A new Act of Valor is upon us, and with it comes a whole slew of new content. Patch 2.04 will introduce the new Agent Astra to the game, along with some Escalation Mode changes and leaderboard updates.
Valuing Episode 2, Act 2 has become highly anticipated by gamers around the world. With Astra finally shown in its full cosmic glory, there is a lot to break in this patch.
Due to complaints about teleporting camping on Bind in Escalation mode, a whole host of fixes have been introduced to ensure the map is playable. In addition, it returned to the normal pick rate after being cut to avoid this problem.
Finally, a whole slew of ranked updates have been implemented for Radiant and Immortal players coming into the new season.
Valorant Patch 2.04: Full Patch Notes
AGENT UPDATES
MODES UPDATES
Climbing
- Bind Teleporter’s exit doors are now permanently blocked – if you want to camp it out, get ready to fight for it!
- There was a frustrating strategy going on where one team would gain mid-TP control and then… never leave. The opposing team couldn’t reliably challenge it without doing a highly coordinated “5-person YOLO TP”, or getting lucky and leveling up to nade level and exploding. We like the focus in this area (you’ll always find a fight here!), But it might feel unfair if you’re not the team inside the TP. With this change, we’re looking to give you a way to challenge the teleporter by preventing others from blocking a game.
- Bind pickrate is again weighted evenly
- In Update 2.03, we reduced Bind’s selection rate for climbing. We’re putting it back to normal levels, but if Bind continues to be frustrating to play, we’ll consider changing its select rate again and going back to the drawing board.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
This patch marks the start of Competitive Episode 2: Act 2!
- The locations have changed for the start of an act. Now if you have already placed this episode then:
- Your rank will no longer be lowered at the start of an act
If you were at rank Radiant or Immortal, you will keep your position in the leaderboard, but your ranking (RR) will be reduced by 90% and all Radiant players will be brought back to Immortal, as you will again have to prove that you are the best of them. better in the new law.- Reaching Radiant now requires both being in the top 500 players in your region, as well as having a minimum RR amount (see below for details).
- You must complete your placement game to re-appear in the leaderboard for the new act
- You only need to play a placement match to view your ranking
- Your RR (and potentially your ranking) may change based on your performance in your placement game, but the maximum change will be based solely on that game.
- Players who have not yet ranked in Competition this episode will still need to play 5 placement games to earn their initial rank.
Radiant will be harder to win. You must reach a certain level of RR before you can access Radiant. This is adjusted by region based on the size of the rank population and the distribution of the RR.
- Regional requirements for Radiant cutoff:
- LATAM and KR: 100 RR
- BR: rating 200
- NA and APAC: 300 RR
- EU: 400 RR
- Web Ranking will be briefly disabled for maintenance at the start of this fix, expect it to be re-enabled within 24-48 hours
- Later this patch we will reduce the total amount of average RR per win / loss by 5
- This is aimed at reducing the frequency with which a player’s rank exceeds their MMR and leads to inconsistent RR games and a larger delta between their displayed rank and the MMR. These little math tweaks will be common as we try to find the right balance for RR based on the issues we see in the community.
- During this patch, we will be changing the downshift logic so that players start at 70RR (previously 80RR).
- Ranks will no longer be displayed in Agent Selection or in-game. You will still be able to see ranks at the end of the game screen.
- You can now queue up with a larger group of friends and teammates if you are at the lower rungs (see image below)
- At the lower echelons we have a very large number of you in our matchmaking pool, so we are confident that we can do balanced matches. As you progress you will see a tighter disparity to ensure that we continue to maintain balanced matches and protect the competitive integrity of the upper echelons.
- We also hope this will help fight the smurf by reducing the incentive to create a new account to play with lower ranked friends.
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Added tactical voiceover
- In the service of improving team coordination and information sharing, we’ve added more context to some of the VO Agent automated lines that play during the turn.
- Announcer lines like “Spike Spotted” or “Enemies Spotted” will also say a “Super Region” card afterwards. (for example, “Spike spotted C” or “Enemies spotted B”).
- We hope to provide richer information to the player with these changes. Tactical VO is not meant to replace voice communications entirely, so calls will be reduced in volume when a teammate speaks through VOIP.
- Overall, we hope this will help improve the quality of information that teams that don’t use voice communications a lot can expect. We also believe it will improve the experience for players who have muted another player for any reason.
- Additionally, we have added an option to place Tactical VO messaging in the chat window.
- The toggle for this option is available under Accessibility Options. With this option enabled, when the Tac VO lines are triggered, a chat message will be sent to relay the information. The lines are changed to better communicate who said what. For example, instead of verbally saying Sova “Enemy spotted B”, the chat message will say “Sova spotted an ENEMY in B”.
- Tactical VO FAQ
- Tactical VO will not be activated in modes
- Tactical VO can be disabled via the toggle
- Tactical VO dodged by VOIP can be disabled via the toggle
- Tactical VO chat messages can be activated via a toggle
- Improved client frame rate by 3% on average for mid to high spec machines in 10 player games, optimizing inventory management
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug that caused the custom game server drop-down menu to loop infinitely
- Fixed some parts of the Return of Reyna’s Soul Orb that would trigger when helping kill non-players
- Fixed Reyna’s Soul Orb timer not syncing correctly with its actual duration
- Fixed issues where teleporting into tight areas created by Sage’s Wall with Omen’s Shrouded Step would push him into a wall
- Fixed ult active indicators not working for Killjoy, Cypher, Brimstone, Sage, Breach, Jett and Viper