Build fights, what are they and why were they fun
Build fights were the crowning glory of Fortnite Battle Royale.
Build fights occur when two players or teams meet then build for high ground.
This often involves starting to “Ramp up” when 8-6 tiles away from each other.
This ramp up can end up deciding the fight as one player ends up lower than the other.
After the two sets of ramps meet players build upwards while keeping track of their opponent.
The goal is to keep high ground over your opponent and take opportunities to shoot them when they are vulnerable.
Building is considered one of the higher skilled aspects of Fortnite BR and a build fight is considered the high point of this skill. Two players/groups, toe to toe, skills only.
The current meta – epic buffing C4 and explosives
https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/counterplay-and-play-styles?sessionInvalidated=true
In patches since late June 2018 Epic have buffed and nerfed weapons and mechanics in an effort to allow different variations of counter play.
You could interpret this in many ways.
If you were a sweaty tier reddit poster this is epic trying to make the game easier for bad players by adding SMGs that can laser players from 400m.
If you were a decent player who could build you might blame epic for trying to nerf building.
If you were truly switched on you would understand that this is epic struggling to fix the underlying problems of the game.
Granted it is failing to do what epic wanted but the discussions are fun to watch regardless.
Lamenting the current meta is what people are doing
Players are lamenting the loss of whatever meta they liked previously.
This has accelerated over the past month with Epic going a bit full retard on changes.
The weapon meta was stagnant for a long time with the first major changes attempted by epic being the double pump fix in patch 3.0.0 – February 21 2018
Prior to this patch the meta was stable with weapon additions from epic not leaving lasting impressions. This lasted for around six months while the game matured.
The meta changed, but not because of weapon additions/changes, more because players were discovering how to play. The meta evolved organically. This is important to remember.
You could argue that double pump was a change in the meta, and it was, however it had been there since day 1.
It changed how people were playing, but not because epic had tried to change anything.
Is the current meta really causing the fall off in build fights?
Yes and no.
The game is moving away from build fights for a number of reasons.
On the surface it looks like epic trying to change weapon balance and weapons that destroy buildings easily.
My stance is that this is a minor aspect, the weapons themselves are not super important provided players use them.
Take the new SMGs for instance. They shred(ded) structures and players. They have been nerfed since the introduction of the compact SMG but building has not changed much overall.
However the original SMG, even the first one that was vaulted, destroyed structures quickly.
In fact before the recent hotfix (week starting 23rd July) that rolled back the P90/new SMG ridiculousness the older SMGs were potentially more effective vs structures than they are now.
Granted you needed to be at the right range due to bloom for it to be effective but it was still useful.
New weapons make people try new things. When something is obviously quite strong it will get use.
If the current new SMGs were removed and the game rolled back to pre-SMG buff weapon balance players would start taking the old SMGs to destroy buildings.
Why? Because they now understand that it is possible, however to get more people/most people actually using the weapon the game needed to add something that was more.. better.
Current Fortnite meta of passive play
The game has been moving towards passive play in 1×1 for at least the last season. Probably longer.
Players will turtle and stay away from their opponents, moving as the storm forces them to.
Late game before the new circles that can be in the storm (excellent change epic), perhaps circle 4-5 it is now common for players to simply build a small 1×1 and wait to move.
Even peeking opponents at this point can be dangerous so playing safe and sitting in your box/tower is becoming more common.
In the past players may have pushed their opponents.
Aggressive play is more dangerous and playing like this can lead to death or taking unnecessary damage.
In a scenario where two players can see each other and have boxes built one will have an advantage of some kind.
High ground is one of the primary advantage.
In this situation the player with the advantage will not want to give it up (unless required) to attack their opponent.
At the same time the player in the less than ideal position does not want to attack because they are disadvantage.
While they may be less advantaged right now the circle might push their opponent from the high ground into them.
And while they might be disadvantaged unless their opponent has significant height advantage they can sit happily in their 1×1 and not take damage.
In this way the game goes forwards in an overall passive manner with players not wanting to give up advantages or take risks from disadvantaged situations.
Weapon and material changes have borne the brunt of blame for this.
(Material drop chances in floor loot reduced by 33%. Material stack sizes in floor loot reduced by 33%. https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/patch-notes/v4-3-content-update)
Some numbers for the floor loot change were kicking around reddit subs when the adjusments were implemented.
The total loss could be 1-200 over the course of a game.
This was based on a rough guess at the number of floor loot stacks they would pickup themselves + killed opponents.
This amounts to 2-4 pallets, 5-6 trees or 5-6 large rocks.
This means players have to spend an extra 1-2 minutes per game gathering. Maximum.
Fortnite has a lot of down time, even in games where the circle does not favor the player.
This is especially true in a heavily competitive environment where teams try to avoid fights as much as possible.
This is not a convincing argument for the decline of build fights.
The maximum impact this had was early game for players who did not gather any resources and relied on killing opponents.
SMG changes and the drumgun were also blamed.
Is explosives/C4 causing this?
Along with SMG and shotgun changes Epic also buffed explosives and C4.
Explosives now deal damage through structures. This means the ramp inside your 1×1 will be damaged by a rocket or grenade hitting the wall in front of it.
It means that C4 with its larger range destroys multiple “cubes” worth of structure.
The AOE size of C4 has been dialed back since its original buff, however it is still very effective and nullifies player 1x1s easily.
This is especially true of towers three high, where the attacking player can destroy the structure and deal damage while their opponent falls before they can build again.
As we can see the explosive changes should make turtling late game less effective, however if anything it is used more than previously.
The reason is simple – while it is easier than ever to destroy a players 1×1 the risk in doing so remains the same.
In the past when you pushed a good player a build fight would occur as both players fight for high ground.
Now if you push and your opponent does not build up you are left holding your dick.
The material gathering rate
What else could cause it? Could it be the base game
Were build fights ever required?
Build fights – get highground and win. Get highground and never lose it.
Side bar : is building skillful.
If its not the cu
https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/category/patch%20notes
V.3.0.0 PATCH NOTES 2.21.2018
https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/v3-0-0-patch-notes
Double Pump nerf
V.3.1.0 PATCH NOTES 2.28.2018
Hunting rifle Added
V3.2 PATCH NOTES 3.8.2018
V3.3 PATCH NOTES 3.15.2018
C4 Added
V3.3 PATCH NOTES 3.15.2018
llamas added
V3.4 PATCH NOTES 3.28.2018
Guided missle
V3.4 CONTENT UPDATE | 4.4.2018 2.21.2018
VENDING MACHINE
First shot accuracy + damage falloff
Floor Loot adjustments – Materials drop rate increased 50%.
Resource gathering rates adjusted.
– Increased most Wood resource values by about 10%.
– Reduced variance of resources from objects. Was +/- 30%, now +/- 15%.
This meant that an object with a base 100 resource value could have been anywhere between 70 and 130 resources. Now it would give between 85 and 115.
V3.5 PATCH NOTES 4.11.2018
Added port-a-fort
Added replays
Added a short equip time to many weapons (particularly, those with a slower rate of fire).
– This will reduce the effectiveness of quickly switching between weapons for high burst-damage.
– Removed the reloading animation on the Pump Shotgun.
Prior to this change things were screwed with
Added new SCAR audio
V3.5 CONTENT UPDATE 4.19.2018
Light Machine Gun
Peeking is being reverted back to how it functioned prior to v3.5. – not included in the 3.5 notes
V3.6 PATCH NOTES 4.24.2018
Clinger
V4.0 PATCH NOTES – SEASON 4 IS HERE! – patch notes on epic site are missing here
INFINITY GAUNTLET 5.8.2018
V4.1 PATCH NOTES 5.8.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
V4.2 PATCH NOTES 5.15.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
FAMAS
V4.2 CONTENT UPDATE 5.22.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
jetpack
V4.3 PATCH NOTES 5.25.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
Shopping carts
V4.3 CONTENT UPDATE 6.5.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
bounce pads
V4.4 PATCH NOTES 6.11.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
Thermal AR
V4.4 CONTENT UPDATE 6.19.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
Gas grenade
COUNTERPLAY AND PLAY STYLES 6.22.2018
This post
V4.5 PATCH NOTES 6.27.2018 – patch notes on epic site are missing here
Dual pistols
V4.5 CONTENT UPDATE
Drum gun
We shouldn’t give epic a free pass on the shit decisions they’ve made unless they’ve given us a reason for it
But it is obvious.
The game until around July was quite static. Many weapons and items were introduced, most were useless. They did not change the game significantly. The biggest “change” from release was mainstreaming double shotguns, which was present from day one. Shotguns and players learning to build. The meta changed organically.
Epic addressed that in the first “big” change, the original double pump nerf in February. However even past this point two shotguns still reigned supreme.
Even with lowering of shotgun damage via fall off, headshot multiplier two shotguns were common carry.
It was not until the current cludge of delay after swapping back to shotgun were multiples finally not worth carrying.
Building up to this patch there were other changes. Explosives ammo nerfed, the explosives buffed. If epic were trying to address passive play they would not have nerfed the ammo. At this point epic are unaware of pro meta, even though it should have been obvious in a game with little reason to fight.
Up to this point epic are doing heaps of stuff, all the time but nothing changes. They don’t care. Competitive players know how to play, casual players get new weapons to play with almost every week which they like (but no comp players do) and overall people are happy. There is variety if you want it and the “way” to play if you don’t. Some aspects are toned down but overall the game is reasonably stable.
Announcements for esports were made, divisions private keys were revoked and epic become aware of the elephan in the room. The pro meta. This is bad for esports play, it is bad for competitive (because they want it to be exciting) and overall it is bad they discovered it AFTER their esport 100mil announcement because now they need to fast track a solution.
They made posts about wanting players to be able to play in different ways after this – and then went ahead and removed the base SMG, removed FSA from the tac smg and turned the silenced SMG into a laser (Jun 27th). This was the patch where stuff started to change significantly. This patch was the turning point, but we were not there yet because you could still use two shotguns. This is important because they wanted to allow multiple ways to play and this was essentially it. The tac SMG change in this patch was fine – it always shredded buildings but now you could kill playres with it. This patch did not get a long enough life to see how it would play out – epic are now in full retard change shit panic mode.
Next we have the addition of the drum gun, which makes minimal waves for the next week until..
The next patch, the launch of season 5 was the killer for shotguns. After firing a shotgun, another shotgun cannot be fired for a very short time. Double shotguns are not no longer worth carrying in most circumstances.
The next important patch was the new SMG+P90 was introduced and the tac removed was the turning point. However this was not heavily required as the previous patch with the tac SMG change had already started the ball rolling. Had players had sufficient time to play with the previous tac it would have ended up in a similar place. My theory here is that changing an existing weapon has different impact to adding a new one. By adding a new basic SMG and the P90 variant, Epic draw attention to the new weapon and significantly increase the uptake of it.
We know what goes from here.
Now you might be saying “yes, this all points to them trying to nerf shotguns” and you would be correct. However there is a long time period there where they are changing thing but at the same time not changing things.
After this and the realisation that esports was going to be totally fucked by the pro meta they have gone turbo retard changing things.
If you think that all the changes have been because they want to “give people different ways to play” you are delusional. It is because they don’t want to look like total idots on the world stage with 60 players in the last circles. For a few reasons : Server performance, dryness of leadup to last circle, impossibleness to follow late game with so many people alive.
We are seeing their inept flailing to address lack of interaction drivers and the broken material economy while thinking that the problem is “players are too passive/defensive”. Thus they load the game up with things to kill buildings (SMGs) and play a more mobile game.
The meta we see has been there since day one and would have matured down the path it has taken because of other, larger, underlying problems than “Shotguns are OP”.
Few weapons have made it into meta load outs over the games past ~year. There are other items added obviously but because I said weapons I will only look at that.
Historically meta loadout went something like this:
1. Shotgun, AR, Sniper + 2 meds or 1med + explosive
2. Double shotgun. Until 7.12.2018
3. Spray meta evolved after the addition of the compact SMG but could have started after the first SMG revamp. To be honest we could have had the spray meta with the original SMGs, at least the building breaking aspects. But this never happened.
Here is the history.
9.12.2017 – BR release
11.29.2017 – Smoke grenades (a)
12.24.2017 – Boogie bombs (a)
1.2.2018 – Silenced Pistol
2.1.2018 – Minigun*
2.8.2018 – Crossbow
2.13.2018 – Impulse Grenade (a)
2.21.2018 – Hand cannon – Used now but until FSA and recent changes but was not useful and not taken
2.28.2018 – Hunting Rifle
3.15.2018 – C4 added (1)
3.28.2018 – Guided Missile
FSA patch here somewhere
4.4.2018 – FSA
4.19.2018 – LMG*
4.24.2018 – Clingers
5.15.2018 – FAMAS – Used now but not useful until after burst changes
6.11.2018 – Scoped thermal
6.19.2018 – Gas grenade (a)
6.27.2018 – Dual Pistols – SMG Rework
7.3.2018 – Drum gun
7.12.2018 – After firing a shotgun, another shotgun cannot be fired for a very short time (b)
7.17.2018 – SMG
7.24.2018 – Compact SMG (c)
8.7.2018 – Double Barrel
8.7.2018 – Heavy Sniper
9.6.2018 – Burst Change
9.11.2018 – Silenced SCAR
10.10.2018 – Quad launcher
11.6.2018 – Heavy AR
11.19.2018 – Six shooter
Missed the silenced SMG. Probably missed some others.
In short we have from release till 7.12.2018 of weapon additions that were either not used, did not change the meta or were not swapped out when a superior weapon of the same type was found (eg swapping out hunting rifle for bolt). The weapon type changes in bold buffed some weapons which were previously unused.
(a) grenades are useful but rarely worth taking over other, permanent items in an inventory slot. This has an odd effect of making lower quality items better because you are more likely to find a full stack.
(b) To this point nothing made in roads into the meta because two shotguns.
(c) This is where the spray meta started, however it could have occurred almost a month before with the SMG changes. Not until the introduction of the (originally) OP compact did the possibilities click for players. In addition players could have been using the LMG for structure breaking prior to this. Or the SMGs the game had originally, but likely only in the better variants.
Overall new weapons have not been used. In the past something like the hand cannon was trash due to lack of FSA, making it useless in most cases. Even after FSA the hand cannon was not used overly much until the more recent buffs, finally making its way into players inventories. Some of these aspects have been tweaked over time but these changes have taken a long time.
It is only since the SMG changes and compact SMG that weapons are actually getting use.
Game Economies