A new Valorant Act is on the horizon, and with it a whole slew of new content. Patch 2.04 will introduce Agent Astra new in the game, as well as some changes to the Escalation Mode and rank updates.
Valorant Episode 2, Act 2, is becoming very popular by players worldwide. With Astra finally showcasing in its full cosmic glory, there is much to break in this spot.
Due to complaints about camping with the teleporters on Bind in Escalation mode, a number of solutions have been put in place to ensure that the map is playable. In addition, it is back to normal rate after being cut to avoid this problem.
Finally, a number of graded updates have been implemented for Radiant and Immortal players entering the new season.
Valorant Patch 2.04: full patch notes
AGENT UPDATES
FASHION UPDATES
Escalation
- Bind Teleporter exit doors are now permanently fixed – if you want to camp it, get ready to fight for it!
- There was a frustrating strategy going on where a team would gain middle TP control and then … never leave. The opposing team could not reliably contest it without doing a highly coordinated ‘5-person YOLO TP’, or being happy and progressing to seam level and blowing away. We like the focus in this area (you will always find a fight here!), But it can feel unfair if you are not the team in the TP. With this change, we want to give you the opportunity to challenge the teleporter by preventing others from stopping a game.
- Bind’s pickrate is weighed evenly again
- During Patch 2.03, we lowered Bind’s rate of escalation. We’re resetting it back to normal levels, but if Bind remains frustrating to play, we’ll look at the price change again and go back to the drawing board.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
This patch is the beginning of Competitive Episode 2: Act 2!
- Placement changed for the commencement of a law. If you’ve posted this episode yet, then:
- Your rank will no longer be downgraded at the beginning of a law
If you were Radiant or Immortal, you will retain your position on the leaderboard, but your Rank Rating (RR) will be reduced by 90% and all Radiant players will be bumped into Immortal, as you will have to prove again that you the best in the new law.- To reach Radiant, you must now be both the top 500 players in your region, as well as a minimum amount of RR (see below for details).
- You must complete your placement game to appear on the Leaderboard again for the new law
- You only have to play 1 placement match to show your rank
- Your RR (and possibly rank) may change based on your performance in your placement game, but the maximum change will only be based on the game.
- Players who have not previously competed in Competitive in this episode still need to play 5 placement games to achieve their initial rank.
Radiant will be more challenging to earn. You must reach a certain level of RR before you can climb to Radiant. It is adjusted by region based on population size and RR distribution.
- Regional requirements for Radiant cut off:
- LATAM & KR: 100 RR
- BR: 200 Ranking
- NA & APAC: 300 RR
- EU: 400 RR
- The score list on the internet will be briefly deactivated for maintenance at the beginning of this patch, and is expected to be reactivated within 24–48 hours
- Later we will reduce the total amount of average RR per win / loss by 5
- It is aimed at reducing how often a player’s rank gets above their MMR and leads to inconsistent RR games and a larger delta between their rank and MMR. These small mathematical adjustments will be common if we try to find the right balance for RR based on problems we see in the community.
- During this patch, we change the breakdown logic for players to start at 70RR (formerly 80RR).
- Ranges will no longer be displayed in agent selection or in the game. You will still be able to see ranks at the end of the game screen.
- You can now line up with a larger group of friends and teammates if you are in the lower ranks (see image below)
- In the lower ranks we have a large number of you in our matchmaking pool, so we are confident that we can make balanced matches. As you rank, you will find a tighter difference to ensure we continue to maintain balanced matches and protect the competitive integrity of higher ranks.
- We also hope it helps curb the smurfing by reducing the incentive to create a new account to play with lower-ranking friends.
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Tactical Voice Over has been added
- In service of improving team coordination and information sharing, we added more context to some of the automated Agent VO lines played during the round.
- Announcer lines such as “Spike spotted” or “Enemy spotted” will then also say a map ‘Super Region’. (eg “Spike spotted C” or “Enemies spotted B”).
- We hope to provide richer information to the player with these changes. 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.
- Overall, we hope this can improve the quality of information provided by teams that do not use strong voice recordings. We also believe that it will enhance the experience for players who, for whatever reason, dampened another player.
- Furthermore, we have added an option to place Tactical VO messages in the Chat window.
- The link for this option is available under Accessibility Options. If enabled, a chat message is sent when the Tac VO lines that transmit the information are activated. The lines are adjusted to best communicate who said what. For example, instead of Sova verbally saying “Enemy spotted B”, the chat message will read “Sova spotted an ENEMY in B.
- Tactical VO questions
- Tactical VO will not be activated in modes
- Tactical VO can be eliminated with switch
- Tactical VO immersed by VOIP can be eliminated with the switch
- Tactical VO Chat messages can be activated by calling
- Improved customer returns by an average of 3% for medium to high specification machines in ten-player games, by optimizing inventory management
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug causing the Custom game server dropdown to run infinitely
- Fixed parts of Reyna’s Soul Orb feedback caused by non-player killings
- Reyna’s Soul Orb Timer is not properly synchronized with its actual duration
- Fixed issues where teleporting to narrow areas created by Sage’s wall with Omen’s covered step pushed him into a wall
- Fixed ult-active indicators not working for Killjoy, Cypher, Brimstone, Sage, Breach, Jett and Viper