Team Liquid’s Poach says “a lot needs to be changed” to improve competitive Fortnite
Professional Fortnite player Jake ‘Poach’ Brumleve thinks that competitive Fortnite is currently being played on a “stock” version of the game, and needs some specific changes to change it from the casual experience.
Poach, who plays for Team Liquid, voiced his concerns during a recent livestream, explaining that despite the popularity of Fortnite on Twitch, including competitive Fortnite, he still thinks changes are needed.
The conclusion of Fortnite’s $8 million Summer Skirmish, which was streamed live from PAX West, peaked at over 500,000 concurrent viewers, proving that the casual fan base of Fortnite is keen to watch the game played at a high level.
However, the main criticizm of Fortnite as an esport, is that it is not by nature a competitive game, rather relying to much on ‘RNG’ (random number generated) gameplay, which is fault with any battle royale game.
Poach thinks that by making “storm changes, item changes and loot changes”, the game’s ‘competitiveness’ could be improved.
“We’re playing a casual game, competitively right now. And that’s what the biggest problem is, of why it’s not very competitive, in my opinion. We’re playing a stock version at tournaments, everything is stock, nothing has changed to make it more competitive.”
The biggest addition competitive players have been asking for from developer Epic Games is to allow custom matches, which Poach and others had the opportunity to test on September 14.
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Classic esports games such as Counter-Strike, League of Legends or Dota II are designed with competitive in mind from the ground up, while Fortnite is purely a casual experience.
However, other ‘casual’ games, such as Call of Duty, make significant rule changes in competitive play, made possible through custom games.
It sounds like Poach wants to take a similar approach with Fortnite, as is done in Call of Duty, and in doing so transform the very casual base game in to a more competitive