Players might’ve noticed that their Storm Shields in several Fortnite maps were missing. Well, after the player base reached out to the Fortnite Team, they clarified that they were forced to reset them in the latest patch according to a forum post from Zak Phelps, an executive producer at Epic Games.
Here is the forum post from Phelps in response to players worries about their Storm Shields:
“Ok first we messed up in missing a HUGE part of our patch notes. I apologize. We understand how much time you have invested in building your Storm Shield base, it’s your home, your defense, your vision, we feel that way too. We will be dedicated in providing detailed at patch notes going forward.
In our haste to get this patch out we missed clarifying tweaks to the Plankerton, Canny Valley and Twine Peaks Storm Shield maps. We decided to make change to those maps to improve game balance at upper difficulties. Map changes require us to reset any base you have built. Building materials and traps have been refunded into your Storm Shield Storage, the storage overflows in cases like these so you have every piece of stone, every trap laid ready to be reused. We have to do this to avoid issues with built bases conflicting with the map changes. We know that the time it took to create your base can’t be replaced, we hope that opportunity to rebuild with all your resources and past experience will allow you to make an even better base.
As we move through Early Access we will be modifying the game and making changes to improve the experience, at times this will mean changes that require refunds to core systems like the skill tree, research tree, and storm shields. We are never going to reset your overall progression.
Moving forward we’ll make sure to communicate changes BEFORE they happen.
Apologize again for the confusion.”
For those of you who don’t know what Storm Shields are, they are built to protect certain things in Fortnite from Husks. Husks are the Fortnite version of zombies that are spawned by Storms, which are found in these missions.
While some forum members were thankful that the developers clarified why their Storm Shields disappeared (but still wanted to know ahead of time), others are disappointed that the time and resources spent on their Storm Shields is now gone. Funny enough, some players were actually thankful that the Storm Shields were reseted in the first place so that they can go back and make new ones after learning more about the game. Luckily, the game is only in early access, so any Storm Shield lost shouldn’t be too detrimental to future gameplay.
One forum member, hBrbot, was one of the players upset by the reset altogether due to how much time and resources he spent fortifying his Storm Shields.
“To be honest, it really is a bit demoralizing. Had I known this was gonna happen I would never have spent so much time in my base at all as you don’t really need to build all too much to be able to defend anyways. I really don’t think this is sitting all too well with you guys either, knowing you’ve erased many thousands of hours players spent building their respective bases,” commented hBrbot.
Also, this can be a good learning experience for the developers in terms of what should be mentioned in patch notes. Unfortunately, though, the transparency between the developer and player community came after the decision was made to wipe out the Storm Shields, which did leave some players unhappy.
Featured image via Epic Games official website.
