Riot’s latest round of Valorant patch notes are truly a blessing. Why? The FPS game‘s 6.02 update is largely focused on helping players take on enemies that have high ping. No more stray bullets hitting you even when you’ve managed to find cover, folks.
While the latest patch for the multiplayer game largely deals with bug fixes, the main change to Valorant’s systems is an adjustment to the rewind limit – but what exactly is that?
“When a player fires a shot, it takes time for the input to reach the server. To prevent you from needing to lead your shots, Valorant implements server rewinding,” writes software engineer Kevin Lee. “When the server determines the outcome of a shot, it rewinds character positions around the bullet to match their locations at the time when the shot was initially fired.
“Finding the right limit for a max rewind amount is important for reducing cases of anyone feeling like they need to lead shots, or that they can still be shot after safely repositioning themselves,” he continues, going on to state that recent player data has shown that 200ms is too high. Therefore, the rewind has been dropped to 140ms to compensate.
But how does this help against high-ping players? Given that the player will probably be experiencing huge delays, the enemy will have ducked out of sight long before the shot goes off. With the rewind system, however, the low-ping character is being rewound back into the position they were in when the high-ping player’s bullet was fired, meaning they’re taking damage despite actively avoiding the shot.
The new system should hopefully make sure this doesn’t happen, as the character won’t be rewound so far backwards that they’re placed in the firing line.
Valorant patch notes for 6.02 update
Below are the full Valorant patch notes for the 6.02 update, courtesy of Riot Games.
Gameplay systems
- Adjusted max server rewind limit down to 140ms from 200ms.
- Playing against players with high ping should feel less like you’re getting shot after moving behind cover by a bullet fired earlier
- Players playing with high ping may start to experience hit
registration inaccuracy
Social Updates
- Voice Evaluation Beta (North America/English-only)
- RVE will now move into a limited beta phase that will
enhance our behavioural reports data collection capabilities and improve the impact of our comms related behavioural interventions.
- RVE will now move into a limited beta phase that will
Bugs
Agents
- Potentially fixed bug with KAY/O’s Zero/point (E) not showing the correct enemies that it has suppressed (please let us know if you see further issues here)
- Pathfinding has been improved on Raze’s Boom Bot (C) when chasing an enemy. It can now more consistently jump up small heights and will do so with smoother movement
- Fixed a bug with Boom Bot (C) getting stuck in a wall and rapidly shaking while making a loud noise. It will now bounce off the wall per usual
- Fixed a bug where Yoru’s Fakeout (C) could get stuck in mid-air in various locations
- Fixed bug where Cypher’s Neural Theft (X) would only reveal one time if he had been killed or the round had changed during a previous cast
- Fixed a bug where Cypher’s Neural Theft (X) reveals would be interrupted when he was killed after it had been deployed
Maps
- Players will no longer make footstep audio when dropping from Lotus B site platform to the fountain
- Lotus door volume has been lowered further (we lowered in 6.01 as well) during the rotation phase
- On Lotus, players next to each other while rotating door…rotates should feel smoother
- On Lotus, fixed an issue where players were spawning on the wrong side of barrier near C site if standing on rotating door at round end
- On Fracture, fixed a bug where the ‘Paul Delmann’ badge could be stuck on the screen after Buy Phase ends
Weapons
- Fixed an issue where Frenzy and Bulldog reload audio is quieter than other weapons in third person
Social
- Fixed a bug that caused voice chat to no longer function when disconnected from the internet for less than 60 seconds
- If the internet is disconnected for 60 seconds or less, you will be able to reconnect to voice chat without having to relaunch the game.
With the new rewind limit in place, it’s even more important to ensure that you load up one of the best Valorant crosshairs to help you pop some heads and rise through the Valorant ranks – after all, there’s no more pesky high ping players to stand in your way.