Valorant Update Makes Big Changes to Agents, Full Patch Notes Revealed

09/01/2020 04:17 pm EDT

Valorant, the tactical shooter from Riot Games, has received its latest update with patch 1.07. As far as updates go, this is a rather significant one, and it should bring some big changes to Agents like Breach, Sage, Viper, and more. In addition, there are bug fixes, changes made to the game's weapons, and quality of life updates. It remains to be seen what impact the patch will have on the overall game, but with so many changes in this update, it certainly seems like all players will notice something different! Full patch notes from Riot Games can be found below.

SAGE

HEAL

• Heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 5 seconds
• Self heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 10 seconds

SLOW ORB

• Size reduced by 30%

BARRIER ORB

• Cost reduced from 400 >>> 300
• Fortifying Barrier: Wall forms at 400 HP—after a 3 second delay, the wall becomes fortified to 800 HP

KILLJOY

NANOSWARM

• Added a brief windup before damage begins
• DPS reduced from 60 >>> 40
• Visual effects have been added to make it easier to spot the grenade on the ground Stealth audio range has been slightly increased

TURRET

• No longer revealed by Sova's Recon Bolt
• More effectively shoots at an enemy's last known location

VIPER

TOXIC SCREEN

• Can now be placed during the buy phase of rounds, through spawn barriers
• Toxic Screen now goes up faster along it's full length, once it starts to form

DECAY

• Decay on all smoke abilities no longer affects allies

VIPER'S PIT

The area of Viper's Pit is now shown on her team's minimap when deployed

BREACH

FLASHPOINT

• Off-screen flashes now match behavior of other flashes in the game and apply a minimum amount of flash more aggressively
• Charges increased from 2 >>> 3
• Reduced windup time from 0.6 seconds >>> 0.5 seconds

ROLLING THUNDER

• Detonation delay between blasts decreased from 0.3 >>> 0.255

CONCUSSION

Concuss now de-scopes players and prevents re-scoping

SOVA

• Updated the physics on Sova's cape so that it should wiggle outside his hitbox less frequently
• Polish work on Sova's 1P hands to bring them up to the fidelity bar of the rest of our agents

WEAPON UPDATES

• All shotguns aimpunch update
  • When getting headshot by a shotgun, the aimpunch will be lower than all the other weapons
• All shotguns tagging tuned for targets beyond 10 meters
  • Hitting an enemy past 10 meters will apply a different tagging value to them instead of the standard tagging
  • New tagging: 30% slow for .5s on a smooth curve going back to normal speed
  • The goal of these changes is to improve the feel of playing against shotguns and to ensure that they don't end up doing odd things. For example, tagging or aimpunching people from longer than expected ranges and then a teammate ends up killing someone who's debuffed, or makes it hard to fight back against a weapon that should be deadly up close but fairly non-threatening outside its effective range.)
• Shorty nerf
  • 1st falloff range reduced from 9m >>> 7m
  • Updated headshot multiplier from 3x >>> 2x (now the same as Judge and Bucky)
  • Our goal here is to make Shorty users work a little harder for the kills they get by requiring them to be a tad closer to their target.
• Judge Nerf
  • Price increased from 1500 >>> 1600
  • Desire here is to see if giving the Judge a little hit—paired with the other shotgun changes—moves the needle when playing against this gun. We'll continue to monitor and make other changes if necessary
• Vandal buff
  • Increased firing rate from 9.25 >>> 9.75
  • Increased damage from 39 >>> 40
  • Goal is to bring the Vandal in closer competition with the Phantom. We believe these weapons aren't that far off in competition and hope these changes will do that.

HIT IMPACT VFX UPDATE

• Server hit VFX confirms will now spawn at the location of the hit on the character and stay attached to that position (previously, it spawned at the game space location and stayed there)
  • We've had issues with hit registration clarity caused by players moving into hit VFX (i.e. a player crouches their head into the space of a body shot VFX), which caused confusion on where a shot landed. This change should make it clear where a shot hit, and where on the body, even if a character is moving.
• An additional client-predicted small spark VFX now spawns immediately at the game space location of a hit
  • With the change to attach our traditional server hit VFX, we wanted to add additional immediate bullet feedback so you can see the area where your bullet landed and adjust your aim accordingly. Think of this new VFX as an improved tracer. It's important to note that a bullet is client-predicted: seeing this DOES NOT mean your shot has registered on the server (similar to tracers).
• Adjusted the sparks hit VFX coloring and shape adjusted to more closely resemble blood VFX shape
  • Context: We want players to be able to play with either of these options without feeling one gives better clarity than the other
• Adjusted the size of headshot VFX, where both blood and sparks are scaled down slightly
  • Especially at large ranges, headshot VFX would often cover up the head of a player and add additional difficulty in tracking players through the effect. We've scaled down this VFX slightly in an attempt to make it easier to keep track of targets.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

• Remake match: When a match begins with a 4v5 (or more lopsided teams), players will now have the option to end the game they're in and queue for a new one.
  • If any player is disconnected at the start of the match (beginning of buy phase) through the entire first round, a remake call may be triggered at the start of the second round by typing /remake in chat.
  • All connected players on the team that called the remake may vote to remake the game— It's required that all connected players agree to remake the game
    • The remake vote will last for the duration of the buy phase, if the vote is not passed by the end of buy phase it will expire
  • If the vote is successfully passed and the game is remade, all players who voted do not receive any XP or MMR adjustments for the match. The match will also not show up in match history. All disconnected players not part of the vote will take a full MMR loss for the game, and receive a leaver penalty equivalent to disconnecting from a full match..
• Act Ranks visuals have been updated to better differentiate wins at different rank tiers
• Changed some potentially misleading verbiage in the restriction message for players who need to play more unrated games to unlock competitive play
  • This is to better reflect that Deathmatch and Spike Rush do not count towards unlocking Competitive.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Observers can toggle aim lines for players (default bind: R)
• Observers can change which teams outline are visible (defaults: H - All, J - Friendly to spectated player, K - Enemies of spectates players, L - None)
• Corpse markers shown when corpses are disabled now obey colorblind settings
• Hotkey order for selecting players for observers should no longer shuffle in overtime
• Observers should now see the money on the HUD for the player they are spectating
• Added a setting for disabling the in-game UI (General -> Hide User Interface In Game)
• Added a setting for disabling the cross-hair (Crosshair -> Disable Crosshair)
• Observers can hide first person character arms. (General -> Hide First Person Arms)
• Observers can toggle team-based crosshair coloring for spectated targets via the settings menu (General -> Use Team Color for Crosshair Color)
• Improved framerate by allowing a wider variety of VFX to be multi-threaded, examples include Brimstone' Sky Smokes and Breach's Rolling Thunder
• For anyone who'd rather keep their identity private in-game, we've added these features:
  • Hide my name from non-party members (agent name will be used)
  • Hide the names of others in my game who aren't in my party (agent names will be shown)

These features take effect from agent select to game end. We also added an option to hide + auto-reject friend requests.

• Hit impact VFX improvements (see dedicated section for breakdown)

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug where if both teams try to call a surrender vote, the team who called it second wouldn't get the option to vote
• Fixed a bug that displayed the Act Rank tooltip in English only when another language was selected

In responses to the Tweet announcing the patch, a number of fans expressed their unhappiness with the changes to the game's Agents, most notably Sage. Time will tell whether or not these changes negatively affect the overall game, but Riot seems committed to making sure Valorant remains fair and enjoyable for all players. Hopefully, the changes will ensure that continues.

Valorant is now available on PC. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the game right here.

What do you think about these changes? Are you happy with Valorant's latest update? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!

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