VALORANT Patch 3.10 will finally give players a chance to try Chamber, the exciting new sentinel agent with a deadly ability set.
Patch 3.10 introduces Chamber, the latest sentinel with a focus on gunplay. Chamber’s ability set includes two unique weapons: a heavy pistol with an ADS option and a rifle that’s a one-shot hit on enemies. Chamber can also teleport to outmaneuver enemies with his Rendezvous ability or slow them down with Trademark. Fans can finally use the new agent and find out where he fits into the VALORANT meta.
The patch also allows players to play in five stacks in the competitive queue regardless of ranks, making it easier to play with friends. But rank rating (RR) reductions will apply based on the range of ranks in the queue.
This change was introduced to prevent players from using smurf accounts to play with their lower-ranked friends, which was one of the biggest reasons for smurfing. But other changes have been introduced to “mitigate against competitive integrity issues,” according to Riot.
Five stacks can expect increased queue times since the game will only match them with a five stack with a similar MMR. RR gains and losses will be reduced when a five stack contains players outside of the current rank restrictions and the amount the RR is adjusted is based on the rank disparity within the group.
If a group’s lowest member is Silver One and the highest is Platinum One, the team receives a 50 percent RR reduction since the highest and lowest members are one rank outside the regularly ranked restrictions. If the lowest player is Bronze One and the highest is Platinum One, the disparity has increased to four ranks outside the normal restrictions, meaning the team now has a 75 percent RR reduction.
Suppose at least one member of a competitive queue is ranked Diamond Three or higher. In that case, queue times will likely increase because they’ll indefinitely wait for “another five-stack of similar MMR to play against.” A minimum 50 percent RR reduction will also apply to this type of five stack and the reduction can increase to 90 percent as the “disparity in skill increases.”
Riot provided an example of these changes. If four party members are Immortal and one is Diamond Two, the squad has a 75 percent reduction to RR gains and losses. If the team’s Diamond Two player reaches Diamond Three, the group has a 50 percent reduction to RR gains and losses, which is the penalty applied to all five stacks with at least one Diamond Three player.
If a five stack features one or more Radiant players, they’ll also wait indefinitely for a squad with a similar MMR, increasing queue times. A minimum of 75 percent RR reduction is applied to all five stacks with a Radiant player, which increases to 90 percent if any player in the stack is below Radiant.
Four stacks have also been removed from the competitive queue in Patch 3.10. Riot explained this scenario left the solo player with a “relatively poor play experience” and removing the option should help. The developers will monitor these changes going forward and make further adjustments as needed.
In addition, Patch 3.10 introduces new esports features and bug fixes. Observer agent icons no longer get stuck on the same agent while the minimal broadcast HUD is used and observers now have different HUD colors for attackers and defenders. Attacker abilities are now shown as red and defender abilities are shown as teal. A new yellow outline shows which player is the “active target of an observer.”
A bug net/sim-tick aliasing issue that caused running above 128 frames per second to potentially cause packet send rates to drop below the 128 FPS cap has also been addressed. This issue potentially caused a “few milliseconds of additional delay before the server processed player input when running at high client framerates.”
Players can no longer re-invite players who were already invited and a bug preventing the observer’s minimap zoom setting from functioning properly has also been fixed. A bug preventing coaches from using hotkeys to spectate a player while in a “deployed piece of utility” has also been addressed. A bug causing the correct cinematic camera to not appear when pressing shift plus a player number while actively spectated was resolved, too.
VALORANT Patch 3.10 should go live later today. You can read the official patch notes on the VALORANT website.
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