Patch 1.02 is coming to Valorant today, bringing a number of welcome changes to the meta as well as a few quality of life tweaks. The patch’s most noticeable change is the UI tweaks it made, which Riot Games admits will take a little bit of getting used to. The goal with the new UI and HUD is to differentiate the current version from the closed beta. This also means that while you may be confused initially, the overall experience of navigating the game’s various menus should be better. There’s now a back button that you’ll see across all main sections. The same button is also what will now take you out of detailed view. Exiting to desktop is now a single button press, and you can choose to log out of the client as you exit. Riot says patch 1.02’s UI tweaks are only part of a larger update in the works. On the gameplay end, 1.02 brings the first iteration of the promised Surrender option. Players can now initiate a Surrender vote when they want to leave a losing match. Everyone on the surrendering team will need to vote Yes for it to pass. In any case, surrender votes can only be initiated after reaching round eight.
Assuming everyone on the losing team agrees to surrender, the winning team will get win credit for up to 13 rounds (necessary to win). The inverse is true for the surrendering team, as they’ll now lose all of those same rounds. Another major gameplay change in this update is a nerf to tagging. In Valorant, landing a shot at an enemy causes their movement speed to slow down significantly. This is still the case, but the effect has been reduced. Players will now transition into the slow speed, rather than immediately slow down. This should give those closer to cover a chance to return to safety. Competitive mode, which is included in the update, won’t be going live until later this week, or possibly early next week. Patch 1.02 also brought a number of agent and map tweaks. Viper got the biggest changes. Her Toxic Screen now deals damage through walls, and Snake Bite will apply a fragile debuff to the players it hits. Her Poison Orb now also takes slightly longer to activate. You can read the full change log on the Valorant blog.
