The next VALORANT update will be released soon and brings several important changes and new content, including the next agent, Astra, tactical voice-over, and more.
Other major updates in Patch 2.04 include that Bind’s Teleporter now has open doors to prevent it from camping in Escalation, some reruns for competitive rankings, and smaller quality of life changes.
You can read the full notes for VALORANT Patch 2.04 on the official VALORANT website. Here’s an overview of what you can expect to go after updating the game, other than Astra going live.
Related: How to play Astra, VALORANT ‘‘s new administrator agent
From your Bind
Specifically in Escalation, Bind’s Teleporter will unlock its doors so players can not camp inside after taking a strong card position.
Similarly, Bind’s rate was reset to what it was before Riot Games reduced it in Patch 2.03. It is now weighed equally with the other escalation charts, but will be monitored based on community feedback.
Shared rework
Patch 2.04 is the beginning of Episode Two, Act Two’s competitive season, which means that there are some changes to various aspects of VALORANT’s ranking progression.
The biggest change is probably that players will no longer lower their rank at the beginning of an act. This means that if you were a Radiant player at the end of the previous act, you will remain in Radiant on the leaderboard to start the next act.
But your rated rating will still be reduced by 90 percent, which means that Radiant players will technically still be bumped into Immortal and have to prove that they can still be one of the best players in the world.
Hitting Radiant will now also be harder to reach, requiring a player to be a top 500 player in their region and maintain a fixed RR. Here are the RR requirements for each region, according to Riot.
- Latin America and South Korea: RR 100
- Brazil: 200 Ranking
- North America and Pacific: 300 RR
- Europe: 400 RR
Later in the season, Riot will reduce the total average RR per win or loss by five to try to refine the MMR in competitive matches.
On the smaller side of the rankings works, rankings will not appear on Agent Select or in the game, which means that you will only see the position of your non-party member on the end screen for a game. Lower-ranking players can also stand in a row with a wider range of friends and teammates without being cut off.
Tactical voice over incoming
Riot also wants to improve the coordination and sharing of information by adding additional VO agent that provides location for teammates based on location.
So for players who do not use a microphone for team communication, the use of the generic agent VO such as ‘Spike spotted’ or ‘enemies spotted’ will now include an additional qualification, depending on where it is mentioned on the map. This means pointing out that the Spike at B point will be translated as ‘Spike spotted B.’
“We hope to provide richer information to the player with these changes,” Riot said. “Tactical VO is not intended to be a complete replacement for voice calls, so the calls will be in volume when a teammate talks about VOIP.”
You can enable an option to have the tactical VO messages appear in the chat for further reference, which means that instead of just hearing them, you can also see if ‘Sova spotted an enemy in B. ‘.
If it starts, tactical VO will not be available in all modes, it can be completely disabled and chat messages for calls in the Accessibility options can be activated.
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