FORTNITE BATTLE ROYALE: Epic Games Rebalances SMG Weapons And Buildings Again

Epic Games is continuing to try to find a balance between SMG weapons and building strength in Fortnite Battle Royale. Over the past month, the developer has introduced several new SMG type weapons, including the Compact SMG (P90) which was completely overpowered before receiving a slight nerf shortly after its release. During all of this, Epic has been tweaking the strength of walls. Still not completely happy with the results, Epic has rolled out another series of balance changes.

"We’ve seen various discussions about SMGs, building material changes, and general weapon vs structure interaction. We agree that weapons should have a unique purpose and that building should feel great as well as show off your tactical skills in the heat of battle," Epic said. "Your feedback in combination with internal testing has shown that previous changes in these areas were not achieving the goals we had set out for. The new changes are aimed at allowing for strengths and weaknesses between the SMGs, shotguns and structures during close range combat."

With that in mind, Epic has buffedt he initial HP of all three types of walls: Wood, Stone, and Metal. Additionally, the Compact SMG has been received a slight nerf in its damage as well as its magazine size. The Drum Gun also got nerfed, both in terms of accuracy and spawn rate. 

Check out the specific balance changes below:

BUILDING CHANGES

By increasing initial wall health values based on material type, material strength should feel more intuitive when making decisions

• Wood wall initial HP increased from 80 to 90
• Stone wall initial HP increased from 80 to 100
• Metal wall initial HP increased from 80 to 110

SMG CHANGES

Dropping SMG effectiveness - they should feel good against structures, but not consistently be the best option in multiple scenarios. 

Compact SMG

• Reduced damage from 22/21 to 21/20
• Reduced magazine size from 50 to 40

Drum Gun

• Reduced falloff range damage from 80% to 70% at 3500 units
• Reduced falloff range damage from 65% to 55% at 5000+ units
• Added environmental damage fall off matching player damage fall off
• Decreased jumping accuracy by 5%
• Decreased targeting accuracy by 10%
• Reduced spawn rate from chests and floor loot by 40%

Thankfully, there was no change to the recently introduced double barrel shotgun.