Ninja and TimTheTatman discuss lag issues in Fortnite’s Fall Skirmish and why Friday Fortnite was better for spectators

Calum Patterson

The Fall Skirmish is the second iteration of Epic Games’ competitive series, with $10 million in total on the line, but Ninja and TimTheTatman think that the lag issues and spectator problems need serious attention.

Comparing the Skirmish tournaments to KEEMSTAR’s ‘Friday Fortnite’ tournaments, they both agreed that from a spectator standpoint, Friday Fortnite is a better format.

The Skirmish events are full developer supported and funded, but the use of the ‘spectator mode’ could be causing the lag problems that plagued the first weekend of the Fall Skirmish.

Friday Fortnite tournaments were simply played on regular public servers, whereas the Skirmish event is played on a private server hosted by Epic, but Ninja and Tim don’t think it is as good a spectator experience.

Tim explains “I feel like Fortnite Friday, from a viewers perspective, was probably more entertaining to watch.”

Although Ninja agreed, he says Epic will never consider scrapping the Skirmish events to allow Friday Fortnite to run instead, and he thinks that it is “really unfortunate”.

Ninja went on to explain that the only logical explanation for the lag was the use of spectator mode, as the private servers were much more laggy than standard public games.

“The only reason I can think, why it was laggier, was the spectator mode. Because literally, we played six games on this custom server, with 100 people, and the entire time me and Sypher were like this does not feel good.”

KEEMSTAR had originally planned to bring back Friday Fortnite events after the conclusion of the Summer Skirmish, but before he could officially announce, Epic revealed the Fall Skirmish, which ruined his plans.

The YouTuber and host of Drama Alert has since said that he will look into other possible tournaments, suggesting a ‘Monday Blackout’ event, for when the upcoming battle royale mode in Black Ops 4 is released.