Honking nice mechs stomping round and blasting rocket barrages is just not a lot enjoyable in a game the place most gamers are squishy people scampering about on foot, Epic have conceded. They’ve rolled out a complete sequence of stability tweaks lowering mechs’ energy, although they nonetheless haven’t eliminated them. Epic added the B.R.U.T.E. mechs to Fortnite with the start of Season 10 on August 1st, and plenty of gamers have been complaining ever since. Epic defended the mechs at first, arguing that they weren’t too disruptive and have been enjoyable for brand new gamers who didn’t usually get to really feel highly effective, however lastly relented final night time.
The B.R.U.T.E. is an enormous stompy mech which spawns at random spots across the map. One participant can pilot its primary motion nevertheless it wants a second participant as a gunner to shine. Then it’s jetboosting and stomping and rocketing and machinegunning throughout, a struggle machine which vastly outguns gamers on foot. It’s not unstoppable nevertheless it certain is a nuisance.
Yesterday’s balance patch hit a load of the B.R.U.T.E.’s talents. The rocket barrage now fires 40% fewer rockets at a pace 56% slower and with a blast radius 42% decrease. The sprint transfer has an extended cooldown and boosting within the air offers much less of a pace increase. And gamers within the mech now not mechanically choose up constructing supplies as they stomp by buildings.
Epic give their reasoning for every change, which collectively paint an image of a car which may zoom up, explode gamers earlier than that they had actually time to react, disengage and escape, and are available away from it with an entire load of supplies farmed.
“In general we hope to shift B.R.U.T.E.s away from being highly mobile and put more emphasis on their already defensive nature,” they mentioned.
Epic had beforehand defended the mechs as high quality. In a blog post final week they mentioned B.R.U.T.E.s match “the Fortnite philosophy” in “[bringing] players of all skill levels together to have a fun experience where anyone can win” and offering “spectacle and entertainment.” They additionally insisted that mechs largely affected lower-skilled gamers, busting out graphs and saying “we have seen players who had previously struggled with getting eliminations acquiring more, while the number of eliminations earned by more experienced players remained steady.”
Even if a weapon doesn’t massively change total numbers, its presence can nonetheless change the form of a match in disagreeable methods.
Player protests continued and Epic do now agree yeah, they went a bit too far. They appear fairly unhealthy at balancing spectacle with play. The biplanes and Infinity Blade sword of season 7 additionally supplied quite a lot of spectacle – and trashed balance till they have been eliminated.
