Fortnite Battle Royale

Fortnite Battle Royale

Apparently, if you want me to play your multiplayer battle royale game all you need to do is make it free on the Nintendo Switch. I tried FBR just so I’d know what the hell people were talking about, then I kept playing it, and somehow this persisted and led to me ordering ordering an ethernet adapter for the Switch so I can play it in my dank cave deep below the earth.

FBR is a battle royale with multiple modes. The general idea is 100 players parachute down on an island and try to stay alive while being herded into increasingly smaller circles as a massive deadly storm closes in. The storm will kill you, but not instantly, so you can use it to your advantage in some instances. Fort building has become a significant aspect of Fortnite and it’s interesting to see the many ways players have adapted wall-building strategies. Solo is the traditional last-player-standing, but there are also duos, squads, and rotating larger-team modes.

I have no idea why I’m into it or how long this will last. The first few times I played I was really preoccupied with landing on an island next to the big island. Once I figured out I couldn’t, I spent a lot of time gliding around, exploring the map, and so on. Fortnite has lots of little diversions. There’s a soccer field where you can play with your squad until someone caps you, for instance. When the storm closes in I’m always one of the stragglers sniffing roses or peeking under rocks while everyone else is blasting the shit out of each other in the divot or something.

I noticed last night I’ve played over 50 matches. The bad news is that after 50 matches I have not appreciably improved my aim, the good news is I haven’t gotten worse. So there’s that. Also, Dunkey’s bit is twice as funny to me now. (“Fuckin John Wicks.”**)

I’m not really sure what it is about Fortnite that works for me. On solo mode I generally play a pacifist game–how long can I survive until the better players find and kill me?–and on 50/50 (aka clusterfuck mode) I try to pull my weight, or at least not die like a punk, but sometimes it backfires. (Sending up a little prayer for the skinned teammate I accidentally blew up* with a rocket launcher about one second after they revived me. Peace and love, friend. I’m sure your learned your lesson and will never revive a noskin again.) Last night they dropped the 50/50 game and introduced a 5 team game. In this mode, 5 teams of 20 are dropped onto the island, and the goal is to have the most teammates standing by the end of a countdown timer. What’s interesting about this mode is the circles stay large for a while, then DRAMATICALLY shrink, so if you’re not lucky enough to be near the small circle you really have to hoof it. The likelihood of being able to build a fort and hunker down is extremely low, so much of the round is impromptu run-n-gun. Whereas with 50/50 it was easier to camp in the final area and build up elaborate forts ahead of time.

I like the 5-team game a lot, it gives me a chance to play with other people and practice without having to worry overmuch about not pulling my weight and letting a squad down. In 5-team my chief responsibility is not getting kilt and reviving team mates before the storm can get em.

Fortnite has lots of points and medals and things. I know nothing of this. I just know I can cut down trees and shoot man with my shooter man, but the other shooter mans usually shoot my shooter man first. So it goes.

* Friendly-fire has been turned off, but it sure did look like I roasted the lot of us.

** I have yet to see a John Wick in the wild.

Final Fight 12x8 LTM Blows But That’s Ok

Fortnite’s new Final Fight LTM, 12x8, is a royal clusterfuck. I was trying to figure out why this mode sucks comparatively. 20x5 was a flawed mode, no doubt, but the fact that each team had its own battle bus means any player, however inexperienced, could look at the map and pick out a smart drop zone with decent loot. I actually had a few matches where high-level, skilled players were very obviously playing along with noskins and helping them out and there was just a nice general sense of camaraderie for me as a friendless noskin living in a godless world.

12x8 has one battle bus, which means there’s no obvious safe zone for any given team. As a result, half the team will drop in Twisty Towers and/or Dusty Divot and die immediately, the others will be scattered across the map and get picked off by some pack of skins sweeping the map culling potatoes. Additionally, the storm is fast and the circles are pretty far. I have tried following my teammate’s markers (if they even place them), including into dangerous places where I knew I would get picked off immediately, and I’ve tried putting down my own drop marker, but they rarely drop with me. I place best in this mode when I treat it like a Solo game where 19 other people probably won’t try to kill me but they will steal my loot if given half a chance.

Basically we went from 20x5 being a casual way for players to kind of experiment and do a little coop with randos to 12x8 where everyone drops into Twisty and it’s a goddamn war zone, and if you don’t have local teammates you might as well run solo and bushcamp the final circle GODSPEED my noskin brethren do what u gotta do.

I think I get why Final Fight progressed this way for testing, though. 20x5 just wasn’t dangerous enough. They dropped the extra buses and tweaked the storm to add pressure and herd players off of the edges of the map where teams were previously congregating and stocking up materials and supplies for like 10 minutes.

FF is no longer my favored mode and can die in a fire now but that’s fine because as soon as the playground is up I’m building an altar to my patron saint, Dark Lord Belzebub, and I’m going to practice with plunger explosives until I can rain hilarious carnage on whoever crosses my path. #lifegoal

Fornite Season 5

Season 5 starts this week and I am very excited. There’s a lot of speculation about a history theme. I have no idea and don’t really care, whatever it is, I’m here for it so long as they don’t destroy my beloved Murkey Mire. I’ve gotten so much enjoyment out of the game (probably 60 hours by Thursday) I decided to purchase a battle pass for the new season. I don’t care about skins and will probably continue to play as a no-skin for the slight tactical advantage, but I am definitely up for scoring some dances (I love Infinite Dab so much I might actually shell out for it whenever it returns to the shop). I am slightly sorry I won’t unlock Orange Justice by Wednesday, but not that sorry since the XP grind in this game is ridiculous, especially on the free pass.

I expected to be over it by now and I’m nowhere near being over it, and I think this is the only way I’ll ever enjoy a murder simulator because of 3 points:

1. Cartoony graphics, no gore. Funny costumes and dances. The map is awesome. There are llamas.
2. The build and trap systems add layers to the shoot man aspect.
3. You can actually get pretty far without shoot man. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m here to murder everyone, but you can often get creative with the terms of any given match.

Oh yeah, and the legendary bush camo. 4. The Bush.

They brought back 50v50, which is great great fun for me, and the Playground is back although I think they’ll both end when the season does. I’m an honorable opponent in real matches (don’t steal loot, revive whenever possible, try to help obviously new players, go for clean kills no taunts/mockery/victory dances etc) but I’ve become a bit of a Loki in Playground and get tremendous glee out of trapping and ambushing my friends and stealing their shit, and I will cheat any way possible, including calling a truce and then promptly shooting someone in the back. TRUST NO REN

I hate build battles, but enjoy the hell out of ground skirmishes, so my favorite matches have been where the circle closes in on a bridge or a tunnel or city center. I despise open ground. I still shoot extremely wild because I panic in close skirmishes, but I am getting better and expect 1-2 eliminations per match at the minimum. I also like constantly referencing place names incorrectly, Annihilation Acres and so forth. Calling it Twisty Towers is just inherently funny to me.

As an aside, I have been neglecting this journal, so I told myself I could gush about my new fave if I then set up a queue for my post backlog. I will try to catch up on reading soon.

Fortnite Battle Royale: The Difference a Battle Pass Makes

P and I both purchased battle passes at the beginning of the season. I bought mine because I wanted to support the game, and P picked one up so he could pace with me when he realized how significant the XP bonuses are. So for an hour or so each night we’ll tuck in side-by-side, on Switch and PC respectively, and it’s kind of cute, the murdering together.

The paid pass provides a personal bonus (mine is currently 60%) as well as a squad bonus, so your friends benefit from it as well. This pleases me, as does the modified XP system. You now get XP for several revives (diminishing) and additional kills. The pass unocks a lot of challenge opportunities for battle stars, including weekly challenges that provide XP and stars and skin-specific cosmetic challenges (unlocks additional outfit details for Drift and Ragnarok or whatever he is). Another big change is you can continue to unlock the outfit details after the season ends.

I like having additional challenges to work on and I like the fact that it’s possible to earn enough V-bucks to pay for the next season pass (you can earn 1,300 total). Though in my case I’d rather pay for the pass and squander my V-bucks on silly emotes, which I suspect is the point.

The map changes are awesome, and although they destroyed my beloved Murkey Mirerere they replaced it with a large desert biome that I love (dino paaark) and have added a golf course, gold carts, and rifts (ground-level portals that drop you out of the sky, useful in many ways). I like stealing carts in solos, which always ends badly for me but hey. If you’re gonna go build up some crazy fort and leave your vehicle sitting out here then yes I am going to steal it, even if it guarantees my early demise.

I used to hate Dusty Divot but now it’s overgrown with forest and it’s a fun place to drop, though only moderately less dangerous. There’s also a Viking Village atop a mountain that doesn’t really do it for me, but I guess goes with the Viking skins.

I admittedly play Fornite a lot, but I consider myself an average player and definitely a non-grinder, so it will be interesting to see how far I get this season just playing as I normally do without any regard for the numbers. I play a good amount of 50v50 and I don’t wait around for the XP accumulator if my team is losing badly, so I probably only get XP about half the time.

I would also like to publicly announce that I came in 2nd place twice in solos, and both times I accidentally killed myself. The last time I accidentally toggled the wrong inventory item and dropped a clinger grenade on the tree I was using for cover instead of drinking the slurp (potion) in the slot next to it. I had just convinced myself I was worthy of back bling, which I previously removed for stupidity. Well, I obviously don’t deserve back bling, and will probably never wear it again, as that was honest-to-god the most embarrassing shit I have ever done, and I cringe just thinking about the other guy watching replay trying to figure out WTF happened, and if it somehow ends up in the subreddit I will delete my account immediately. The end.