The 0.49 Valorant beta patch has finally been announced and is bringing along with it something a lot of players have been waiting weeks for: a competitive, ranked game mode.
Since Valorant’s closed beta launched, the sweatier players among us have been patiently waiting (we hope) for the arrival of ranked play to show how much better they are than everyone else.
Now we’ll have the chance to do just that with the arrival of Valorant’s Competitive mode, but it might not be available immediately after the update drops though.
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Patch 0.49 update time
To set the patch live, EU matchmaking and servers will go down at 3:30 AM CEST on April 29, and be back up around 9AM CEST. Also on April 29, NA matchmaking and servers will start going down at 4:30 AM PT, and be back up at 10AM PT.
Riot devs have said that ranked matchmaking will go live “in the near future” once everything is stable following the update.
Omen nerf
Aside from ranked, the patch also contains a nerf for Omen. He now immediately becomes vulnerable and no longer appears dark after he leaves his alternate shadow form, making him much easier to take out.
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On the flip side though, the distance at which you can hear his shadow form arriving has been reduced to make him harder to find, but if you do track him down, you should have an easy kill as he teleports in.
Devs have also added new incoming fire and damage indicators after players had complained it could be hard to tell exactly where you were being shot from in the middle of a firefight.
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Riot is also attempting to dissuade players from leaving matches early and leaving their team with a disadvantage. Players who abandon matchmade games, or dodge agent selects, will now receive penalties that prevent them from queuing for a period of time, and “frequent offenders” will experience higher queue time penalties.
There are a number of other updates and bug fixes included in Valorant’s 0.49 update on April 29, and you can check out the full patch notes below:
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VALORANT PATCH NOTES 0.49
GAMEPLAY AND BALANCE
Omen
- Omen now immediately becomes vulnerable and no longer appears dark after he leaves his alternate shadow form
- If you were to find enemy Omen teleporting in, it was often confusing when you should 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 the short of it is 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
CHARACTER UPDATES
- [Omen] Updated Omen’s visuals
- [Breach] 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—massive thanks to all of the folks who helped to identify these! We see you
- 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 & 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 future
- Voice 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 matchmade 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 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
- [Phoenix] 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
- [Phoenix] Fixed a bug where, for a brief time after Run It Back ended, Phoenix could be damaged in the place where he fizzled
- [Viper] Updated the appearance of Viper’s Toxic Screen on the minimap to show gaps in the wall
- [Viper] 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 Bomb Carrier Killed announcement from also showing Ally Defusing
- Fixed a rare issue where players’ weapons would float in front of them; too spooky
- Fixed a rare issue where third-person player models could get desynced from the server when double tapping a defuse, causing some shots to miss
- Fixed aim issue that caused some players who were using low sensitivity to have small mouse movements dropped
- Fixed issue where canceling a plant or orb pickup could sometimes play the wrong (slower) re-equip animation, making it look as if the player could fire too quickly after canceling (timing was correct, animation wasn’t)
- Fixed map region names as they appear below the minimap from not localizing properly
- Smoothed out movement during player-to-player collisions
- Fixed a bug where item UI prompt in the game world would appear to block bullets
- Fixed a bug where the Z ping wheel could be opened alongside the map ping wheel, creating a scenario where multiple ping wheels could be open at once
- Fixed a bug where ping wheel wouldn’t show disabled when direct bound pings were used to reach usage limit
- Fixed a rare bug where either team could win a round by elimination on the same frame that the spike was defused, granting two points for that round.
- Fixed overlap in ally planting announcement
- Fixed a bug where the VO radial wheel would hit the rate limit by opening and closing it without selecting a VO option
- Minimap will no longer randomly hide for all players in a game
- Update to Bucky’s alternate fire to instead apply instantaneous, hitscan damage
- Alt. fire was previously a projectile that was able to kill enemies shortly after the user was killed. No other weapon works this way so now it performs as a hitscan.
BUG FIXES: GAME CLIENT
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to purchase items not available in their respective store
- Fixed an issue that let players equip content they didn’t own
- Fixed issue where display settings would get re-applied when joining/leaving games, which could move the window or change display mode in rare cases
- Fixed network stability indicator sometimes appearing when setting was disabled
- Line of sight is no longer required to pick up the spike when overlapped by a player
- Fixed issue where the spike would sometimes become unretrievable
- Fixed an issue preventing some player reports from submitting
- Fixed various connection issues with voice chat
- Fixed various connection issues with text chat
- Fixed various issues with player state being incorrect in social panel
- Fixed an issue where some players could not requeue after a game without relogging
- Fixed issues with receiving party invitations
- Fixed transparent player card icons in Custom Game lobbies
- Fixed resetting controls for Voice Chat in settings
- Fixed voice defaulting to automatic transmission for Custom Games
- Fixed voice being interrupted when navigating Custom Game options
- Fixed a handful of localization issues across menu screens