In Fortnite, Epic has implemented its plan and actually weakened building in a patch. However, not all players are happy about this. Critics fear that Fortnite loses its “key element” with building. Additionally, professionals now have a new scapegoat when they lose: It’s the meta’s fault. 

What Epic has changed: It wasn’t a big topic in the media, but Fortnite actually implemented the plan with patch 5.10 one week ago and made building weaker.

While most focused on the fact that the weapon balance for submachine guns was changed, there were also simultaneous changes to the forts.

This is how Epic nerfed the forts in patch 5.1

Buildings now start with fewer hit points:

• The wooden wall starts with 80 hit points instead of 100
• A stone wall starts with 80 instead of 90

Additionally, buildings now have fewer maximum hit points:

• The wooden wall now has only 150 instead of 200
• The metal wall has more hit points: 500 instead of 400 – but it takes 25 seconds to reach these points; previously, the metal wall reached 400 after 20 seconds

No more building, please

Why was this done? Epic had already stated at the end of June: It cannot be that building is the only option. Players should also be able to win without building. There should be multiple ways to the top. Different playstyles should lead to victory.

Since then it was clear: something would change. Epic is going to nerf building in Fortnite.

More on the topic

Fortnite will change: One should be able to win without super building skills

von Robert Albrecht

The extensive and massive building is expressed in Fortnite in two extreme cases:

• Once it is built astonishingly quickly when two top players face each other – it’s about who occupies the high ground and builds the height advantage. Fortresses grow to the sky in no time at all according to certain patterns
• And on the other hand, there is nested tunneling in eSports, where players play with maximum caution and move minimally. This building looked strange when Fortnite pro Myth demonstrated it:

Top players love building

Protest against the new building: Even before the nerf, streamers had spoken out against Epic changing building. For streamers, building is a crucial element of Fortnite and the feature that defines the game and sets it apart from other games.

More on the topic

Popular streamers warn: Fortnite without building is a bad idea!

von Robert Albrecht

High skill ceiling:

• On one hand, top players see building as the key element that allows the better player to prevail.
• On the other hand, “building” was a primal promise of Fortnite. A reddit thread stating: “After the building nerfs, we need to remind Epic of something” received over 7300 upvotes. This was the reminder image:

New scapegoat: The silly new meta

Esport players have a new enemy, the meta: Now that the changes are really active, some are complaining that “forts” in Fortnite can no longer withstand enough damage.

Here, pro player Jake “Poach” Brumleve from Liquid shows clear frustration in the stream because his cover is being shot down. However, his opponent here uses a minigun, a weapon specifically designed to destroy buildings.

Is this already a new meta “spray and pray?”

Some already call the new meta “spray and pray.” Critics of the new meta believe that it is the decline of “Fortnite with skill.” However, the changes are still relatively minor.

What comes next? One can be curious about how this will develop. Were the changes a week ago already the end of the building nerfs in Fortnite or just the beginning?

At least a sniper rifle is to come that will shoot through walls. One can imagine how professionals will react should someone eliminate them with it.

More on the topic

Fortnite: New sniper should shoot through walls – Is this the building nerf?

von Jürgen Horn

Your opinion is important to us!

Do you like the article? Then let us know!

I like it! Comment

To boost their children’s confidence and skills in Fortnite, well-off parents are now hiring coaches to provide their offspring with lessons in the shooter. One can pay up to $50 an hour. Some fathers even take lessons themselves.

Who offers this service? There have been coaches for certain video games for a while now. And there have been sites like Bidvine or Gamer Sensei, which connect players with professional coaches for Hearthstone or FIFA. This is nothing new.

Especially in the huge game FIFA, there are thousands of “tutors” who make money from it.

However, the usual customers of the coaches are young-at-heart adults in their 20s and 30s, who spend their own money to become better at these games. They lack the time to keep up but have plenty of money to improve.

They are usually ambitious and thrive in their jobs. Still, they are tired of losing to their old friends who have more time for gaming than they do. Therefore, they are willing to spend some money to be coached by a professional and thus improve.

Children need to be good at Fortnite due to social pressure

New phenomenon since March: But now there is a different audience. Parents are paying for the coaches out of their own pockets so that the children can become better at Fortnite. Since March, Bidvine has already hired 1400 Fortnite coaches.

More on the topic

About the UK site Bidvine, Fortnite professionals earn €34 an hour

von Jürgen Horn

Reason Social Pressure: As the Wall Street Journal reports, parents pay for various reasons to help their children improve:

A project manager says with concern: Her 10-year-old son is under social pressure, not only to play Fortnite but also to be good at it. She has paid for her son four hours at $50. He is now afraid his friends will think he is cheating because he has suddenly improved so much.

My child will become an eSports professional and pay for my retirement

Reason Future Investment: A software developer from Texas pays for his son’s Fortnite tutoring for another reason. He is like an ambitious “sports dad.” He believes his son can become good enough to be a Fortnite eSports player later and make money at tournaments.

He is not alone in this idea. Another father, who works at Twitch, hopes that one of his three sons can make it to professional status. Then he could pay for his retirement.

Some want to keep up with their kids

The reason is fun: Other parents enjoy playing Fortnite with their children and want stronger team partners. A father from Georgia gifted his son an hour of lessons for his birthday, trained alongside him, and realized how much it helped.

Then ambition took over. Now he regularly takes lessons together with his son. This also strengthens the father-son relationship.

Another father, a software engineer from California, only wanted to be good enough to keep up with his kids. However, they rejected that and even teased him for taking lessons.

But dad persevered, and now the training is slowly bearing fruit. The 11-year-old son finds this not very funny. He does not want to live in a world where his father is better at Fortnite than he is.

This is what the trainers say: For the paid eSports trainers, who charge between $20 and $50 an hour, this situation is somewhat confusing. One is quoted as saying: “This feels surreal to me. My father would have never paid for this for me.”

Gaming comes into the mainstream, but it is probably something for high earners

What it’s about: The interesting thing is that many of the currently 10-year-old kids now have parents who grew up with video games themselves. And they understand this – it is not new territory for them. This shows that gaming is becoming mainstream simply due to the generational shift. Even if coaching may seem a bit strange.

It is also interesting that the parents who pay for their kids’ training have “well-paying jobs.” They probably do not have to stretch every euro twice.

Despite all the understanding and social pressure: For most regular earners, there are probably more important things than paying for their kids’ tutoring in video games.

In any case, it is a more pleasant approach to the topic than the bare panic that others spread:

More on the topic

“Help, my child plays Fortnite!” – What parents should know about it

von Robert Albrecht

Your opinion is important to us!

Do you like the article? Then let us know!

I like it! Comment