With issues of team-killing on the rise for fill players in Squad mode of Fortnite: Battle Royale, Epic Games made the decision on Saturday to disable friendly fire in team modes.
“Today we’re making a change in an attempt to reduce team killing in Fortnite: Battle Royale,” an official post by Epic Games reads. “Starting immediately, we’re going to disable friendly fire. This change will not require a client update.”
The move came swiftly and without much warning, so players had little time to digest the news before experiencing it in-game.
“We understand that when players abuse friendly fire it can be an incredibly frustrating experience,” the post continued. “However, we also recognize that friendly fire encourages thoughtful play and careful tactics. The impact of this change will be closely monitored, and in the case that those tactics are too negatively affected we may evaluate other methods of reducing team killing.”
The rest of the Reddit thread is filled with players who disagreed with the change.
“Rocket launchers have suddenly become great close range weapons to rush the living hell out of everyone while doing no damage to your teammates,” u/AnotherScoutTrooper said.
“I think this isn’t the best way to tackle this problem, it’s easy to implement so it might be best for now, but other solutions, such as having a kick/forgive button after getting [team-killed] are much better in my opinion,” u/RabbitInTheHole101 said.
When Battle Royale games come to a close, teams are forced into close quarters and weapons like rocket launchers and grenade launchers come in to play to both deal damage and take down forts. Now, players can fire away with reckless abandon without having to worry about hurting teammates.
In-game, the change is noticeable, and easily exploitable by having one or two members of a team rush a fort while the others fire explosives. There’s no risk to it, so it’s a legitimate practice.
Judging by the community’s reaction after one day, Epic will have to strongly reconsider the change and look into implementing another way to deal with rampant team-killing.
