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Valorant update today: Riot share 1.02 patch notes and give Ranked release latest

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Valorant update news and Ranked release

Valorant update news and Ranked release (Image: RIOT GAMES)

According to Riot Games, a new Valorant update has started rolling out on PC, with a few issues spotted.

Players have reported issues with exploits being used following the launch of the new patch, and the dev team has confirmed that a hotfix is being deployed to solve it.

A new message from Riot Games explains: “We’re aware of some interesting bugs that slipped through the patch for NA, LATAM, and Brazil.

“We’ve fixed the issue for every other region’s patch deploy. For the Americas, we’re toggling on a fix live right now.”

This includes being able to use Ghost Mode in public matches, making it possible to fly around levels and clip through walls.

As mentioned above, this problem is being looked into and the issue should be resolved in the next 24-hours.

Riot Games has also confirmed that today’s Valorant update will bring Ranked matchmaking to the game.

However, it will not be available as soon as you download the patch, with the returning mode going live at a later time.

It’s unclear when this will be, as today’s issues may slow down the scheduled launch.

A message shared in the patch notes confirms: “You can stop spamming us now, because Competitive Mode goes live this patch.

“Most obvious change is that our top rank is now “Radiant” and we’ve added a surrender option, which will come in handy when you start losing to Radiant players.

“Tagging, the slowing effect you feel when hit by bullets, has been adjusted, in part to up your chances of escape if you’re near cover. We can’t help you much if you’re dancing in the open.

“Lots of love has gone into improving the Menu UI—might be jarring at first, but we believe it’s for the better.

“It’s worth studying the tweaked areas for all maps, which should relax the desire to exhaust abilities at certain locations.”

A shorter message shared on Twitter adds: “Competitive won’t be on with the patch ship and will be coming later.”

No ETA has been provided on the release of Valorant Ranked, but it seems likely it will be available to everyone by June 24, 2020.

Full patch notes from this week’s Valorant update have also been shared and can be found listed below:

VALORANT 1.02 PATCH NOTES

WEAPON UPDATES

Bucky (right-click)

  • Crouch-walking accuracy: 3.45 >>> 4.1
  • Walk accuracy 6.4 >>> 4.4
  • Run Accuracy 3.5 >>> 6.4

We discovered an accidental discrepancy in how we were applying movement inaccuracy to the Bucky’s right-click, one we introduced during closed beta when we added a delay for players to receive walking accuracy when slowing down from a running state. This was making it so that the right-click was much more accurate on the run that intended. We’ve fixed this now so that running with the right-click is significantly more inaccurate than walking or standing still. We’ve also increased the inaccuracy for crouch-walking to more appropriately match the amount of evasion it provides.

COMPETITIVE MODE UPDATE

  • Competitive Mode will be made available during this patch, changes since closed beta:
  • Updated rank iconography.
  • New name for top rank: Radiant
  • Expanded skill disparity range for playing with friends in rank placements

HUD & UI

We’ve included a set of menu UI changes as part of our ongoing work to clarify the client experience coming out of Closed Beta. This is only a small portion of the improvements, but should push overall usability in a positive direction.Navigation and UI changes are disruptive, so we appreciate your patience adjusting to the new approach and we hope you find the changes to be upgrades after you settle in.

 

As always, thank you for your continued feedback. We have a long way to go, but we’ll keep hammering on the client UI until it’s a stellar experience for everyone.

  • All main sections views now have a “back” button in the upper left to return to the Home view (pressing Escape is also supported)

  • All details views (gun details, players cards, match details, etc.) have been converted to use the same back button in the upper left instead of a close button in the upper right

  • Small popup dialogs still use the close button in the upper right where appropriate

  • Slide-out options menu removed from the logo button in upper left

  • New options button added to upper right, which opens the menu with Settings, Support, About, Leave Match, and Exit to Desktop buttons

  • Circle progress elements for Battlepass and active contract removed from navigation; missions element remains throughout the experience

  • Navigation reordered to accommodate the changes

  • Exit to desktop flow converted to a single button with a popup that allows a player to exit or sign out and exit.

  •  Note that the Leave Match button is now displayed all the time, but will be locked in cases where leaving a match is not allowed. Previously the button was missing completely when leaving was not allowed, which looked like a bug rather than a restriction.

  • Added a setting that allows players to always display the inventory in the lower right of the HUD

  • Added a new HUD element that tells you when you haven’t been spawned in due to being AFK

BATTLEPASS

  • Added Battlepass text button in the nav to make it easier to find

  • Added small progress bar below text that shows progress for current level of the pass

  • Hovering Battlepass in the nav shows a “peek” flyout of upcoming pass rewards

  • Clicking either goes to a new Battlepass section

CONTRACT & AGENTS SECTION

  • Moved Agents section out from under Collection to make it easier to find and to provide a home for contract progress in the nav

  • Added small progress bar below text that shows progress for current level of the active contract

  • Hovering Agents in the nav shows a “peek” of upcoming contract rewards

  • Clicking Agents goes to the Agents section, and clicking the contract flyout navigates to Agents and opens the associated contract details

  • Removed secondary navigation from Collection view since Agents no longer lives there and the navigation is no longer needed

QUALITY OF LIFE

Update to Tagging (slowdown effect when hit by enemy fire)

Tagging is intended to reward the player with better positioning and the player that successfully lands a shot on the enemy first. When tagged, you will now more gradually transition to the reduced tagging speed. In addition, the reduced tagging speed is slightly more forgiving. If you are positioned close to cover, this should allow you to potentially escape when tagged more frequently than before. Also, the effects of being tagged should feel less jarring especially when playing with higher ping.

Tagging through walls has been further reduced which should enable reliable escapes when being shot through walls.

MODE UPDATES

Spike Rush

Practice Mode

PERFORMANCE UPDATES

The team primarily focused on smoothing out framerates in certain scenarios. Mostly this helps out mid to high spec machines.

  • Optimized a worst case performance scenario that occurred when multiple players are moving close to one another.

  • Optimized multi-kill streak banners.

  • Optimized player health bars

  • Optimized creation of pings (z-ping, ping wheel, when an ally dies, etc)

  • Optimized Spawn Barrier audio causing periodic framerate dips.

  • [1.01 Hotfix] Resolved an issue that was causing low memory systems with slow HDDs to perform especially poorly.

BUG FIXES

  •  Levels 2-7 for the Sovereign Ghost skin are now fixed and unlockable

    •  As we’ve stated, we never intend for skins to be pay-to-win or pay-to-lose . In this case, the Sovereign Ghost was playing unsilenced audio in third-person on Levels 2-7, so it was totally pay-to-lose and we didn’t want any of you to experience that. It’s fixed now, so go ahead and upgrade that baby and enjoy your custom effects, finisher, kill banner, and variants!

  • Fixed Toggle Walk, you can once again use this setting

  • Fixed the Return from AFK message only displaying the name of the last player to rejoin

  • Fixed an issue where the defuse bar would duplicate

  • Fixed several localization strings and text overlaps

  • Fixed several crashes

  • Fixed a bug where the Spike could automatically plant when you walked onto a plant site while it was in your inventory

  • Fixed a bug where the Spike would float in the air if it had been placed on a Sage wall

  • Fixed a bug where the dropped Spike’s model could be invisible to defenders on while it was on the ground

  • Fixed a bug where gun buddies were squished on the Arsenal page

  • Fixed a bug where trying to open the Character Select UI while the megamap in the Shooting Range would result in a deadlock

  • Improved GPU performance of most out of game menu screens

  • Fixed a bug where sometimes players got stuck on the transition into game and never successfully transitioned into game

  • Fixed a bug where the spread on the Bucky’s alt fire was higher when walking than was when running or standing still

  • Fixed a bug where dead players could appear standing when you reconnect to a match

  • Fixed a bug where you could get stuck grabbing orbs

  • Fixed a bug where enemy players would appear on the minimap while watching the Spike, once your team was dead

KNOWN ISSUES

  • Competitive match overtime on this patch will be resolved using Sudden Death, which we know is intrinsically unfair. We’re actively working on replacing this with a more fair solution.

  •  We’ve discovered issues in our routing software causing some players in Sweden to be incorrectly placed on our Istanbul game servers, and this is likely causing a small number of players elsewhere to also end up on the incorrect game servers. The fix is deployed to our Stockholm networking gear and we’re deploying the fix globally this week.

COMPETITIVE MODE UPDATE

  • Competitive Mode will be made available during this patch, changes since closed beta:
  • Updated rank iconography.
  • New name for top rank: Radiant
  • Expanded skill disparity range for playing with friends in rank placements

MAP UPDATES

Adjusted numerous locations to allow clearing angles to be a bit more straightforward in the following places:

We’re peeling back a bit on the amount of locations that require ability usage, thorough angle checking or teamwork to clear safely.

The intention is that angles that are more difficult to clear are most commonly found in areas meant to reinforce existing territory control. This is to emphasize ability usage and teamwork in order to reliably gain control of these locations. An added benefit is that this encourages ability usage and combat engagements to be spread out across the map which can help prevent the frequency of scenarios where all of the players expend all of their abilities and ultimates in the same place at the same time.

We’ll continue monitoring how the maps are playing and make adjustments as necessary.

Collision and Nav Mesh (playable terrain) improvements

source: express.co.uk