Fortnite Battle Royale adds Shrines & Impulse Grenades

Epic Games has sprung a surprise on us and added in a couple of neat additions that’ll come in the 2.5.0 patch. Impulse grenades and shrines are two features that make their way in this weeks update.

Judging by the video of the  impulse grenades, it seems as though it will push players away upon impact. This could be particularly useful if you’re trying to get players out of a base, or if you see a player on the edge of a building or mountain, throwing the impact grenade at them would cause them to fall and suffer from drop damage.

It looks like there’ll be more chest spots coming too. Shrines are the second major feature to make it’s way into the game with the description “search for treasure in new, thematic shrines hidden across the map”.

Aside from these additions, Epic Games has also added some bug fixes and some general additions such as dynamic resolution, which will give more consistent frame rates during heavy combat and will increase visual fidelity.

Some other things to note are the scoped assault rifle being perfectly accurate whilst scoped in, as well as a decrease in headshot damage from 250% to 200%. The tactical submachine gun has also received a minor buff, with the magazine size increasing from 30 to 35, and the firing rate increasing from 10 to 13.

A few weapons and items have had their drop rate decrease including the crossbow, minigun and the chug jug.

Here are the full patch notes for Battle Royale

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• Impulse Grenade added.
  • Blue rarity.
  • Found in Treasure Chests and Supply Drops only.
• The Scoped Assault Rifle is now perfectly accurate while scoped.
• Scoped Assault Rifle headshot damage decreased from 250% to 200%.
• Revolver now uses Medium ammo.
• Crossbow drop chance decreased by 20%.
• Minigun drop chance decreased by 12.5%.
• Chug Jug drop chance decreased by 15%.
• The White/Green/Blue SMG is rotating out and heading into the vault.
• Tactical Submachine Gun
  • Magazine size increased from 30 to 35.
  • Firing rate increased from 10 to 13.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Sniper Rifles occasionally not registering hits when aiming downward with high network latency.
• Fixed an issue with projectiles failing to hit nearby players when hitting another target.
• Fixed an issue allowing players to fire around walls with the Crossbow and Minigun if they stood very close to the edge of the wall.
• The reload-failed messages will no longer display on weapons that do not have a clip to reload (i.e. – Minigun).
• Removed per-bullet rounding on shotgun damage calculation.
  • Damage was rounded down to the nearest whole number for each individual pellet.
  • Instead, all projectiles will be added together before rounding.
• Fixed an issue which caused the Minigun’s barrel to continue to glow after use.

GAMEPLAY

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which prevented players from using the first weapon picked up on consoles.
• Fixed an issue where under certain network conditions, players could be damaged by bullets passing through structures built at the last second.
  • These shots will now hit the structure instead of the player.
• Fixed an issue which allowed shots to pass through doors right after they were closed.
• Fixed an issue which allowed players to pick-up an extra weapon/consumable while holding a trap.
  • This issue was also caused players to drop full stacks of resources and preventing them from harvesting that resource for the rest of the match.
• Fixed shield hit effects playing when taking falling damage.
• Fixed supply drops hovering mid-air if the object beneath them was destroyed.
• Fixed a possible crash that could occur while firing weapons before boarding the Battle Bus.

WORLD

Bug Fixes

• The Soccer Stadium and other buildings should now load properly.
• Fixed an issue which caused treasure chests to be empty in rare cases.
• Fixed an ammo crate in Lonely Lodge that didn’t spawn ammo.

PERFORMANCE

• Optimized performance of player animations to improve overall frame rate.
• Optimized dust cloud and shield effects on low settings for better performance.
• Eliminated various hitches caused by certain skins and items being loaded at unexpected times.
• Character models, weapons and environment assets now utilize a Level of Detail system to improve performance.
• Improved smoothness of level streaming by loading content on a background thread.
• Major tweaks to FX settings, targeting Medium to Low specifications.

UI

• Enabled “Net Stats” option for PS4.  This feature shows your ping time to Epic’s servers and overall bandwidth usage while playing.
  • This option can be found in the HUD tab under Game Settings.
• Added an icon to the HUD that indicates which button is used to open the map.
• Added the total elapsed time to the Matchmaking UI.
• The ammo widget above the player’s health bar now displays the count for any selected utility item.
• The keybinding widget in the HUD no longer shows “Not Bound”.
• Added the ability to let players scale the HUD.
  • Known Issue – This does not affect the HUD when spectating after death.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where PS4 players were not getting credit for playing with friends.

AUDIO

• Improved footstep audio by adding separate above and below step sounds for Wood, Stone, and Metal materials.
• Moved volume attenuation to be based off player location, rather than from the camera.
• Players can now better hear their surroundings while building.
  • Lowered the audio levels of initially placing a structure.
• Added new Wood, Stone and Metal sound variations when placing structures.
• Added a sound that plays when the Crossbow is ready to fire again.
• Lowered teammate footstep volume slightly.
• Lowered the volume of the Sniper impact sound.
• Lowered the volume of emote music when in the pre-game phase.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which prevented other players from hearing the Minigun’s spin up sound.
• Fixed some audio panning issues when equipping the Minigun.

ART/ANIMATION

• Improved visual FX when moving through deep water.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Royale Knight’s head clipping through the back of her helmet.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Weapon crosshairs will disappear sometimes after using a scoped weapon.
• Weapons will sometimes appear to be loaded, but cannot be fired.
• In rare cases, an item dropped by an eliminated player cannot be picked up by other players.