Kittens Rant: RIP Fortnite

Welcome back my fellow Kittens. Once more we are diving deep into Fortnite things that are hot online right now and putting in my 2 cents worth. So as I step up onto my litterbox to give my take on things, the backstory here is that lately the hashtag RIP Fortnite has been trending on twitter and big Fortnite creators and streamers have been complaining about a whole variety of things. So I’m going to look at some of the things that have been coming up in the various videos I’ve been seeing and give you my take on them.

The first complaint I’ve seen is one that I can completely understand and that complaint is a lack of communication from Epic Games. The content creators and streamers relied on Epic for so many seasons to talk to them and release patch notes on the update days that the streamers became our news sources for the changes. We found out about new weapons and vaultings and changes in the meta because of streamers who took their time to read and understand the patch notes and then give us common players that information. We found out how to use new odd items by people like Muselk and LazarBeam doing memes and making videos on update mornings.

For the past season or two…maybe, even a little longer Epic hasn’t been sending out the patch notes. This has made it where the news sources have been drying up on weapon changes, new additions to the game become surprises and creators are having problems figuring out what to create as they aren’t getting lists of changes. This also sees ProGamers having changes made to the Meta right before or in the middle of competitions and since they don’t have patch notes this can change your entire playstyle without you knowing until it’s too late. So for this, I can understand and say yeah Epic needs to bring back patch notes and communicate better with the player base. I know Epic is pissy about leakers but the fact of the matter is that the less info Epic puts out to its creators the more and more leakers are going to become in demand to try digging through the files and data mining things for the content creators.

Now here’s where I start to really disagree with the streamers. Here’s where I see people like Ninja start ranting and all I can hear is whining and crying like a spoiled child. So one of the first parts of what they think is a problem is skill-based matchmaking. So the people like Ninja and Sypher keep going on about how nowadays the matches they are in are filled with sweaty players and try-hards and it’s not as fun. Things like being in random squads with interesting kids they can carry to a win don’t happen anymore ect ect. So here’s the thing back in the day when there wasn’t skill-based matchmaking guess who the sweats were? Guess who the tryhards were? Guess who the thirsts were? They are our current day streamers.

Go and watch the older streams before everyone started complaining about the try-hards. You’ll see these same streamers cranking out 90’s on people who could hardly build and boxing in people who wouldn’t be able to escape before they popped a trap on the wall so they could get a cool kill clip. The same streamers who complain about people thirsting them in team matches are the ones you can see doing the same damn thing in their own matches. What we’ve seen with skill-based matchmaking is that now the people who weren’t having a chance in the older lobbies are now being able to learn and grow. These people are now at the same level as Sypher and Ninja, they’re at the same level as Muselk and Fresh. So yeah the lobbies are getting sweatier for them because now they’re in lobbies with people of their own level. In one of my previous rants, I talked about Ninja and his little explosion against casual gamers and this right here shows the hypocrisy of Ninja. He says casual gamers are lazy and horrible humans yet here he is now exploding about try-hards and sweats.

The thing is you can’t have it both ways. These try-hards and sweats are the people trying to win, that’s the whole name of the game right? Try to win, make yourself better so you can win against tougher and tougher opponents. But you know let’s just whine and cry when faced against these better opponents and you come up lacking. If you watch Ninja videos you may have noticed that whenever he dies in-game he rails against lag, or try-hards, or sweats, or brain dead weapons in the game meta. This last one will actually segway into my next section.

In one of Ninja’s latest explosions, he rails against people using the Heavy Sniper and the Minigun in the current Meta. I know that a lot of people have problems with the weapon meta right now especially since a lot of the Mythic weapons are very OP right now. Here’s the thing though the heavy sniper and the minigun aren’t braindead items like Ninja says. Yes they have less of a learning curve and they can kill you quite quickly but both of these things can be easily countered if you’re careful. Now the minigun has an easier time with things than the sniper and I’ll get into the why of that in a bit. The minigun is a beast of a weapon and if you go up against one you’ll get hurt but not necessarily killed if you play it smart. I’ve seen many matches where someone has the minigun and has been right on the tail of someone yet can’t beat them. Hell, I’ve been the one with the minigun who can’t seem to kill someone. You just need to know how to build well and keep the walls up and move side to side at the same time. You see, sure, it knocks walls down fast so use metal against it. When people are spraying with the minigun they tend to aim where you are so while you’re reinforcing and rebuilding your wall keep moving back and forth. You’ll most likely get hit a few times but hopefully not enough to kill you before the minigun goes into overheat. I’ve almost survived minigun attacks myself but I suck at building. Normally I just dodge and it works pretty good so if you can dodge and build at the same time you can get the upper hand.

Now onto the Heavy Sniper. Sure this bastard of a gun can take down walls, sure this gun can one-shot you easily. The thing is being a sniper in a game requires skill, it’s not a brain dead weapon. You need to know how to lead a moving target, and if they are still it tends to be that as soon as you go to pull the trigger the person then moves. It’s not as point and click easy as Ninja makes it out to be. If you keep moving and as the old movie the In-Laws said if you serpentine it’s harder to be hit. Don’t go straight and if you do vary your speed. It’s very easy to throw off a sniper in the game unless they are very good. The heavy sniper is also extremely slow to reload so if it takes down your wall it’s easy enough to replace and move before they can shoot again. To be honest, if you stay still long enough to get sniped then that’s your own damn fault to be perfectly honest. If you hunker down during a fight and don’t build up around you and you get third partied by a sniper then that’s your fault. When you get to the level that Ninja plays at and higher then the people with regular snipers can headshot you just as easily as take you out with a heavy sniper. Now I will say there is a problem with the heavy sniper and the minigun right now and that’s that there are a TON of them in-game. Just about anyone can get them especially if they land at one of the Shadow safe houses or POIs.

So before we end I just want to go back to the skill-based matchmaking for a bit. See we know how the pros feel because they have a huge platform to vent their frustrations. So all we hear is whine whine whine it sucks I’m against people my own level, but what about the horrible lazy casual waste of space casual gamers like me? Well for people like me that aren’t the best at the game skill based matchmaking actually gives us a chance. You see I started playing back in season 4…maybe 5. Whenever the rocket launch was anyway. I’m not the greatest at building still but since season 10 I now have around a dozen wins. Skill-based matchmaking has given me a chance to actually get somewhere in the game other than just in team rumble. This makes the game worthwhile for people like me for more than just collecting cool skins. This helps me and others learn how to play the game better because we’re not getting slaughtered right away if we aren’t hiding. I actually have a chance now and that makes a game worth playing to me and that will help the game grow. Having a game where new people can’t join and grow because older players take advantage of their newbie status leads to a stagnant game that will lose out on a new player base.

So yeah there are some problems but when it comes to the Meta it’s something that can be fixed. Hopefully, Epic will start getting the message and start giving us patch notes and communicating more. These are things that can easily happen. What I don’t think is going to happen anytime soon is for Fortnite to actually die. The other thing that I don’t think will happen anytime soon is that people like Ninja aren’t going to stop whining and throwing hissy fits. I mean let’s be honest, he makes my 7-year-old autistic nephew seem grown-up and mature by comparison.

(UPDATE: This past update Epic sent patch notes to creators and nerfed the Heavy Sniper. Suddenly Thank You Epic was trending. This just shows how fickle Fortnite followers are)

Well until later… Love to all of you and please stay safe in this uncertain time!

Love always,

Kitten