This is the first season I decided to give Fortnite Ranked a try to see how high of a player ranking I could achieve. Battle Royale and Zero Build have separate game play modes where players can advance through a series of ranking levels. The first level is Bronze, followed by Gold, Silver, Platinum, Diamond, Elite, Champion, and the ultimate level is Unreal. Each level from Bronze through Diamond has 3 sub-levels. Elite, Champion, and Unreal each have only one level. Here’s a great article that discusses
Learn more about how Fortnite rankings work.
My Challenges
I’m challenged right from the start for a few reasons:
- I’m starting at a very low level so I basically have the entire ladder to climb. Because I’ve rarely played ranked games in the past the algorithm started me off at Bronze III.
- I’m time limited. I have a full time job. This limits me to only be able to play a few games per day which makes it impossible to compete against those that spend their entire days playing Fortnite.
- I’m skills limited. I don’t have great building or aiming skills.
- I’m patience limited. The primary way to advance in ranking, is to survive the longest. Another big bonus is to get eliminations near the end of the game. This requires me to gather the best weapons I can find and remain undetected for most of the game. It’s hard for me to resist a nearby skirmish so I have a tendency to engage when I should just wait it out.
This isn’t to complain! It’s to be realistic about assessing the type of player I am. Knowing my limitations help me create an awareness of what I need to do to keep progressing.
My Journey & Learnings
My journey “to rank” started several days ago. I’ve progressed to the 3rd level of Platinum so far and learned the following:
- Every Fortnite Ranked level gets progressively more difficult as the players are more skilled.
- Rarely do I get an easy kill in Fortnite Ranked whereas in Unranked, I usually get several. I think this is because Ranked games contain full fields of real players and Unranked games can contain a lot of bots and inexperienced players.
- My ability to rack up eliminations has decreased as I’m progressing through the ranks. At the levels of Bronze, Silver, and Gold, I averaged an elimination per game. Since reaching Platinum, I’m down to about one elimination for every 3 games I play.
- Patience is the key to steady progress.
- Playing Ranked games advances my ranking but doesn’t advance me much as a player. I don’t get to work on my building or attacking skills in the matches which curtails my learning. Also, it’s not much fun to spend most of my time hiding.
Where This Leads
I don’t know but want to find out. I’m going to give it one season to see how high I can rank. Since learning, improving, and having fun are important to me, I still plan on playing 25% of my games Unranked. I’m looking forward to keeping you updated on my progress!
