There are a hell of a lot of ways to win a Fortnite game, but the most reliable strat has gotten a little too reliable, says publisher Epic Games. In a blog post yesterday, Epic explained that they will be shaking things up a little, so players will need to get a little more resourceful.
Fortnite‘s endgame has gotten a little stale, Epic implied. If you watch the big streamers, you might know what they mean. Players frantically barricade themselves in tall forts, which they peek out of for a well-aimed shotgun blast or two when the time’s right. Players also often wear down forts with rockets.
Two main skills are generally rewarded across the game: Building huge forts fast and shotgun play. It’s cool to watch Twitch’s Fortnite‘s masters perfect this strat, but in practice, it means that Fortnite‘s final few minutes can look pretty similar game-to-game.
Epic writes, “It’s important to support a variety of late game strategies, that don’t boil down to ‘just build lol’. We strongly believe that the evolution of Fortnite supports a wide range of play styles and counterplay.
“Currently, the superiority of shotguns, rockets, and uncapped building are such a dominant play style in the final circle that most other strategies are being drowned out.”
To make Fortnite‘s endgame more varied, Epic is looking at weapon balance and, it seems, adjusting the current 999 resource cap, which would limit fort-building. It’s unclear what that will look like in practice or when it will be implemented.
Epic was clear about its goals, though: “Not every encounter should have to end in a build-off.”
Predictably, a lot of streamers and pros whose dominance relies on these strategies are upset. “FORTnite = Build,” wrote Fortnite streamer Daequan on Twitter.
“Building is what makes the game different. It’s the skill cap on the game. The game is also FUN because of building. It’s the biggest factor in Fortnite‘s success.” He continued:
The foundation of Fortnite is so strong and has so much potential. Why fix what isn’t broken. Shotguns and building is literally what hooked millions of us to this game. Building is what makes this game thrive and shotguns compliment it so perfectly.
— Daequan (@TSM_Daequan) June 21, 2018
Twitch’s most popular streamer, Ninja, also commented, saying that Fortnite is already constantly adding in new items and rebalancing old ones – its meta changes a lot – so why change its core?
“Just keep doing what you are doing,” he said. “Don’t limit me to 500 materials, please. My fear, if say they cap it at 500 across the board, you’re going to have a potential situation where a bad player is just spraying you, and you run out of materials.”
Others, such as Fortnite pros Myth and Kenith, are excited to see what happens next. Epic’s done a good job so far with Fortnite, they argue, so why stop trusting them now?
Kenith spelled it out in a post:
“A 500 Material cap sounds fine as long as they drastically increase the rate in which materials are gathered. Let me point this out first, in a build battle between two insane people, the one who has the high ground almost never loses it, forcing the other to turtle. With 999+ mats, the one turtling will never have to leave comfort zone basically. But with something along the lines of 500, they can only hold turbo for so long before running out.”
Diversifying Fortnite playstyles could open up the game’s top ranks to players with different skills. But no matter what skills you have or how good you are at shooting, building isn’t going away – so if you play Fortnite on PC, remap your damn key bindings so you don’t suck.
Comments
9 responses to “‘Just Build Lol’ Might Not Be Fortnite’s Winning Strat Much Longer”
“My fear, if say they cap it at 500 across the board, you’re going to have a potential situation where a bad player is just spraying you, and you run out of materials.”
Isn’t that.. kinda what makes it a battle royale? Doesn’t that add tension and skill to the game? If the game is just going to end with the two best players in forts every time, why play if you’re a noob? Just get a private server.
Sounds more like these “pros” are worried more about their ego than how balanced the game is.
“Yeah, how dare these opponents interrupt my intricate replica of the Sistine Chapel with such uncouth acts of shooting at me. If people want to shoot at each other, they should play PUBG, this is a gentlemanly game.”
Was just about to quote the same thing.
“you’re going to have a potential situation where a bad player is just spraying you,”
This kind of garbage is what I hate about these “pros” or “entertainers” like you said they only care about their own ego and the sweaty wins they can pull off for twitch money.
I have nothing against YouTubers or Twitch streamers it’s just when they use their popularity and ego to change a game for better or worst, Destiny Influencers and Reddit screwed wanted changes that Bungie put into Destiny 2 that made the game more crap then Destiny 1.
See this is silly, ive started playing on ps4 and holy shit its so lame to see someone build walls around themselves the moment you open fire, whats the point in an engagement if they can do that? may aswell not stalk anyone to try and get them. love the idea of lesser materials or keep it at 999 and add a delay to how often you can place a structure.
A delay would be bad because it would lower the building side skill ceiling, but I think a reduction in the resource cap would increase the skill ceiling even more due to wiley players learning how to make the most of their cap.
Yeah youre right, id still like to see maybe a delay when you first pull out the bluprints before you can place the first one, then go nuts.
Yep, I agree. The build mechanic really spoils the gunplay. Not that the gunplay is very good to begin with. I was hoping mainly for Fornite to be a less buggy PuBG 😛
It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s nice to see a good quality F2P game doing so well.
Instead of lowering the resource cap across the board, perhaps the cap should instead lower bit by bit with every new circle.
Still lets you go nuts early on, but forces a more thought out use of your materials in the later game.
I sometimes run out of 999 mats easily i just cant believe that epic is changing this. In my opinion this game is gonna lose popularity with the patch