Lately, Fortnite tournaments have had a big problem. It’s no secret that storm trading has become a major issue, finally we’ve gotten confirmation of some of the Fortnite storm surge changes that are coming in the future. Players won’t have to rely on the same old meta for much longer.
Since the mid-point of the last FNCS season, there’s been noise about making storm surge changes. As players began to exploit it to a ridiculous degree, Epic has been feeling out fixes. While it took a while to get proper confirmation of the change, there’s now clarity. We know exactly how it’ll change things around.
Storm surge is a mechanic that’s been around for a long time. It only really effects competitive play though. Surge kicks in when too many players are alive for a storm circle, trying to push the players who have the least damage to engage with fights or die. It’s a mechanic designed to avoid camping and playing too passively. However, players found a way to exploit it and trade damage back and forth, with no risk of actually dying.
It had such an impact, teams crashed out at Globals simply from their trading partner taking too long to loot. Not to mention teams announcing ahead of time who they’d made plans with to trade surge. The Fortnite storm surge changes are trying to fix that. This is going to have a huge impact on the meta.
Fortnite Storm Surge Changes
Some new Fortnite storm surge changes are being discussed right now. Previously, storm surge damage was just the damage players did to opponents. It all counted. However, now with this new change, there’s further limitations. This is what’s changed:
Storm Surge now based on total damage, not net. So damage taken will be removed from the Storm Surge total. It only counts on players who aren’t downed.
It makes the storm surge mechanics more complicated, but this as a solution is first being tested in performance evaluation cups. If it goes well, we could see it in play for the next FNCS too.
The change will likely eliminate the trading we’ve been seeing lately. In Chapter 6 tournaments, players built Storm Surge towers and traded the same tickle damage back and forth. Knock someone, they get healed back up, they knock you. Back and forth, infinitely. Clocking up a huge total since you could get a huge amount of surge by repeatedly knocking the same player. Letting teams loiter in the saftey of storm without engaging in the game till much later. Teams reaching final circles with 0 kills and thousands of storm surge damage. With these changes, it won’t be possible anymore.
These new changes are coming after Storm Surge became probably the biggest influence on the meta lately. At the Global Championship, we saw the surge trading situation seriously impact the performance of teams. With this fix, it’ll definitely be different. Although, it will move the meta to favor a different style of play.
How Will it Change the Meta?
This Fortnite storm surge changes are going to have a major impact on the meta of Fortnite. Maybe not so much for current tournaments like the Solo Series, but it’ll definitely make a dent in how players compete in the FNCS.
One big factor for the meta is going to be to on map locations. Players on the edge of the map will have even fewer opportunities, since the average map won’t give them time to take fights. Although, this was kind of an issue with the storm surge meta anyway, since players had to build towers and trade, or get left behind.
It mainly, should push players to actually take fights. Removing the penalty for killing players over farming storm surge from them. In theory, the change should remove the most controversial strategy from Fortnite.
There’s been a good reaction from the best Fortnite players. A number of big pros have been positive on the change. Switching the format up to Duos will already lessen the impact of storm surge trading, but this new change will likely solve the problem.
The elephant in the room might be how players who used to focus on the trading will react. Some teams have become so used to exploiting the Fortnite storm surge mechanics, they might just keep trying to find a different way to play this. Like landing central, getting damage early, then camping. But some degree of playing to the surge meta is going to be expected no matter what the rules are. It should benefit those who like to see a bit more action in tournaments, rather than the tower-fest of the mid game right now. Which has been the biggest problem.
