Valorant 3.03 Patch Notes Reveal Minor Changes; Dataminers Discover Tournament Mode Incoming

After a week’s delay, Riot Games is finally ready to unveil Patch 3.03, though it’s hardly much to get excited about if you were after meaningful changes. The anticipated changes to Yoru, for example, have been delayed indefinitely, and the only Agent change is for Viper, whose Pitt formation has now been reverted to around her body, rather than on her crosshair placement.

Elsewhere, Radianite boxes can now also be wall banged from all angles, while new crosshair profiles mean you can finally save your favorite designs instead of having to enter them manually each time.

But without a doubt, the most exciting new features coming to Valorant are ones that haven’t quite made it into Patch 3.03 but have been discovered by dataminers, such as ValorLeaks.

Apart from the fact that Act 1 of Episode 3 has been extended by two weeks, which may come as a welcome surprise to those miles off completing the battle pass, there’s a new tournament mode coming to Valorant. Given how robust it seems, I’m assuming that Riot would be making a bigger deal of it if it were just around the corner, meaning it isn’t likely isn’t set to arrive for some time, possibly beyond the launch of Act 2 in September. Here’s what ValorLeaks uncovered:

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Tournaments are coming VALORANT! | #VALORANT

> Compete in a high stakes tournament mode against other teams to earn super cool prizes. Tournaments are every other weekend with timetables listed below. Get started by verifying your identity and then creating or joining a team!

— Mike – Valorant Leaks & Info (@ValorLeaks) August 10, 2021

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Tournament Features | #VALORANT

> Creating Teams: Once you create a team after being verified you can invite teammates.

>Find a Team: Look for available teams to join or post yourself as a free agent on the scouting board

>Scouting Board, Tournament Shop, and Team Tags

— Mike – Valorant Leaks & Info (@ValorLeaks) August 10, 2021

We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything official from Riot. Until then, you can check out the latest Patch Notes below.

Viper

• Fixed a bug where Viper’s Pit started forming at the cursor placement point instead of around Viper
  • OK so this is technically a bug fix, but it alters the way Viper’s Pit is deployed. We accidentally shipped a bug in 3.01 that caused her ultimate to spawn at her placement reticle instead of around her. We know a lot of Viper mains thought this was an intentional buff and might not be happy about this revert—we’re very sorry to cause pain for you all.
  • We think that Viper’s Pit can be a very potent tool for holding an area. Given that impact, it’s important that her team pays the cost of securing ground before she can place her ult, as opposed to being able to cast it forward into areas without giving up her position.

Crosshair Settings

• Turn on “Use Advanced Options” to additionally customize your ADS crosshair and sniper scope center dot!
• Added the ability to save and switch between multiple crosshair profiles
  • We hear y’all on wanting the ability to share your crosshair settings, and we agree! We don’t have an exact time frame on when that will be coming, but it is definitely on our radar.
• Added a setting to set a minimum firing error across all weapons
• Added a setting to use the primary crosshair with shotguns

Map Updates

• You can now shoot through Radianite crates,with appropriate weapons, from all angles
  • Previously, you could shoot through some crates from limited directions, but not others.
• Updated ziplines to allow the ‘Use’ key so you can detach at any point

Social Updates

• Added a system that enables us to automatically revert any AFK penalties applied to you in the event of unexpected server instability

Competitive Updates

• Autobalance button added for custom games with > 6 players based on players’ MMR

Network Updates

• Improved the accuracy and responsiveness for the ping calculation
• Ping stats now show both the average and the max ping values to help you better understand your networking conditions
  • The average value is calculated from multiple samples collected over a small interval of time—the max value is the largest value within that sample.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a big where Killjoy’s turret was not affected by concuss
• Fixed Astra’s Gravity Well from pulling people while they were attached to ascenders
• Fixed a bug where Astra could activate Dissipate while attached to ascenders
• Fixed Boombot, Owl Drone, and Fakeout from destroying Sage’s Barrier Orb if placed in a way that overlapped a segment of the barrier wall

To compare Patch 3.03 to Patch 3.02, you can find those notes here.