The week that followed my incredible high of playing in the Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS) qualifier with BushCampDad was laden with challenges. Categorically, the challenges were related to:
- Game-play strategy needed adjustments
- Upward Ranking is more difficult
- Stream Snipers surfacing
Game-Play Strategy & Cars
Cars are everywhere in Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 3! They are very powerful and can be equipped with weapons and accessories like bullet-proof wheels. The cars make it much easier for players to travel long distances quickly. Players love them. Players hate them. I have a love/hate relationship with them.
Fortnite’s creator Epic has been toning down the power of cars and adding means to combat them ever since the season began. They re-introduced Boogie Bombs, Shield Breaker EMPs, as well as changing who can man the weapons inside a vehicle.
Those measures have worked to some extent. Still. The cars rule!
As each game nears its ending and gets down to 10 players, the storm forces the remaining players into small playing areas. Frequently, at that time, the majority of players are racing around in cars shooting at each other. Forts are unsafe as they are too easily knocked or shot down by cars. The game has become more like “Car”Nite than “Fort”Nite.
Drivers love running over bushes making it much more dangerous to camp in them. When advanced players spot someone in a car, they will typically jump in, take control and or eliminate them there. All hard lessons.
I adjusted my Fortnite strategy to accommodate for the cars by:
- Using them to get around the map and exit the storm quickly
- Camping in them and manning the car’s weapon during the early and middle times of a game
- At later stages of a game, park my car in as hidden of an area as possible. Get out of the car. Camp somewhere safer nearby like a building or tree. When storm starts back up, get back in the car.
Upward Ranking is More Difficult
Last season was the first season I ranked to Unreal and blogged about my adventure. Currently, I’m at Champion level but its been an incredibly slow grind upwards with several backslides in my ranking level.
This season has been harder to rank upwards since hitting “Champion”. The algorithm will typically advance me just 1 or 2 percentage points for a ninth place finish or better. Last season, a similar result would have yielded a gain more like 2-4%. Some examples of how difficult ranking up has been were games I played where:
- A 7th place finish that yielded no ranking progress
- A 10th place finish lost 1% of my progress
That’s pretty brutal!
Stream Snipers Surface
As if all the aforementioned challenges aren’t enough, now I have to take precautions against Stream Snipers. Stream snipers use information from another player’s live stream to gain a tactical advantage. This information is usually used for disrupting the Streamer’s game play. It often leads to the Streamer’s premature elimination by the Stream Sniper. Stream Snipers can sometimes be “friendly” and try and help players succeed. This is less common and although well-intentioned, still disruptive.
Last Friday, I encountered my first hostile Stream Sniper. They followed, harassed, and eliminated me quickly in back-to-back games. This resulted in me ending my broadcast early and losing several hard-earned percentage points in my ranking.
I learned and instituted some techniques to help mitigate Stream Sniping. This knowledge was obtained from reading articles, watching videos, and talking with others experienced with this bullying tactic. Stream Snipers can’t totally be stopped by Streamers. The essence of a stream is to share game play interactions as close to real-time as possible. I expect to have to continue learning and adjusting my streaming processes to minimize the damage Stream Sniping can cause.
Closing Thoughts
Challenges abound! Part of the joy that I get out of playing Fortnite and streaming comes from solving problems. I find overcoming the challenges and achieving goals very rewarding. Therefore, my goals remain unchanged. They are to have fun, rank up, and share my journey via live streams and thru this Fortnite blog.
