This is a continuation of the series of a 64 year old pops (that’s me) blogging my journey to see what level I can achieve in this season’s Fortnite Ranked Battle Royale Build (Chapter 5 Season 2). Each week, I share my progress, observations, and learnings.
This Week’s Progress
More pain! A few days ago I was making fantastic progress and was 62% through the Champion level. One day later, I slid backwards to 49%. The week started at 36% so this week’s progress is the same as last week, 13%.
Week 7 – Journey & Learnings
- Resilience is required! A top 7th to 12th place finish yielded me typically 0-1% gain. Finishing in 4th-6th place yielded a 1-2% gain. Finishing 13th to 22nd yielded a 1 % gain to a 1% loss. Finishing 23rd or higher was a punishing 2-4% loss. You can clearly see that every game that isn’t finished in the top 20 usually has a demoralizing influence on my ranking. Since there’s 100 players, that means consistently being in the top 20% is critical to making progress in ranking upwards.
- The competition is fiercer than ever! Every person encountered has been a strong builder and has a keen eye for eliminating their opponent with a single shot or two.
- One of my goals this week was to take less storm damage. I was successful at that and didn’t die from storm sickness once.
- Another goal of mine was to avoid early eliminations. This is where I faltered. Several times I was eliminated with fifty something people left and each time lost 3% in my ranking. Even with me having got an elimination my ranking still suffered.
- Speaking of early eliminations, I made an interesting observation. By the time the first storm completes closing, typically only 45 to 53 players remained. It only takes 4.5 minutes for the first storm to close. Therefore, surviving the first 4.5 minutes means that more than half of the field is usually eliminated.
- Building a box helps for more than protection. Most of the players at this level are great box fighters. The player who builds the box is the only one who can edit the walls. Editing the walls gives a player an advantage in a fight. Therefore, even though building a box lets players know where you are, it also seems to discourage them from attacking it since the builder of the box has the advantage in the fight. Previously, I tried hiding behind a stone or wall near the end of the game where once found was easily eliminated. Since I started building boxes, it seems I survive a bit deeper into each game.
What’s Next
There’s only a few more weeks left to the season so I’m running out of time to reach Unreal. This season ends on May 24th and then my rank starts all over again. I must face the setbacks as learning opportunities and keep pressing on. This week I need to focus on using the storm wisely and building more at end game. Wish me luck!
