This Franchise system sucks, It favors NA teams but at the same time is kinda shit for them as well, they are obligated to have stream partnered teams to have some relevance in the scene.
With the coming of CS2 maybe Valorant will probably die.
cs2 is just probably gonna be like an upgraded cs version so i doubt ppl are gonna switch to cs2. prolly yes if they get curious and excited they'll play it, even i would play it. but it's just gonna be a game with no update cuz it's "cs" that will be the same game for years to come. EXCITING wise, it's still for valorant cuz even if rito do some shit things, they update their game and they try to excite players for every new things.
The problem isn't even updating the game.
The problem is the unability of tier 2 teams to hold themselves out there without tournaments and a reason to play the game.
Basically the only way that you can make money in Valorant right now is being a Franchise player, in Brazil there are only 15-20 of them... In server of millions, like WTF?
There is no reason to play Valorant competitive right now in tier 2, there is no teams, there is no tournaments, there is no reason for someone to spend their time playing the game without a proper sure that they will receive anything out of this.
So, why don't just move back to CS2? New game, new oportunitys, A LOT of tournaments and not a 1 and only great tournament for an entire year (masters that you can't even play, and Champions that only Franchised players can play).
Valorant ecossystem just sucks now, i agree with the CS frogs in this term.
franchise has been and will always be terrible for competitive gaming period. it has NEVER worked once. how many times does riot have to ruin a scene by always wanting franchising. how fucking stupid are they. NA lol is dead(they killed it with this bullshit) and soon NA val will be dead. they are fucking morons. this isn't the damn nfl you dumbasses. let other orgs put on tournaments that aren't online garbage. they DO NOT know how to run a competitive gaming scene at all.
Valorant in my personal opinion is trying too hard with in-game features (road to ascension will be in-game), too many agents which will eventually result in balancing issues, discourage new players. Their focus should have been on an FPL like match making system, since gun buddies aren't enough now. They also need to host tier-2 and tier-3 tournaments. I feel tier-2/3 is literally dead in all the regions right now. All tier 2/3 teams which didn't qualify for ascension are practically disbanded. The off season is too long as well. Most importantly, they do need a demo/gotv like feature.
All this doesn't mean Valorant is dying. CS is practically non-existent in NA(pro scene, the last good org-liquid just left NA) and Pacific, which means a large market for Valorant to grab on to. However, franchise system hasn't brought anything good with it for now. Orgs left when they didn't make it to franchise, and they left again when they didn't make it to ascension. This means while Tier 1 will continue to improve, the ascension teams will be the worst to come in coming years.