Ranked 2.0 Fortnite Update Could Finally Fix Mode

Ranked 2.0 Fortnite is coming soon! At the recent LAN event, Epic announced a whole host of new events and features coming to expand Fortnite esports next year. Perhaps the most exciting though was the Ranked 2.0 Fortnite change.

There’s going to be more LANs, a Ranked and Mobile esports expansion, tons more events. It seems it’ll be one of the biggest years for competitive Fortnite. Right now, the game has a huge disconnect between pro games and the actual player base. Largely because the Ranked experience has drifted so far from competitive Fortnite. With the upcoming announcement, Ranked 2.0 might be the biggest change.

Fortnite Ranked is in a mess. The system that replaced Arena has never been the most popular game mode. But lately it has become borderline unplayable. There are so few people playing that matchmaking times are huge, especially in the smaller Fortnite server regions. Meaning the spread of skill levels in a game is frustrating, and the wait time gets longer and longer. We don’t know exactly how Ranked 2.0 Fortnite is going to work, but there’s some good ideas on what players are expecting.

What is Ranked 2.0 Fortnite?

The Fortnite Ranked mode has had a more complicated history then most of its playlists. It began life as Arena. A Ranked mode where it used the tournament loot pool. There were clear values for points too, all completely opaque. You knew the exact point numbers assigned to getting into games, kills, and placement. Meaning you could tell what kind of performance was between you and the next rank. However, Arena didn’t last too long. It was eventually replaced by Ranked.

Ranked is a mode which uses the pubs items, not the Fortnite tournament loot pool. It doesn’t tell you clearly what leads to going up or down, it just gives you a percentage change for your rank at the end. The points were never quite figured out in this mode. Arena became more of a waiting game than a test of skill. As players discovered more loopholes in the Ranked scoring, that too became quite easy to game too.

We expect Ranked 2.0 Fortnite to do something different. Most players are likely hoping for a return to something closer to Arena. These are the key points Ranked 2.0 Fortnite needs to address:

The Loot Pool

The Fortnite tournament loot pool strips away the novelty items for a more balanced experience. However, Ranked has used the pubs loot pool. With its cars, collabs items, the stuff tournaments won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

This has led to a disconnect where Ranked plays like pubs, and it’s difficult for those aspiring to be some of the best Fortnite players to actually get real practise in. The loot pool matching up with tournaments would be a major improvement to Fortnite Ranked.

Scoring

The hidden scoring system for Fortnite Ranked has caused problems. Multiple players have shot up the ranks quickly just by bush camping and ensuring they die to storm. While real players struggle to move.

The scoring system is difficult. Arena’s open system made the climb up Fortnite ranks into a matter of putting time in, since you usually gained enough points to go up by a little bit. However, the Ranked system obviously isn’t working either. A Ranked 2.0 Fortnite mode could re-simplify the scoring. With players having to focus on kills and placement, rather than the weird statistics that currently give the better payoff.

Siphon

Siphon getting re-added to Fortnite tournaments was a cause for celebration, but it’s not in Ranked. To keep the game matched up with pubs, Siphon is only in tournaments. Re-introducing it to Ranked would help balance out the more passive playstyles that dominate.

Competition – The Bigger Problem with Ranked 2.0

While improvements would help Ranked 2.0 Fortnite, there is a bigger issue. There are too many modes.

Ranked Reload is currently the most popular Ranked mode. It’s fa aster paced mode that lets you practise the same Fortnite skills, but without all the downtime in a normal game of Fortnite. Ranked Reload might just be a more popular mode, since it’s quicker and there’s less wasted time. Even with an improved Ranked 2.0 mode, Reload might still be more popular.

The switch to a platform style with multiple modes has been a mixed bag for Fortnite. For extra Battle Royales like Blitz and Reload, it seems to have just fragmented the existing player base rather than adding more players.

A lot of the matchmaking problems aren’t going to be fixed until the player count improves for Ranked. But with so much competition and the Fortnite player count overall dropping, it’s unlikely to substantially change. The hope is likely that the Ranked 2.0 Fortnite changes are enough to tempt players back. If Reload continues to be a bigger draw though, the matchmaking is unlikely to be improved too much, especially in smaller regions.