Valorant Patch Notes

VALORANT 1.0 Patch Notes

GAMEPLAY AND BALANCE Changes in Patch 1.0

AGENT Patch Notes for VALORANT 1.0

SAGE

• Healing Orb cooldown increased 35 >>> 45 seconds
  • We like how much Sage is able to heal in a single heal, but felt she was able to use it too frequently during a round.
• Barrier Orb segment health reduced 1000 >>> 800
• Barrier Orb duration reduced 40 >>> 30 seconds
• Friendly Barrier Orb walls now show on the minimap
  • Previous changes to Sage’s Barrier Orb helped give it more counterplay options in pistol/early round but it’s still having too much impact in any given round. Our hope is that the wall stays a powerful stalling tool, but asks you to think more about when in the round you want to use it.

RAZE

• Blast Pack maximum damage radius reduced 2 >>> 1 meters
  • The Blast Pack has proven to be quite strong, especially when chained back-to-back. By reducing the inner maximum damage radius, we hope to reduce the average damage output of this ability while still keeping it powerful.

JETT

• Cloud Burst smoke duration increased 4 >>> 7 seconds
  • We feel like Jett has a strong, irreplaceable value in terms of her ability to deny trades. But we think her team-oriented output is a little too low. This should give her and her team a little more time to work off of her smokes.
• Tailwind automatically breaks Cypher’s Trapwires after being briefly revealed
  • Tailwind force is powerful enough that Jett should easily be able to break free of any leash. This should allow her a little more freedom to make that aggressive, but risky play that creates space for her team.

PHOENIX

• Blaze duration increased 6 >>> 8 seconds
  • We felt like the short wall duration, combined with the long cast time and short range, was forcing Phoenix to play a little too predictably around his wall. We’re bumping this up slightly to give him some more time to work with.
• Blaze damage: 15 every 0.25s >>> 1 every 0.033 seconds
• Blaze healing: 3 every 0.25s >>> 1 every 0.16 seconds
  • These Damage over Time/Healing over Time models are updated to match the recent changes to our other DoT abilities. Additionally, we’ve matched the damage/healing values to be half as effective as Hot Hands, primarily so that the total healing output of these two abilities is at parity (50 health each). We’re also doing this so that Blaze doesn’t become the de-facto “healing” ability compared to Hot Hands.
• Hot Hands healing: 3 every 0.25s >>> 1 every 0.08s.
  • Updated the HoT model to match recent changes to the DoT abilities.
• Curveball max flash duration increased 0.8 >>> 1.1 second
  • The flash duration is short given how quickly he can get his curveball out on an enemy caught out of position. Even still, it was a hair too short, especially to justify the new 200 credit price point.
• Run it Back automatically reloads all weapons on respawn
  • This is closer to a quality of life improvement. Phoenix’s ult often puts him in a position to empty his clips right before getting sent back. It was very jarring for a Phoenix player to wait several seconds to respawn, only to then have to spend another second reloading—potentially under pressure. We think the several second respawn time is enough time to justify an automatic reload.

OMEN

• Paranoia is now equipped instead of quickcast, and hit detection improved, especially at close range
  • Changed the cast paradigm to reward more proactive use of Paranoia over its previous reactive use case. Enemies will receive a warning when the projectile is fired rather than being in the direct path of it. This should make it hit enemies more reliably.’
• Dark Cover, Omen now enters a “phaser” world where he can see through walls to place his smokes and pressing RELOAD toggles between phased and normal targeting.
  • We wanted to provide Omen with a more precise way to place his smokes, especially when verticality is at play. We’ve provided a toggle back to the old view mode as well to make sure we still support the quick, close range smoke playstyle many Omen players have honed.
• Dark Cover controls have been updated where Omen can now increase smoke distance with PRIMARY FIRE, decrease it with SECONDARY FIRE, and throw smoke with the ABILITY KEY.
  • Yeah, this might be a difficult control shift for players who main Omen, but in the long run—and for new players—we think it’s more intuitive for the distance to be controlled by one hand on the mouse by default.
• Shrouded Step, Omen can now see his teleport location on the map and receives an in-world indicator of where he’s targeting when his vision of the point is obstructed.
  • We want to help Omen understand where he is targeting his teleport, especially when he’s teleporting from out of his smoke.
• From the Shadow, Omen can now cancel his teleport while in Shade form by pressing the ABILITY KEY again—Omen still loses all of his ult points if he cancels.
  • We want Omen to attempt plays and create fear for his opponents with his ultimate. Previously, the punishment for using the ult was almost certain death if caught by an enemy, and it pushed the ability into more niche use. Allowing Omen to cancel his ult if he’s in danger at the cost of his ult points will hopefully open more possibilities and value, while still pushing him to try and pick the best teleport spots possible.

SOUND VISUALIZATION (AUDIO ATTENUATION)

• We’ve brought in more sounds made by Agents under the category of sounds that display their audio distance on the mini-map via the white circle. This includes ability sounds, reloads, spike interactions and more.
  • Why? We wanted to provide players with the ability to understand when their noise can be heard by enemies and give them an idea of how far the sounds can be heard.

MAP UPDATES In VALORANT Patch 1.0

INTRODUCING A NEW MAP: ASCENT

• Ascent is a map set in Italy that features a large, open middle area that both teams can skirmish over. Mid is a playground for diverse ability use and successfully controlling the area opens additional routes for Attackers to both Spike sites.
• As our new map for launch, Ascent will be slightly more common in our Matchmaking rotation for the first few days so that you can get more opportunities to play on the map.

SPLIT

• Restructured mid chokepoint
  • We felt like Defenders were able to effectively plug up the main choke point in mid for a large percentage of the round. The new layout hopes to alleviate this issue. These changes open up the space quite a bit and provides an additional path to get around stalling abilities on the stairs. It also gives Attackers a few different angles to help siege B Tower and Vents.

• The train station maintenance crew was able to replace the burned out speaker system
• A certain frog’s head is now a little warmer

HAVEN/BIND/SPLIT/ASCENT

• Expanded our new system that combats map exploits to all other maps—this will eradicate anyone trying to escape the playspace
• Continued to fix level collision in order to enhance the smoothness of the gameplay space
• Completed draw call optimizations
• Also continued to block spots for Cypher’s Spycam that prevented counter-play; as always, huge thanks to everyone who helps us find these!

COMPETITIVE MODE UPDATE

• Competitive mode will not be on at launch
• Similar to our closed beta launch, our initial focus is making sure our service is stable before activating competitive matchmaking. This is also a way to give new players the same courtesy that closed beta players had to learn the game ahead of turning on Competitive. We’ll also make some adjustments to Competitive based on remaining closed beta player feedback. Our plan is to turn on Competitive a few patches into our launch.

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

The team rallied in this patch to fix a number of performance issues. Our focus for this round is primarily on the framerate dips you may sometimes experience in combat. Simpler scenarios, where very little is happening, may not see the same dramatic gains in FPS. Rest assured, we’re not done improving performance and you can expect to see more from us on this subject in upcoming patches.

• Combat Performance: Addressed multiple causes of framerate dips in combat. These improvements should help the game feel smoother, especially in combat situations on higher-end PCs.
  • Effect pooling added for impacts, gunshots and footsteps. This should reduce frame drops when these events occur.
  • Disabled bullet casings from calculating physics + audio bounces. We’re looking to bring a more optimized version of this feature back in a future patch.
  • Reduce cost of z-pings and death pings by 10x
  • Fixed bug causing 90 raycasts per second when pinging
  • Fixed a bug where NOT opening the options menu every game would cause framerate to drop on a regular cadence
• +FPS for mid to high specs: Sped up calculations on the CPU for game and render threads. These improvements will be felt the most on machines with powerful GPUs bottlenecked by their CPU speeds.
  • Optimized minimap for visible elements
  • Fixed bug where minimap would calculate twice per frame
  • Fixed bounding boxes on a variety of VFX, reducing the number of VFX updating at any given time
  • Reduce cost of updating transform on render thread
  • Reworked a variety of HUD elements that were previously built on a particularly slow component
• +FPS for low to mid specs: Content improvements that will primarily help low to mid tier specs when rendering the world.
  • Reduced draw calls on all maps
  • Removed non-gameplay impacting map particles on Low and Medium Detail Quality
  • Optimized First Person Shadows to no longer consider lights that do not impact final shadows
  • Removed unintentionally large textures across gun buddies, scopes, silencers
  • Optimized VFX for Characters
    • Omen : ALL ABILITIES
    • Sage : ALL ABILITIES
    • Viper: ALL ABILITIES
• Closed exploit where Nvidia Inspector could be used to see through Viper and Phoenix wall abilities
• Added a setting for speaker configuration
• Additional tooltip clarity around what graphics quality settings actually do
• GPU Time stat now correctly excludes idle time

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Dying to a non-enemy player will no longer grant ultimate points. This includes dying to the spike, fall damage, a teammate’s ability, or your own ability.
  • Context: This should eliminate some of the weird optimization around farming ultimate points when a death doesn’t have enough economic impact (e.g., self-killing at the end of the pistol round, or team kill at the start of a save round. We’ll continue to monitor to see if we need to further dissuade these “save round self-kills.”
• Added VALORANT Community Code pop-up for new players
• Added chat and voice restrictions for repeat offenders of our Community Code
  • Chat and Voice restrictions last 72 hours
  • Getting a restriction will require you to log out. Please take a moment to cool down and reflect before logging back in to play VALORANT 🙂
  • Chat restrictions will be enforced for ‘all’ and ‘team’ chat, but your ‘party’ chat will still be available.
  • Voice restrictions will be enforced for ‘team’ chat, but your ‘party’ voice will still be available.
• Reporting categories updated to cover a wider range of Community Code violations
• Transition screens added before Character Select and In Game
• The button to upgrade a gun skin now indicates what type of improvement (variant, animation, etc.) will be granted by the upgrade
• Visual updates to collection and contract pages
• Adjusted ping calculation to be more accurate
• Added a setting to disable the spectator count widget on the HUD
• Updated the death camera to avoid obscuring the screen immediately after death
• Added a build version watermark
• Observer Updates
  • Added team-specific 1st-person fresnel highlighting for observers
  • Adjusted consistent coloring for Attackers/Defenders on the HUD
  • Attackers and Defenders don’t swap in HUD on side swap rounds
  • Keybinds are consistent from round to round for swapping between players
  • Fixed scoreboard not showing the correct score
• Removed the ‘freeze time’ that would trigger when waiting for a player to reconnect at the start of the buy phase
• Updated shop icons

HUD & UI

• Added VFX to abilities, killfeed, and ceremonies (e.g., Ace or Clutch)
• Updated Spike visuals in the inventory
• Updated Armor icons in the shop
• Updated character portraits
• Added chat message regulation so that only send one chat message is sent when multiples of the same ping or VO command are used in rapid succession

BUG FIXES: IN-GAME

• “Fixed a bug with “rewinding” for Hit Registration that could cause the client to slightly disagree with the server on where a target was when you pulled the trigger. This affected all players slightly, but scaled up in severity at lower FPS.
• Fixed an issue where client-side tracers desynced when yaw switching
  • The server and client would sometimes disagree on where shots were landing when firing extended bursts.
• Fixed a bug that let you shred the gnar at supersonic speeds using Viper’s Toxic Screen as a projectile boost
• Fixed the ability to activate Viper’s Poison Cloud mid air if it has been picked up.
• Removed slow from Viper’s Snakebite tooltip.
• Cypher’s Spycam now shows the direction it is looking right when it is possessed.
• Fixed more unintended Cypher Spycam locations
• Fixed Sova’s arrows sometimes unpredictable bouncing
• Fixed Sova arrows from revealing through some walls
• Fixed a bug with Jett’s lower body popping out of place during her glide—thanks physical therapy!
• Fixed an issue where blood was disabled
• Fixed an Observer bug where dead players appeared as Phoenix on the HUD when an entire team was dead
• Fixed a spectator issue where Cypher’s tracers would appear inaccurate if the spectator swapped to him after he had entered/exited his camera
• Fixed an issue where a team could all disconnect on side swap rounds to surrender, but they would receive a win instead of a loss
• Fixed a bug that allowed Bucky’s right click to penetrate through world geography
• Fixed a bug for the comms halo above a player’s head, it should now activate with both Party chat and Team chat
• Fixed an issue where credits on the HUD appeared to be much higher than the 800 you receive on side swap rounds
• Fixed an issue with the scoreboard that would show enemy team above the credit cap
• Fixed a bug where players were fully movement inaccurate after being resurrected or respawning
• Fixed overruns on interactable objects like orbs or the Spike
• Fixed an issue where ally loadouts appeared to show damaged allies at full health
• Fixed issues with HUD prompts that would be cut off if the key to activate the prompt was bound to a key with more than one letter
• Fixed a bug where the buy phase announcement would always say to press B to buy, even if the key to open the Armory was bound to a different key
• Fixed an issue where reconnect messages would spam every round start
• Fixed an observer bug where text would overlap in the buy phase announcement
• Fixed an observer bug where some abilities were not appearing on the minimap properly
• Fixed a bug where the ping wheel on the megamap would not grey out when ping limited
• Fixed a bug in the Armory where weapon details would vanish after purchasing a weapon
• Fixed a bug where the Equip Last Equipped Weapon hotkey was not functioning properly after using an ability
• Fixed overlaps with instability indicators (i.e. High Ping) and the Spectator widget
• Fixed overlaps and overruns in the Combat Report
• Fixed an issue with dead player models occasionally flickering
• Fixed an issue with animations when aiming with the Odin for spectators
• Fixed flickering mouse cursor in a few places
• The tooltip pointing at Contracts can now be dismissed FOREVER
• Fixed a bug where half the Arsenal page would fade in when clicking on the Collection tab
• Fixed a bug where the personalized Store offers would blink before fading in
• Fixed a bug where various menus could overlap the lobby screen after a queue dodge

BUG FIXES: GAME CLIENT

• Fixed some visual bugs in the settings menus
• Fixed a bug with windowed mode where the VALORANT window would not save its location properly

KNOWN ISSUES

While we’ve made good progress at addressing hit registration issues, there’s one known issue we haven’t gotten to yet:

• In very rare cases where a player has a lot of incoming packet loss, an enemy model may appear to be crouching when they’re actually standing (or vice versa). The connection has dropped the packet that says “this player un-crouched”, and there can be a short delay before it’s resent. We have a fix for this coming asap.

We’re also looking into ways to improve the visual clarity of our hit impact effects (especially sparks). In many of the clips that we reviewed, readability issues caused shoulder shots to read like headshots, further contributing to the feeling of hit reg being off.

• All impact effects (spark and blood) are pinned in world space where the hit was registered on the server. These show up after hearing back from the server, at which point the victim or attacker may have slightly shifted positions. Often, we’ve seen the target crouch into or move their head to where the hit impact renders.
• It’s difficult to read the exact hit location (center point) from the spark effect when compared to blood.

What are the biggest changes in VALORANT’s release?

With the game and patch notes not being release yet, we don’t know too much yet. But the following changes were announced for VALORANT’s release:

• VALORANT will get an additional map on release.
• VALORANT will get an additional agent on release.
• The hit-reg issues in VALORANT that were introduced with the most recent patch are supposed to be fixed / better.
• The FPS / performance are expected to be better, especially on the map Split.

VALORANT 0.50 Patch Notes

Gameplay & Balance Changes in VALORANT 0.50

Weapon Changes in 0.50

• You will no longer enter the “walking accuracy” state when transitioning from run to stop
  • We noticed many players were entering a walking accuracy state during their run-to-stop transition that made it appear as if shots they fired/landed were done at full speed.
• Deadzone accuracy speed threshold increased: 25% >> 30%
  • Now that you can’t gain walk accuracy while transitioning from a run to a stop, we’ve also slightly increased the size of the deadzone (full accuracy state) to make it a bit easier to get an accurate shot out quickly

Rifle Changes in VALORANT 0.50

• Recovery times on all Rifles have been updated, which should make tap and burst firing more efficient. Inaccuracy is accrued any time the weapon is re-fired prior to a complete duration of a weapon’s respective Gun Recovery Time.
• Base walk accuracy: 0.6° >> 0.8°
  • We felt like walk-spraying with rifles was a little more effective than we’d like, particularly at longer ranges. We’re going to pull back on this accuracy slightly and continue to monitor
• Vandal:
  • Horizontal (Yaw) Recoil reduced by 15% while crouched and stationary.
    This was intended to be the case and now properly matches the crouch benefits of other rifles
  • Gun Recovery Time: .4s >> .375s
  • Tap Efficiency: 4 >> 6
• Phantom:
  • Fixed an issue where the Gun Recovery Time was higher than intended
  • Gun Recovery Time: .55s >> .35s
  • Tap Efficiency: 3 >> 4
• Bulldog Automatic Fire:
  • Fixed an issue where the Gun Recovery Time was higher than intended
  • Gun Recovery Time: .55s >> .35s
• Guardian:
  • Fixed an issue where the Gun Recovery Time was higher than intended
  • Gun Recovery Time: .4s >> .35s

Machine Gun Changes in VALORANT Patch 0.50

“Machine Guns are significantly underperforming other weapons at their price points.  Machine Guns are meant to be bullet hoses—powerful once they get going. This is a difficult balance to strike in a game where a single bullet from the Vandal will put you down. Our hope here is to make Machine Guns better at what they do (shoot lots and lots of bullets) while also increasing the power of the Ares relative to weapons at a similar price point.”

• Ares
  • Price reduced from 1700 to 1600 creds
  • Firing Error (this value is a curve that has intermediate values between each bullet; bullet 2 has slightly less error than bullet 1, and so on)
    • Bullet 1: 1.0° >> 0.8°
    • Bullet 5: 0.85° >> 0.75°
    • Bullet 10: 0.75° >> 0.7°
  • Reduced the amount and intensity of horizontal (Yaw) Recoil after the first 8 bullets.
• Odin
  • Reduced the amount and intensity of horizontal (Yaw) Recoil after the first 8 bullets

Agent Updates in VALORANT 0.50

Sage Changes

• Slow Orb zone duration decreased from 9 seconds to 7 seconds
• Slow Orb slowing amount decreased from 65% to 50%
  • We all know Sage is OP.  We’ve decided to try to reduce some of her stopping power while still allowing her to fulfill her role as the premier staller in VALORANT.  These changes aim to reduce the overall efficacy of her Slow Orb, especially if they are chained back-to-back.

Cypher

• Cyber Cage no longer slows enemies that move through it
  • We’ve always envisioned Cypher as a premier sentinel gathering info on his enemies and picking them off, but the slow on the cage was allowing him to move into Sage’s territory by stalling an entire enemy team. We still think this will be a tool he uses to buy some time, but enemies will now have more options when pushing his defensenes, especially when coordinated.
• Spycam cooldown when destroyed increased 30 >> 45 seconds
  • Spycams have been flying into enemy territory like Sova darts at the start of rounds because the punishment for losing one to an enemy is so low. Hopefully this change pushes you to find a safe hiding place for your initial camera (please not inside a box).

Omen

• Dark Cover smoke duration increased 12 >> 15 seconds
• Dark Cover smoke projectile speed increased
• Dark Cover cooldown increased 30 >> 35 seconds
  • Especially at high-tier play, we’ve seen Brimstone become the dominant controller and we wanted to give his peers a boost to make them more viable while hopefully maintaining their unique playstyles.

Viper

• Snake Bite radius increased 350 >> 450
  • We’re increasing Snake Bite’s radius to match other area denial abilities

Sova

• Sova’s Owl Drone now includes a layer of sound for engine rotors
  • Audio should better reflect thematics, while maintaining how noticeable the previous version of Owl Drone audio was for allies and enemies, as heard in 3rd-person

Brimstone/Phoenix/Viper

• We see you b-hoppers out there, jumping through Incendiary, Fireball, and Snake Bite while taking no damage. We don’t want to completely negate this skill but we also don’t want it to trivialize a whole set of character abilities.
  • Height required to jump out of all damaging area denial abilities 80 >> 120
  • Snake Bite, Fireball, and Incendiary damage tick speed increased (total damage per second unchanged)

AGENT ABILITY CREDIT COST TUNING

• We felt the credit cost of some abilities did not match the impact those abilities brought to a match, and made adjustments for a more accurate reflection
  • Sage Barrier Orb increased from 300 to 400 credits
  • Raze Blast Pack increased from 100 to 200 credits
  • Phoenix Curveball increased from 100 to 200 credits
  • Brimstone’s Incendiary increased from 200 to 300 credits
  • Jett’s Updraft reduced from 200 to 100 credits

AGENT ARMOR

• Armor carried over from prior rounds is no longer destroyed when new armor is purchased, allowing you to sell newly purchased armor and return to your previous armor status (instead of having no armor)

MAX CREDIT CAP

• Total credit cap is is reduced from 12,000 to 9,000
  • We’re noticing that players/teams who manage to bank a high amount of credits are maintaining a rich economic state for too long, and it becomes a monumental challenge for the opposing team to dethrone their economy

Map Updates in 0.50

SPLIT 

Attacking teams have been having difficulty finding a foothold in territory control across the map. We’ve made a few changes that should allow attackers better opportunities to contest A Main, Mid Top, and B Tower.

• Barrier locations (those clear blue walls) have been adjusted across the map to provide attackers more of a foothold into territory control across the map
  • Defender barrier in B Mid has been pulled back. New barriers are in the entrance to Vent and atop the staircase in B Tower
  • Defender barrier has been pulled back at A Ramps
  • Attacker barrier has been pushed forward at A Main
  • Attacker barrier has been pushed forward slightly at B Main
• Angled the wall on the left interior of B Tower when pushing up the stairs from Mid
  • This removes a 50/50 angle check when pushing into this space, which should make it more approachable for you to try and gain control of B Tower
• Radianite crate in B has been changed to a metal crate to provide more cover when planting the Spike
• Revised art to improve performance throughout the map

HAVEN

• A new map exploit system is in effect which will have negative effects on anyone trying to escape the playspace
• Updated several floor sections so that they now have appropriate material sounds

SPLIT/HAVEN/BIND

• Added fixes for Cypher Spy Camera exploits to all three maps— a huge thanks to everyone who has helped us track these down, including clutch stream’s we lurked in for two days, writing down every camera placement and fixing them in real time
• Backside of spawn barriers are now opaque to prevent some abuse cases
• Added ability for Spike to automatically fall from elevated boost positions
• Fixed multiple spots where Sova’s Recon Dart could over-penetrate map geometry—another shout out to everyone that helped with these as well!

HUD & UI Changes in VALORANT Patch 0.50

• Teammate armor is now shown on the scoreboard
• When the Spike is planted, the Spike icon in the upper middle UI now pulses with the audio beeps
• New artwork for pings to increase readability in the world
• Portraits
  • Re-enabled portrait for player’s minimap icon
  • Reduced size of portraits and icons by several pixels
  • Added color to the player’s own minimap icon with a slightly thicker border to aid in finding oneself (on the minimap, not in life)
• Added regulation of chat messages when using the radio menu or radio wheel
• Slight increase to broken armor text size to make it easier to notice
• Relocated flyout menu for Titles dropdown so it opens in a more sensible location
• Moved Leave Match button closer to the other “Exit” buttons in the menu
• Made Logout button red to match Exit button, since they both exit
• Shifted location of Skip button on MVP screen so players do not accidentally press Play Again button when slamming the Skip button
• Adjusted radio wheel behavior so that mouse wheel up and down always select the other wheels regardless of other keybinds
• Icon for Need Help changed from the little bug thing to a flag
• Enabled attack/defend icons in the upper middle game info UI for all players, not just observers
• Hooked up “Ult Almost Ready” VO when character uses the Ult Status radio command and are within 1 ult point of being fully charged

QUALITY OF LIFE Changes in VALORANT 0.50

• Cheaters are no longer referred to as “Hackers”
• Profanity filter setting added; when enabled, will filter out profanity from chat
• Added a setting that allows toggling between walking and running
• Viper’s Poison Cloud no longer enters cooldown when picked up during the buy phase
• Added foe coloring for Sova’s Hunter’s Fury
• Added Contract level-up animation when unlocking free characters or purchasing contract levels
• Added tooltips and explanations guiding new players towards activating their first contract
• Unowned skin levels now list their individual cost (in Radianite Points) and description in the collection pages
• Made performance optimizations to address FPS drops when you or allies are shooting
• Various social panel improvements to support better error handling and messaging
• “Keep Player Centered” minimap setting is now a default setting
• Renamed “First Person Enhanced Visuals” graphics setting to “Bloom”
  • As discovered by u/Far_OW on reddit, this setting affects more than just first-person visuals—it’s actually a visual bloom, or glow effect, which primarily affects weapon renders
• Renamed “Shadows” graphics setting to “First Person Shadows”
  • This setting only affects shadows cast on a player’s weapon, hands and arms
• Observer HUD
  • Dead players will now appear greyed out on the HUD rather than hidden
  • Team colors on the HUD will swap when switching sides, rather than the teams on the HUD changing position

Bug Fixes: In-Game

• Cypher and Sova will no longer float in the air if the Sage Barrier Orb wall they are standing on is destroyed while when using the Spycam or Owl Drone, respectively
• Cypher can no longer pick up his trap after an enemy has triggered it.
• Sova’s Owl Drone can no longer rapid-fire darts if the prior one hits an enemy
• Reduced collision size on Sova’s arrows so they don’t get stuck on corners when fired near them
• Removed placeholder mesh from Viper’s Toxic Screen projectile
• When using the ping wheel on the map, right clicking now correctly cancels the action and does not place a ping
• Fixed a bug where the Spike UI would sometimes overlap with the HUD
• Fixed a bug where a weapon’s ammo count on the HUD would disappear if swapping your knife, then back, while on low ammo.
• Removed Spike icon from being visible on enemy player minimap icons
• Spike can no longer be planted partially in map geometry
  • This also fixes cases where the Spike camera was appearing inside the Spike
• Barriers on the minimap no longer adjust positions incorrectly during the buy phase if you open the megamap
• Fixed bug where various issues would occur after multiple players would fulfill a weapon buy request at the same time
• Fixed issue where the game would hitch/stutter when opening the in-game options menu
• Fixed issue where the game would hitch/stutter when opening the in-game shop
• Fixed rare movement bug where resurrected players who were tagged would have jittery movement in 1st-person perspective 
• Fixed a bug where some weapons lost their muzzle flashes in 1st-person POV when tracers were disabled
• Fixed a rare bug where players appeared to be standing, when they were actually crouching 
• Ability details in the combat report will now correctly appear in the buy phase of the round when teams switch sides
• Fixed miscellaneous Observer mode HUD issues
• Spectators can now see weapon inspect animations
• Fixed a bug where the camera could take an invalid position during character select
• Fixed an issue where the combat report would show 150 damage but the enemy player was still alive (in cases where healing was not involved) 
• Fixed an issue where a teammate’s voice activity would incorrectly light up more than their own icon in the above-character UI element
• Selecting a ping on the ping wheel and canceling no longer incorrectly spawns the canceled ping next time the player uses the basic ping

Bug Fixes: Game Client

• Fixed incorrect location of text when hovering rewards in the contracts
• Fixed a bug where purchase refunds were not reflected in client until it was restarted
• Fixed a bug where player cards were cropped on the arsenal menu screen
• Fixed a bug where, in some languages, mission descriptions could appear truncated
• Fixed an issue where the Distortion Graphics setting was not properly enabled
  • Enabling this may have a performance impact on some older graphics cards

VALORANT 0.49 Patch Notes

VALORANT 0.49 will go live April 29th at 9am CEST for the EU and 10am PT for NA.

Undocumented Changes in VALORANT 0.49

• Low FPS since previous patch: Due to a change in how the game got compiled, the performance was degraded for some players. 0.49 will reverse this change and all players who experienced lower FPS with the last patch should be back to normal.
• Cypher: Fixed a bug where Cypher’s Cyber Cage would be selected at a larger range than intended causing overlapping interaction issues. Will go live with 0.49.

Gameplay & Balance Changes in VALORANT 0.49

Omen Changes in 0.49

• Omen now immediately becomes vulnerable and no longer appears dark after he leaves his alternate shadow form
  • If you were to find enemy Omen teleporting in, it was often confusing when you should shoot him to get the kill (vs. sending him back). This change is to both account for an invulnerability bug and score some extra points of clarity
• The attenuation radius of the arrival sound on Omen’s From the Shadows has been reduced to 2250
  • Attenuation is a big word, but the short of it is you have to be closer to Omen to echolocate where he’s teleporting to. We’re trying to give him some spook back since if you do find him, you should now have him dead to rights

Sage Changes in 0.49

• Barrier Orb will only spawn a chunk of the barrier if it is supported by the ground, this means it will sometimes only spawn 2 barrier chunks
• Barrier Orb can no longer be placed on “small” pieces of geometry, it must be placed on the ground or on top of boxes
  • We love supporting boost gameplay, especially when multiple characters combine their abilities (looking at you Jett and Omen). However, we felt with the current placement requirements, characters were able to boost to too many unintended spots. With this change, players can still boost into some unexpected positions, but they hopefully won’t be 30 feet in the sky and floating in the middle of the site to look through a tiny pinhole in the map.

Character Updates in 0.49

• [Omen] Updated Omen’s visuals
• [Breach] Updated Breach’s visuals

Map Updates in VALORANT 0.49

• Added curtains to the top of double doors on Haven to remove the Sage Barrier Orb boost that allowed players to see through a sliver of the door at the top
• Fixed issue with Cypher camera being placed on the Haven A Main boxes
• Multiple fixes to the geometry on Haven, Bind, and Split to fix exploits and help optimize gameplay—massive thanks to all of the folks who helped to identify these! We see you
• Updated materials on Bind and Haven to make surfaces more consistent overall
• Changed color of Radianite crates in order to unify overall visuals

Competitive Updates in VALORANT 0.49

• Added Competitive mode and ranked matchmaking, to go live in the near future [Competitive (Ranked) is supposed to launch later on the same day of the patch.]

Observer Mode

• Added “Ghost cheat” as an option to custom games with cheats enabled, allowing you to fly around the map in no-clip mode
• Ability HUD no longer displays when entering drone camera as an observer
• Exiting drone camera will now swap back to the most recently viewed player if they’re still a valid view target
• Swapping through players to view will now iterate through an entire team before going to players on the other team

HUD & UI changes in VALORANT 0.49

In-game Changes

• New directional damage indicator visual
• New low health and low ammo visuals
• Removed character portrait from player’s minimap icon to better distinguish player icon; icon will receive additional color and polish in the future
• Voice activity is now shown above allies’ heads
• Added color to spike icon above ally’s head to make it easier to see
• Fixed the ultimate ability icon above teammates’ heads showing as charged after gaining 1 ult point instead of when actually charged
• Ping elements now fade when under player aim; previously only text faded

Out-of-game Changes

• Relocated Find Match button from social panel to Play screen; renamed to Start
• Relocated Practice button from social panel to Play screen
• Added Play Again button to End of Game screen
• Made the flyouts on the nav progression widget clickable
• Made main navigation button click targets easier to click
• Added an option to orient the fixed minimap so that player’s starting side is always at the bottom
• Adjusted all map assets so that full fixed orientations consistently place attackers at bottom and defenders at top
• Added hover tooltips to thumbnails in the Collections view to show item name
• Scroll speed tweaked to make scrolling social panel smoother
• Made crosshair preview in Settings shorter to make more room for controls

Quality of Life Changes in VALORANT 0.49

• Added the ability to abandon a multiplayer Custom Game. Using the “Leave match” button in the ESC menu will allow you to permanently leave the match without penalty. Leaving the custom game in any other way (exit client, alt+f4, etc.) will still allow you to return to the match
• Updated the audio occlusion system to help players better differentiate audio distancing cues. For example, Haven B to A short, you should perceive sounds from their correct distance and not as if they were right next to you
• Players who abandon matchmade games, or dodge agent selects, will now experience penalties that prevent them from queuing for a period of time. Frequent offenders will experience higher queue time penalties. Leaving ruins the match for everyone else, and should only be a last resort
• Enabled the ability to see VALORANT players online in Riot games
• Adjusted play flow UX moving queue buttons into lobby screens
• Adjusted social panel UX to accommodate additional space
• Adjusted End of Game UX to clean up design of various widgets
• Adjusted chat disconnect error state to be less… intimidating
• Spawn practice bots option in the shooting range moved from the F3 menu to an in-world shootable switch
• For all shotguns, moved the crosshair’s center dot by 1px to center it on the screen. The devs expect shotgun lethality to increase by 4,000% as a result (this is a joke)

Bug Fixes: In-Game

• Phoenix Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug where Phoenix would get teleported back to an ascender (rope ladder) after respawning, in cases where Phoenix died while Run It Back was active and he was attached to an ascender
  • Fixed a bug where, for a brief time after Run It Back ended, Phoenix could be damaged in the place where he fizzled
• Viper Bug Fixes
  • Updated the appearance of Viper’s Toxic Screen on the minimap to show gaps in the wall
  • Fixed Viper being able to animation-cancel Viper’s Pit
• Prevent “Spike Planted” announcement from playing after a round has ended and hiding the round end announcement, which should clearly indicate the result of after-the-buzzer plant rounds
• Cypher: Fixed a bug where Cypher’s Cyber Cage would be selected at a larger range than intended causing overlapping interaction issues
• Fixed Spike Carrier Killed announcement from also showing Ally Defusing
• Fixed a rare issue where players’ weapons would float in front of them; too spooky
• Fixed a rare issue where third-person player models could get desynced from the server when double tapping a defuse, causing some shots to miss
• Fixed aim issue that caused some players who were using low sensitivity to have small mouse movements dropped
• Fixed issue where canceling a plant or orb pickup could sometimes play the wrong (slower) re-equip animation, making it look as if the player could fire too quickly after canceling (timing was correct, animation wasn’t)
• Fixed map region names as they appear below the minimap from not localizing properly
• Smoothed out movement during player-to-player collisions
• Fixed a bug where item UI prompt in the game world would appear to block bullets
• Fixed a bug where the Z ping wheel could be opened alongside the map ping wheel, creating a scenario where multiple ping wheels could be open at once
• Fixed a bug where ping wheel wouldn’t show disabled when direct bound pings were used to reach usage limit
• Fixed a rare bug where either team could win a round by elimination on the same frame that the spike was defused, granting two points for that round.
• Fixed overlap in ally planting announcement
• Fixed a bug where the VO radial wheel would hit the rate limit by opening and closing it without selecting a VO option
• Minimap will no longer randomly hide for all players in a game
• Update to Bucky’s alternate fire to instead apply instantaneous, hitscan damage
• Alt. fire was previously a projectile that was able to kill enemies shortly after the user was killed. No other weapon works this way so now it performs as a hitscan.

Bug Fixes: Game Client

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to purchase items not available in their respective store
• Fixed an issue that let players equip content they didn’t own
• Fixed issue where display settings would get re-applied when joining/leaving games, which could move the window or change display mode in rare cases
• Fixed network stability indicator sometimes appearing when setting was disabled
• Line of sight is no longer required to pick up the spike when overlapped by a player
• Fixed issue where the spike would sometimes become unretrievable
• Fixed an issue preventing some player reports from submitting
• Fixed various connection issues with voice chat
• Fixed various connection issues with text chat
• Fixed various issues with player state being incorrect in social panel
• Fixed an issue where some players could not requeue after a game without relogging
• Fixed issues with receiving party invitations
• Fixed transparent player card icons in Custom Game lobbies
• Fixed resetting controls for Voice Chat in settings
• Fixed voice defaulting to automatic transmission for Custom Games
• Fixed voice being interrupted when navigating Custom Game options
• Fixed a handful of localization issues across menu screens