Fortnite: How Pay2Win elements creep into the game

Do Fortnite players need to be concerned about the game gradually developing into a Play2Win setup?

Fortnite has definitely been around long enough for fans of the game to have found their preferences, and Fortnite has certainly had its fair share of Pay2Win elements added to the game.

How exactly do these unbalanced items get added to a game that only sells skins and cosmetics? Let's find out.

They seriously made a whole ass article about an "overpowered pay-to-win" pickaxe...https://t.co/GboPSV5UCB

— Classic (@ClassicTalksFN) November 2, 2020

Looks can give a competitive advantage in Fortnite

This is perhaps one of the most obvious ways cosmetics can create a Pay2Win environment in Fortnite. Lately, Fortnite players labeled the Silver Surfer and Groot skins as Pay2Win, due to how well they blended in with certain parts of the map. LazarBeam, a Fortnite content creator, even put together a comedic video showcasing just how effective they were as camouflage.

However, competitive minded Fortnite players have been prioritizing skins that feature smaller bodies and less noticeable color palettes since the game’s introduction. While the advantage is measurable and effective, it’s hard to suggest that such skins were added to the game with the specific intent of giving players an advantage.

The Silver Surfer simply has to look silver, and Groot simply has to look like a tree. To change these features would mean failure to represent the characters’ appearances.

In Fortnite, sometimes fun and fair don’t connect

Naturally, some skins in Fortnite take this a step further. Perhaps the most troublesome one added to this season has been the Mystique skin. Players who buy the Battlepass and level up enough will get to play with this skin, and make use of a special emote, which allows Mystique to adopt the appearance of the last thing eliminated by the player.

Under most situations, this simply means temporarily adopting the appearance of another player, though the skin reverts to Mystique as soon as the player takes any offensive action. However, the presence of NPC enemies in Fortnite allows players with this skin to clear an area and pretend to be bot. This can lure players in who may not take the same precautions when approaching an NPC compared to a player, and allow for easy hits on an unsuspecting target.

While this is perhaps the most egregious example of a skin offering players a tangible benefit within Fortnite, it isn't where these Pay2Win elements stop.

fortnite = pay to win

— TT9 Tamir (@tt9tamir) November 3, 2020

Making a weapon interesting can mean making it stronger

Pay2Win elements creep into Fortnite whenever something fundamentally different gets added to the game. Whenever an animation is altered, or a unique feature is added, the differences involved create an imbalance.

Usually, this imbalance is imperceptible, in that no one is going to cry out that something is Pay2Win simply because its animations are different. Changes like this can create a disadvantage as often as an advantage, and are often too small to be noteworthy.

But this isn’t always the case. SypherPK recently pointed out that a new pickaxe added to Fortnite, the Bash Burner, features a faster swing speed in short bursts, allowing players to deal more damage or mine resources quicker than the other pickaxes.

Even this was not the most egregious item added to the game. He pointed out that a previous pickaxe featured a more blatant advantage, by offering an increased damage and run speed when equipped.

So is Fortnite Pay2Win?

While there are certain issues with regards to balancing out items by animations and animation speeds, it can’t be said that these items are being added with the explicit purpose of creating an unfair advantage for players willing to purchase them.

Instead, these seem to be the unintended consequences of making innocuous changes to things that perhaps don’t matter in isolation. The most broken items in Fortnite do tend to be fixed in patches, so at the very least, Epic is aware that players expect skins to be limited to cosmetic changes. Anyone who wants a competitive advantage in Fortnite, would be better off practicing than buying any particular skin.