The next VALORANT patch is here, with minimal changes to the game but more social and punishment updates; and a load of bug fixes.
Sova and Astra have had unique keybindings added to the options, for flying up and down, when using Owl Drone and Astral Form respectively.
Competitive Updates
Players were unhappy with the hidden Act Rank which was patched in a while ago. This is is now being turned into a toggle, allowing players to choose whether to hide or show your current rank.
The Match History is now also gaining a tab, allowing players to filter the matches shown per mode; essentially allowing for people to just look at Competitive matches.
Players will now receive a rank rating penalty for dodging Competitive games.
Radiant Rank Rating has been tuned to be more consistent with Immortal Rank Rating.
Layout and Visuals for Custom Games have been updated.
Social Updates
AFK Detection has been improved. Penalties for AFK offenses have been updated, including warnings, queue restrictions, XP denial, and bans.
Chat-based offences are also being updated, now giving restrictions and bans.
This comes with a reminder that zero tolerance offences will result in bans automatically.
The developers are clearly trying to stop AFK behaviour, especially for those farming XP. They are also cracking down on the toxic behaviour we see regularly, as having chat restrictions will restrict players from playing Ranked games.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where Ranked game icons were misaligned in Match History.
- Astra now starts Spike Rush games with all 5 star charges.
- Killjoy can’t place Lockdown off the ground by jumping and placing it on cosmetic pieces of geo on the walls anymore.
- Fixed issue where Cypher’s Spycam dart could sometimes hit players that were on the other side of a wall.
- Fixed Killjoy not getting charges from her Alarmbot and Turret back if they are recalled after she is resurrected.
- Fixed dead enemies being counted as flashed enemies in the combat report.
- Fixed Astra’s “Out of charges” VO not playing for her abilities while in Astral Form.
- Fixed the deafening effect on nearsights not playing if Astra is in the game.
- Fixed Cypher’s Spycam targeting going through Sage’s wall.
- Fixed Astra having trouble placing Stars on the defender side boxes of Icebox mid from the A site.
- Sova Drone and Astra ascend/descend binds now properly respect changed jump/crouch keybinds.
- The defuse range circle indicator that shows after planting the Spike again displays properly.
- Fixed a rare bug that could leave players unable to move or process inputs until they died when entering or returning from Astra's astral form, Sova's drone, Skye's scout, or Cypher's Spy Camera.We previously addressed some causes of this bug last patch, this fix should address the remaining known causes.
- Fixed an issue where the Stinger’s stock would appear detached on the ground
Improved readability of player names in Observer. - Fixed an issue where Skye’s seekers did not visibly move on Brimstone’s tactical map.
- Fixed an issue where scoreboard color doesn’t appropriately swap at side swap for Observers.
- Fixed a bug that would cause the "Network Problem" icon to appear when no network issues were present.
During the VCT Challengers 3 series, players were informed by admins to stop spamming the crouch button over their dead enemies.
