In early August, Riot posted a lengthy and insightful blog post about Valorant's hit registration and the ways in which perceptions of what happens on screen and on the server may differ. In today's update to Valorant, the developers have introduced some adjustments to the effects that appear when a player hits a shot in hopes of reducing misunderstandings.

Here are the main changes:

You can read a full description of the hit VFX changes in the patch notes, but the important thing to note is that shots that land now create a visual effect that moves with the body. The new small spark effect, on the other hand, only tells you where the shot landed within the client.

The patch is a big one, and includes changes to guns and agents. Viper is a big winner: her Toxic Screen ability can now be placed through the spawn barrier during the bye phase and rises faster. Also, the Viper's Pit area now appears on the teammates' minimap. Also, the area of Viper's Pit now appears on the teammate's minimap.

A major nerf is Sage's healing, which now heals 60 HP instead of 100. And when Sage heals himself, it now takes twice as long.Riot's explanation is straightforward, if not as insightful as the deep dive in hit registration: he wants to reduce the amount of recovery per round and "curb Sage's self-healing. "Sage's Barrier Orb is a little better; it's a little more expensive.

Killjoy also took a hit: Nanoswarm now has a delay before dealing damage, and damage is now 40 instead of 60. Turrets got better.

In terms of quality of life, you can now re-cue when a match starts at a disadvantage (e.g., 5 vs. 4).

This is a summary of the patch notes, which can be read in full on the Valorant blog.