Updated on Jul. 1 6:25 p.m. UTC: Valorant's developers have deployed a fix to the bug on both live and esports servers.
Original article published Jun. 30 4:10 p.m. UTC: A longstanding bug affecting spectators in the in-game coach slot has been brought to the limelight. Under certain circumstances, coaches are able to see enemy player positions on the minimap.
The extent of information revealed seems to vary; sometimes opponents can be seen moving throughout the whole round while at other times positions are snapshotted at the beginning of the round or at moment of contact and then remain inactive. The bug does not seem to be specific to any map.
In0X
, coach for
TSM Academy
TSM Academy
Inactive
, shows an example of the bug in action:
I think this is a huge liability for tournaments and needs to be resolved ASAP since coach monitoring is really loose.
Every circle on the enemy team is around the area where the other players are. 10 seconds before they planted, I knew they were ending A
Although no definitive steps to reproduce the bug have been discovered, some people have speculated on the cause.
daemoN
asserts that disconnecting and reconnecting can trigger the exploit.
Erik
, the coach of
FunPlus Phoenix
FunPlus Phoenix
Inactive
SUYGETSU
Dmitry Ilyushin
Zyppan
Pontus Eek
ANGE1
Kyrylo Karasov
Shao
Andrey Kiprsky
ardiis
Ardis Svarenieks
, gave his own thoughts to VLR.gg: "Basically, this seems to be a bug related to packet loss. It's been in the game for a long time on every map. In my opinion, it usually happens to coaches with bad internet; that's probably why it never happened to me since I have a good internet".
Despite the recent flurry of the attention, the bug was known to have existed since at least January. A Riot employee acknowledged the issue and said that they had passed the information on internally.
A variety of coaches have confirmed to VLR.gg that they have encountered this bug multiple times since the beginning of the year on both the Live Client and Tournament Client. The bug has occurred in official matches, including VRL matches in Europe.
One coach recounted that the bug appeared in February during a VRL Polaris match, and that they immediately exited the game and did not return to coach his players. They also notified the league administrators at the time of the incident.
Another source says the bug popped up during the last week of VRL France competition and that the admins were also informed.
Per VRL regulations, a referee should be present in the voice channel of each team during official games, so it seems improbable that the extra information could have reached the ears of the players.
However, it is paramount that this potential exploit be fixed for the sake of competitive integrity, lest Riot find themselves in the same situation as ESIC did over a year ago.
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