It’s patch week for Riot Games’ tactical shooter Valorant, and while most of the updates following the launch of a new Act (which released only two weeks ago) are typically small in scope, Patch 3.01 is different. First and foremost, it marks the arrival of the game’s newest Agent, the much-anticipated Chamber, who was originally supposed to feature in Act 2’s big release but was delayed.
Beyond that, there are major changes to the queue restrictions that see the return of 5-man stacks in ranked play that mean players can now play in teams of 5 with any rank — though with the caveat that queue times will, in some cases, be dramatically increased as the game searches for other teams of the same elo.
Here’s the full Patch 3.10 Notes overview:
- Chamber arrives in Patch 3.10, Valorant’s latest sentinel Agent.
Competitive Updates
Matthew Le, competitive producer for Valorant at Riot Games, explains:
In an effort to reduce smurfing, we’re removing all ranked restrictions from 5-stack parties in Competitive Queue. Our data has shown that the most common reason that players smurf, is because they want to play with their friends outside the bounds of our current ranked restrictions.
Removing these boundaries for 5-stacks specifically means that you can play with your friends regardless of the restrictions that exist for smaller party sizes in Competitive Queue. In implementing this change, we’re also adjusting the ruleset for these types of groups in order to mitigate against competitive integrity issues that wide skill disparity groups could cause.
Here’s what you can expect when playing in this type of 5 stack:
If everyone in your group is Diamond 2 and below:
- You can expect increased queue times as we will only matchmake your team against another 5 stack of similar average MMR. Rank Rating gains and losses will be reduced when playing in a 5 stack outside of our current rank restrictions rules. The amount that your RR is adjusted depends on the rank disparity within the group.
Let’s walk through a couple example cases:
- You party with 4 of your friends. The lowest team member is Silver 1 and the highest is Platinum 1. Your team will be given a 50% RR reduction because the highest and lowest members are 1 rank outside the standard group restrictions.
- In the same group, you have 1 team member leave, and bring in your other friend who is Bronze 1. Now the skill disparity has increased to 4 ranks outside of the standard grouping restrictions. Your team will be given a 75% RR reduction as a result.
If one or more members of your group are Diamond 3 and above:
- Your expected queue times may vary greatly and could increase dramatically as you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against. At a minimum, a 50% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks, and this amount can increase to 90% as the disparity in skill increases.
Let’s walk through a couple of examples of these:
- 4 of your party members are Immortal and one of your friends is Diamond 2. The whole squad has a 75% reduction to RR gains and losses due to rank disparity. Your team grinds until your Diamond 2 friend reaches Diamond 3. The whole squad will now have a 50% reduction to RR gains and losses; A penalty that is applied to any 5-stack in Diamond 3 or above.
- If one or more members of your group are Radiant: Similar to Diamond 3-plus, you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against, potentially increasing your queue times drastically. At minimum, a 75% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks. Playing with any player below Radiant automatically reduces your potential RR by 90%.
Alongside the 5-stack changes, we are also removing 4-stacks from the Competitive queue. These types of groups tend to leave the remaining solo queue player with a relatively poor play experience, and we believe that removing this option will result in a significant reduction of overall toxicity reports.
We are excited about these changes and the potential improvements they’ll bring, but are also acutely aware of the potential risks of changes like these. We’ll monitor the Competitive queue very closely in the coming weeks, and will quickly move to make adjustments if needed.
Esports Features
- Observer Agent icons will no longer all get stuck on the same Agent when using the Minimal Broadcast HUD
- Observers now have different HUD colors for attackers and defenders.
- Attacker abilities will show as red and defender abilities will show as teal
- There is now a yellow outline on player icons on the minimap to showcase which player is the active target of an observer.
Bugs
Game System
- Fixed a net/sim-tick aliasing issue where running above 128 frames per second could cause packet send rates to drop below the 128fps cap.
- This may have caused up to a few milliseconds of additional delay before the server processed player input when running at high client framerates.
Social
- Fixed issues where you were able to re-invite players in lobby that were already invited
Esports Features
- Fixed a bug where the Observer’s minimap zoom setting did not function—thanks Melanie_mhs for the report!
- Fixed a bug where coaches could not use the hotkeys to spectate a player inside a deployed piece of utility (Cypher’s Spy Camera, Skye’s Trailblazer, or Sova’s Owl Drone)
- Fixed a bug where pressing shift plus a player number would not go to the proper cinematic camera for that player, if that player was being actively spectated
