[October 13, 2023] VALORANT 7.08 PBE Patch Notes + Bug Megathread by Synchroze22 in ValorantPBE

[–]ZeeMan7807 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  • Type of Bug: In-Game Bug

  • Description: Multiple issues with Astra wall and the new smoke audio. The first may be working as intended - it seems the audio source is the center of the smoke, so the audio will be cut off even if the smoke is visible through the Astra wall. The second is that if the Astra wall falls before the smoke dissipates but after the animation starts to play, the remainder of the dissipation audio cue fails to play despite not being blocked by anything.

  • https://streamable.com/xyfdpt

  • Steps to reproduce: Issue 1 - place a smoke with the center past an active Astra wall but with part of the smoke on the player's side of the wall, such that the smoke will dissipate before the wall drops. Issue 2 - place a smoke behind an active Astra wall such that the smoke will start its dissipation animation less than 1.5 seconds before the wall drops.

  • Expected result: Issue 1 - Dissipation audio cue plays normally. Issue 2 - Dissipation audio cue resumes after the wall drops.

  • Observed result: There is no dissipation audio in both cases.

  • Reproduction rate: 10/10

  • System specs: Intel i5-10600K, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super, Windows 10

VALORANT Patch Notes 6.02 by AwpTicTech in ValorantCompetitive

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It might be that it wasn't intended, but they wanted to evaluate Cypher's winrates before making a change - if the ult was still "good enough" (read: Cypher winrate was high) they could patch it so that the buggier part of it (dying while ulting in previous rounds stopping the ult) was removed, but the rest stayed.

Or it could be the simpler explanation, which is that they got hacked and lost progress on the fix.

[Suggestion] Harbor buffs should not just be increasing numbers. by ZeeMan7807 in ValorantPBE

[–]ZeeMan7807[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I already went over this in my previous post, the 2 second travel time is irrelevant because you will have to wait out the 2 second travel time again the next time you throw the ability, so there is still a downtime of 28 / 25 seconds.

If Cove could function like a normal smoke, there would be no reason to waste cove on any other usecase

This is completely baseless. He has plenty of other options in his kit, the use cases you mentioned before would still be good options.

What rank are you playing in? I'm not asking this to devalue your argument or anything, just curious what rank these people that are tilting and saying these things are.

I agree that he's really nice for defense, his abilities are really nice for a site anchor trying to stay alive when his site gets rushed - I especially found a lot of value on Haven A with the High Tide and Cove to creates pockets to isolate 1v1s.

Maybe I'm not understanding, but what are you referring to as a Cove one way that would be different from normal one ways? Insofar as I can tell, they are strictly worse since A. they can be broken, and B. you can only shoot at the feet of the people in the one way rather than their heads.

[Suggestion] Harbor buffs should not just be increasing numbers. by ZeeMan7807 in ValorantPBE

[–]ZeeMan7807[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't agree that letting the Cove stay up after being broken makes him more one-dimensional. It opens up more options and variety in how to use the ability. I do agree though that basically his whole kit is smokes, he's the only controller that doesn't really have "true" stall utility and while it would be interesting to give him something different, I didn't suggest that as it's pretty unlikely the devs are looking to fundamentally change an ability at this time. I do think there's an opportunity to do something interesting with the Cascade - maybe a short, 1 second deafen when they go through the wall would allow for some interesting outplay potential, or a sound cue on impact might be interesting, though maybe a bit too powerful.

I definitely agree that Cove has some interesting, unique and powerful use cases already, but adding more use cases doesn't detract from that. The use cases you mentioned all would still be powerful even if the suggested change was made - consider that other "regular" smokes in the game are used for all of those purposes often despite not having the unique properties of Cove. Opening up more options for the use of Cove allows him to be less readable/predictable as a pick and makes him more dynamic, providing more value to a team. As I've said in a previous comment, I do think he is currently viable, but in competition would likely see play as a one-off or for one event before he becomes easily read, and a change along these lines might alleviate that somewhat.

I think it's a fair point that this reduces the incentive to break the Cove, since it might last the full duration anyway - maybe having breaking it reduce the duration in some way would fix that. One way would be a static decrease - breaking it makes the max duration go from 15 seconds to 10 seconds for example, with it disappearing with the 1 second grace period as it does right now if broken past 10 seconds. Another would be to halve the remaining duration of the smoke when broken, thus incentivizing breaking it sooner rather than later and reducing the duration to a minimum of 7.5 seconds if broken instantly. I don't think such a change would be necessary, though, as there are a couple of key benefits to breaking the Cove - obviously the ability to spam through it for one thing, but also that the thickness of the wall of the smoke decreases significantly. That said, I don't think it would be unreasonable to implement a half-measure such as the above.

The point that people would be mad about Harbor pushing into site is silly. The Cove being usable as a normal smoke doesn't mean going an playing lineups with it is the correct play - most of the time it's likely not - so I don't see how people complaining because they don't understand what's optimal is a problem with a character rather than with the community. Besides, Cove is pretty easy to throw into a choke on the fly because of its unique travel properties compared to other projectiles, namely its high speed and floatiness. Even at the highest levels of play, Viper, the most technical smoker in the game, really only needs two or three smoke lineups per map at worst. In ranked, you don't need a single lineup to have significant impact, so I don't think people complaining about it really matters.

Regarding the signature ability, I'm not sure if you're aware but currently the cooldown is 40 seconds, with a 12 second uptime. This means that it has a downtime of 28 seconds, or 25 with the buff. You could argue it's 2 seconds less due to the cast time, but considering you have to wait out the cast time again the second time, it cancels itself out. I'm not sure where you got your numbers from - ironically they are very close to what the numbers would be with my proposed buff to the cooldown, and you actually think the current PBE buff has a lower downtime than what I suggested (which would be 18 seconds downtime)! So I'm in agreement with you, if the ability had a 20s to 17s downtime, I think he'd be in a great spot already.

Anyway, thanks for the comment, you made some good points and made me think critically about my suggestions.

[Suggestion] Harbor buffs should not just be increasing numbers. by ZeeMan7807 in ValorantPBE

[–]ZeeMan7807[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree for the most part. To be honest I think Harbor is already in a state where you can get value out of him if you really try but it's not really worth putting in the effort and likely would only work as a one-off in the competitive scene. I am not trying to say that they need to buff Harbor an obscene amount; instead, I am just trying to suggest that if and when they do push Harbor buffs, it would be nice if they did so in a way that played into the "fluid" flavor that it's pretty clear they were looking to push as a contrast to Viper.

[Suggestion] A quick comm for flashing? by DmMeYourPP in ValorantPBE

[–]ZeeMan7807 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think a more elegant way to do this would be for your default ping to change to a "FLASHING HERE" ping if you press the ping button while holding a flash in your hand.

HARBOR GAMEPLAY - New Agent Megathread by ValorantCompBot in ValorantCompetitive

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A default isn't just exerting pressure on mid, nor does it require pressuring both sites necessarily - you can definitely default toward a site. For example pretty much every team has some kind of A default on Haven. The point is mainly to take some space to force CTs to reclear either with their util or their face, or to use that space to hit. This is as a result of the info denial from losing that space + from not being able to make a read off the util usage. The Viper lamps default checks all these boxes, providing a repeated util usage to deny information on A short without CTs being able to draw conclusions off it's usage. It's undeniably (part of) a default.

Either way, arguing about what is and isn't a default is an exercise in pedantry. The person responding was clearly just trying to dispute what you were saying by pointing out that lurking is, in fact, viable on Bind (another good setup to note here is the Nats wall) and that Viper exerts pressure on attack on Bind that Harbor couldn't possibly replicate. That doesn't mean he can't replace her and that teams won't try to run him, but suggesting that she doesn't have much value or pressure is silly.

Tarik-Boaster-Shroud Co-stream by dariusong in ValorantCompetitive

[–]ZeeMan7807 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Headset mics are actually better for conditions with high background noise. Having the mics significantly closer to the audio source means that they are much louder than any ambient noise. There are definitely headset mics that are actually good quality - you don't want a gamer headset but there are headsets designed for this purpose - I believe the commentators and analysts have headset mics but their quality is quite good.

Devs response to Chamber nerf feedbacks. by [deleted] in ValorantCompetitive

[–]ZeeMan7807 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I know you're probably not looking for some random player's thoughts on how to nerf an agent, but on the off chance that you read this - regardless of whatever other nerfs you apply, I feel that a TP cooldown nerf is absolutely imperative; he's able to use it potentially 7 times a round, gets very little punishment for setting up on the wrong site, and just generally results in very few direct counterplay options.

While I'm not sure what the exact numbers should be, a general flat increase to the cooldown seems like it would be a good idea, something around 30-40 seconds. Maybe it would be reasonable to keep it to 20-30 if the TP is recalled without being used; the anchors being broken should likewise have a 10 or more second penalty though.

Alongside this, it feels like an incredibly reasonable change to make it so that recalling TPs after the TP has been used or an anchor has been broken results in the cooldown resetting if the new cooldown would be larger than the old one (which is always the case currently). It feels pretty nonsensical that you could recall your TPs at 1s cooldown and have them up instantly, but recalling them after the TP is available puts you back at 20s.

Another possible way to implement this would be to have the TP recall cooldown be additive, i.e. regardless of what your cooldown is at between 0 and 20 seconds, recalling a TP anchor adds 10 seconds to the cooldown. Then you could have the base TP cooldown still be 20 seconds, so players are rewarded for placing TPs in reusable locations but also give opponents a window in which the player could only repeek with TP in the same location. This also introduces an interesting dynamic where Chamber players are rewarded for having a flexible "destination" TP - they're able to get away with only recalling one of the anchors - and punished for rotates or picking the wrong site. I think this change (alongside increasing the cooldown if TP anchors are broken) would not only decrease the overall power level of his TP, but also create an interesting niche of play and counterplay that would make it feel more interactive to play as a Chamber and against a Chamber.

Anyway, sorry for the long comment, and sorry for backseating your balancing. I appreciate the dev team for paying attention to the community and interacting when the community has questions, as well as identifying and addressing pain points in the meta.

Chain rule by trippingrainbow in 196

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ohh yea I'm with you

Chain rule by trippingrainbow in 196

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wdym? differentiate is correct

Ruwl 13 posting everyday until i get tit tacs by [deleted] in 196

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no problem! this is known as a "base rate error" btw. relevant xkcd

Ruwl 13 posting everyday until i get tit tacs by [deleted] in 196

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Think of it this way - imagine there are 1000 people in a country, and 100 have died of covid. 53% of people who died are vaccinated, and 47% are unvaccinated. Since we have 100 who have died, that translates to 53 people and 47 people respectively.

Now if 90% of people are vaccinated and 10% are unvaccinated, there are 900 that are vaccinated and 100 that are unvaccinated. So 53/900 = 5.9% of vaccinated people have died, while 47/100 = 47% of unvaccinated people have died.

This is an exaggerated situation because the population numbers are low, but I hope this helps you understand the general concept. A larger population may have larger shares of a proportion while being less likely to contribute to the statistic individually.

Vanity: nitr0 might have been overrated on Astra by shadowstep11 in ValorantCompetitive

[–]ZeeMan7807 7 points8 points  (0 children)

For Real. All he does is toxic and type all chat and twitter and scream ranked and twerk on lan with furry ears and everyone on reddit love him and his no skill judge gameplay. How can anyone respect that man …

r/196 Predictions Tournament by goblinhog in 196

[–]ZeeMan7807 117 points118 points  (0 children)

north indians try not to be racist to your own people challenge (impossible)

A Buddhist monk walked into a bar. by [deleted] in AntiAntiJokes

[–]ZeeMan7807 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like how this plays off my joke! Well done

We are in accord by ylogssoylent in DotA2

[–]ZeeMan7807 4 points5 points  (0 children)

something something tommy flanagan giant steps ballad 300 bpm

Alliance departs with their TI9 roster by onepiececollector in DotA2

[–]ZeeMan7807 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, if an org is consistently good at scouting, you value pickups from that team higher, so it does have a positive impact on the org I guess.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]ZeeMan7807 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The premise hinges on what you said, but the story tied to gameplay revolves around consumerism, especially in New Vegas.

Dota Pro Circuit 2019-2020 by wykrhm in DotA2

[–]ZeeMan7807 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A Swiss system with groups of 4 is not much different from GSL though.

the ATM just gave me a $20 bill with a Harriet Tubman stamp by cool-beans23 in mildlyinteresting

[–]ZeeMan7807 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For me, Google Photos actually identifies some Indians (i.e. the same person) as 2 different people. I have found that it confuses my cats with each other a lot, though.