Is Fortnite's Guided Missile Good for Game Health?

Description

The Guided Missile was recently added to Fortnite Battle Royale and has been making a name for itself. My thoughts are that, of all the weapons that could have been added to the game, the Guided Missile is the best option. Listen to find out why.

Fortnite is a free-to-play Battle Royale game where 100 players fight it out in an arena until one man remains. Think Hunger Games with less hunger and more disco grenades.

This is more the style that I hope to fall into with the Koh-reative project. Less lecturing and more bite-sized though blurbs to get people thinking. As always, I welcome feedback on what you like and don’t like about each format.

Credits

Music by Levi Doron, the 80’s video game remix man.

• “Fortnite - REMIX” (listen here!)

Text Notes

More specifically, I just had a few thoughts on how I think this weapon effectively and positively impacts Battle Royale.

For game designers of a game that is regularly receiving updates, Fortnite certainly being among them, one of their intents is always to recognize bad play patterns and to eradicate them. In the case of Fortnite, an hypothetical example of a bad play pattern would be if it turned out that hiding in a bush was a super effective strategy What if the bush was so good at camouflage that players could hide in the storm’s circle in their bush for the whole game, without being detected, until 2 people were left. And then, since they could always get the surprise first shot, they would win the final fight and thus the round. That does not encourage what Fortnite Battle Royale should be about as a game, and so the developers would surely take steps to make the bush camouflage and hiding to be less effective options.

So, what was the state of the game right before the Guided Missile was added? I don’t see streamers doing this as much, but if you ever made it alive into the top 5 yourself, you probably saw a lot of sniper tower building from high hills, hiding, or both. Sniper tower players would scope out hiding players or trade shots back and forth, until the storm circle forced players to rush each other and engage.

I don’t have any proof that the Epic Games devs think so, but I think that this is a bad play pattern for Fortnite. Ideally, as the number of players dwindles, the action continues to ramp up. From the start of the game, players transition from hunting+gathering, to stalking and multiple firefights, to the final epic showdown in the small storm circle.

Except, the final showdown isn’t so epic when there’s a five minute downtime period where we all just build up into our towers or hide behind trees, taking the infrequent potshot at other players, waiting for the circle to close more. I’m not saying that such a playstyle is completely bad. It has it’s place, but it’s not the spirit of Battle Royale mode. I know that because they made an alternate game mode to highlight this hide and snipe playstyle, the Sniper Showdown mode.

A more ideal play pattern would be to see players charging each other, using rifles at longer ranges and shotguns at shorter ranges, brawling it out in one epic final fight. How would you do that? How do you get players to stop camping and start finding each other AND charging each other?

Add a Guided Missile.

The Guided Missile was added in Patch 3.4 on March 28, 2018. It’s a rocket launcher that allows you to take control of the rocket you fire, though your player must stand still while you fire. It has tight enough controls that navigating it around structures or in 180 degree turns is not really a problem. Direct hits do 100 damage to players.

This addition forces the ideal play pattern we just described. I had a personal experience in this. In one of my first games on the day of the patch, there were six players remaining. As I had always done before, I found the tallest unoccupied hill within the circle and towered up with my metal. Then I started peeking over and looking for movement through my scope.

And then I heard the sound of the missile. It was then that I realized that the existence of the Guided Missile instantly obliterated the “tower up and snipe” strategy, which was previously the most ideal late game strategy according to the meta. By towering up, you were telling the player with the Guided Missile, “Hey, I’m right here in a spot that’s easy to guide a missile into from above. Shoot me!” For the record, I died to the Guided Missile that game.

The missile pilot can also use the rocket as reconnaissance, scouting out and finding those players that are hiding instead of sniping. This forces the hiding players to not just buckle down until 2 remain, but instead to get up and look.

Look, because the information about player location is shared mutually. As observant players shoot Guided Missiles out of the air, they are able to see where the missile is coming from, thanks to the long smoke trail. And since constantly shooting down missiles that will otherwise kill you sucks, you’re highly incentivized to charge the missile pilot, who needs to stop firing missiles soon, lest he die while standing still and in missile vision. This is the epic fight that we envisioned. The missile pilot player has fun flying the rocket, while the other players get an adrenaline rush from having to shoot down the rockets. Then, the gameplay ramps up further as all the other players charge the missile pilots.

Gone is the bad play pattern of quiet towering up and sniper battling in the finale. Gone is bad play pattern of the highly successful passive players who sit back waiting for the other players to fight it out before making a comeback. This is the way that the Guided Missile effectively and positively impacts Battle Royale.

Further, does this mean I think the Guided Missile is perfect? Nah. Weapons will often be pushed on release so that players can have fun using them, but I don’t doubt that Epic will dial the Missile back soon. For all these good things its brought, there are plenty of games where Missile Pilots win from just non-stop bombing the other players and dealing 100 damage or more with each impact, and that doesn’t seem very healthy either. My gut feel change would be to nerf the missile projectile health from 100 to 50.

As the game gains ever more popularity and players continue to build a meta, Fortnite will always be battling the game design problem of how to remove bad play patterns, and how to make the finale feel like a finale. But given the state of the game right before the Guided Missile addition, I think the weapon has done a great job of allowing players to experience more novel gameplay in more healthy ways, at least in the short term.

Those are my thoughts for now. This is more the style that I want to fall into with the Koh-reative project. Less lecturing, more chatting about thoughts. Let me know what you think. Talk to you later.