Valorant Patch 4.02 Overview: Riot Is Still Fighting Bugs & AFK Players

Riot starts February with a ton of quality of life improvements! Let's see what Patch 4.02 has in store.

Patch 4 02
No Agent changes this time, though | © Riot Games

As Riot recently announced, they need to focus on "strengthening their foundation" and making the game as healthy as possible before releasing new content. And as we can see in Patch 4.02, they're doing it – even though we didn't get any new content, seeing such changes is very satisfying. These changes may not be the flashiest, but over the months, we will all be grateful that the developers decided to implement them.

Performance Updates

  • Improved latency for Windowed Fullscreen mode to match closer to Fullscreen
These improvements should play well with in-game overlays, however, having another program’s window on top of your gameplay window will negate these benefits. (source)

Social Updates

So, AFK detection just got buffed, which means that all these players that pretend to participate in games, should be detected more often and penalized accordingly. This is probably one of the many changes against AFK players we'll get this year, especially if Riot's actual goal is "making the game healthier".

  • Updated detections for non-participatory behavior in game

Game devs also decided to fix reporting in Agent selection screen. Even though this feature was added in December, it was bugged, and it virtually didn't work

Looks like there’s been some confusion around Agent-select reporting. Remember, you can right click players in pre-game and report them if they’re being disruptive! (source)

Bugs

And lastly, some more bugs!

Cosmetics

  • Fixed a bug where the pulsing FX around the Spectrum Z logo were appearing next to the trigger during second inspect animation on the Bulldog.

Agents

  • Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Alarmbot and Turret were unretrievable after being resurrected by Sage.

And that's it for this patch! Nothing big, just some quality of life improvements, but again, it's good to have them.

Szymon Bielawski

I've been into competitive gaming and eSports since I was a kid. I started out in the local CS:GO scene and ended up performing at the international major tournaments like Hearthstone Masters Tour. The competitive gaming world discovered a new...