Epic has responded to fan criticism and adjusted the balance of Fortnite. Today, on August 9th, a hotfix went live for Fortnite, which makes some adjustments to the balance of weapons and building. The P90 and the drum gun are on the chopping block. We show you the patch notes in English.
What Epic has done: Epic has made some changes to Fortnite’s balance. Building is to be strengthened again and two super weapons, the submachine gun (the P90) and the drum gun are to be weakened.
Epic says that every weapon should fulfill its purpose. Also, building should be effective and useful in fights. This is apparently in jeopardy in close combat, which is why Epic believes it needs to adjust the balance here.
- The winners: Building and shotguns should be the winners at short range
- The losers: Submachine guns are the losers of the patch
The patch notes for the balance update in Fortnite
This is how Epic strengthens building: When building, walls now start with a higher initial condition, especially stone walls and metal walls are now significantly stronger:
- The initial health points of wooden walls increase from 80 to 90.
- The initial health points of stone walls increase from 80 to 100.
- And the initial health points of metal walls increase from 80 to 110.
What is the idea behind this? Players have complained that they can no longer protect themselves through building. It should now be more difficult to shoot through walls, even when they have just been built.
This is how Epic weakens the submachine gun
- The submachine gun does instead of 22/21 only 21/20 damage (at legendary and epic)
- The magazine size decreases from 50 to 40
This is how Epic weakens the drum gun
- At 3500 length units, the damage drops to 70% (previously 80%)
- At 5000 length units, the damage drops to 55% (previously 65%)
- Damage reduction for environmental projects now matches that for players
- Aim accuracy while jumping decreases by an additional 5%
- Aim accuracy while aiming decreases by 10%
- And the drum gun is 40% rarer in chests and on the ground
What is behind this? The drum gun and the P90 were probably the two strongest weapons in Fortnite recently. Both were too strong at short and medium range and could especially dismantle buildings quickly. Previously, only the minigun was suitable for this.
The two top weapons are to be toned down with the patch so that other weapons also have their justification.
When is this going live? The patch is already live. However, Epic reserves the right to change the balance again if further feedback arises or if problems are seen.
Here is the background to this article:
