Valorant Update 1.11 Release Notes

Valorant Update 1.11 Release Notes

Update 1.11 is now available for Valorant without issues when they tried to release it for the first time last week. With this update comes not only the arrival of a new character, but also a lot more, which you can read below and on the official website of Valorant.

Agent Updates

• Skye joins Valorant's roster
  • Skye will be available for use in official esports competition (e.g. First Strike) after two weeks in the competitive queue (November 9, unless there is a problem)
• With First Strike on the horizon, the balance team has been working hard to make our last round of major balance changes before the teams start to fight. We want to make sure that the best teams don't have to constantly adapt to an evolving game while they participate in the tournament. Minor balance changes can occur during the duration of First Strike, but we will not be rolling out changes like the ones in this patch that have a big impact on a team's strategies. One of the trends we've seen is that attacking teams can struggle to break established defenders. While every element of the game can influence this type of trend (movement speed, weapon tuning, map design, agent balance), we believe there are a few targeted character changes that can help give attackers more opportunities to break down entrenched defenders. Each is listed below.
• The initiators
  • Flash Adjustment: The fade out of flash fade remains the same duration but now fades more slowly at first
  • Initiators create concentrated windows of extremely high threats to help their teams break into sites. To this end, we're slightly increasing the duration of debuffs for certain initiator abilities (mostly flashes). Our goal here is to increase the window of opportunity available to Initiator teammates to capitalize on their usefulness and further differentiate initiators from duelists.
  • Violation
    • Full flash time increased by 1,75 >>> 2
• sentinels
  • Similar to some of the changes we've made with Sage, we want to increase the depth of decision making when playing Sentinels while still giving enemies more counterplay for “trapping” abilities. To reduce the total potential impact of these abilities, Autonomous Traps are now deactivated when the Deployer dies (for example, Cypher's Trapwire deactivates when Cypher dies). We want to encourage Sentinel players to play more thoughtfully and cautiously around their traps while increasing the reward for eliminating the Sentinel player.
  • Zero
    • Trapwire
      • Disabled and revealed to death
    • Spy camera
      • Disabled and revealed to death
  • Killjoy
    • Killjoy is most effective when locking out a single site. Killjoy must stay close to his turret and alarmbot to keep them active. His worldwide recognition should be hit pretty hard here, but we've increased his blocking power slightly to counteract that nerf. Overall, we hope to keep Killjoy in a very similar place in terms of power, but give him a stronger identity as the first defender on the spot.
    • Deactivation range
      • The alarmbot and turret will now deactivate if it is more than 40 yards away from them - entering 40 yards range reactivates his little friends.
    • Turret
      • Cooldown after pickup reduced by 20 seconds >>> 10 seconds
    • Alarm bot
      • Range at which Alarmbot can be detected decreased by 9m >>> 7m
      • Cooldown after pickup reduced by 20 seconds >>> 7 seconds
    • Nanoswarm
      • Range at which Nanoswarm can be detected decreased by 5m >>> 3,5m
      • Damage increased by 40 / s >>> 45 / s
      • Damage is now smoother and faster in Nanoswarm, instead of in increments of 10 every ¼ of a second

Competitive updates

• Icebox enters the competitive map rotation
  • Icebox will be available for use in official eSports competitions (e.g. First Strike) after four weeks in the competitive queue (November 29, unless there is a problem)
• Shorter unrated queue times for high-ranking players
  • We've taken steps to further address issues for elite players facing long queues for Unrated. We're also looking for improvements to reduce long queues for all major modes.
• Added current gamepod location to loading screen for all modes
• Combat score adjusted to account for non-damaging aids

Game Mode Updates

• The 'Play all games' option is now available in the custom game lobby options,
  • Play Out All Rounds makes it easy to organize training sessions. When activated, the game no longer ends when a team reaches 13 wins; instead, the match will continue until both teams have played a full 12-round half on each side. After 24 laps, the team with more laps will win. In the event of a tie, the game will switch to overtime (depending on the Overtime option selected in the lobby screen).

Game systems

• Updates to the economy rule set
  • Attackers who lose but survive the entire turn without crashing the Spike receive a reduced number of credits (1000)
  • Defenders who lose but survive the entire turn after the Spike explodes also receive reduced credits (1000)
  • Dying at the Spike will no longer count as a death in KDA statistics
  • Additional economic information added as a tooltip when you hover over the exclamation mark next to "Min Next Round" in the shop
  • Background: These changes are intended to increase the richness of decision-making about when to save your gear rather than winning the round. Additionally, it will allow teams that can achieve round wins to more effectively reduce the economics of opponents who choose to save expensive weapons in the event of a round loss.
• Other changes
  • Minor improvements to observer flashing indicator
  • New setting for observers: "Show keyboard shortcuts on the map"
  • New custom game option: "Play all games"
    • Both teams play 12 full rounds on the attacking and defending sides, followed by extra time / end of game (if applicable)

Quality of life

• The left-handed view model is now available for gamers. Players can swap their left-handed first person view model by going to the settings menu and swapping their "left-handed" view model. If you change this option, all other players will also be left-handed when looking.
• You can now send a private message by clicking on a friend's name in the chat instead of having to enter their name
• Players who have been AFK or alt-tab for more than 5 minutes will now appear as "Away" in the social panel
• Team colors have been adjusted to remain fixed for the duration of a game for observers instead of having the attacking side always appearing in red and the defending side always appearing in green
  • The fact that the teams change color halfway from the viewer's point of view was a bit confusing and also led the broadcasters to match their overlays to this behavior. This change will allow viewers and tournament organizers to have a more consistent experience for an entire game.
• [BETA] Experimental sharpening
• This graphics setting was accidentally shipped with the latest patch, and we were going to remove it, but your feedback told us to keep it. So it remains, but with a few more fixed flaws. We're not sure when we'll be able to optimize its performance or tweak it further, so consider it an ongoing beta.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a source of combat issues we saw in player reports
  • We continue to investigate combat issues reported by players in recent fixes. This patch includes a fix for one of the most common issues we've seen in combat. We hope this fixes the issue for many of you, but we're still actively researching a few other issues that we've seen in your clips.
• Jett now can't string the dash lel
• Fixed a bug where incoming group invites would remain active in the social panel after being declined
• Players no longer see the location of the peak when reconnecting to a game
• Fixed an issue where corpses of players could cause collision issues
• Sage wall segments no longer break if a player dies on them
• Fixed a bug that disabled the queue for any mode if a player closed the client during the Match Found countdown.
• Fixed a bug that displayed the Act Rank badge on the MVP screen outside of the competitive queue.