Riot Games has released a new patch for Valorant – patch 1.06 – which its suggested be known as ‘the “Air Shotgun” patch’, as it mainly focuses on reducing the accuracy of the shotguns while the agent is airborne. There are also a few bug fixes and minor changes to agent visuals in the patch.
However, Riot Games is basically correct. The major takeaway from this is the change to shotguns, which now have significantly worse spread penalties while the agent firing them is in the air. Motion having an impact on shot accuracy has been a big part of Valorant’s identity and meta so far, and this patch is a smart move to secure that even further. Riot says there have been some “frustrating moments” with the shotgun recently, which should now be a thing of the past.
Elsewhere, the visual and audio cues for blinding abilities have been tweaked to better allow the opponent to time when they turn away to avoid the impact.
You can find the full set of patch notes below.
AGENT UPDATES
- The audio and visuals for blinding effects (Phoenix Curveball and Breach Flashpoint) should better indicate when to turn away, and when it’s safe to look again
WEAPON UPDATES
- All shotguns updated to be less accurate when fired while in the air
- Spread penalty when in air increased .5 >>> 1.25
- While shotguns are doing well in situations they are supposed to,, there’s been overly frustrating moments where people are accurate with these weapons while in the air. We hope to curb some of those encounters while still making them possible if you catch an opponent at a short distance. We’ll also be investigating more potential changes to shotguns now that we’re rested.
QUALITY OF LIFE
- In Collection menu screens, the “Show Owned Only” toggle now persists between screens and client restarts.
BUG FIXES
- Potential fix for the bug where the player’s HUD sometimes disappears.
- Fixed a bug in deathmatch match history & match details where ties between 3 or more players were not displaying as a tie, instead showing the lowest rank as if they were not tied (so a 3 way tie for 2nd would show 4TH PLACE instead of 2ND PLACE (TIED)).
- Fixed a bug that allowed progress towards competitive matchmaking for new players by forfeiting unrated games.
- Forfeited games will not count towards the Competitive requirement for the team who forfeited.
- Fixed a bug where ‘<Missing String Table>’ would appear in the chat log.
- Fixed a bug where strange player names could appear in chat when managing party invites
- Fixed a bug where some players were missing rewards after reaching the end of Agent Contracts or the Act Battlepass. Playing a game should grant the missing rewards, including missing rewards from Act 1.