Team Liquid’s POACH shares thoughts on how to fix competitive Fortnite
Team Liquid professional Fortnite player Jake ‘POACH’ Brumleve believes that the competitive side of the game needs a major overhaul.
In a series of posts he put out on Twitter, POACH laid out the case for why and how competitive Fortnite could be changed from the better.
In his proposal, he suggested that one of the major issues currently plaguing the competitive scene is the fact that passive play is more rewarding than aggressive play.
“The fact that the best way to play and do well competitively in Fortnite is to run away and avoid all interaction is a problem in my opinion,” he tweeted.
He went on to propose that some of the core aspects of competitive play should be controlled by the game itself, rather than a rule-set or format.
“Here’s the key, the game needs to reward aggression, not the competitive formats,” he said. “You can claim that the kill incentives work, however its almost never worth any in situation to push for a kill. After fighting a good player you will almost always be put in a worse position some way or another whether it be mat count, positioning, health or ammo loss.”
One idea that POACH put forward is rewarding players with guaranteed loot for eliminating opponents at certain stage of the game.
“Adding some sort of base loot drop at certain stages in the game could change a lot. Like early game a kill guarantees 50-100 mats, mid-game a kill guarantees some sort of med, mats and ammo etc… That way you’re guaranteed something that could be useful.”
Another aspect of competitive Fortnite that POACH feels could be improved is third party gunfights, which refers to players shooting at opponents who are already engaged in another gunfight.
“Another possible solution I toyed with is some sort of over-shield while in a build fight that 3rd parties would deal less damage at distance,” he proposed. “Sounds crazy but could potentially discourage others from interrupting and wasting time and giving the chance to the two who initiated.
Anyone who knows of POACH would be aware that he is one of the most prominent, successful, and skilled competitive Fortnite players, which means that these proposals are not self-driven but rather genuine ideas for improving the game’s competitive side of things.
However, his suggestions would mean that Epic Games would have to integrate fundamental changes into how Fortnite works, which might not be in their immediate plans.
For now, it would appear that Epic are content with experimenting with different competitive formats in their weekly Skirmish tournaments,