Fortnite: Battle Royale needs changes for competitive play, specifically in the guns department.
The Drum Gun is the biggest issue. Players brought it back to the game at the end of season eight through an event, but it’s come back as strong as ever. It has a high fire rate, deals high damage to players and structures, and has one of the highest magazine sizes in the game with 45 bullets. Its accuracy is also good enough to make it easy to aim.
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This makes the Drum Gun an overpowered weapon. Players can just walk and shoot to put pressure on enemies inside structures while killing them with four shots if they have no shields. While this is no problem for casual default solo, duos, and squad modes, it’s a problem in professional competition due to making the strongest weapon in the game one that requires little skill.
Epic has tried to make it weaker by reducing its spawn rate, but it wasn’t enough. Now, professional players want Epic to instead change which weapons and items are available in competitive Fortnite modes without harming casuals.
With a unique loot pool for Arena and competitive modes, Epic can make any changes it needs to improve the competitive integrity of professional competitions without making Fortnite too hardcore for casuals. The company can also make additions to casual modes that would otherwise be detrimental to professional play, such as when they introduced the Mythic item Infinity Blade in season seven. The company was forced to vault the item five days after release because it was too strong in the Winter Royale tournament and secured top standings for players who grabbed it.
And Fortnite developers already have a system built into the game that allows them to change loot pools in different game modes. Team Rumble is one of the modes where players see this: drop rates are changed, floor loot is different, and chest spawns are guaranteed to cater to the high-paced and elimination-focused playstyle of the mode. Epic can easily do so for Arena and competitive modes.
Epic has been releasing weekly competitive updates since the Fortnite World Cup started five weeks ago. If it’s planning to do something similar to a unique loot pool to competitive, players should learn that through these updates.
