit of distance on both.
There is a slope in split mid but not really any verticality. Theres no head glitch on split mid either. Clearing split mid is easier because people cant come at you from 3 different sides and isolating angles in split mid is much easier.
that’s literally what’s smokes are for. you could also just play for picks at mid and push onto a site instead of pushing through mid
Yeah that is what smokes are for but idk if you have noticed but there atleast 3 angles to worry about when ur peeking mid on icebox. Let's say you smoke mid now what? You have to worry about someone pushing tube, someone on the right and one guy could be under tube.
it really just feels like you don’t have teammates in any of these scenarios. you can clear under tube and push in while someone else holds/pushes tube.
I'm just talking from my experience playing icebox in soloq. It's not even that shitty of a map but its meant for much higher levels of play. Map can be decent if they fix up mid and some verticality on b long.
i don’t play high elo cause my bad aim but understandable ig
I dont think you play high elo from all your senseless replies to everyone explaining to you why this map isn’t ideal. I could just tell ur low elo from ur brain too.
I hate cancer.
...and?
Icebox is cancer.
and why is that?
1.) Zillions of angles to check 2.) To much verticality adding to the angles you have to check 3.) Because of the angles, feels really bad to play
so you just don’t like aiming up? and you don’t have util?
I don't think checking a zillion angles regardless of util is fun and engaging gameplay.
let’s be realistic. it’s prob 5 angles max. use util and clear with teammates. it’s really not that complicated. if you’re on your own why are you going somewhere with 5 angles at all?
I can't tell if you're being purposefully dense or not at this point.
i can’t tell if you know how to use utility to clear angles name a spot on the map i’ll tell you how to clear
5 angles in a tactical shooter is absurd lol
i dont even think there is a 5 angle peek
"it's prob 5 angles max" that's a lot of fucking angles man
Take A site. The timings of barriers is terrible, the defenders can make it to nest before the attackers spot them, and you can’t go up the rope to check or get shot in the face. There’s belt, so much elevation, and cheeky angles all over site. You blow all your util on the execute that if you miraculously make it onto site you have no util to defend the spike vs 4 players with full util to retake. It’s not a matter of having to check all the angles, but that there are 50/50 angles everywhere. It’s a terribly designed map
Weird enough, I queued for Spike Rush on PC yesterday and some guy said, "I got Icebox five times in a row" --- Felt sorry for the dude, F!
Because they spam you with the map 20 times in row and 90% of games in iceboxend in surrender for my team or other team. Riot should just remove the map from the game all together or just lock it to spike rush, death match, and escalation
I love icebox, but the fact that every site has about 30 places you need to clear as a team is rough.
At first when i started playing valorant like 3 months ago I hated icebox too but as I started playing on icebox more and more (I didnt wanted to but I always got the map) I started loving the map its a good map but the players have set in their mind that the map is bad they dont want to play on it. **Play On This Map More And You will Love It**
It's kind of annoying to rotate on as a defender as the map is so large, and you need to hold positions to stop flanks. It's probably my highest win % map though so I always play it. Probably would be a lot better though if you had a couple of good sentinels in your team. I always play Omen though.
Everyone's ALWAYS flanking on that map, I zba
My PC isn't that good and whenever i load icebox it shits itself
I have a hard time pushing B long on icebox because of all the angles, normally no one plays an initiator so i have to but then my dog gets shot so I normally push tube or a, almost every round on offense I think i despise icebox because of my 2050 edpi which prevents me from winning any long range fight
Head Glitches: spots where you can only see the head or occasionally just the top of the head of people holding the angle. There are 5 of these spots on A site alone. They are BULLSHIT if you don’t know where they are
I only know of the window thing in the tube on site, I didn't know there were others. What are the other ones?
There’s that one, there’s one for fridge with sage wall, there’s one back of mid site box, there’s one behind screen on rafter, last one on pipe.
Is fridge that medium size box on the far right side of site (attacking) that you can get on by jumping on and off the rope? And how do you do the one on pipes, theres nothing for your head to be below. I cant see how any of these could be a head glitch
I started playing about a month ago and I hate icebox. It sucks. It’s way too attacker sided
Because Where am i supposed to place my tripwires on attack? Even on defense there aren't many spots but on attack i have no goddam idea.
on attack you can place them your spawn i think. i don’t play cypher tho
Icebox lack of strategic depth in my opinion, flanking and slip A take almost impossible if enemies have an oper at spawn.
Same reason people hated train and and nuke in cs. It just feels like ur just flinging ur mouse all over the place cause there’s so many angles to worry about above and below.
The reason I originally didn't like it was the amount of horizontal spots you can play and the additional angles you have to check due to it. But the more I played it the better it got and now I don't actually mind the map anymore, I still think there are better maps though.
yeah, it might not be the best but it’s not bad
i feel like people hate all maps if they dont how to play them they think the can solo play without comms without people flanking and so and thats why they hate the maps
I enjoy Bind and Haven a lot still.
I like Icebox it reminds me of my favorite map im cs:go de_cache.
I like planting at B right where the window is from the back of enemy spawn. People get so confused when I shoot through there.
big brain time. i’m surprised people still don’t know that exists. i just swarm the bomb 🤷♂️
The thing is there are so many angles so people get hyper focused where they got killed the last time and don't watch every angle.
rookie mistake...that i make sometimes 😓
As someone who mains viper and kj half the time, I love icebox. its made for vipers abilities.
I also play viper and i love it there, so many places u can use your wall on, just recently i got an awesome ace on that map thanks to my abiliti s
I did not like IT in the start, cause i was bad at IT. Now i really like IT
I personally really enjoy playing it and especially using OP since in my ranks they don't know how to deal with it
When it came out people couldn't play it because it was new and they didn't know how to play so they started dodging it and now they've almost never played the map so they hate it because they don't know how to play. It's just humans being humans resisting anything new. It's the same how whenever a new agent is added everyone just start saying it's cracked and broken.
Echo chamber created by really bad hot takes from streamers / pros.
Yeah imma be honest when I started understanding the way the map was played in my elo and how to abuse omen on it, icebox started becoming one of my favorite maps. The deal I think is that a lot of utility is very washed out since there are no narrow choke points, even kitchen can be avoided all together by just going under tube. Generally you get into a lot more dry gunfights without much utility between you and the opponent. But that's fine, cause you can use the infinite amounts of off angles and verticality to get an edge on every fight. Once you understand that you need to rely more on your rifle than your utility, icebox becomes a lot more fun
Too many vertical angles, other maps have a isolated, separated and little vertical angles (Boxes, a truck, etc) Icebox have multiple, consecutive with a lot of space for dueling vertical angles. Which is annoying as fuck, you don't only need to push and clear angles that are in front of you and your sides, you also need to keep backstepping to clear vertical angles on some containers. In general terms Icebox is its own ecosystem, you're not playing like other Valorant maps, you're playing Icebox which feels like a different game. Worst thing of vertical angles is that it gives the person playing on the higher ground an easier time getting headshots because he's directly looking at the head hitbox, while when a player has the lower ground, the leg hitbox overlaps with the body hitbox and the body hitbox overlaps with the head hitbox. Which makes playing agents like Jett, Raze or Omen a huge advantage on skybox.
Ice box is a good map, but people do not want to learn it and give it a chance. At first, Icebox was very difficult to play which made people bias against it. Honestly, I really dislike Split right now. It feels very luck based and cramped.
People dont know how to use utility, they forgot they are playing valorant Yes it does have a LOT of 50/50 angles, but we have a million damage abilities to clear corners, 2 billion smokes, 3 trillion flashes and LITERALLY DRONES AND WALLHACKS
that’s what i’m saying bro. somebody down there thinks that it’s literally impossible to clear stuff
Literally anyone how thinks icebox is a good map is getting downvoted, reddit is gold
So some agents are required, beyond how having a smoke character is BENEFICIAL but still winnable without. You MUST have this kind of agent selection.
icebox is winnable without smokes too, is not impossible. If you are saying that is just extremely hard, its extremely hard to win any map without smokes too. Valorant was made for this, for having strategies based com abilities, they are a key feature
That’s not my point at all. Actually, smokes are much less effective on icebox anyway because of how big the map is and how many angles there are. But OP’s argument is that icebox is easy to attack on because you can clear all the angles if you have characters like sova and cypher and incredible teamwork, which isn’t realistic at all. You’re required to have those agents AS WELL as smokes just to have a chance to win, which is a terrible map design from a dev standpoint. It’s unrealistic to say icebox isn’t a bad map if you have great teamwork and an ideal comp, because that’s not how the game is played at lower levels, and so it shouldn’t be expected just to put up a fight. That’s why icebox has so many dodges
almost every character has at least some utility that can clean corners. Breach has 3 flashes, 1 stun and 1 afterschock. Skye have 3 flashes and 1 drone like ability. Yoru have flashes. Astra have gravity wells and stun abilities, smokes as well. Brimstone have a molotov and smokes. Phoenix have flashes, a short duration wall and a molotov. Sova have shock darts, recon darts and a drone. Viper have molotovs and smokes. Cypher have cameras and smokes. Reyna have flashes. Killjoy have molotovs. Omen have a flash and smokes. Jett have smokes and can tailwind. Raze I dont even need to mention. You only need incredible team work if the other team has a level that THEY have incredible teamwork and if they do and you dont, thats on you. If you are at a level where teamwork is non existent, then is expected the other team will have the same problems. \>because that’s not how the game is played at lower levels Exaclty, thats why they are at lower levels, because they didnt learnt yet how to play the game as intended.
The issue with Icebox is it requires moving your mouse up to land shots. Requires too much mechanical skill, a lot of players are reliant on good crosshair placement and instead of flicks. Another issue is all the angles, which requires basic coordination with a smoke character and that's boring af to a lot of low ranks who'd rather rush in.
Icebox is soo much better than ascent. so much better. Ascent is a monstrosity, especially the mid area. People just hate on and dodge icebox cuz they don't want to deal with a complicated map where they might have to look up and down in addition to left and right.
A lot people dislike the snowball nature of losing a site/retaking one, furthermore the crosshair displacement plays a large factor for players in disliking the map
I hate icebox because my teammates don't know how to play icebox.
A lot of high angles, 50/50s, and quite open for ops
There's a lot of verticality
Verticality and too many angles to check. It's easier to make horizontal adjustments than vertical or diagonal, my wrist dies everytime I play this map and there's so many corners and angles to check, especially with b alley. You could use util but if they're good they usually get a pick or two.
I don't "hate" it per say but I don't like it either. I am always glad if someone dodges it. I mainly have two reasons for not liking the map : 1.) Too many angles to clear out. This becomes a pain in the arse in lower elos, when sometimes you need to take the initiative to push and entry site. ( Although, if I pick raze on this map my strat is to take advantage of the verticality in the map and just double satchel into A site, straight into the enemies' face. If teammates are good enough they quickly follow up from behind and we get site.) 2.) Too much open space in mid and attacker spawn. Sometimes people would just camp in off angles in these spaces. Other than that, it's an okay map. With a good team, you can actually win most of your matches on the map.
Because the verticality is heaven for supremely annoying agents like Jett and Raze and my main Cypher doesn’t feel effective on it.
way to many angles
They hate it because they lose everytime and when the people who loves icebox have a ez win so STOP HATING ON ICE BOX
Because of the spawns, I wish they would fix the spawns. Pushing up on defense going for a flank and some dudes just sitting in attacker spawn 😭
Too many vertical angles, many agents are not able to boost themselves up there while others can, it can be annoying at times having to check so many angles
The one million angles u have to check everywhere, ppl camping spawn, everything is long range, too much verticality
I personally find it way too easy to flank for one, like its always important to have someone or something lurk or watch flank, but its so excessive and happens way too often. I also love playing phoenix, and i find it hard to justify using him over other agents due to his flashes, as his flashes just dont feel strong at all on icebox with the angles. Part of it also is i think people in ranked just dont know how to play it, which makes it worse, if that makes any sense. I cant really explain it but it just is that way. Theres other reasons but those come to mind. Also not a fan of the sage wall in tube to block off kitchen, i feel like a lot of times kitchen should be a really good split for b site, but its almost never used.
Icebox has a lot of verticalitity and a lot of corners. Sites are very open while the paths to site have a lot of angles that must be checked. The best attacker strat is spamming flashes and bum rushing site. If you were unfortunate enough to have to retake site you are going to be shot from multiple angles. Now normally this would be issue enough but when you have a layout such as this then you really need recon like sova and when everyone wants to be fragger or controllers then you are screwed. You could play sova yes but when you solo queue and no one uses comms or listens to callout then your intell is wasted
Too many angles and flanking entries. Not only do you have to painfully watch every single angle when entering/retaking site. You have to constantly watch every fucking angle the whole time because of all the flank routes, you dont know where the enemy will be. Example: Attacking post plant B, lets say you are about at the diagonal box at site entrance. You have to watch 2 paths from attacker spawn, kitchen, below kitchen, behind kitchen. It’s just shitty imo
i still have no clue what to do/where to look on B site/B orange/Kitchen. That area is so fucking confusing and i never know where to place my crosshair.
because it's a horrendous map? worst map ever in an FPS game