The latest update to Valorant is here and we have all the information you need right here. Valorant patch 1.03 comes with the first balance changes since the release of the competitive playlist. The major talking points of the patch include huge changes to the guardian and a more lenient surrender system.
The guardian being a semi-automatic, high damage weapon has been a bit too overpowered in close range fights due to the high fire rate and ability to get easy headshots. Unfortunately, the price being 2700 made the decision to pick it difficult as it was too close to the other superior assault rifles; the Phantom and Vandal.
Riot Games have been listening and those changes have been made. The guardian update includes a fire rate decrease, price drop, input queue update and an increase in wall penetration.
Valorant has also added a surrender mode option. The new patch allows for an 80% pass for surrender in unrated games. The surrender vote can also be called at round 5 versus round 8. Also note that Riot games have only changed this for unrated and competitive surrender votes remain unanimous.
Full Patch Notes Below:
Weapons Updates:
Guardian
- Price reduced from 2700 >>> 2500
- Rate of Fire reduced from 6.5 >>> 4.75
- Penetration power increased from Medium >>> Heavy
- Input queue updated from 0.083 >>> 0.1175
Map Updates:
Haven
- Removed spot where Spike was unable to be retrieved once dropped.
All Maps
- Fixed multiple spots where players were able to clip inside level geometry
- Removed more locations where Sova’s sensor arrow was able to go through walls
Mode Updates:
Spike Rush
- New Orb: Twin Hunters
- Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
- Wolves speed up when they spot an enemy and dash at them when close, slowing and near-sighting for 4 seconds upon impact.
- They have 100 HP and can be damaged
- Wolves will time out at 15 seconds, or when their target is killed
- Capturing the orb releases two hunting wolves to track down the two nearest enemies (from orb location, they will not change targets after spawning).
- Split: Orb Location
- Mid defender side orb has been moved onto mid platform to make it slightly less defender favored
Quality of Life:
Surrender changes
- Unrated Mode vote requirements to pass changed from 100% to 80%
- AFK players who are not spawning in are NOT counted as voting participants. So if a player is not spawning on your 5-person team, you don’t need a yes. For example, you can surrender with 3/4 votes in unrated, in cases where the 5th team member does not spawn in.
- Competitive Mode vote requirements to pass remains at 100%
- You can now call a surrender vote starting with round 5 versus round 8
- A new button in the in-game menu has been added to call a surrender vote
- We know it can be at times challenging to get a surrender vote to pass given it has historically required an unanimous vote. For Unrated Mode , which is meant to be lower stakes than Competitive (no rank on the line), we have made adjustments so if the vast majority of the team wants to surrender (80%) they can now opt out of that match and find a fairer fight sooner.
- For Competitive Mode we plan to keep the vote requirement as unanimous, because surrendering has an impact on your rank (all unplayed rounds count as loss credit), we want to make sure the team is in full agreement before a decision is made that will negatively impact a player’s rank. We’ve also slightly reduced the minimum rounds needed to be played so that if players have a particularly bad start, they can opt out of that match earlier.
- Competitive matches have a new win-by-two overtime format with automated votes on whether the game should continue or end in a draw.
- Instead of playing a single sudden death round, teams will alternate playing rounds on attack and defense until a team claims victory by being up by 2 rounds.
- Each round will have a full reset, setting all players at 5000 credits and 4 points short of their ultimate.
- After every two rounds of overtime, an automated vote will trigger to determine if the match should continue or end in a draw
- The threshold for continuing the match will become stricter as more rounds have been played:
- First vote: 6 players needed to end match in a draw
- Second vote: 3 players needed to end match in a draw
- Third vote and on: 1 player needed to end match in a draw
- If the vote fails, the match will end in a draw.
- Players might gain rank off a draw but will never lose rank
- The threshold for continuing the match will become stricter as more rounds have been played:
- Unrated will still use the original Sudden Death format
- Custom games now have an option to launch with win-by-two overtime rules
- In the Collection screens, there is now a checkbox to toggle between showing all items or only owned ones (additional options and improvements for managing your collection will be coming in future patches)
- Fixed a bug where the mission “You or your ally plant/defuse spikes” sometimes did not take into account plants and defuses by allies
- Transition screens and startup screens are now letterboxed
- Fixed text overlap issues in the Battlepass and Contract screens in some languages
- Players in custom games with cheats enabled can select a different Agent to use on the next round in the cheats menu.
- Removing a friend will now prompt a confirmation dialogue
- Pressing Escape while typing in the chat box will clear the message
- Revised layout of confirmation dialogs to make primary action larger and always on the left; applied color in various places, like using red for destructive actions; revised the locations of some confirmation and cancel buttons for consistency
- Minor fixes for visual artifacts on Bind on Intel GPUs
- Minor render improvements for modern hardware
- Added an error popup for crashes on startup linking to troubleshooting guide for crashes
- Patch notes and payment windows will scale correctly on 4K monitors
- IME input on payment windows will now work correctly (Japanese/Chinese)
- Players can now view individual skin levels in the collections and store view
- Updates to censored hit impact effects for better readability
- Added Agent silhouettes for observers
- Improved render performance for silhouettes
- Agent health bars are now visible to observers
- Fulfilling a buy request while moving will no longer interrupt your movement
- Custom Games Tournament Mode:
- Custom games can now be set to Tournament Mode. This allows every player in the game to have access to the Toggle Match Timer cheat in game without having all other cheats enabled. It also allows observers to be flagged as moderators, which grants them access to additional cheats that they can use as necessary. Regular observers cannot use cheats anymore
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a Cypher bug where traps that were placed such that they were on the inside of a doorway, would not trigger when someone walked through them
- Fixed an issue with the Match Timer hitching under unstable network conditions
- An issue where players couldn’t jump off ascenders if jump was bound to the mousewheel
- Fixed some visual issues that could occur when reconnecting to the game while dead
- Fixed Barrier phase announcement showing up in normal games for observers
- Various UI issues on observer scoreboard have been fixed