With Chapter 2, Season 2 finally coming to a close, I want to voice my opinion of everything this season got right and wrong. I want Epic Games to read this before the next season launches.

The Device has been activated, and we are approaching the end of the mission. However, before we look forward, let's look back at the season and discuss everything it did to improve or damage this game.

The Theme

GHOST and SHADOW, there is no denial that the inclusion of choice in this Battle Pass was a controversial one at first, but it made every account unique, choosing our edit styles was really interesting, and while we do want progressive Outfits back, cosmetics with choice involved will always be interesting if you ask me.

Spies was a great theme for this Season, if we got more items that fit in the theme, (Explosive Pens, Invisibility Watches, etc.), it would've been perfect.

Henchmen were also a great call, adding the element of stealth to an otherwise chaotic clusterf*ck.

Gear Specialist Maya was quite an overlooked feature, but I think that Forged cosmetics have a bright future, never before have we been able to create a truly unique Outfit, exclusive to ourselves. Albeit, Maya had some issues. If Epic try Forged cosmetics again, they need to learn from what went wrong with Maya.

1. Irreversable Choice: Many players have unfortunately fell victim to rushing their Maya and coming out with a terrible-looking mess. Epic need to add the option to take back our choices and do it all again, either for free or through maybe a 200 V-Buck payment each time.
2. Lack of Variety: Although that 3.8m+ number is huge, most of that came from the scarf. There just aren't enough unique items to put on Maya, with most all of them being military themed. Epic should add more types of clothing, like beachware, casual clothes, uniform, etc.
3. Lack of Testing: Picture this, you saw your dream combo in the blue-lit armoury, locked-in your changes, and then discovered that it goes with your Back Bling like Kevin with Rockets: it doesn't.

The Lootpool

It is no secret that this season had a bland loot pool, but it did make a few innovations with what it did do with the loot.

Balanced Mythic Weapons: About time, Epic finally got Mythic weapons right with the Boss weapons, (that we still don't have in Creative), simply just stronger versions of the normal weapons, except for TNTina's KaBoom Bow. They had a good balance of risk and reward, and you normally only get one because of the distance between them. They also weren't the be-all end-all of weapons like the Infinity Blade, you had a reason to pass them up, which made them balanced.

The CHOPPA: After the Stormwing, you'd think Epic wouldn't touch the skies again, right? Wrong! Epic launched the CHOPPA, and it was perfect! It had little to no combat capability and was strictly mobility, unless you're in a squad. It left plenty of space for passengers to get shot, so you do have a reason to go on foot, unlike the B.R.U.T.E.

Location-Specific Loot: Epic experimented with it in Season X, and brought it back full-swing in C2S2. The GHOST and SHADOW hideouts, for the first time since Tilted Town, let you pick your loot. If you were confident in your aim, you'd land at a SHADOW Safe House, and if you want to take opponents by surprise, you'd land at the Agency, Yacht, or Shark.

This is one feature that I want to stay for all future seasons, as it can open up the loot pool to more weapons. If Epic brought back the Drum Shotgun, people would be mad over their lootpools unless it was exclusive to Steamy Stacks, meaning although it's bad, you didn't have to get it unless you chose to land there.

If Epic kept location-specific loot pools, then they could bring back way more items without clogging up the loot pool. It'll only be good though if they don't overbalance risk and reward by putting the Combat Shotgun in Dirty Docks. People should have a reason to land for an item, but a reason to consider taking something else. The Infinity Blade was a poor execution of this as its power meant you had to land at Polar Peak to have a shot at winning the match.

The Kingsman: In 2018, Epic added something we didn't like, so in 2020, they tried it again, and F\CKING NAILED IT!* The Kingsman was the moment I feel that Epic finally cracked the tough Melee formula. The problem with Melee weapons is that if it's too weak, you'd take a shotgun, but if it's too strong, you'd take the Melee. The Kingsman perfectly improved on everything the Infinity Blade got wrong.

Infinity Blade	Kingsman
Wide area of damage, no aim required.	Small area of damage, you need to aim.
Fast attacking, not much risk in attacking.	The animation has lag at the end, meaning each swing is a chance to take a shotgun blast to the face.
Only available at Polar Peak, meaning you had to land there to have a shot at winning.	Available in Chests, meaning everyone can use it.
Absurd mobility with the jump slash.	Negates fall damage for a few seconds with a slow, easily punishable float.
400 effective health w/ Siphon, meaning you didn't have to worry about Shotguns.	You have to block damage in one direction, and the laggy attacks mean missing your swings is guaranteed death.
No counters in the endgame.	You can easily counter it by simply not building, as building slows you down, leaving you vulnerable to the next swings after the 'brella breaks your builds.

If the Kingsman wasn't for a promotion or Epic has permanent rights, then I'd love to see the Kingsman return in BR and Creative, as I feel that it is a perfectly balanced Melee weapon.

Bland Loot Pool: After the initial update, the updates afterwards didn't do much for the loot pool aside from the CHOPPA and the Kingsman, Epic need to plan the next season this time, as the boring, seldom-changing loot pool quickly burned out players who'd completed the Battle Pass.

All of the fun and interesting items from Chapter 1 are vaulted, and we'd like to see them back. With all the hype building over crazy old items, I feel that the next season is the prime opportunity to finally split casual and competitive loot pools, as content creators are all running out of ideas for videos, and they need new returning items to work with.

Creative hasn't been going too good either, out of all the new items introduced this season, only the Rapid-Fire SMG and the Creepin' Cardboard have been officially added, with Crash Pads and Decoys being illegally added with glitches, and Boss Weapons being nowhere to be seen.

The Battle Pass

The Battle Pass, love it or hate it, you cannot deny it is by far the most unique. It introduced plenty of new concepts to the classic BP formula, including...

...it gave the Outfits actual character: It promoted the characters in the B.P. from mere Outfits to actual characters with personalities, Midas being calm and cool, TNTina being reckless and confident, Skye being cheeky (and maybe schizophrenic, according to a theory...), Meowscles being larger-than-life, flexing at every opportunity, and Brutus emitting a deadly, tough aura that intimidates all.

...it introduced more unique cosmetics: Midas, with the ability to turn weapons, items and vehicles gold for the duration of the match, it always feels nice to eliminate Midas to be treated with golden loot. Bombs Away!, the first rideable glider, TNTina, the first cel-shaded Outfit, Brutus and Skye, the first Outfits to pull their Harvesting Tools out of their backs, Maya, the first custom Outfit, and Deadpool, the first promotional item to appear in a Battle Pass.

...it was more than just a screen: For better or for worse, the Battle Pass menu was completely revamped into a secret bunker underneath the Agency with an armoury for Maya, apartments for the agents, a dump for Deadpool, a challenge board, and a giant gear room for the Battle Pass menu that opens up into an indoor skydiving area when you have a Glider or Contrail selected.

...it officially added Enlightened cosmetics: Corrupted Scratch was a test for Enlightened cosmetics, cosmetics that change as you level up, and lock in that progress when the next season rolls around, creating items that actually deserve the status that Recon Expert had. Golden Agent Peely was a pain for many, but I think that's a good thing! The gold agents aren't the best looking, and they don't have many combos, but they prove your skill and dedication to the game in a way that Renegade Raider never could.

...your choices matter: I covered this earlier in the post, but the element of choice was a surprise at first, but a welcome one.

Game Modes, Crossovers, and Party Royale

While Spy Games for the whole season wasn't diverse like the others, it still brought some interesting things to the game, the Crossovers were either really good or just... there, and Party Royale has a bright future ahead of it.

Progress Matters in Spy Games: As you play in Spy Games, you will unlock more weapons and Tech to use in the mode, meaning for the first time ever, you can have an advantage over the enemy for playing well.

Spy Games brought back many fan-favourite items, including the Impulse Grenade, Flint-Knock Pistol (now with 7 shots!), the Grappler, the Scoped Assault Rifle, the Dual Pistols, the Jetpack, the Shield Bubble, and many more.

In a season so lacking in fun items, Spy Games was a nice sigh of relief that Epic haven't forgotten about the good old days.

Travis Scott's Astronomical completely blew us away with it's world-changing visuals, expectation subversion, and it reminded the music and gaming industries what can happen when lines are blurred, racking up more than 27.7 MILLION unique players.

With COVID-19 wreaking havoc on peoples lives, cancelling music events left-right-and-center, it was such a doze of fresh air to see Epic and Travis join forces from home to bring us that experience entirely for free.

Astronomical not only reminded us of the bright future that gaming predicts, but it also paved the way for...

Party Royale, the game's new social space, it begun with Major Lazer finally getting his concert, which kinda just... happened, then got the official welcome with three popular musicians. While Party Royale is pretty barebones right now, with players only able to express themselves through emotes, I feel that Party Royale has a good future to look forward to.

Creative's new Matchmaking Test made up for the otherwise lack of content, Creative Fill has been forever plagued with bad, repetitive maps, so it is great to finally be able to play interesting, more obscure gems with players who also want to play them!

While it's in closed testing, with only Epic controlling the hosted maps, Creative Matchmaking has filled in the hole in the community's heart that the Creative LTMs left behind, giving the community 6 LTMs to play 24/7!

That doesn't mean Creative is free though, as we are still missing many important items introduced this season. The "they'll cause glitches" excuse doesn't apply here, as the Boss Weapons and new rarities are just new versions of existing weapons. There is no reason to keep the Mythic arsenal from us any longer, Epic Games. Just release the Mythic/Spy Games weapons already...

Last Words

If you ask me, this season was a mixed bag. It had a great Battle Pass, interesting LTMs, even though they got old, the loot pool was very boring, but it finally nailed some of the problems with previous items.

The constant extensions and the absence of unvaults made this season drag out way longer than it needed to. Epic could've simply brought back old modes and weapons alongside Spy Games to keep us happy, but instead the season was long and boring, with "RIP Fortnite" trending for the first time.

Epic need to learn from their mistakes this Chapter, and the lack of communication has been causing burnout among the community.

Communication was the first of many things left behind in Season X. With the launch of the new chapter, we stopped getting Patch Notes, and Epic have only been responding to either artistic posts or to game-breaking bugs. Other than that, we've heard nothing from them, they need to listen to the community, otherwise "RIP Fortnite" will begin trending even more.

Fun Items were also left behind, we shouldn't be forced to go to Creative matchmaking just to get unique gameplay. TF2 has reached the point where the community are making entire updates faster than Valve, and I fear that Fortnite will be going down the same path.

Unvaults should not be hyped up like in 14 Days unless they are really big like the B.R.U.T.E. or the Lightsaber. Unvaults should've stayed as just a thing that happens with every update, we used to get weekly unvaults in Chapter 1, and without that easy new content, we are being burned out quick, only playing for the Battle Pass.

LTMs were also in high demand this season, with only Spy Games in rotation. It's okay to have season-long LTMs, as long as we have another option. Spy Games were great, but we all miss the other modes.

Apollo has one HUGE design flaw: Its size. The community want the old map back, partly for nostalgia, but also because the size actually has a cost: Because the map is so big, the players are spread out, and because the players are spread out, you will be getting into way less fights compared to Chapter 1.

Bringing back the old map won't fix this, it will instantly undo all the work put into this chapter, but Ninja made a simply suggestion that I'm punching myself for not thinking of sooner: Epic should simply just raise the players per match.

Think about it, C.O.D: Warzone has 150 players, and Fortnite is suffering from an oversized map. Epic can kill two birds with one stone by raising the playercount, it'd rival C.O.D.'s playercount, and it would raise the number of fights players get into.

Extensions and lack of updates have already given Chapter 2 an awful reputation, with just the first two seasons taking up the length of 3-4 Chapter 1 seasons. Epic need to plan ahead and have something in store in case of an extension. Unvaults and LTMs are very easy to control, all Epic need to do is unvault a few items a week to keep us interested, rather than dragging it out and making us bored.

Again, this season was a mixed bag. Now that the Device has been activated and the end-of-season event is approaching, I really hope that Epic Games see this post, as I speak for the community when I say that there are so many things that Epic can easily do to keep us playing that they just aren't doing.

After the last two seasons, I do not have the highest of hopes for Chapter 2, Season 3. It would be a great move on Epic's hand to capitalise on the lockdown and content drought by suddenly firing on all cylinders next season, subverting everyone's expectations with weekly unvaults, and instantly catapulting Fortnite back to the glory days that we missed so bad.

This was quite a read, so I hope you weren’t asleep by the end, I just wanted to voice my honest opinions about this Season, and I really want Epic Games to see it.

- u/williambash

Submitted June 09, 2020 at 11:44AM by williambash https://ift.tt/2ASqtvH https://ift.tt/eA8V8J