Let me just say that this is my opinion and I've seen some people talking about it already, I am no voice of reason, but based on the overall MM experience, we can state some facts.

Let's just get this out of the way: the instalocking problem is not with Controllers, Initiators, Sentinels. I've never seen someone mad by me instalocking Breach (a not very popular pick) and the same can be said for any support role. Yes, the problems are the duelists. But why them?

And here comes the hot take: I am not here to blame people that instalock duelists, deep inside we all feel doing that sometimes. Instead, I'm here to tackle on Riot's rewarding system, more specifically the points/ MVP system.

Remember when in elementary school, you were given a gold star for doing something good? Why I am bringing that? Because that's exactly what the MVP system does. We humans grow but we are still pretty much driven by this type of reward, we like to feel acknowledged, but this whole MVP system is well...fucked.

There's a lot that comes into account with this system, but there are two major flaws in it: It rewards people that outfrag the whole lobby, winning or losing, and also it couldn't care less about your perfomance as a support player. And here's the issue, we know that by design, duelists are the high-fragging classes, and people want to feel good about themselves and also gain lots of points to rank up, so why NOT instalock duelist? Why would I want to support the team if the game barely recognizes these roles, asides from the "enemies flashed: 2" "enemies blocked: 2", on the screen at the beginning of every round?

In the end, the "feels good formula" pans out to: Lock duelist, frag a lot, earn MVP so I feel good about myself even if I lose (and let's be honest there shouldn't be a Match MVP title for the losing side, because that worsens even more the "Match is lost anyways, will just bait team and get frags to keep my MVP" situation).

My ideia would be removing the current MVP system and reworking it completely. Yes, frags are important, but why reward just the top fragger? Sometimes it's just because he killed 5 more enemies than you, and those 5 frags where eco frags/ exit frags on losing rounds. I know the system tries to balance it out based on relevant kills, but 90% of the times, if you top frag, you are the star.

Needs a lot of thought, and that's just my dumbass speaking, but there should be a MVP system based on role, so instead of "Match MVP" or "Team MVP", we should be getting "Most Valuable Sentinel", "Most Valuable Initiator", "Most Valuable Duelist" and so on... So the game doesn't only reward your high-frag, high-baiter duelist (lol sorry had to say that). And yes, it would show this title on your match history, so we can keep with the "you did good, here's a golden star" system, that motivates people to pick and perform with other roles.

TL;DR: Valorant system rewards one aspect of the game: Fragging, way too much. That's why people instalock High-fragging classes and leaves support to others. We should reward every best performing role in the match equally.