Fortnite: Battle Royale has been cooking with gas when it comes to its patches recently. The game went free-to-play not too long and it launched pretty barebones. Since then, it has added in Duos matchmaking, increased gun accuracy and added supply drops.
Today’s patch adds in the much awaited stats page and many will be happy to hear the stats are backfilled. This means however good (or bad) you have been will be recorded and available for you to see. Leaderboards still aren’t here but the team is working on getting that feature implemented soon.
Finally, some good quality of life changes were made such as increasing the speed of your skydiving and the speed of the Battle Bus. These are some things fans have been calling for since the launch and now the developers have implemented it.
Here are the full Fortnite: Battle Royale patch notes for patch 1.7.1.
GENERAL
- BattlEye has been added to our existing anti-cheat detection
BATTLE ROYALE
GAMEPLAY
- We have increased the travel movement of the Battle Bus and increased skydiving velocity in order to offer an alternative strategy to jumping out of the Bus at the first possible moment.
- Increased Battle Bus movement speed by 50% (from 4000 to 6000).
- Increased skydiving terminal velocity by 50% (from 4000 to 6000).
- The final storm safe zone will now close completely instead of holding at a 10 cm radius.
- Players can now search supply drops without interruption from storm damage.
- Improved the pre-game warmup UI to indicate the server is “Waiting for players to connect” and “Battle Bus launching” when the lobby is full.
- Fixed the glider occasionally not auto-deploying at the correct height.
- Fixed an issue which caused Supply Drops to become stuck in the air after player-built structures beneath them were destroyed.
WEAPONS
- Changes from the Live Update on Oct. 6:
- Increased Semi-Auto Sniper Rifle damage by 50%.
- This weapon was often passed up because of its lower damage. This increase will put it closer in line with its intended effectiveness.
- Decreased Scoped Assault Rifle damage by 33%.
- This weapon was too effective at its current role and needed to be scaled back slightly.
- Decreased Grenade, Grenade Launcher, and Rocket Launcher environmental damage to 375 (was 450).
- Metal forts will now require two explosive blasts (instead of one). Late-game bases are too easily destroyed and we want to promote building diversity.
- Increased Rocket Launcher reload time by 20%.
- It’s a little too easy to spam rockets. We want the Rocket Launcher to be a powerful weapon, but it’s a little too good right now.
- Increased Submachine Gun damage by 10%.
- The Submachine Gun is underperforming at close to medium range combat. This damage increase will improve its effectiveness slightly. We’ll continue to keep an eye on it.
- Increased Semi-Auto Sniper Rifle damage by 50%.
- Renamed several weapons
- Renamed ‘Semi-Auto Rifle’ to ‘Assault Rifle (Burst).’
- Renamed ‘Semi-Auto Handgun’ to ‘Pistol.’
- Renamed ‘Semi-Auto Shotgun’ to ‘Tactical Shotgun.’
- Fixed an issue which prevented explosive weapons from damaging Supply Drops.
- Fixed a bug which caused the pump action shotgun to occasionally double-fire.
- Fixed a bug which caused grenades to occasionally deal no damage.
- Fixed an issue which caused bullet impact effects to only be being visible to players in the immediate vicinity.
- Fixed an issue which caused the weapon reticle to disappear.
DUOS/SQUADS
- Eliminations will now be awarded to the player who downs an enemy regardless of who finishes off that player in the DBNO (Down, But Not Out) state.
- Increased health after being revived from the DBNO state.
- Health increased from 25 to 30.
- Shields will no longer protect you from damage while in the DBNO state.
- You will keep any remaining shield if a teammate revives you.
- Friendly fire damage will now display the appropriate visual hit effects.
- Fixed squad’s finishing placement displaying the incorrect number in some cases.
- Fixed an issue which caused tires to bounce DBNO players.
- Fixed an issue which allowed traps to bounce players in the DBNO state.
UI
- There is now a Report Player button on the end-of-match screen to report players.
- Critical hit damage on shielded players is now displayed in blue, like other displayed shielded damage numbers.
- The color of each player’s marker in a duo/squad are now consistent with everywhere they are displayed.
- Player indicators on the minimap will now match the color the player was assigned instead of all players showing as a cyan color.
- Changed the item drop icon on the Inventory screen from a trash can to a “drop arrow” to more clearly indicate its purpose.
- You can now hold down ‘Shift’ before dragging an item to only drop one of that item.
- Teammates will no longer show up as eliminated when they are loading into the map.
- Fixed an issue which prevented eliminated players from entering text in the Send Feedback interface when using a controller.
WORLD
- Added name labels to the map for existing locations.
- Tomato Town
- Dusty Depot
- Salty Springs
- Added a few structures near Tomato Town.
- Added new potential chest & loot locations to the northernmost and southernmost wooden bridges over the river, as well as to Lonely Lodge and the container area to the west.
- Fixed certain basements being blocked, which prevented access to underground treasure chests and loot.
- Fixed issues which caused trees to float above the terrain.
- Fixed some trees that previously could not be destroyed.
- General bug fixes and improvements to the world.
PERFORMANCE
We’re continuously working on optimizing performance, and are actively investigating recent reports of lower frame rates in areas with dense foliage.
- Fixed multiple issues which could cause a brief freeze in game.
- Fixed a significant hitch that occurred when the last player was eliminated from the game.
- Fixed a hitch which occurred after the Battle Bus skydiving phase completed.
- Reduced hitching on PlayStation 4.
AUDIO
- Addressed multiple issues which caused sound to only come out of the left or right speaker.
- Moved Battle Bus ignition audio into pre-game warmup phase.
- General mix adjustments.
SPECTATING
- Fixed player directional hit indicators not visible while spectating