When 2 good squads are fighting each other they both end up wasting almost all mats and that’s a big reason why competitive fornite everyone just camps and are scared to fight /discuss
I saved this quote a few weeks ago. Sorry I did not save a link to the post.
Lets be realistic – waste is the wrong word. They spend their resources. It is only a waste in the context of the overall match. Yes they are wasted for end game in this way but it is better to approach this puzzle from the perspective of spending resources and the economy rather than trying to.. stop waste?
Lowering maximum material would potentially have a positive impact on this aspect of the game.
Bear with me. There was a great overview of the competitive scene posted last week (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJBcSG8qnd0) –
There appear to be two problems. The first is lack of reason to commit to fights before end game. This has had discussions and suggestions like “make kills more important” and “use supply drops to get people to fight”. Both are reasonable suggestions at face value. There is risk but make the rewards worthwhile – more shields from drops, only drop desirable weapons, more meds etc. The merits and drawbacks have been debated decently already. Personally I dislike just using kills but it could be possible. However this aspect is not one to focus on just now. It is still an issue even if the material problem is solved but needs to be addressed separately.
The second aspect is materials. In reality this is the “big” problem. The example used in the video above is players taking fights, spending resources to win (or lose or disengage) that fight then having none, or significantly less left for later in the game. In this way the fight is never worth taking because players cripple their effectiveness vs other teams that have not taken material heavy fights. Even with the other teams resources (weapons, ammo, meds, left over mats) they are at a disadvantage. Players may be able to gather resources later, or not. It really depends. For example later circles at the barren area near anarchy acres is different to ending near wailing woods.. And even gathering resources later has risks associated that a team who opts not to fight does not need to face. This can potentially also impact teams ability to setup in desirable locations later in the game as the circles shrink. With the more recent changes to
With this in mind it is easy to see why players are so passive in competitive games. Even if you win an encounter you still end up in the red. If you think back to early days when there were only +50 shield potions you will see the similarities. Once you had a shield you wanted to preserve it as long as possible into late game because the likelyhood of finding another one was quite low. In the same way you cannot spend your materials because you need them available for later.
In other games the risk:reward is dictated and gated by the round (in a game like CS) or item dynamics (quake/ut) where the risk is whatever time was spent to gather stack to contest the spawn. In CS the risk for this round carries into the next via economy to a degree, however the amount of risk is known going into the start of the round based on what your team buys. In Quake you spend ~60seconds stacking to contest the next mega spawn. If you die/take significant damage you need to start again. I don’t play MOBAs or RTS but I imagine a similar idea is there. Perhaps in these games once one player gets too far ahead their advantage snowballs leading them to win the game.
In Fortnite if you spend a significant portion of the game gathering resources then use the majority in one encounter you, or your squad ends up screwed later. This is ignoring other aspects like ammo, having players knocked out permanently, positioning, etc.
This seems obvious.
In part this is due to the nature of BR and games with more than two teams. If there were only two teams on a map and the game played the way it does now taking that fight is fine, at least from the material aspect. You know that if you win you do not need to conserve resources for future fights. You would then be judging your materials vs their materials. Even in this scenario I believe the “safe” play would simply be “get as much as possible” since it is impossible to know how much your opponent has – in order to not be out resourced you just get more. This is segueing away from the idea but ties into some points later.
Watching that video and reading /r/FortniteCompetitive/ seems to indicate that fights outside of late game mega-build-mess comes down to who has more materials anyway. When they do occur the winning team is left with nothing, or very little, which seems to indicate that one team “outbuilt” the other. In this case seems to mean they had more materials to utilise during the build fight, or spent their material more efficiently. The team they killed drops nothing of note and they have little left to use. This is important.
The often suggested “fix” to this is more resources. This could come in the way of killed players dropping extra loot or increasing resource gathering from the world. Neither of those really solve the problem unless the extra dropped is significant to the tune of 1000-2000 per kill. This would likely have the impact of forcing teams that opt not to engage to simply farm max everything, meaning they would still potentially have an advantage late game vs teams that are killing, unless they are getting more than three kills per player. Not 100% accurate but lets use it as a starting point. If gathering materials was increased there is still the potential to not have enough and so avoiding engagements and saving materials is still important.
In most games resources are scarce to a degree. Giving players unlimited ammo or other resources is not common. However suggestions of making resources extremely easily available can potentially stifle other aspects of the game. Another point to note is that resources are required to obtain resources and have fights. In a gametype with more than two “players” this impacts options later in the match, leading players to take the safer alternative of not engaging. This is akin to playing a six player FFA in starcraft and then backdooring opponents after they have a fight. Long gametimes with a long resource gathering curve is a bad mix. FFA in other games, like quake or ut is controlled by item spawns, so while a death is a set back a player can still get back into the fight relatively quickly. This is not the case in fortnite currently.
Basically the current economy is the length of the game*.
The late game mega structures are also a potential problem. They are not viewer friendly.
Lets recap quickly:
1) The game lacks interaction drivers in its current state. Suggested fixes include kills=points and modified supply drops.
2) Materials are important and spending resources before end game can put you on the backfoot heavily even if you win the encounter. Remember this is ignoring external influences like other players attacking you while you fight or heal. Purely from a one team vs one team perspective.
3) Early to mid game is characterised by resource gathering for later in the game. Gathering later may become risky (more teams), may be impossible (circle on resource light area, other teams) and also constrains teams ability to take up desirable locations towards the later circles – either because they do not have the resources to or because they are not spending time gathering rather than setting up.
4) Outcome of fights before end game seem to be strongly tied to who has the most resources. If teams are left with little resources and both teams players have build large structures trying to out maneuver each other it stands to reason that the deciding factor in many cases is the amount of resources going into the fight.
Where does that leave us?
If players are constantly avoiding fights due to fear of using resources but using all their resources in a fight then why is the solution to give more resources? Players should be able to carry enough materials that allow fun/impressive build fights but if running out of materials often decides fights then the game needs to limit material maximums rather than giving almost unlimited resources. This way players know how much they have, know how much their opponent has and can work within these parameters during the fight.
In addition to setting a more reasonable limit to the size of a fight it also means that players can material up much faster afterwards. If players were limited to 200 of each resource, or 600 total in any mix, then getting back to that is much faster, even with the current game world. Players do not need to dedicate time to gathering after a fight. This is purely from an economy perspective, not a “it is boring to farm” perspective. Currently there is no economy as players spending large amount of resources outside of late game are putting themselves at a disadvantage. 200/600 are numbers picked out of the air. It is important epic tweak farming and material totals to allow harvesting between fights through mid game while also allowing decently impressive build fights.
This has a number of flow on effects. Fights come to a conclusion faster because there are less materials available. Teams will know how much resource their opponent will have because carrying max is important, which buffs building ability to a degree. More efficient building may be important as waste is a potential problem, however this depends on the cap. For example if materials were capped at 200 then one build piece is a large spend vs one piece with 1000 max.
Lower cap also impacts end game turtling to a degree. If players were previously spending a decent amount setting up on high ground towards the end of the game then choosing to spend a large amount with lower cap before knowing where the circle will be is wasteful. Assuming that the only change is material cap and gathering rate the game will still remain passive. However players will have to pick their risk. If you build solidly you risk wasting materials that you cannot regather in time to be effective late game, however if you do not build heavily you are potentially more vulnerable. A lower cap pushes the cut off for spending material later.
There are different ways to cap materials and they have different trade offs. You could choose to cap each at 300(eg) or have 900 total in whatever mix you like. If per material cap were used then players would need to farm each material at a similar level of importance, which could promote moving around the map more. It would also promote intelligent use of mats. For example if metal is less important due to lower base HP during build fights it might be used more for map traversal. However if players are trying to take high ground on a hill and know there are trees, or brick at the top then using one of these makes more sense as they can top up their freshly used resources. If a total pool is used then the fastest to gather material makes more sense.
It is my opinion that epic have been made aware of the viewer unfriendliness of competitive fortnite via “the divisions”. Their current stance on the matter has been phrased as “we want all players of different styles to win”, however it is more likely that they want to address the turtle meta and also address lack of interaction drivers at the same time. Both problems will eventually appear in pub games. Saying the game is being made more noob friendly is misplaced. Currently the pub meta is not the same as competitive, however this is in part because competitive is not talked outside of this sub and the competitive community. It is not front and center for most players. At some point SBMM will be implemented – I imagine some time between when the influx of new players tapers off and when the lower tier players get sick of being farmed by much better players.
And building being strong will have an impact on lower parts of the ladder as well. If players are not mechanically inclined they will not be able to kill opponents who decide to turtle and turbo build walls forever. Once this becomes the meta for the lower part of the player base it will have a worse impact than it does to better players. There have been comments lamenting players who can build but never shoot on r/competitivefortnite from time to time. Imagine players that can’t build fight, can’t aim but can build boxes to sit in.
So in the longer term this will impact the rest of the player base.
I hope epic can address the issue without destroying build fights entirely. I also hope that they can add incentives to build fight more often in spectacular ways because that is interesting and fun to watch. This is the other aspect I have touched on but not addressed.
Unreal Tournament duel player interaction.
Fortnite Battle Royale
One Response