Esports Community Cries Fowl At TwitchCon Fortnite Fall Skirmish Rules

As various organizations have approached making Battle Royale into a true esport, many have brought their own variation to the rules. That said, eyes are probably on Epic harder than anyone when it comes to the rules they establish for their competitions. Recently, the rules for a Fortnite Fall Skirmish event taking place at TwitchCon caught attention from big ends of the esports community, and not in a good way.

The Fortnite Fall Skirmish has been an ongoing event that will be continuing at TwitchCon from October 26 to October 28, 2018. Attendees are welcome to join in and show their skills for a chance at a $2 million prize pool. Unfortunately, some of the rules seem off-color to players, and particularly caught the attention of major esports consultant Rod “Slasher” Breslau.

Epic Games is hosting a close to $2 Million Fortnite esports tournament at TwitchCon and is forcing all players on both PC and console to use on-site peripherals (mice/keyboard/controllers) AND max video settings.

This is not competitive. It's amateur dressed up as esports. pic.twitter.com/gat5kWNowV

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 11, 2018

Slasher notes certain rules set by Epic themselves for the TwitchCon Fall Skirmish that require all players to use equipment provided by the venue and set to very specific settings (seemingly max settings for all values). This means no use of personalized equipment or settings that players might be used to playing in their own games. The revelation was not ignored by other ends of the esports community, who jumped on board to heatedly debate about the fairness (or lack thereof) of Epic’s rules for the TwitchCon Skirmish.

One of the common arguments is that disallowing players the option to play on their own gear will probably throw many of them off. Many players, and especially more notable contenders, play with specialized mice, keyboards, and specific settings to ensure their game is as optimal to their gear and playstyle as possible. Having to play a mandatory way means having to adapt to equipment and settings with which players don’t have experience. Twitch streamer and Partner Sardoche points out rather angrily that this probably meant to keep stream quality as high as possible, prioritizing the spectacle over actual competition.

There is no debates.
As soon as they prefer having a better stream quality render over lowering input lags of their players, it's not esport anymore.
That's absolutely disgusting tbh.

— Sardoche (@Sardoche_Lol) October 12, 2018

As heated and impassioned as Sardoche is, he has a point. With all settings set to high, it brings up a natural concern that performance won’t be on the par that many players might want, making for missed shots and frustrating deaths in otherwise controllable moments.

That said, the other end of the spectrum isn’t without its arguments in favor of Epic. Mostly, the rebuttal lies in the logistical nature of the tournament and making sure everyone is set and ready to go when it’s time to play. G2 Fortnite pro streamer and former Hearthstone pro Jakub “Lothar” Szygulski spelled this argument in his own response to Slasher’s thread.

Its needed for logistical reason. When you have 100 pcs and probably 500+ players playing in heat waves, you just can’t allow players to tinker with the pcs everytime. Recipe for hours of delays.

— G2 Lothar (@LotharHS) October 11, 2018

When games are on a schedule and keeping that schedule for hundreds of player matters, it only makes sense that Epic would want to have as much of the technical element under control as possible. As Lothar points out, the more personalized machines there are in a tournament, the more likely a tech issue is to delay play. Any tournament organizer that has been around the block for a while can probably tell a horror story or two of players fudging up the flow of competition.

That said, there are many scenes where barring the use of personal equipment would outright be murder for participation. One can only imagine there would Epic Settings riots and vitriol if EVO were to tell the FGC that they have to use regulated EVO-supplied gamepads or fight sticks. Rod “Slasher” Breslau and his supporters bring valid points to their arguments about the nature of the TwitchCon Fall Skirmish.

It would appear Epic and the battle royale scene still have some road to travel before it discovers and/or settles on a set of rules that find that difficult middleground between setting a fair playing field and reasonably satisfying the esports community.