A mere three weeks into its closed beta, Riot Games has released another major update to VALORANT with patch 0.49. The newest changes feature the addition of ranked mode, balance adjustments to several Agents and maps, and quality of life improvements in the HUD, UI, Observer Mode, and more.
The Best Of The Best In Ranked Mode
The demand for a Competitive mode with ranked matchmaking has been clear since the first days of the closed beta, and soon players will have the opportunity to put their skills to the test against others. As stated previously, 20 unranked games must first be played before being allowed to dive into competitive matches.
There is a total of eight ranks to climb with three tiers each. The top rank is titled “VALORANT” though it would not be surprising to see this title changed to something else because of the problems it creates for content creators. How can they accurately describe that they are showing off top-tier play at the highest ranks if their video titles read something like “VALORANT VALORANT Ranked Play,” whereas games like Overwatch are clearer with its Grandmaster rank.
Agent Balance - Omen And Sage
Omen has received a nerf as he is now vulnerable immediately after leaving his alternate shadow form, though this should simply be considered as adjusting an ability to work as it was originally envisioned. Allowing for a period of time where it is difficult to figure out if the character will take damage from being shot was both unintuitive and was frustrating to deal what looked like no damage, only to be immediately killed when the transition was complete.
So far this looks to have the greatest impact at lower ranks of play where newer players could not easily differentiate between vulnerable and invulnerable, and play will feel more consistent now against Omen.
Sage has also had a change made, this time to the way Barrier Orbs can be placed. Whereas before it was easy to place the Orbs on virtually any surface, now “Barrier Orb will only spawn a chunk of the barrier if it is supported by the ground, this means it will sometimes only spawn 2 barrier chunks, [and]…can no longer be placed on ‘small’ pieces of geometry, it must be placed on the ground or on top of boxes.”
The developers explain that this change is targeted specifically at players who discover creative combinations of abilities to reach too many unintended locations. Players will still find that they can boost others up to new spots, but with more reasonable results, and not “30 feet in the sky floating in the middle of the site to look through a tiny pinhole.”
Map Updates
The changes made to the maps all follow the same philosophy as the change to Sage and her Barrier Orbs. This is to say that the goal is to streamline each map to play as intended, allowing still for player creativity with certain abilities, but not to allow certain creative discoveries to become meta defining strategies. Therefore, curtains have been added to the double doors on Haven to prevent her boosting to unintended locations.
Other changes deal with geometry fixes on Haven, Bind, and Split that optimize gameplay by removing exploits. We can expect to see more changes like this as they work to keep gameplay working as envisioned by the developers.
Observer And Ghost Mode
Content creators and players looking to learn the ins and outs of each map will now have an easier time, as the developers state, “Added “Ghost cheat” as an option to custom games with cheats enabled, allowing you to fly around the map in no-clip mode.” Streamers will now have more fluid access to the map, which will come in handy in evaluating any map changes made in the future, as well as new maps once released.
Overall, the changes in patch 0.49 continue to streamline VALORANT towards a place where players will need speed, precision, and map knowledge to dominate their opponents. As expected, most of the changes in this patch will be overshadowed by the release of Ranked play, and it will be exciting to see how the new skill based matmaking works. Best of luck to everyone as they climb through the ranks!
Readers can click here to check out the rest of the patch notes, as there are several more changes to check out.
Source: beta.playvalorant.com
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