Building mechanic in Battle Royale was never meant for PvP, it was designed for PvE, Save the World.
I don't know the intentions of the developers but when they realized the building system has serious fundamental flaws, it was too late and the game had millions of people playing it and got used to the broken building system.
So they buffed explosives, introduced new explosive weapons, nerfed resource gathering, nerfed building HPs, but nothing helped. These indirect solutions only frustrated players, and since the main intent was to nerf building, Epic got more and more afraid to touch building system.
And here we are, the game itself can be a lot of fun, they've improved so much over the year but if they don't do something about this broken, skill ceiling-less building mechanic, people will continue to break their peripherals and leave the game for good.
What is really wrong with the building system anyway?
1. Battle Royale is a highly competitive fast-paced PvP mode. Similar games with deployables and buildings have cast animations, cooldowns, penalties and channeling periods. Examples include every flipping game with deployables and portable buildings. Battlefield V, Call of Duty, RainbowSix Siege... imagine in CoD zombie mod, you could reinforce windows in 0.1 seconds, even AI zombies would rage quit. Imaging in R6 Siege you could deploy walls and reinforce walls instantly, or in Battlefield V you could build walls instantly. It takes 0.1 or even fewer seconds to build a piece of wall in Fortnite, but it takes a lot more time and effort to destroy them.
2. Being this open-ended instantly attracts cheaters, and spotting macro users is not only difficult, but it's also in a very gray area. Someone could just be using a macro-enabled mouse or keyboard, but not using it for cheating in Fortnite. Or even worse, someone could be just bad at building and want to not get smashed every other match by "just build lol" mentality. Someone could just not like the building, but like everything else about Fortnite, so they could see macro as a good option to have some handicap over other macro users or good builders.
The Boom Box
The most recent update introduced the Boom Box, which does damage per second to all structures, but not to players or vehicles. While I like the idea a lot, and it’s far better than penetrative explosive damage idea, I’m afraid Epic Games might vault it really fast since lots of people seem to not like it. It didn’t create the biggest backlash by any means (flashbacks of Infinity Blade), Epic needs to stick behind their decision a little bit longer than one month and see how the meta turns out.
However, this will not fix the chronic issues that come with the core building system. Epic is trying their best to give players lots of different options for movement, combat, and demolition, instead of reworking the building. They’ve stated in the past that they do not want “just build lol” meta to be the only choice players have, but since all the new items and vehicles come with a chance, and building is something that everyone can do as long as they have some material, there is no way “just build lol” is going to get down from the meta throne.
Conclusion
Epic just has to take the L, and rework building. No one should have to choose between using a macro or getting owned while building in a shooting game. And I'm not even talking about the bloom or anything else because it would take even more of my time and require more walls of text to explain. I don't think macro users have all the blame here, people choose the least path of resistance. Epic games have to take charge of this issue and have the guts to rework the -always been broken- building mechanic that gives this game its name.
