Valorant has been in closed beta for three weeks now and received some changes and bug fixes yesterday with patch 0.49. Sage's and Omen's in particular have been considered in the patch.
The new update makes some balance changes to the Agents, updates the maps, improves the Observer mode and brings many other improvements. The competitive mode is also mentioned in the patch notes, but we have to wait a bit for its introduction.
Without further ado, let's take a look at some of the most important changes. For those interested in more details, the complete patch notes are available on Valorant's official site.
New patch incoming! EU matchmaking+servers go down at 3:30AM CEST on April 29 (local time), back up around 9AM CEST.Also on April 29 (local time), NA matchmaking+servers start going down at 4:30AM PT. Back up at 10AM PT.Ranked will be on when everything is stable. pic.twitter.com/jIWMIZ158K
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) April 28, 2020
Agents
Omen
- Omen now immediately becomes vulnerable and no longer appears dark after he leaves his alternate shadow form
- If you were to find an enemy Omen teleporting in, it was often confusing when to shoot him to get the kill (vs. sending him back). This change is to both account for an invulnerability bug and score some extra points of clarity.
- The attenuation radius of the arrival sound on Omen's From the Shadows has been reduced to 2250.
- Attenuation is a big word, but in summary, you have to be closer to Omen to echolocate where he’s teleporting to. We’re trying to give him some spook back since if you do find him, you should now have him dead to rights.
Sage
- Barrier Orb will only spawn a chunk of the barrier if it is supported by the ground, so this means it will sometimes only spawn 2 barrier chunks.
- Barrier Orb can no longer be placed on "small" pieces of geometry, it must be placed on the ground or on top of boxes.
Character updates
- Updated Omen’s visuals.
- Updated Breach’s visuals.
Map updates
- Added curtains to the top of double doors on Haven to remove the Sage Barrier Orb boost that allowed players to see through a sliver of the door at the top.
- Fixed issue with Cypher camera being placed on the Haven A Main boxes.
- Multiple fixes to the geometry on Haven, Bind, and Split to fix exploits and help optimize gameplay.
- Updated materials on Bind and Haven to make surfaces more consistent overall.
- Changed color of Radianite crates in order to unify overall visuals.
Competitive updates
- Added Competitive mode and ranked matchmaking, to go live in the near future.
Observer mode
- Added “Ghost cheat” as an option to custom games with cheats enabled, allowing you to fly around the map in no-clip mode.
- Ability HUD no longer displays when entering drone camera as an observer.
- Exiting drone camera will now swap back to the most recently viewed player if they’re still a valid view target.
- Swapping through players to view will now iterate through an entire team before going to players on the other team.
HUD and UI
In-game
- New directional damage indicator visual
- New low health and low ammo visuals
- Removed character portrait from player’s minimap icon to better distinguish player icon; icon will receive additional color and polish in the futureVoice activity is now shown above allies’ heads
- Added color to spike icon above ally’s head to make it easier to see
- Fixed the ultimate ability icon above teammates’ heads showing as charged after gaining 1 ult point instead of when actually charged
- Ping elements now fade when under player aim; previously only text faded
Out-of-game
- Relocated Find Match button from social panel to Play screen; renamed to Start
- Relocated Practice button from social panel to Play screen
- Added Play Again button to End of Game screen
- Made the flyouts on the nav progression widget clickable
- Made main navigation button click targets easier to click
- Added an option to orient the fixed minimap so that player’s starting side is always at the bottom
- Adjusted all map assets so that full fixed orientations consistently place attackers at bottom and defenders at top
- Added hover tooltips to thumbnails in the Collections view to show item name
- Scroll speed tweaked to make scrolling social panel smoother
- Made crosshair preview in Settings shorter to make more room for controls
Quality of life
- Added the ability to abandon a multiplayer Custom Game. Using the “Leave match” button in the ESC menu will allow you to permanently leave the match without penalty. Leaving the custom game in any other way (exit client, alt+f4, etc.) will still allow you to return to the match.
- Updated the audio occlusion system to help players better differentiate audio distancing cues. For example, Haven B to A short, you should perceive sounds from their correct distance and not as if they were right next to you.
- Players who abandon match-made games, or dodge agent selects, will now experience penalties that prevent them from queuing for a period of time. Frequent offenders will experience higher queue time penalties. Leaving ruins the match for everyone else, and should only be a last resort.
- Enabled the ability to see VALORANT players online in Riot games.
- Adjusted play flow UX moving queue buttons into lobby screens.
- Adjusted social panel UX to accommodate additional space.
- Adjusted End of Game UX to clean up the design of various widgets.
- Adjusted chat disconnect error state to be less… intimidating.
- Spawn practice bots option in the shooting range moved from the F3 menu to an in-world shootable switch.
- For all shotguns, moved the crosshair’s center dot by 1px to center it on the screen. The devs expect shotgun lethality to increase by 4,000% as a result (this is a joke).
Bug fixes: In-game
- Fixed a bug where Phoenix would get teleported back to an ascender (rope ladder) after respawning, in cases where Phoenix died while Run It Back was active and he was attached to an ascender.
- Fixed a bug where, for a brief time after Run It Back ended, Phoenix could be damaged in the place where he fizzled.
- Updated the appearance of Viper's Toxic Screen on the minimap to show gaps in the wall.
- Fixed Viper being able to animation-cancel Viper’s Pit.
- Prevent “Spike Planted” announcement from playing after a round has ended and hiding the round end announcement, which should clearly indicate the result of after-the-buzzer plant rounds.
- Fixed a bug where Cypher's Cyber Cage would be selected at a larger range than intended causing overlapping interaction issues.
Additionally, there are numerous smaller bug fixes. For example, there are no more floating weapons, and the movement in player collisions has been improved. You can also no longer equip skins or other items that you don't own and connection problems with voice and text chat have been fixed.
All in all, patch 0.49 brings a lot of small changes and fixes and there will certainly be a few more to come. The biggest impact will probably be the changes to Sage's Barrier, which can't be abused for crazy boosts anymore. We are definitely curious how the new changes will affect the game so make sure you stay informed on all news and updates about Valorant.
