Everything New In Episode 3 Act 1

The competitive and content update structure of Valorant is a little different from most live-service games. Instead of seasons, its ongoing development is divided into episodes. Each episode contains three acts, which have their own Battle Passes and rewards. However, the bigger ranking resets occur at the start of an episode. Patch 3.0, which arrived on June 22, has ushered in Act 1 of Episode 3. As the first Act after the shooter’s June 2 anniversary, it brought with it many changes to different sides of the game. Those changes range from the introduction of a brand-new hero and an extra progression mechanic to subtle performance and balance tweaks.

Agent 17

Although not every Act adds a new Agent, there was such an addition this time, expanding the roster to 17 characters and adding another Agent Contract for players to unlock. In the shooter’s lore, KAY/O is a robotic operative hailing from another universe. He was designed to fight superpowered Radiants, which shows in his skillset. While his basic abilities are throwable mines and flashbangs, his signature and ultimate powers all suppress enemy abilities directly. The signature is a throwable suppression projectile, while the ultimate lets KAY/O himself serve as a suppression focus. If downed while using the latter skill, he can be revived by teammates.

Those powers add up to make KAY/O a highly effective and versatile Initiator. The robot can also dabble in the Duelist role. In the right hands, he can neutralize any enemy Agent and singlehandedly turn the tide of battle. That guarantees him a place in many team compositions. His behind the scenes story is interesting in its own, as Riot Games had started working on KAY/O shortly after release, even though many Agents ended up joining the roster ahead of him. He was designed to satisfy a more traditional FPS sensibility, placing the emphasis on gunplay and map knowledge rather than superpowers. So far, he proved to be a solid pick among players aiming for ranked wins.

Account Levels

Valorant always offered its players many goals to work towards besides victory, including rising to higher ranks or earning cosmetics. The newly-implemented account leveling system differs in that it rewards players for their total commitment to the game – not just ranked play or Act participation. Fans can now receive colorful frames with numbers for their in-game cards. All they need to do to improve those frames is play in any mode and earn Account Points. However, you do get more such points for victories, especially the first win of the day. With the system’s introduction, all players have retroactively received the appropriate amount of points for their past time investment.

Competitive Changes

Each Valorant Episode brings with it a rank reset. That means players wishing to participate in the competitive mode during the episode must finish five placement matches to earn their starting rank. This does not mean a hard reset that forces everyone to climb from the bottom, though. Earlier MMR continues to matter despite a certain “squish” forcing competitors to defend their ranks. The current system was created during the previous Episode, replacing more frequent resets. It remains fundamentally unchanged since then. Nevertheless, there were some smaller, yet still consequential tweaks:

• Placement matches could now raise you all the way up to Diamond 1 (rather than Platinum 3);
• While this was only fully implemented in Act 2, the Immortal rank has once again been divided into three subdivisions;
• The rank rating formula has been adjusted to make progress up and down the competitive ladder a little smoother and slower;
• It has also been made more sensitive to changes in skill in older accounts, so past performance would no longer drag down improving players as much;
• Matchmaking has been improved, especially closer to Radiant rank. In particular, individual performance should now matter more;
• Ranked Rating penalties for persistently AFK players have been increased. Team members who have spent most of the match being inactive should no longer benefit from their teammates’ success.

General Changes

The first update of the episode changed gameplay in many ways. While some of those changes were bigger than the others, even the smaller adjustments added up to a very different experience from unrated games upwards. There were two major types of changes in the patch. The first revolved around raising performance by optimizing animations and camera calculations. The second concerned game mechanics and stats. In addition to adding a meta-altering new character and various minor tweaks, the developers introduced the following balance changes:

• Signature abilities for all characters now start each round with one charge rather than getting a charge every round. Meanwhile, charges produced by cooldowns have been changed to be temporary. Cooldown times and prices for many specific abilities have been increased. As with the addition of KAY/O, the effect has been to make power use more tactical while emphasizing shooter aspects more.
• Astra has been particularly hard-hit by the above changes. While the Agent remains highly effective, she could no longer spam her powers as much as before, with many cooldowns doubled in length.
• While Breach has also been weakened, this has been balanced in part by shortened cast times and a buff to his abilities’ explosion radius.
• Skye is another significantly affected character. However, her signature ability has been buffed in other ways. She could now activate the flash effect without changing her weapon and regain charges following a brief cooldown.
• Cypher’s Trapwire is no longer affected by Jett’s Tailwind power.
• Viper’s Snakebite has been reduced in duration.
• To encourage more varied and thoughtful playstyles, walking now has a bigger negative impact on accuracy with nearly all weapons. Running accuracy has been nerfed for submachine guns and heavy weapons. Being hit while moving now slows combatants slightly less, which is another, more roundabout way of reducing mobile accuracy. In brief, it is now more advantageous to stop before shooting when mobility is not a top consideration.
• While Judge has become more expensive, many other weapons like Stinger or Operator are now appreciably cheaper.

Although Act 1 is over now, the changes it introduced remain. Valorant’s gameplay has always beed balanced between old-school tactical shooters like Counter Strike: Global Offensive and newer hero shooters such as Overwatch. That balance remains, but it has been tilted noticeably in the direction of CS:GO. Returning players may have use for coaching services as they adjust to the more frugal use of powers and stronger emphasis on aiming and maneuvering. Naturally, not everyone supports those changes, even if they do seem to result in more dynamic play. Yet if earlier impressions of abilities-heavy play has been turning you off from Valorant, then now may be a good time to give it another try with our help!