The Valorant Team

Today is the start of our annual hotfix schedule. We decided it’s only fair that we listen to you at least once a year, every April 1.

Today is also the last time we’ll deliver patch notes in this format. Soon, you’ll have to follow each developer’s individual Clubhouse account in order to learn about the latest changes. Good luck.

AGENT UPDATES

BRIMSTONE

Sky Smoke (E)

Duration increased 20 seconds >>> 100 seconds

Players loved the changes to Brimstone’s smoke duration and we wanted to double down on the potency of the output.

BREACH

Flashpoint (Q)...

Hey everyone!

The characters team is ending the month with another update, today we’re discussing the recent changes to Viper and adjustments to our balance approach in 2021.

VIPER

There’ve been quite a few explorations on Viper over the past few months. After many iterations, we've decided on a direction that should sharpen the ways in which she is uniquely powerful without homogenizing her with other Controllers—and in other ways, push her thematic fantasy.

Her Poison Cloud is unique to her zonal control gameplay and themati...

With Masters behind us, it’s time to get to work on those promised Viper and Yoru changes. Details are below, but remember that we’ll keep a close eye on how these play out once they’re live.

Slide on those headphones and enjoy HRTF, which helps pinpoint enemy footsteps, reloads, and Deathmatch respawns using a simulated surround sound space. Also, your love of Escalation means we’re returning the favor with some ability updates and loadout variations for the mode.

Oh my goodness, Bucky, look at your nerf.

AGENT UPDATES

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At the start of March, the North American Episode 2: Act I leaderboards were set. Names from Sentinels, Team Envy, and other esports powerhouses claimed the top spots. Among them was an amateur support player more than holding his own at #8, known as “1witness.”

The moniker belongs to Ben Majkut, 21, a Sova main from just outside Boston, Massachusetts. Although a console gamer from the start, 1witness turned his love of FPS games into a calling when he began playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive with ...

After a weekend of open qualifiers, eight stellar teams will compete in the first major VCT Game Changers Series event.

Here’s everything you need to know about VCT Game Changers Series I Finals.

TOURNAMENT OVERVIEW

VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers is a year-long program with the goal of creating new opportunities and exposure for women and marginalized genders seeking to participate in VALORANT esports, through a combination of community events and top-tier competition.

The VCT Game Changers Series I Finals is a double elimination tournament featuring best-of-three matches until the grand final, which will be a best-of-five showdown.

COMPETING TEAMS

• Cloud9 White
• CLG Red
• Dignitas
• Man I Love Fwogs
• Moon Raccoons Black
• OWA OWA
• TS...

TL;DR: A dispute over player ping delayed the start of the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals match between 100 Thieves and Immortals by one hour. 100 Thieves prevented the start of the series despite the explicit instructions of the tournament operator to begin the series. Furthermore, 100 Thieves Head Coach Hector “FrosT” Rosario demonstrated unprofessional behavior towards a Tournament Official. We are fining 100 Thieves $5,000 for an extensive broadcast delay due to noncompliance with Tournament Official decisions and are placing FrosT on competitive probation for the duration of the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour.

Timeline

As the previous match came to a close, 100 Thieves and Immortals players entered a lobby to prepare for Game 1 of their Quarterfinals matchup in Masters 1. Teams and Tournament Officials work in tandem to choose a server agreeable to all parties. In this instance, two servers were identified as the most equidistant to b...

Q 

I get less Ranked Rating per win and more per loss, and it feels like the system is holding me down. Why is that?

A

Buckle up, this answer will take you on the wrinkle brain highway. We are going to get a little in the weeds, and have to explain how our ranked system functions in order to answer this!

VALORANT MMR AND WHY IT’S NOT THE SAME AS RANK RATING (RR)

VALORANT uses a Match Making Rating (MMR) system to target your performance skill level. MMR is a giant ladder, consisting of all players. If you win, you climb up and push others down. Alternatively if you lose, you get pushed down by others. No two players can tie, or take up the same spot on the ladder. This is the core concept for most matchmaking systems, and the math that determines how fast you climb up (or push others down) is the hard part. 

MMR is a fairly fluid system that can potentially change substantially ga...

This one’s about putting you on your best behavior. Our Social and Player Dynamics team is out here making sure we can better detect AFK and promote better behaviour with penalties for chat-based and AFK offenses.

This also includes keeping comms-restricted players from jumping into the Competitive queue (you can stop asking now, Lothar).

Enjoy the bug fixes, too!

AGENT UPDATES

...

On February 23, we announced the launch of the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers: a year-long program with the goal of creating new opportunities and exposure for marginalized genders within VALORANT, through a combination of community events and top-tier competition.

We believe our esport should reflect the diverse and global nature of the competitive VALORANT community. VCT Game Changers is our way of building a more representative VALORANT Champions Tour.

Here are all the details on key dates and upcoming events in North America:

VCT Game Changers Series

The VCT Game Changers Series is an array of top tier competitions that will take place around the wor...

Hi, I’m Suke, Principal Illustrator on VALORANT. We’d thought it would be fun to show you a little of what goes into the VALORANT illustration process, our style, and how we tell the story of Astra through art.

But first, watch this!

As part of Episode 2 Act 2, we just added Astra, our newest VALORANT Agent. Like gameplay, it’s not enough just to have something new. Each Agent illustration should really stand on its own while maintaining a style and coherence with the rest of the VALORANT world.

Every Agent illustration starts with a “thumbnail” as shown above.

Thumbnails are quick and simple. We use them so we can explore multiple options without committing, making the whole process time effective, since we can’t go back once we move on to the next steps.

During this process, we keep in mind who the character is, what their attitude and personality are like, if they have distinct features, e.g. a gauntlet. We strive to emphasize what is most impo...

Six weeks of Challengers play have given us the eight best teams from each region. Now, one team will be crowned the regional champion of the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Stage 1.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch the 2021 VCT Stage 1 — Regional Masters North America.

Tournament Overview

VCT Regional Masters NA is Riot’s first major VALORANT esports tournament in the region, produced and organized by Riot’s long-time partner Nerd Street Gamers.

The Masters tournament is part of the inaugural VALORANT Champions Tour: a year-long global circuit featuring three tiers of competition (Challengers, Masters, and Champions) across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

The eight teams competing in VCT Regional Masters NA qualified through six weeks of Challengers NA events. The winners of the regional Masters events will earn spots at Champions, a two-week tournament crowning one team the VAL...

The VALORANT Champions Tour is heating up!

Six weeks of Challengers play have given us the eight best teams from each region. Now It’s time to watch them battle it out and crown one team in each region as the VCT Stage 1 Masters. Nine different regions will hold Masters events over two weekends, leading to an exciting two weeks of VCT action!

See the schedule below for when and where to watch, and make sure to follow Valorant Champions Tour on Twitter, to keep up with the action from all around the world.

VCT Stage 1 Masters is the first ...

Is it really that time again? It seems as if you only just arrived at VALORANT Episode 2.

Astra keeps opponents in the dark with a new dimension of play, Prime//2.0 is this year’s highly anticipated upgrade, the newest Battlepass adds items for you to earn, and more—detailed below in our handy Act II guide.

AGENT: ASTRA

She’s got every corner of the universe covered.

Harness the cosmos to sway the battle as Astra, VALO...

Don’t let the lighter notes fool you, this is the start of Episode 2: Act II, that drops our newest Agent, a fresh Battlepass, and the Prime//2.0 weapon skin line.

As our friend Max Grossman will tell you, this patch cycle is also to allow time for us to evaluate our recent changes while still getting the game in a good state for VALORANT Challengers moving forward.

Competitive matchmaking gets some fairly comprehensive adjustments to not only let you queue with more friends at different levels in the lower ranks, but make sure the highest levels are for the ones who can continue to prove they are VALORANT’s best.

Tactical VO is an addition that should help, not replace, in-game communication, and we shove a wrench in the works to jam the Bind TP doors for Escalation.

...

The VALORANT Champions Tour is headed to Iceland! VCT Masters Stage 2 will take place in Reykjavík, Iceland and will feature 10 of the top teams from around the world competing in a LAN environment for the first time!

QUALIFICATION DETAILS:

Teams from around the world will qualify into Masters Reykjavík through their regional Stage 2 Challengers events. Competition at Masters will take place on offline game servers, creating virtually a lag free experience, simi...

Q

Can you explain the reason for the planned Rank Rating penalty for queue dodge? Sometimes I have real good reasons to dodge and I don't think I should lose RR.

A

We understand a Ranked Rating deduction—no matter how small—can feel like a painful penalty, so we want to be extremely clear with how this system works and why. First thing’s first: these changes target players who repeatedly queue dodge, and will have minimal impact on players who only queue dodge occasionally. We hope having a small (3-point) rank rating deduction ...

Game Changers will consist of two core competitive initiatives, the VCT Game Changers Series and the VCT Game Changers Academy. The VCT Game Changers Series will be a set of top tier competitions that will take place in multiple regions around the world during 2021 and will be similar in scale to last year’s Ignition Series tournaments. They’ll kick off with the North American event first, which will take place in late March.

The second part of this program, the VCT Game Changers Academy, will create monthly tournaments, giving play...

This is the patch where we humble the Stinger by adding a degree of mastery to the weapon, rather than leave it potent in one too many areas. The Marshal and Frenzy also get respective price adjustments.

As forecasted in our State of the Agents, Yoru gets his first set of balance changes with the hopes of getting him closer to his intended impact and performance. Reyna’s Devour and Dismiss was running wild round-over-round, so those charges have been reduced. Don’t worry Reyna-maniacs, she’ll now get Soul Orbs from anyone she’s recently damaged, even if she didn’t land the kill shot.

Don’t forget the newest game mode, Escala...

Kill and race the opposition through a cycle of different weapons and abilities, advancing together as a team through 12 Escalation levels. First team to finish level 12, or the furthest along in 10 minutes, wins the Escalation.

This is a team mode, but expect to do your part to complete each level. In addition to helping your team earn the points needed to complete each level, you must also get at least 1 kill with each weapon/ability to progress yourself, even if your team is already on a higher Escalation level.

THEM’S THE ESCALATION RULES

• 5v5 game mode
• 12 Escalation levels (each level has a specific weapon or ability)
  • First team to 12, or furthest along in 10 minutes, wins
  • Team together must earn 7 points on a lev...

Hey friends,

We’re Sara (Producer, aka “Riot necrotix”) and Lea (Strategist, aka “Riot aeneia”), part of the crew that leads the Social and Player Dynamics team (S&PD) on VALORANT.

Our team owns all the social features in-game, and we work together with other teams to address issues and opportunities with player behavior. Last year, we promised to address some of the pain points you’ve experienced in-game with other players.

Today is our long-awaited update: We’ve taken all of your feedback to heart, and we are at the point where we can confidently share what we’ve been up to.

Before we dig in, we want to acknowledge the obvious: we still have a lot of work ahead of us. These changes are just the start, but they set the stage for the work we’ll continue to deliver in the months and years ahead. We hope you're as excited about it as we are.

Now, let's get started:

AFKs (...