Valorant v2.05 patch notes: AFK and rank bans for toxicity, more

Riot Games is getting ready to roll out their bi-weekly update and they have answered everyone's prayers the Bucky.... has not been nerfed!

No, no, but jokes aside wherever you stand on the Bucky debate it looks like its likely to be another patch away before we see a price increase/stat nerf for everyone's favourite shotgun but we do have some small-on-surface-but-important-changes in v2.05.

Most notable among them is that Riot is staying true to their word and doubling down on troublesome players. Those chat banned for being toxic etc. will be handed stricter punishments and, importantly, no longer be able to queue in ranked matches while banned from chat.

Those that enjoy dipping out of matches, either at the Agent selection screen or halfway through a map are also set to be penalised with harsher penalties for AFK players and a ranked rating hit for those that don't like playing Ascent.

• Read more: Valorant Infantry collection: Release date, all skins, price, more

There is also the first batch of unique keybinds for Agents with Sova and Astra mains able to choose which keys the use to control Sova's drone and Astra when in her Astral form.

The patch is expected to be released around 4 am GMT on the 17th of March. 

Valorant v2.05 patch notes

Agent Updates

SOVA

ASTRA

Competitive Updates

• The Career: Act Rank tab now has a toggle which allows you to choose to enable or disable your Act Rank
  • The default is on, but if you don’t want to flex your skills, you can always turn it off
• The Match History tab now allows you to filter your matches per mode
  • We know sometimes you just want to look at your Competitive matches
• Players will receive a small rank rating penalty for dodging Competitive games.
  •  For more context on this change see this post.
• Tuned Radiant Rank Rating gains and losses to be more consistent with Immortal rank rating behavior
• Custom Games layout and visuals have been updated

Social Updates

• Improved AFK Detection
• Updated Penalties for AFK offenses
  • This includes warnings, queue restrictions, XP denial, Competitive queue bans, and game bans
• Updated Penalties for chat-based offenses
  • This includes warnings, chat restrictions, Competitive queue restrictions, and game bans
• Reminder that zero tolerance offenses will result in game bans automatically 
•  You can read more about our work to address issues and opportunities with player behavior in our past breakdown.

Bugs

• Fixed a bug where Ranked game icons were misaligned in Match History
• Astra now starts Spike Rush games with all 5 star charges
• Killjoy can’t place Lockdown off the ground by jumping and placing it on cosmetic pieces of geo on the walls anymore
• Fixed issue where Cypher’s Spycam dart could sometimes hit players that were on the other side of a wall
• Fixed Killjoy not getting charges from her Alarmbot and Turret back if they are recalled after she is resurrected
• Fixed dead enemies being counted as flashed enemies in the combat report
• Fixed Astra’s “Out of charges” VO not playing for her abilities while in Astral Form
• Fixed the deafening effect on nearsights not playing if Astra is in the game
• Fixed Cypher’s Spycam targeting going through Sage’s wall
• Fixed Astra having trouble placing Stars on the defender side boxes of Icebox mid from the A site
• Sova Drone and Astra ascend/descend binds now properly respect changed jump/crouch keybinds
• The defuse range circle indicator that shows after planting the Spike again displays properly.
• Fixed a rare bug that could leave players unable to move or process inputs until they died when entering or returning from Astra's astral form, Sova's drone, Skye's scout, or Cypher's Spy Camera.
  • We previously addressed some causes of this bug last patch, this fix should address the remaining known causes.
• Fixed an issue where the Stinger’s stock would appear detached on the ground
• Improved readability of player names in Observer
• Fixed an issue where Skye’s seekers did not visibly move on Brimstone’s tactical map
• Fixed an issue where scoreboard color doesn’t appropriately swap at side swap for Observers
• Fixed a bug that would cause the "Network Problem" icon to appear when no network issues were present