Valorant

AGENT UPDATES

BRIMSTONE

Some call him “Brimmy with the stimmy.” And while it’s been exciting to see you all leverage Brimstone’s recent Stim Beacon balance in fresh ways, we think having two stims reduced the importance of deploying it at the right moment. The changes below are our attempt to address this while still retaining Brimstone’s refined identity as a “bursty” excellence of execution.

• Stim Beacon
  • Charges reduced 2 >>> 1
  • Cost increased 100 >>> 200

GAME SYSTEM UPDATES

• Added the ability to import and export different crosshair settings via auto-generated codes.
  • To export and share your personal crosshair settings, go to Settings >> Crosshair tab >> click on the icon that looks like an arrow pointing up, found next to Crosshair Profile (it looks like an up arrow chilling in the middle of a bowl). Your auto-generated code will be copied to your clipboard.

• To import crosshair settings, go to Settings >> Crosshair tab >> click on the icon that looks like an arrow pointing down next to Crosshair Profile. Input or paste the code in the provided field and click the “Import” button.
  • The crosshair preview at the top of the Settings Menu should reflect the imported settings. Make sure to give it a unique profile name!

Updated “Prioritize Strongest Weapon” setting

The goal behind this setting is to allow players to traverse quickly with melee equipped and be combat-ready after using an ability or interacting with the Spike, ult orbs, etc. Two changes were made.

• Reworked 'Prioritize Strongest Weapon' setting
  • Renamed setting to Auto-Equip Prioritizes: Most Recent | Strongest
  • Updated the priority system to support weapon-like abilities (previous priority: Primary > Secondary > Melee)
    • New priority: (Ultimate & Primary) > (Secondary & Chamber Pistol) > Melee
    • Resolve priority ties by selecting the more recently equipped weapon

• Added a new setting: Don't Auto-Equip Melee
  • Skips past the melee when finding the most recent weapon to auto-equip.
  • Prevents pulling the melee back out after channeling or casting abilities, without changing any other auto-equip behavior.

Note that you can still queue up 'equip' inputs (e.g., pressing '1' mid-dash to equip your primary once the dash completes). When you didn't queue up a specific equip action, the default auto-equip behavior was to pull out the most recently equipped weapon. The new settings are meant to allow you to modify that behavior based on preference.

When considering how abilities fit in, deciding whether Jett's knives or her primary weapon is 'stronger' depends on gameplay context and your preference. How many knives do you have left? How close is the enemy? How's your aim feeling? In playtesting, we found that the best heuristic for which weapon is contextually stronger was whichever you had equipped previously.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

• Deterministic Map System enabled for all regions
  • As explained in Patch Notes 4.04, this rollout should increase the variety of maps in your queue based on a system we tested in the LATAM region.

BUGS

Competitive

• Fixed a bug that was causing the Leave Match button to function incorrectly for PBE players

Agents

• Fixed issue where Sova’s Recon Bolt was destroyed by Brimstone’s Orbital Strike even if the Recon Bolt was well out of the area

Social

• Fixed a bug where the mic icon on the scoreboard could not be interacted with after hovering over it with the mouse

KNOWN ISSUES

Icebox

• There are a handful of bug fixes prepped for Icebox, but the team ran into an issue that blocked us from shipping them right at 4.05 launch. We hope to ship these before the next patch and will list them here as soon as we do.

This is the start of VALORANT Episode 4 Act II, the one focused on cleaning house. It starts with the promised Yoru overhaul, a reshaping of the Controller role, and a renovation to Icebox (don’t skip that Ascent update though).

The pure changes are listed below, but we have two special dev articles lined up that will dive deeper behind the changes and goals for the Controller Agent and Icebox updates.

Check out What’s New in Act II article for a look at the Community Battlepass and new skinline.

AGENT UPDATES

GENERAL

• Improved the system used to place abilities at targeted ground locations. This update should make it easier to find valid placement locations in tight spaces. These are the abilities affected:
  • Omen’s Shrouded Step
  • Viper’s pit
  • Chamber’s Trademark and Rendez-vous
  • Every Killjoy ability
  • Yoru’s Gatecrash
  • Sage’s Barrier Orb

OMEN

As strategic diversity in VALORANT evolved, Omen has struggled to find his place within the meta. Many of you enjoy his gameplay loop, but have found it increasingly difficult to justify his selection in higher tiers of play. We want to increase his reliability as a Controller by rolling back a selection of early nerfs to Dark Cover, and sharpen his combat-focused abilities.

BRIMSTONE

Brimstone is in a healthy spot overall, but he wasn’t performing well in scenarios where we think he should excel. The limitations on his smoke deployment and his Stim Beacon’s versatility were leaving him too constrained. With these changes, we’re hoping Brimstone will be a competitive choice on a healthy portion of the map pool.

ASTRA

With the mastery of Astra’s play patterns over time, she’s become an overwhelming force in both coordinated and high MMR play. She’s crowded out Brimstone and Omen by replicating their strengths and they simply couldn’t keep up with the map-wide impact of her utility. We’re taking steps to create clearer relative weaknesses in an attempt to carve more space for our other Controllers. This starts by reducing her overall utility output and increasing her ability cooldown , in the hopes that this will increase the importance of each move she makes. Paired with this, we’re taking the opportunity to provide some quality-of-life updates and bug fixes that we feel are long overdue.

VIPER

We like Viper’s hybrid Controller/Sentinel role on the roster, really. But her buffs and our newest map additions have turned her into a must-have Controller and best-in-class Sentinel in more situations than we think a dual-role Agent should fill. With the below changes, we hope to create stark decision points on when Viper should manage her fuel as well as provide clearer counterplay opportunities and attack windows for her enemies.

YORU

Yoru is here with a few more tools in his belt, ready to Gatecrash his way back into your hearts (WHO WROTE THIS?) Fakeout is now a mirror image of Yoru and should help with adding a way to punish deceived enemies. Gatecrash’s teleport beacon—now with the ability to fake the teleport cues—will allow Yoru to create pressure around the map, confusing enemies as they second guess their backline safety. Dimensional Drift now gives Yoru full vision and access to his utility, allowing him to take space with his team while creating pressure on the backlines. We’re happy to be able to lean heavy into Yoru’s deception fantasy and are excited to see him back in your hands!

If you want some background on how we got here, read our previous breakdown.

MAP UPDATES

ASCENT

• B orb can now be taken from the lower box (previously, you had to double jump up to the box to get it)

ICEBOX

This set of Icebox updates are focused around B Site and adjusting some of the problem spaces throughout the map. Stay tuned for an upcoming article where map designer Joey Simas dives deeper into these changes and what we hope to see from Icebox in the near future.

B Green

Changes to B “Green” lane are focused on improving attacker options and making the space more comfortable to play in.

Before

After

• Doorway from Attacker spawn building near Green lane moved to the first cubby. This is to give attackers a new way to approach B Green instead of having to enter from two similar positions.

Before

After

• Green lane slightly widened. This is to make moving through this space more comfortable.

Before

After

• Pocket in Green lane near Yellow extended. This is to make angles toward B Site and Snowman more clear and readable.

B Site Rework

The B Site rework is focused on adding more importance to controlling the site when attacking and making engagements around the site more manageable.

Before

After

• Yellow container adjusted and new stack of crates added. As players have settled into Icebox we’ve noticed a lot of rounds revolve around anchoring down behind yellow during post plant situations. This change should allow Yellow to retain some power while adding more value to holding space on the actual site.

Before

After

• Lower container removed and geometry adjusted into a cubby facing Green. Doorway on the upper container widened and it’s position adjusted. This should allow players to better isolate fights around the site and make utility usable more meaningful.

Before

After

• Outer wall on B site and crane structure brought in toward the site. Narrowing the site allows for more controllers to comfortably use their utility without having to worry about gaps.

Before

After

• Building in Back B closed off. We want to encourage attackers to push further and hold more space. Closing off this building should allow players to better anchor themselves in Snowman. It should also better highlight using B Fence to cut off rotations.

Before

After

• Plant zone on B site adjusted. This change is to encourage more spike plant diversity while retaining some safer defaults to work with. You can now also plant on the bridge from kitchen to upper container as well.

Mid

The changes to mid are aimed at adjusting lines of sight and making these spaces more comfortable to play in.

Before

After

• Back wall in Kitchen adjusted. This change should help moving through this space feel more comfortable and allow players to more easily clear this space.

Before

After

• Crates added to Orange lane to block line of sight from under tube to danger.

Before

After

• Boiler ramp geo simplified and slightly narrowed. Smokes will now fully cover Boiler and players should find head peeks from ramp more predictable.

A Site

A Site can feel overwhelming for defenders so these changes should give them some new options and allow them to better isolate Attacker angles.

Before

After

• Cover on back A site adjusted. This change should give Defenders a little extra space to anchor on.

Before

After

• Head peek on attacker side pipes removed. Where Attackers can peek from on A Site can feel overwhelming. This change should allow Defenders to better isolate where threats can come from.

Before

After

• Doorway into A lowered to prevent foot shot on players on top of screens.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Introducing initial testing of a new “deterministic map system” in LATAM. The goal of this system is to increase the variety of maps that players will encounter. If there are no issues, we plan to activate this system (explained below) for all regions within the next few days/week. Although this is LATAM region only, we are including it here as a heads up if we decide to expand. Stay tuned to the official VALORANT channels for updates.

• Deterministic map selection follows 3 rules when picking a map, after players have been selected to play a match.
• The system will look at all maps players have played over the last 5 maps for that mode.
• The system will remove any maps that a player has played twice in the past 5 maps.
• The system will pick the least played map.
  • If all maps have been removed due to the “Twice Played” rule, those maps will be added back to the pool and the least played map will be picked.

BUGS

Agents

• Fixed issue where enemies wouldn’t trigger Cypher’s Trapwire in rare situations
• Fixed the boom not showing up for Astra if planted while in Astral Form
• Fixed a bug where Viper’s Toxic Screen audio could play in the next round if it is activated right on round end
• Fixed Yoru’s Gatecrash icon showing up as a big white circle on Brimstone’s targeting map
• Fixed a bug where Chamber’s teleport would sometimes fail when cast immediately after firing the last bullet of Headhunter
• Fixed a bug where Chamber’s Tour de Force would inconsistently spawn slow zones when firing at KAY/O during NULL/CMD

Social

• Fixed an issue with AFKs in Escalation game mode

Esports Features

• Fixed a bug where the timer would overlap itself while viewing the megamap as an observer

Game Systems

• Fixed an issue where you could tap the scroll wheel to activate the defuse audio without actually initiating a defuse.

AGENT UPDATES

Brimstone

MODES UPDATES

Deathmatch

We’ve been collecting player feedback on DM these past few months and are introducing a few changes to address some of the main points of frustration around the spawning system:

• Removed and in some cases relocated “dangerous” spawn locations
• Improved spawn logic and spawn placement to increase the likelihood that you will be facing each other players in an encounter
• Spawning logic will now favor respawn locations farther away from where you are defeated
• Fixed an issue where the Warm-Up Phase was not using spawn logic properly
• Respawn Time Reduced: 3s >>> 1.5s

SOCIAL UPDATES

• Updated AFK detection in game to deter players from exploiting game modes to farm EXP

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

Global Invalidation

Global Invalidation is a UI feature that improves performance for all UI in the game. It accomplishes this by significantly reducing the number of UI elements that need to update every frame. The Performance team will continue to monitor the impact of Global Invalidation, and we’ll have more details to share about the feature, our process, and the work needed to accomplish this in an upcoming article! —Aaron Cheney, software engineer

• Global Invalidation provides up to 15% improvement to baseline performance for CPU-bound players
  • CPU-bound players are generally mid-to-high spec machines.
  • These numbers are based on data gathered from PBE over two weekends (Jan. 22–23, and Feb. 5–6).
  • Although we expect a large portion of the player base to benefit from these gains, your machine’s performance may vary.

COSMETIC UPDATES

• Updates to the color of the tile used to display sprays in your Collections
  • Some sprays were too close to the color of the original tile and were hard to see properly before actually using them in-game.
• You can now respray after a 5-second cooldown
• Sprays now have lifetime duration of 15 seconds (reduced from 30 seconds)
  • Sprays still disappear immediately when the barrier drops (mid-round begins) and when the post-round phase begins
  • Same restrictions on mid-round sprays applies (no Agent faces, animations, or airhorns—sorry we're not sorry)

GAME SYSTEMS UPDATES

• Added option to return to strongest weapon
  • You can now return to the strongest weapon when pressing the “Equip Last Used Item” key or when auto-equipping a weapon.
  • To toggle ON, go to Settings >> Controls >> Equipment under “Prioritize Strongest Weapon.”
  • This was released in 4.02 but did not make it into the patch notes. My bad!

ESPORTS FEATURES

• Projectile follow is now fixed for observer followers
• Added observer settings toggle to turn Agent portrait on/off

BUGS

Agents

• Fixed a bug where Chamber’s Headhunter and Tour de Force could float away
• Fixed an exploit where, using specific line-ups, it was possible to see inside Viper’s ultimate without being affected by the nearsighted debuff
• Fixed a bug where Viper’s ultimate would sometimes fail to expand through doorways

Social

• Fixed a bug where pressing enter in pre-game wouldn’t focus chat
• Fixed a bug where right clicking a player portrait would not bring up a context menu

Performance

• Fixed a bug where performance stats would be hidden while spectating the Spike

KNOWN ISSUES

Esports Features

• There is a brief flash when swapping into free-cam mode as an observer follower

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

• Improved latency for Windowed Fullscreen mode to match closer to Fullscreen Exclusive
  • These improvements should play well with in-game overlays, however, having another program’s window on top of your gameplay window will negate these benefits.
  • Thanks to @MyNameIsMJP and @SheriefFYI for helping us diagnose this issue!

SOCIAL UPDATES

• AFK detection buff
  • Updated detections for non-participatory behavior in game
• Agent-select reporting
  • Looks like there’s been some confusion around Agent-select reporting. Remember, you can right click players in pre-game and report them if they’re being disruptive!

BUGS

Cosmetics

• Fixed a bug where the pulsing FX around the Spectrum Z logo were appearing next to the trigger during second inspect animation on the Bulldog.

Agents

• Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Alarmbot and Turret were unretrievable after being resurrected by Sage.

KNOWN ISSUES

Esports Features

• Projectile Follow currently bugs out for Observer Followers
  • We’re working on a fix, but this one missed 4.02. We appreciate your patience!

SOCIAL UPDATES

Muted Words List added to the settings

• Muted Word List is a new section you will find in your settings where you can type in variations of words/phrases that you, personally, would not like to see appear in-game
  • We admit that some players are often smarter than our automated bad word detection system and continually find creative ways to type things we don’t want to in chat. This is why we need your help to make our detections better! Help us, help you :)
  • For example: Let’s say “Riot” is a bad word (scary, I know). Our detection may catch the word “Riot” as one that should be blocked and penalized, but there’s a variety of different ways to spell Riot that we may not be catching: R!ot, R!0t, Ri0t, etc.
  • And no, you won't get "League of Legends" banned from chat
  • We’re hoping that we can leverage the lists that you and others create to make the chat less toxic by comparing them across regions, and using the data we collect to improve our own detections of bad words. Thanks in advance for all that are willing to lend a hand. Let’s make VALORANT a better place for everyone!

WEAPON UPDATES

ARES

The Patch 4.0 changes to the Ares made the weapon noticeably stronger, and we were happy to see it show up more in-game. However, it's overall tuning made it too easy to control and the lack of spin up removed some of what made the weapon unique. We love the benefits that the adjusted fire rate provided in terms of how the Ares felt to use, so we want to keep that. However, the adjustments below should make the weapon more difficult to control and bring back some of the weapon’s character by including a more prominent inverse accuracy.

• Price increased from 1550 >>> 1600
• Pitch recoil increased
• Spread changed from .8 >>> .7 after 10 bullets to 1.0 >>> .7 after 13 bullets
• Crouch benefits spread and recoil reduced from 40% >>> 25%

MELEE (but for real this time)

The melee’s been too tricky to aim with, making it tough to rely on. So we’ve updated both left and right click melee attacks for more reliable Agent-whacking action.

• Right click hitboxes are now 1.5x larger. Left click hitboxes are now larger than a right click and have a slightly longer range too.
• Targets closer to the center of your knife attacks will get hit first, so you still have precision if you need it.
• Bonus: Knifing walls now have instant feedback when slicing up walls (predicted on the client side)

BUGS

WEAPONS

• Fixed a bug where the Origin collection idle Animations weren’t playing for some levels and variants in Spectator mode

ESPORTS FEATURES

• Fixed an issue where observer player hotkeys would change after side-swap.

PERFORMANCE

• Fixed an issue where performance charts that require NVIDIA Reflex were displayed and could not be hidden
  • Thanks to TowerofShadow for the report

[Editor’s Note: These notes previously mentioned changes to the melee—also listed in the highlights image—but will instead ship with Patch 4.01]

Alongside new Agent Neon, a fresh Battlepass and skinline, Patch 4.0 brings a few weapons from out of the shadows, tones down some others, and improves the melee. Bind, and especially Breeze, are reshaped in areas that should adjust the attacker/defender dynamic. We cap it off with a cap on the Account Level needed to play Competitive.

AGENT UPDATES

Neon goes live!

• See her abilities on our Agents page.
• Watch her debut trailer and get that song stuck in your head for days.

WEAPON UPDATES

SPECTRE

The Spectre’s versatility makes us happy, but it was over-performing in long range engagements and was too powerful even within its intended close range and mobile scenarios. By making the accuracy error come in a bit earlier and switching yaws more often, we hope it will make it more difficult to get kills when spraying over a long range. Likewise, the close range sprays will require more control to be effective.

• Firing error occurs at earlier bullet stages
  • For example, instead of errors occurring at bullets 4, 7, 10 (in terms of firing order) they will instead happen at bullets 3, 6, 8
• Increased pitch and yaw (vertical and horizontal) recoil multipliers when running/jumping/on ascender from 1.25 >>> 1.5
• Protected bullet count from yaw (horizontal) switching while spraying, decreased 8 >>> 5 bullets
• Lowering time to switch yaw from .24 >>> .18 seconds
  • While spraying, the time you have until you could switch yaws (horizontal movement) again is lower, meaning it can happen more often

ARES

Alongside changes to the Spectre, we hope to improve the feel and power of the Ares and take it out of the shadow of other weapons in its price tier.

• Removed spin up
• Firing rate increased from 10 >>> 13

GUARDIAN

The Guardian didn’t need the fire rate penalty compared to its fully-automatic counterparts, so we’re removing it. Adding another bullet before it starts to get unstable should make the weapon feel much more proficient at tapping shots, and improve its overall effectiveness in a fight.

• Removed firing rate penalty on ADS (Aiming Down Sight)
• Added an extra bullet before it enters a recovery curve

BULLDOG

We’re giving the Bulldog some love to help make it feel like a better buy in those situations when you might need a cheaper but versatile rifle option.

• Hip fire rate increased 9.5 >>> 10
• Recovery on burst fire improved from .4 >>> .35
  • Inaccuracy is accrued any time the weapon is re-fired prior to a complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time. Lower recovery time should improve burst fire efficiency.

MAP UPDATES

BIND

• The double stack of cover at short A has been changed to remove a very powerful one-way smoke location that made the area a little too difficult for Attackers to approach.
  • Sentinels will still be able to clog the space, but the new layout should open a few options for attackers pushing in.

• There’s also a small, new bench for a mix up when taking that first peek.

BREEZE

• Increased the width of the A Main choke and removed 50/50s (where you must choose one of two locations an opponent may be located)
  • This should give defenders more options when playing around A Main. It also removes the 50/50 when both entering or exiting the cave, allowing you to be more methodical when pushing.

• Added a stack of two crates in cave
  • This provides some cover for attackers pushing the cave while also giving defenders more options for contesting the space.

• Adjusted cover on the back of A Site and extended the pool to the far wall
  • The cover changes should give defenders both a safe place to fall back to and more cover on retakes. Extending the pool should make playing in this space more comfortable.
  • Plant site extension is also to match the new shape of the pool.

• Adjusted curved wall in mid
  • This change simplifies the space and removes the extra pocket.

• Added cover to the pillar on B Site, blocked off the back site with a new wall, and added a stack of crates to B Wall
  • The new cover on the pillar allows for new pre and post plant opportunities.
  • The adjusted back site breaks the head peek to B Main while also giving players new cover to work with. This new cover should be useful when falling back and retaking.

• The new stack of crates limits some angles from B Main, gives you new options when holding or retaking, and should break up some awkward fights that can occur on thin walls.

• Door on A can no longer be reactivated until it is finished opening or closing

COMPETITIVE

As the map and Agent pool has increased, it's become increasingly difficult for new players to effectively learn and play VALORANT. However, we haven’t made any changes to when players are able to access our most competitive experience. We believe everyone should take time to learn the ins and outs of core gameplay, and have ample exposure to all the maps and Agents VALORANT will throw at you before competing in our ranked experience. To force this learning period, we’ve decided to add an Account Level requirement to play in Competitive.

• Starting with Patch 4.0, accounts that have yet to play in Ranked are required to reach account level 20 before they are able to enter the Competitive queue
  • For those that have not yet reached account level 20, but have already played in Competitive queue, you will still be able to play in ranked.

Reduced 5-stack Rank Rating penalty

After getting our initial data on 5-stacks in ranked, we've realized we may have been too harsh on the penalty you receive to your RR gains/losses while in a 5-stack. Match fairness for 5-stacks is equal to non-five stacks, meaning it’s difficult for you to bring in a higher ranking player and potentially boost a low rank player. Because of this data, we are reducing the penalties for lower ranks.

• Diamond 2 and below players will see their RR penalty reduced by 25% compared to the current balance. This means the new minimum penalty is 25% reduced gains/losses compared to the previous 50%
• We only made this change for ranks not breaking into, or on, the leaderboard to help maintain leaderboard integrity.

Increased Map Randomization

• Increased our map weights, which should lead to an increase in map variety and reduction in map duplicates from match to match

BUGS

Game Systems

• Fixed an issue where the Signature Kill Counter was not updating visually

Esports Features

• Coaches should no longer experience the issue where swapping targets with number keys + mouse clicks occasionally fails.
  • Thanks RobWiz for the report!

KNOWN, YET BELOVED ISSUES

Widejoy

• We love her too but we’re going to have to fix that banner
  • But not until Patch 4.01, so have fun!

Light one to close the year so you can go home and be a family person.

But hey, Agent-specific keybinds are finally here. We did say Episode 3, didn’t we?

GAME SYSTEM UPDATES

Agent-specific Keybinds

• We heard you loud and clear. You can now go to the Settings Menu and set different keybinds for each Agent!
• Go to Settings >> Controls >> Actions to get started
• Added ability to create, delete, and search for keybind profiles for each Agent. You cannot create more than one profile per Agent.
• Added ability to copy your default keybindings to a single profile or all profiles at once.
• Now when your keybinds are in conflict, you can see what other items the binding is assigned to.
• You can revert individual changes made to bindings in each keybind profile. Reverting will reset the keybind to what it was at the time the profile was created.

SOCIAL UPDATES

• Report in Agent Select is now live!
  • You can now report disruptive players during the pregame. Just hover over the name and click REPORT.
  • You can also add players to your friends list if you have a positive experience.
• Friendly Fire detection
  • You Better stop purposely blasting grenades on your teammates cause we’re tracking them and will be punishing excessive damage to allies!

PROGRESSION UPDATES

• Wide Player Cards
  • After community feedback we are bringing back the Wide Player cards that are shown during the Loading Screens and in the kill banners.

MODES UPDATES

Spike Rush

• Chamber's Headhunter (Q) charges reduced 8>>>4
  • We're docking this ability specifically because it undermines the core mechanic of Spike Rush, which is to see what happens when everyone has the same gun. With this change we hope that you will get value out of Headhunter, while still resorting to the selected weapon for that round.

GENERAL

• Integrated select changes and bug fixes for Slate/UI from Unreal Engine 4.26 and 4.27

BUGS

Agents

• Fixed a bug that caused abilities that consist of a held object to display incorrectly in third person. You’ll notice this fix on Skye, Sage, Jett, Yoru, and Reyna.

Social

• Fixed a bug where players were able to spam invite others to party

After a brief delay we’re happy to get the newest Agent, Chamber, into your game. Also, 5-stacks for all ranks in the Competitive queue is added with a few conditions in place that impact how much or how little Ranked Rating a group of five will earn. We highly recommend you read those below, along with our Competitive Producers notes.

We also fixed that odd 128fps issue that caused up to a few milliseconds of additional input delay. Read it below.

AGENT UPDATES

Chamber

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive queue 5-stack for any rank

In an effort to reduce smurfing, we’re removing all ranked restrictions from 5-stack parties in Competitive Queue. Our data has shown that the most common reason that players smurf, is because they want to play with their friends outside the bounds of our current ranked restrictions. Removing these boundaries for 5-stacks specifically, means that you can play with your friends regardless of the restrictions that exist for smaller party sizes in Competitive Queue.

In implementing this change, we’re also adjusting the ruleset for these types of groups in order to mitigate against competitive integrity issues that wide skill disparity groups could cause.

Here’s what you can expect when playing in this type of 5 stack:

• If everyone in your group is Diamond 2 and below:
  • You can expect increased queue times as we will only matchmake your team against another 5 stack of similar average MMR.
  • Rank Rating gains and losses will be reduced when playing in a 5 stack outside of our current rank restrictions rules. The amount that your RR is adjusted depends on the rank disparity within the group.
  • Let’s walk through a couple example cases:
    • You party with 4 of your friends. The lowest team member is Silver 1 and the highest is Platinum 1. Your team will be given a 50% RR reduction because the highest and lowest members are 1 rank outside the standard group restrictions.
    • In the same group, you have 1 team member leave, and bring in your other friend who is Bronze 1. Now the skill disparity has increased to 4 ranks outside of the standard grouping restrictions. Your team will be given a 75% RR reduction as a result.
• If one or more members of your group are Diamond 3 and above:
  • Your expected queue times may vary greatly, and could increase dramatically as you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against.
  • At minimum, a 50% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks, and this amount can increase to 90% as the disparity in skill increases.
  • Let’s walk through a couple examples of these:
    • 4 of your party members are Immortal and one of your friends is Diamond 2. The whole squad has a 75% reduction to RR gains and losses due to rank disparity.
    • Your team grinds until your Diamond 2 friend reaches Diamond 3. The whole squad will now have a 50% reduction to RR gains and losses; A penalty that is applied to any 5-stack in Diamond 3 or above.
• If one or more members of your group are Radiant:
  • Similar to Diamond 3-plus, you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against, potentially increasing your queue times drastically.
  • At minimum, a 75% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks. Playing with any player below Radiant automatically reduces your potential RR by 90%.

Alongside the 5-stack changes, we are also removing 4-stacks from the Competitive queue. These types of groups tend to leave the remaining solo queue player with a relatively poor play experience, and we believe that removing this option will result in a significant reduction of overall toxicity reports.

We are excited about these changes and the potential improvements they’ll bring, but are also acutely aware of the potential risks of changes like these. We’ll monitor the Competitive queue very closely in the coming weeks, and will quickly move to make adjustments if needed.

—Matthew Le, Competitive Producer

ESPORTS FEATURES

• Observer Agent icons will no longer all get stuck on the same Agent when using the Minimal Broadcast HUD
• Observers now have different HUD colors for attackers and defenders.
  • Attacker abilities will show as red and defender abilities will show as teal
• There is now a yellow outline on player icons on the minimap to showcase which player is the active target of an observer

BUGS

Game System

• Fixed a net/sim-tick aliasing issue where running above 128 frames per second could cause packet send rates to drop below the 128fps cap
  • This may have caused up to a few milliseconds of additional delay before the server processed player input when running at high client framerates. (Thanks, Reddit!)

Social

• Fixed issues where you were able to re-invite players in lobby that were already invited

Esports Features

• Fixed a bug where the Observer's minimap zoom setting did not function—thanks Melanie_mhs for the report!
• Fixed a bug where coaches could not use the hotkeys to spectate a player inside a deployed piece of utility (Cypher’s Spy Camera, Skye’s Trailblazer, or Sova’s Owl Drone)
• Fixed a bug where pressing shift plus a player number would not go to the proper cinematic camera for that player, if that player was being actively spectated

Along with the new VALORANT Act III Battlepass and Competitive refresh (there’s also that new Agent arriving later), we put the Classic through some honing and rearranged some furniture on Fracture.

Read the rest below.

WEAPON UPDATES

Classic (Right-click)

The Classic has been over-performing in close to mid-range encounters when used while jumping or on the move. So we’ve reduced the weapon’s effective accuracy while jumping, running, and walking, with the intent of narrowing it’s ideal use case to only really close ranges.

• Walking firing error changed .05 >>> .6 (total error is 2.5 when walking, up from 1.95)
• Running firing error changed .2 >>> 1.3 (total error is 3.2 when running, up from 2.1)
• Jumping firing error changed from 1.1 >>> 2.1 (total error is 4.0 when jumping, up from 3.0)

MAP UPDATES

Fracture

• The B Arcade attacker barrier is shifted back towards Attacker Side Bridge, to allow defenders to more easily contest the area
• Defender barrier at A Rope moved up to the top of ropes to make it easier for Sentinels to prepare.
• A Hall orb shifted into more neutral space, making it less favorable for attackers
• New piece of cover in Attacker spawn added to break the long sightline from Hall entrance to B Main, which should relieve some pressure from attackers when defenders fast flank

GAME SYSTEMS UPDATES

• Smoother Ropes/Ziplines
  • Fixed jittery movement that could occur when stopping or changing directions on a zipline or rope. This was most noticeable when repeatedly moving a small amount and stopping.

ESPORTS FEATURES

• Observers using gamepad controllers are no longer locked out of the X/Y axes when speeding up with the right bumper (R1).
  • Free Cam observers rejoice!
• Observers now have the option to set handedness for teams
  • When this option is toggled, observers will see players that start the match on attacker as right-handed, and players that start the match on defender will be left-handed.

GENERAL

• One path for all traffic into game servers
  • For those of you particular to a preferred server, you may notice a previously preferred location is no longer there. Don’t worry, we simply consolidated what was two paths into the game servers into one—we did not remove any servers.

BUGS

Competitive

• Fixed a bug that was causing the default Act Rank badge to display on Unrated game loading screens

Agents

• Cypher can no longer place Spycam on the Breeze door in order to destroy or see through the door when it's lowered.
  • Similarly, fixed random spots where Cypher could not place Spycam in the same area.
• Fixed bug that displayed Jett’s 1P Updraft visuals incorrectly

No Agents were harmed in the making of Patch 3.08. Instead, you can thank your local dev for those less flashy but important changes coming to VALORANT today. Report feedback, hidden Account Levels, and more are listed below.

Look at those bug fixes!

SOCIAL UPDATES

Persistent Report Feedback

• Your reports matter, and we want you to know that! You will now be notified if we took action on one of your reports, whether you are offline or not.
• If your client is up and running, you’ll receive a notification. If you’re offline at the time of action, fret not! You’ll receive your notification upon your return.
  • Thanks for making VALORANT a safer place through your reports. Keep them coming!

PROGRESSION UPDATES

Level Border Customization

• You will be able to equip any Account Level Border that has been unlocked
  • A tab has been added to Playercard selection.

Hide Account Level

• It’s now possible to hide your Account Level when in a match with others who are not your friends
  • To enable, uncheck the box located in the Level Border tab.

STORE UPDATES

Equippable Skin Levels

• You should be able to equip any skin level except on variants, which will always default to the max skin level.

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

• Reduced instances where UI is invalidated
  • Basically, lowered the amount of times the UI needed to update itself, thus saving performance costs.
• Optimized Viper’s Poison Cloud 1P HUD
• Optimized Viper’s Pit 1P HUD
• Optimized weapon and ability clipping plane calculations
  • You got us, this actually went out with Patch 3.07.

ESPORTS FEATURES

• Coaches now have the ability to swap to players with keybinds
  • Keybinds are 1-5 from left to right across the top HUD.
• Coaches will now see a visual PIP (a small demarcated dot) on the top player HUD to indicate who they are spectating
• Coaches now inherit the setting to see player keybindings on the minimap, similar to Observers

BUGS

Agents

• The valves on Viper's gloves now appear on the correct side of her hands in Left Hand Mode

Weapons

• Weapon skins should now appear correctly in-game
  • You may have occasionally seen some funkiness with Skins over the past few weeks. This was occurring, rarely, when playing on a slower connection due to an extended loading period.

Maps

• Attackers at A Lobby in Split could previously hear gunshots from the A Ramps during the buy phase—this was unintended and is now fixed
• Viper’s Ultimate will no longer spawn incorrectly when placed on top of the shipping crates on B site located on Icebox

General

• Observers can now correctly see player outlines through barriers

Performance

• Fixed hitch that could occur when Barrier Orb breaks
• Fixed hitches for certain input prompts

Game System

• Fixed a bug where using Ping (Z) while defusing caused you to stop defusing

Misc.

• The giant bug under your bed.