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 theyâll be shaking things up a little, so players will need to get a little more resourceful.
Fortniteâs 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 timeâs 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. Itâs cool to watch Twitchâs Fortniteâs masters perfect this strat, but in practice, it means that Fortniteâs final few minutes can look pretty similar game-to-game.
Epic writes, âItâs important to support a variety of late game strategies, that donât boil down to âjust build lolâ. 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.â
To make Fortniteâs endgame more varied, Epic is looking at weapon balance and, it seems, adjusting the current 999 resource cap, which would limit fort-building. Itâs unclear what that will look like in practice or when it will be implemented. Epic was clear about its goals, though: âNot every encounter should have to end in a build-off.â
Predictably, a lot of streamers and pros whose dominance relies on these strategies are upset. âFORTnite = Build,â wrote Fortnite streamer Daequan on Twitter. âBuilding is what makes the game different. Itâs the skill cap on the game. The game is also FUN because of building. Itâs the biggest factor in Fortniteâs success.â 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 (@DaequanLoco) June 21, 2018
Twitchâs most popular streamer, Ninja, also commented, saying that Fortnite is already constantly adding in new items and rebalancing old onesâits meta changes a lotâso why change its core? âJust keep doing what you are doing,â he said. âDonât limit me to 500 materials, please. My fear, if say they cap it at 500 across the board, youâre going to have a potential situation where a bad player is just spraying you, and you run out of materials.â
Others, like Fortnite pros MythandKenith, are excited to see what happens next. Epicâs done a good job so far with Fortnite, they argue, so why stop trusting them now? Kenith spelled it out in a post:
âA 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.â
Diversifying Fortnite playstyles could open up the gameâs top ranks to players with different skills. But no matter what skills you have or how good you are at shooting, building isnât going awayâso if you play Fortnite on PC, remap your damn key bindings so you donât suck.
