Riot will finally be shipping the most awaited game mode “Replication” in Valorant through the 2.09 Patch update. This brand new game mode will see players from both sides compete in a ‘best of 9 rounds’ format where each team would have the same set of agents. The latter has been inspired by League Of Legends’ ‘One for all’ game mode, a title also by Riot.
Replication will go on to replace the game mode ‘Escalation’ and will be available on the playlist for a 2 week period until Riot comes up with a new idea. Alongside Escalation, Viper too will be getting a nerf which reduces her Passive Toxin i.e. the Instant decay damage from 50 to 30.
Also, the two-week-old map Breeze would be hit with minor changes. Timeouts have finally arrived and would be made available in the custom games played in the Tournament mode.
On Escalation, Valorant’s production manager Lisa Ohanian stated,
We definitely took inspiration from League’s One-For-All mode, but there’s so much that’s different between our games – for example, our roster is a fraction of the size of theirs – that we needed to make a lot of decisions differently too.
Valorant 2.09 Patch Notes
Agent Updates
Viper
Toxin (Passive)
- The instant decay inflicted when entering Viper’s smoke or crossing her wall, reduced 50 >>> 30
New Game Mode added
Replication comes to Valorant in patch 2.09 and replaces Escalation.
Map Updates
Breeze
- Blocked vision of the gaps above Mid-Wood Doors and A Metal Doors
- Smoothed player collision in various locations
Game System Updates
- Added tactical timeouts to Tournament Mode Custom Games
- 2 tactical timeouts can be called per game, per team.
- Tactical timeouts last 60 seconds.
- Tactical timeouts freeze all player movements for the duration of the timeout.
- For technical pauses, the standard Pause Match Timer option is still available.
- Improved the visual synchronization of bullet tracers and impact effects for Observers
- This should fix most cases where it looks like a player is killed before a bullet reaches them in our esports viewing experience.
- Adjusted color of placeable utility on the minimap to match team color for Observers
- Adjusted color of names in player loadout HUD to match team color
- Spaced the End Game Phase and Pause Match Timer options in Custom Games to prevent misclicks
- Improved feel on rope ascenders in high latency situations
- Minor performance optimizations to UI in matches
Bugs
Agents
- Added team colors for placed Agent abilities, for observers
- Fixed issue where Astra’s Nebula was slightly offset once fully formed
- Fixed bullet impacts on Sova’s Owl Drone wings appearing in the wrong locations
- Fixed issues across multiple Agents with incorrect damage icons for abilities showing up in the killfeed
- Fixed issue where Killjoy’s Nanoswarm audio would cut off if it was destroyed right after activation
- Fixed an issue where Skye’s Seekers did not show how many enemies were affected in the combat report
- Omen can no longer drop the Spike or weapons while casting From the Shadows
- Fixed an issue where Killjoy’s Alarmbot would display flashed visual effects while invisible
Game Systems
- Fixed an issue where weapons could be instantly reloaded after spamming orb pick-ups
- Fixed an issue where the sound was lowered by 5dB
Weapons
- Fixed 1P snow impacts that occurred rarely in gun fights
Breeze Map
- Fixed a number of exploits around the map
- Fixed an issue where players could sandwich themselves in between Sage’s wall and the Mechanical Doors on Breeze (or Ascent)
Competitive
- Fixed a bug that was causing a player’s leaderboard rank to not show up on their Act Rank badge
- Fixed a bug that was showing the ranked rating threshold on the leaderboard for previous Acts
- Only the current Act should show a ranked rating threshold bar from now on
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