Riot has just shipped out a major update to their FPS title VALORANT, and it has introduced some heavy changes to the game.
The first and perhaps the most significant of the changes were the fixes to the various agents in the competitive shooter. After hundreds of requests from the fans, the newest agent Killjoy has finally received a nerf. Riot primarily focused on balancing out her Nanoswarm, which according to them has been “a terror to play against.”
The damage per second of Nanoswarm has been reduced from 60 to 40 and a brief windup time has been introduced before the damage begins. Visual effects have also been added to make it easier for players to spot the grenade hidden in the ground.
However, the agent that received the biggest nerf was Sage. Her healing capabilities were reduced significantly while her slow orb also took a hit.
Here are the changes to Sage as mentioned in Riot’s blog:
Heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 5 seconds
Self heal reduced from 100 over 5 seconds >>> 60 over 10 seconds
Slow Orb size reduced by 30%
The cost of Barrier Orb was reduced by 100, and will now spawn at 400 HP before becoming fortified to 800 HP after a span of 3 seconds.
Viper was probably the biggest winner of the patch, her Toxic Screen can now be placed during the buy phase through spawn barriers, and goes up faster along its full length once it starts to form. The decay on her smoke abilities will no longer affect allies.
Breach also received significant buffs to his skillset. His Flashpoint charges were increased to 3 and Concussion will now de-scope players and make them unable to scope for its duration.
Other than these, the Shotguns of the game received a nerf to their aimpunch along with multiple other bug fixes and quality of life changes. The full details of the new Valorant patch can be read here.
Patch 1.07 has arrived with our first Killjoy update, changes to shotguns, a remake option, and those hit reg visual improvements you’ve been asking for. And those are just the highlights! Read the full patch notes here: https://t.co/i5JZBkPYPtpic.twitter.com/BDTl6uIbe9
Good news for the fans of Tom Clancy’s shooters, as “The Division”, which generally goes for about $20, has gone free-to-claim on the Uplay store.
The action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment features a post-pandemic world and is set in a near future New York city. The player controls a Special Agent of the Strategic Homeland Division, who is tasked with helping the group rebuild its operations in Manhattan, investigate the nature of the outbreak, and combat criminal activity in its wake.
The Division was first released in March 2016 and was a huge commercial success. Ubisoft stated that the game had shattered the company’s records for the highest number of first-day sales.
The game will be available to claim for a limited time only from September 1-8. Once claimed, the owner will be allowed to keep the game forever and play it at will.
So, what are you waiting for? Grab your own copy of this hit title right here!
ESL has delivered temporary bans to three coaches – MechanoGun, HUNDEN and dead – for violating the terms of their rulebook. After Investigations done by ESL and Valve, it was found out that the three coaches who belong to teams Hard Legion, Heroic and MiBR respectively had used a spectating bug which gave them information on the enemy team’s whereabouts that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.
As part of a recently concluded investigation into the exploitation of a spectating bug in ESL and DreamHack CS:GO tournaments, we are issuing punishments to the coaches of three teams today.
“A bug in CS:GO allows the coach of a team to become a spectator anywhere on the map, unbeknownst to anyone else,” ESL states in their blog. “The coach would then be able to stay in that position, getting a free camera/observer position on e.g. the opposing team’s spawn area (or other areas of the map that would be hidden to the team otherwise), and could advise their team to react based on that knowledge.”
This kind of bug abuse is a direct violation to section “6.10.5 Use of Bugs and Glitches” in the ESL rulebook, and the coaches were punished accordingly by ESL after they ensured the abuse was patched.
According to ESL, Hard Legion’s “MechanoGun” used the bug on 6 maps in 3 matches at ESL One Road to Rio, Heroic’s “HUNDEN” used it on 10 rounds in a single match at DreamHack Masters Spring, and MiBR’s “dead” used it in a single round on one map.
Here are the punishments handed out to the coaches and the teams involved, as exactly mentioned on ESL’s website:
dead will receive a 6-month ban from playing or coaching in competition
HUNDEN will receive a 12-month ban from playing or coaching in competition
MechanoGun will receive a 24-month ban from playing or coaching in competition
The teams will retroactively be disqualified from the tournament in question
The teams will forfeit their ESL Pro Tour points from the tournament in question
The teams will forfeit their prize money from the tournament in question
ESL has also informed fans that while multiple other coaches had access to the knowledge of this spectating bug, they didn’t abuse it in competitive games to gain an unfair advantage.
“Competitive integrity of tournaments is our highest priority, and we will continue to work towards creating a clean and reliable competitive environment,” ESL states.
Contrary to the popular belief of the next generation gamers, Ubisoft has a rather different version of their own. According to the developer, PlayStation 5 will only support backward compatibility for PS4 and not for PS3, PS2 and PS1.
The detail of this response to a question explains the stretch of the compatibility gamers should expect from the new Play Station. Not to mention, Sony has always been on the positive front when it comes to discussions and revelations on older-gen games compatibility.
Via Images at GameRant.com
The Answer definitively concludes “backward compatibility will be available for PS5 titles, but not for the rest.” However it also does mention that the cross variance of platforms will also curtail to online multiplayer juncture with PS4 players playing along with the PS5 players.
Just like Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s next generation Xbox has also been vibing optimistically for backward compatibility, infact, Xbox X has already been confirmed to support all major games of the previous gen consoles.
And why not? Wouldn’t you want to spend your money as an investment which could help you curate your library of games? The success driving factor for the next generation consoles are lying here, just at the compatibility aspect.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 & Microsoft’s Xbox is scheduled for a launch in and around Christmas this year.
Riot Games’ FPS title VALORANT has shown hopes for a promising esports scene developing around it. The rising player count of the competitive shooter is making room for more and more tournaments to be organized for the game throughout the world. This steady growth of the VALORANT pro scene has led many professional players from other shooters like CSGO to switch to VALORANT for competitive play, and it seems like Joshua “steel” Nissan is about to add his name to the list.
According to a DBLTAP report, Steel may soon bid farewell to competitive CSGO to pursue a career in VALORANT. The 30-year-old has been involved amid heavy controversies when he was implicated in a match fixing scandal with his former team, iBuyPower. He, along with his teammates were handed bans from participating in Valve-sponsored tournaments.
Steel returned to competitive CSGO in July, 2017, when ESL allowed some of the banned players to participate in their tournaments. He joined his current team Chaos EC in November 2019.
The gap in the Chaos EC roster following Steel’s departure may be filled by 22-year-old rifler and entry fragger Edgar “MarKE” Maldonado, who is expected to take his place according to the report.
Brazilian CSGO team Imperial Esports have confirmed through a tweet that two of their players have tested positive for COVID-19, making them cancel their scheduled bootcamp in Serbia.
While the team hasn’t dismissed the possibility of a “false positive” result obtained by the PCR test, they decided not to go for a retest because the time required for the publication of results would surpass the deadline for their departure to Europe.
Imperial Esports have refrained from mentioning the names of the players who contracted the disease but have confirmed that all of its players are currently asymptomatic.
However, it was quite obvious that the two players who had tested positive for COVID-19 were fnx and LUCAS1.
LUCAS1 himself declared the news through a tweet, which roughly translates to, “I was tested positive for COVID-19, but I’m super well! Thank you for your messages.”
Salve galera!! Deu positivo pra COVID. Mas estou super bem. Obrigado a todos pelas msgs ❤️
As for fnx, Imperial Esports’ statement hinted that one of the players who tested positive for COVID-19 before the bootcamp was also previously diagnosed with the disease. According to some, the only player in their roster who was previously diagnosed with COVID-19 was fnx, so it was apparent. However, fnx hasn’t made a statement himself as of yet confirming that he had indeed contracted the disease.
Imperial Esports have confirmed that they’ll support their team members during these troubling times and they’ll continue practicing from Brazil to prepare for upcoming tournaments.
“The team will continue to train in Brazil to achieve the best results, always seeking victory in all events that participate in honoring their commitments, as well as the affection of our fans.”
FPS games always have a meta that keeps changing according to the patches and new elements that are introduced to the gameplay, be it in terms of agents, abilities, weaponry, structures or even Maps. Valorant, despite its nascent release, has already seen the meta undergo a few changes thanks to new agents and patches. Developers though, are still getting a grasp on what needs to be nerfed; what needs a buff and what needs to remain untouched.
Yet, there are some common grounds that frustrate the users and abilities that people wish would be nerfed in order to mitigate their current overpowered state.
The Killjoy Turret Health Points
Killjoy is an agent that has lived up to her name thus far in Valorant. There has been a lot of outcry since the introduction, with her abilities causing quite a ruckus on the servers worldwide. Yet, there is one overpowering ability that needs to be nerfed soon because of its far-reaching effect on the overall user experience.
The Turret – her signature ability – is already a nuisance due to its ability to detect agents and fire from a fair range. However, it is the 125 Health Points attributed to it that makes it a gamebreaking ability, especially in Pistol Rounds.
It doesn’t just cause a distraction but the hits you receive slow you down, which makes it almost necessary to destroy it on most occasions. The attributed Health Points though, prevent you from making it an instant kill except when fired at with an Operator.
Consider the Turret a decoy that can aim. However, a decoy with the ability to fire should ideally not have more Health Points than an agent itself. A 25 to 50 point deduction in Health Points should be a more than fair way to balance things out. We can get to her other equally annoying abilities later.
In the lead up to the release of Valorant, the developers proudly exclaimed that aim will be the championing factor in the game. To an extent, they have been proven right, even though there are some abilities that prove counter-productive to that argument. However, if there is one ability that destroys such a statement, it is Jett’s ultimate – Blade Storm.
Blade Storm equips you with blades that have a one hit kill chance depending on where you aim; that replenish if you manage a successful Blade Kill and gives you 5 chances (5 blades). But, the overbearing part of the ability is that it spans the entire duration of the given round and players can swap between weaponry and the ultimate throughout it.
There is no other Ultimate Ability that can kill everyone in the opponent team let alone one that spans the entire round once activated. One could argue that disabling the prospect of switching between weaponry and the Blades would be counter-productive and kill what makes the ability unique.
Hence, a proper way to nerf would be to add a timer that expires, say a minute, after it is activated. This restricts the Ultimate ability to nearly half-a round and would prevent the use of Blades as a defensive enabler on the defence or in afterplant situations.
Like Killjoy, Reyna also received a cold shoulder in terms of user reactions when introduced. Many labelled it the perfect Duelist. One can opine that perhaps, Reyna has received significantly more of the Chemical X than what the Professor (devs) should have put in the concoction that is her character.
One such overbearing thing is her ability to OverHeal. When it comes to her abilities, the power to heal and recover from damage received is standard and perhaps, even necessary to dole out the damage expected from a Duelist. Although, one could argue that the additional 50 points received as a result of OverHeal is excessive. The OverHeal nullifies the necessity of buying an armour on most occasions for a Reyna user.
Once again, this can be justified when Reyna activates her Ultimate – Empress. But, the fact that she can OverHeal up to a maximum of 150 Points means that Reyna users can potentially ramp up more Health Points than they started the round with. Even though the OverHeal is temporary, it tilts the balance heavily in Reyna’s favour in straight duels and even more so in combat situations when the opponents cannot choose the option of disengaging or waiting for the OverHeal to expire.
A player like Adil ‘ScreaM’ Benrlitom on Reyna does make the agent look overpowered anyway. But, it cannot be disputed that Devour equipping Reyna with the Temporary OverHeal ability without activation of Empress makes the agent more than viable – overpowered.
A simple solution would be to restrict Devour to be able to heal until Reyna has 100 Health Points once again and to add OverHeal as an additional trait when Empress is used. For the power to conjure additional Health Points, even if temporary, elevates her status from just a self-healer and justifies the name of her Ultimate.
Honestly, there are several in-game abilities that seem powerful beyond the requisite threshold. But, the three mentioned above are ones that are either truly annoying, gamebreaking or something that fails to uphold the developers’ promise of Valorant maintaining its image of having an aim-heavy esports meta.
The ESL One Cologne finally comes to an end with Heroic easily winning 3-0 in a best of 5 series against the current #2 in the world Vitality.
The veto began with Heroic removing Dust2 and Vitality banning Train. The first map was picked by Heroic and they picked Mirage and then Inferno was picked up by Vitality. The third pick was Nuke by Heroic and Vitality chose Overpass and the last map that was left to be played was Vertigo.
The first map was Mirage and Vitality started things on a good note with Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and Dan ‘apeX’ Madesclaire picking up two great kills from their USP-S and securing the pistol round. Although Heroic replied back by winning the buy round and things went completely different thereafter as they went on to win the first half 9-6 in their favor.
The second half was the same story as Nikolaj ‘niko’ Kristensen stepped up for his team and played some amazing rounds and then we saw Heroic just giving up a single round in the entire second half and securing the first map 16-7.
The second map to be played was Inferno and Heroic starting on the CT side of the map won the pistol round with a quick retake on the A site of the map. The following round saw Vitality doing a force buy for themselves but ‘niko’ picking up an ace and punishing them for their mistakes. Although Vitality did pull up some rounds in their favor and ended the half 7-8 in the favor of Heroic.
The second half saw some great plays coming from both the sides and neither one of the them were giving up so easily but we saw Martin ‘stavn’ Lund delivering a great performance for his team with a 27K-16D and winning the second map as well 16-13 and taking it to the third and final map.
The third map of the series was Nuke and everyone expected Vitality to come back or at least win a single map in the best of 5 series. The first pistol round began with ‘shox’ clutching an important 1v2 round and giving a lead to his team on the start of the map. However Vitality was starting on the CT side which was the favourable side in this map and they still ended up losing the first half 7-8.
The second half saw how badly Heroic wanted to win this series and the title and we saw some amazing plays coming from them and they just dominated Vitality in the second half and closed the map 16-9 and the series 3-0 and won the ESL One Cologne 2020.
Often considered as an FPS prodigy, Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has repeatedly proven his skills in a variety of shooters ranging from competitive FPS titles like Counter-Strike and VALORANT to Battle Royales like PUBG. This, along with his great sense of humour and love for video games has earned him the title of one of the best streamers of the world.
Shroud used to stream full-time on Twitch until October 2019, when the 26-year-old streamer signed an exclusive contract with Microsoft’s streaming platform Mixer and moved there along with fellow streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who’s currently ranked the #1 streamer on Twitch with a follower count of over 15 million.
Following Mixer’s shutdown in July 2020, Shroud took a temporary break from streaming before making a return to Twitch. As expected, Shroud got the welcome he deserved in his “home” where his streams exploded with views from fans who awaited his return for months.
According to Twitch Metrics, Shroud has gained a whopping 1 million followers over the past month, a growth rate which is unprecedented as of now. It goes on to prove how much his fans wanted to see him in action once again.
This rapid growth of Shroud is enabling him to become the #2 streamer on the platform overtaking Tfue, who currently holds the position with a follower count of just over 9 million.
Needless to say, if this growth rate of Shroud on Twitch continues for the next few months, it’ll only be a matter of time before he’ll give Ninja a run for his money for the #1 spot on the platform.
Dr. Disrespect has aplogised for his controversial statement that “mobile gamers are not real gamers” when he was playing with PUBG Mobile professional player Sc0utOP on a collaborative stream.
Dr. Disrespect tweeted this controversial statement back in 2019 but gave clarification on this matter when he was playing Call of Duty with Scout, a professional PUBG Mobile player.
Dr. Disrespect scheduled to play with Indian streamer named Sc0utOP on 21st August. This collaboration was a big event for both the streamers as Dr. Disrespect was introduced to the mass mobile gaming viewership of Sc0utOP and similarly Scout got worldwide recognition by collaborating with one of the biggest streamers on the planet.
Dr. Disrespect addressed this issue on the stream saying, “Not sure if you ever saw my tweet, so I just want to get ahead of the controversy, about me saying that mobile gamers aren’t real gamer.” He adds, “It was a spur moment. I just want to make sure that I get ahead of it.”
Scout took this situation very lightly and laughed it off saying its “completely fine.” The collaboration in itself was a big hit for Dr. Disrespect as he gained 80,000 new subscribers on the day of collaboration, according to SocialBlade.
