There are a few reasons why I don’t really play Fortnite Battle Royal as often as I used to. There are mainly two reasons, but one reason is just that of school. The other reason is due to the content that the developers have been adding to the game for the past few months.
I feel like the issue started sometime between early and mid-July when the double shotguns were removed. Back then there were already previous nerfs to the use of more than one shotgun, such as changing their pullout times. It depends on who you ask, but if you’re asking me, I’d say that the CQB META’s were pretty stable. The use of two shotguns wasn’t extremely overpowered due to the nerfs, which also made the shotgun and SMG combo a viable tactic. One used slow amounts of high damage outputs, while the other was more of constant small amounts of damage. However, there was a nerf to all shotguns which made the delay of switching from one shotgun to another a lot longer (at least an entire second) which made having more than one shotgun useless. Forcing every player to switch to using SMGs, the number of options you had for CQB became limiting if you wanted to stand in the ring. There were a few new “META”s that people came up with, but they were never really consistent and a shotgun with an SMG still seems like the way to go as of now. Around early August the double barrel was introduced, but it wasn’t too impactful. After some balancing, it’s now something that could be used depending on a players preference and play style.
Moving on from the shotguns, around a week ago, the grappler and suppressed AR were added. I don’t really have anything against the suppressed AR, but the grappler doesn’t really seem to fit the game in my opinion. Some people may get confused when I say this item is “bad” because when I say it’s bad I mean it’s bad for the game. In terms of it’s use the grappler is extremely overpowered. It can be used to disengage from a fight, get really close to your opponent, gain the high ground, and travel from buildings all in around a second. If you spotted someone and you had a double barrel shotgun with a grappler, you could jump right next to them. All you have to do is click twice and the fight would be over. If you made a mistake in your building and fell a few floors. All you have to do is shoot your grappler and your back in the fight. If you didn’t have the grappler you would’ve had the low ground or just fallen to your death because of your own mistakes (as it should be). Although you can only use it 15 times before it’s destroyed, it still feels overpowered to me. And it’s not like I’m always getting destroyed by people with grapplers, but it’s the other way around. Sometimes it just feels to easy and “wrong” to be using the grappler. There are times when my enemies don’t even have a chance unless they can hear the grappler, but by that time it’ll probably be too late. In my opinion, the grappler should be vaulted (removed) as soon as possible or at least tweaked to make it more balanced. Something like a slower retraction speed after you’ve attached to something.
The last notable thing, in my opinion, is the Season 5 events. The rifts at the start were alright as a way for people to get around faster, and then there were the golf carts. Both of which ended up getting temporarily removed for bug fixing. After that were the many changes to the map, Lazy Links and Paradise Palms made sense as they fitted in with the modern aesthetic of the map. However, there were changes to one of the large mountains that used to have a house which now has a Viking style village on it with a waterfall which was kind of out of the blue. Towards the end of the season, they changed Tomato Town into Tomato Temple making it into a sort of ancient shrine which doesn’t make any sense to a player who’s not following with the story. A player not following the story would be me. As someone who just wanted to play the game, there were all of these theories about cracks in the sky, the Tomato Head, the Cube moving around the map, and all these things that just randomly start appearing in the game. Last season there was the rocket launch that transitioned into Season 5 along with a new villain lair, but not really anything that changed gameplay or the map. However, this season there seems like way too much going on that’s out of place with all the time travel and a random cube with markings on it moving around the map. Nothing really foreshadowed this in my opinion, unlike last season where the battle pass skins were themed around superheroes and villains. I don’t really know, but this season just doesn’t really sit well with me.
Overall, I think I’ll still play the game like I’ve always had, just never as often or with the same enjoyment as I used to have. I have my interests still in CS:GO and osu! is getting a lot more fun with harder maps.