The latest announcement from the Fortnite Competitive Team addressed issues during the Winter Royale 2019 tournament. The event occurred from Dec. 20 to 22. There were several problems that plagued the event and this release discussed two of those issues. First, teams did not receive the proper number of points when participating in Winter Royale. If one of the two players on a team failed to enter into a match, those points did not count. Secondly, a similar issue allowed teams to play more than the maximum 15 matches during a specified round. The Fortnite Competitive Team stated that both of these issues have been fixed. Additionally, players should have now received their winnings through the Fortnite payment system. Lastly, the statement hinted at another tournament series coming soon.
Update on the Winter Royale 2019 Leaderboards and payments!
Final Leaderboards have been published and over 45,000 prizes have been uploaded. Jump into our blog for full details: https://t.co/ntYj6aciSM
— Fortnite Competitive (@FNCompetitive) January 18, 2020
What are the issues and the resolutions?
The first bug that Epic Games addressed is that points do not properly score when the entire team does not make it into a match. For Winter Royale 2019, teams only consisted of two players. During the 15 match tournament, this error could have occurred multiple times resulting in numerous points missing for teams. The latest news release stated that the Fortnite Competitive Team created a leaderboard repair system that corrected the issue mentioned above. The correction caused quite the shakeup in the standings, as some teams had been missing a significant number of points.
Some teams also played more than the maximum 15 matches during a round, causing more problems among the standings. Fortunately, Epic Games restructured the leaderboard to only count the first 15 matches, removing all others from tournament play.
Bugs still in question
A couple of bugs were left off of this statement by the Fortnite Competitive Team. First, players experienced game crashes throughout matches. This can happen before, during, and after a match. These crashes have consistently occurred since before the World Cup. Players now experience this issue much more frequently. It is great that the Epic Games corrected the leaderboard problems, but the root cause remains.
Secondly, players claimed to be able to force bugs during this tournament. A team could temporarily reset their points to play in lower-tier matches, allowing them to enter matches against less skilled players. All tournaments use a skill-based matchmaking system where teams are matched based on points achieved. Allegedly, players found a way to abuse this system during Winter Royale 2019. The statement from the Fortnite Competitive Team left this issue completely unaddressed.
Hinting at the next tournament
For Fortnite players and fans, this statement left a hint of the next tournament series. The developers said, “We’re currently working on a fix for the incomplete team issue, and are aiming to have it corrected before the next major tournament series kicks off.” The release shared no more details than the sentence, but it excited the Fortnite scene nonetheless. The expectation is that the next major tournament will be announced in early February after this current season of Fortnite ends.
