VALORANT Patch 1.14

Overview

Hey, we’re back with Patch 1.14, if you’re wondering what happened to Patch 1.13, we used it to roll out some Unreal upgrades. So there’s that.

This one’s light on the Agents, big on Icebox. This round of Icebox changes is focused on getting the A site and verticality just right.

Sage

• Barrier Orb can’t be cast in Buy Phase
• Once fortified, Barrier no longer loses health over time—Barrier only starts to deteriorate a few seconds before it expires

Icebox

The changes to Icebox in this update are centered around simplifying the A Site and reducing the height of some of the most vertical areas on the map.

• Reduced the height of the A Belt area and connected it via a ramp to the platform below
• Acquiring targets up top also requires less vertical movement of the crosshair
• Added a see-through gate here that can’t be passed from the ground level
• Sloped the wall (first image) and replaced the double stack of Radianite crates in the site with a smaller object (second image)
• Reduced the height of the yellow container.

MODE UPDATES

Ready to have a Snowball Fight with your friends (and likely your foes)? The limited mode goes live on Dec.15 and will last for two weeks, on Dec. 29. Play a match of Snowball Fight and you’ll also nab a themed Gun Buddy, delivered at a later date.

• 5v5: Team Deathmatch
• Respawns are enabled, so get back in there
• The snowball launcher is your weapon of choice
• Projectile based snowballs have travel time and an arc (make sure to lead that shot!)
• Infinite snowballs—don’t stop shooting!
• The gift that keeps on giving: Power ups!
• Each gift contains a power up when opened (shoot to open)
• You can only have one of each power up at a time, so make sure to share with your teammates
• If you die, you drop your power ups and someone else can snag them
• Gift types
• Growball: grows over time while traveling in the air
• Ricochet: for all those snowball trick shots off the ground and walls
• Skates: skate around quickly and in style. Jump higher!
• Maps
• Week 2: Snowball Fight can be played on all current maps
• Progression
• Snowball mode does not progress missions

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

• Rank distribution has been updated to make it easier to climb out of the lower ranks
• Act Rank Badge display has been re-enabled on in-game player cards.
• These were previously disabled due to performances hitches
• Career page: Match History and Act Ranks have been split out into their own specific sections.

STORE UPDATES

• Check out our newest feature with the introduction of the Night.Market
• Opens December 10th

SOCIAL UPDATES

• Requirements to unlock Competitive play have been changed from Play 20 Unrated matches >>> Win 10 Unrated matches
• A text field has been added to the Report Player menu so that players can now provide more information on their reason for reporting, if they choose to
• Players can now add friends in-game via the player list in the escape menu

GAME SYSTEMS UPDATES

• Manual Game State Recovery
• Cinematic Cameras
• Observers can press Shift + player number to jump to the best cinematic camera to capture the action.
• Observers can immediately leave a Cinematic Camera to move to Free camera
• We have a lot more ideas for additional functionality, so stay tuned for that in the future.
• Projectile Follow
• Observer camera will remain at the destination of the projectile and will transition to a free camera from this point.
• Minimal Broadcast HUD
• Observer Follower
• Default keybinds for following previous / next observer: ‘[‘ and ‘]’
• Observers can use player numbers on the minimap to jump directly to a specific player

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue where Killjoy’s turret could be placed underneath the ground in some maps
• Fixed an issue where Omen could teleport past the Buy phase barrier
• Fixed a bug where pressing a push-to-talk key while typing in chat would trigger voice chat
• Fixed a bug where AFKer queue restrictions would keep resetting for some players