Valorant Masters Berlin is now underway – but pros have some early complaints with the audio, calling for Riot to fix the issues before the tournament reaches the latter stages.
15 of the best Valorant teams in the world have gathered in Berlin to compete for the Masters: Berlin trophy, with the winner of the tournament punching their ticket to VCT Champions in December.
While Riot has gone all out for the tournament, with the stage setup, consisting of holograms and fancy lights, they’ve missed the mark on the actual setups the best players in the world would be playing on – according to the players themselves.
After the first day of Masters, pros began complaining about the audio issues.
The primary concern from the pros is hearing white noise in the headsets, rendering them unable to hear a lot of crucial sounds that they’d otherwise hear on their usual setups.
One of the pros to speak out about the issues was G2 Esports captain, mixwell, who vented on Twitter, “the sound is not like playing from home […] white noise actually blocks most of the utility sound like the Skye wolf, Raze satchel, Sova drone so if you see someone doing a dumb play it might be because of that.”
100 Thieves’ star Peter ‘Asuna’ Mazuryk agreed, adding “it felt like I had to face check a lot more to obtain information and to help my IGL make the proper call.”
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All I am gonna say is that the sound is not like playing from home, the white noise actually blocks most of the utility sound like the skye wolf, raze satchel, sova drone so if you see someone doing a dumb play it might be because of that.
— Heretics m1xwell (@Mixwell) September 11, 2021
Asuna wasn’t the only player from 100 Thieves to mention the sound issues. After 100 Thieves’ convincing 2-0 victory over Havan Liberty on day 1, Ethan joked he should “play with no sound more often.”
I should just play with no sound more often.
GG's @havanliberty 2-0.
P.S Riot maybe fix sound for the rest of tournament, no players can hear footsteps 😘
— NRG Ethan (@ethanarnold) September 10, 2021
Ethan also asked Riot to fix the sound for the rest of the tournament, as supposedly no players can hear footsteps.
To improve the audio quality for competitors, we have made modifications to the Masters Berlin set that will allow for a much lower level of white noise.
We will continue to actively improve the situation as the event progresses.
— VALORANT Champions Tour (@ValorantEsports) September 12, 2021
Riot has since responded to the audio concerns of the pros, revealing in a tweet that they’ve made modifications that will allow for a much lower level of white noise that will be heard in the headsets. The audio situation will be actively improved as the event continues into the later stages.
