The Remote Explosives had to be disabled in Fortnite Battle Royale yesterday, as there was bug that was discovered where the Remote Explosives seemed to have been nerfed. Here’s what Rook, the Lead Item Designer for Fortnite, had to say about the bug:
This change to the Remote Explosives’ structure destruction radius is unintended.
What happened? Before this patch went out, we made a last-minute change to the item in order to properly attribute fall damage that was indirectly caused by Remote Explosives. In the process, we inadvertently unified the player damage radius (400 units) and the structure damage radius (600 units) to use the smaller of the two.
Our plan: We’re currently testing a new value for this unified destruction radius that meets more in the middle. I’ll report back with the exact number once it has been deployed.
The reasoning behind it: It does make sense for the explosion to use the same radius for both players and structures, but our goal is that one charge should be able to destroy the wall it’s attached to and the wall on the opposite side of the building grid. That means the explosion radius needs to increase from the value that’s currently live.
You’ll hear back from me soon when the change is good to go.
They were added back to Fortnite after a few hours, but many do not know that there was actually a change that was made to reduce the effectiveness of the item. Epic had made an adjustment made to the explosion radius, where the damage radius used to be 600 units for structures and 400 units for players. It now has a unified damage radius of 520 units, which means the structure damage has decreased.
The change in the damage radius has already been implemented, when it was added back after the bug fix, but it seems as though Epic are listening to the community and will be making more changes to this item in the near future.
Most of the community have raised concerns about the availability of this item being too high. Epic are considering to reduce the drop count and the maximum stack size, as well as reducing the overall drop rate of the Remote Explosives in the Fortnite world to address this issue.
Here is what the Lead Item Designer for Fortnite had to say on the Remote Explosives:
Update: Remote Explosives are ready to be re-enabled after a bug fix and an adjustment to their explosion radius. The damage radius is now a unified 520 units, whereas in previous patches it was 600 units for structures and 400 units for players.
To be clear, this change represents a reduction in the structure damage radius of Remote Explosives.
But that’s not the only change in the works! We’ve been hearing the community feedback that availability of this item is too high. To address this, we’ve been considering a reduction to drop count and max stack size, and even the rate at which they drop in the world. Look for possible changes in the near future. In the meantime, please let us know what you think once you’ve had a chance to try out their new reduced effectiveness.
We will keep you updated with any new information.
