OwnedCore Report #30

[Kenneth]

The Dirty 30's are here. Welcome to the 30th OwnedCore Report. Last week we covered on some games to look out for July, gaming news from around the globe, and Veritable's opinion on BFA via the beta so far. This week we are continuing with news from around the globe and a Fortnite Season 5 overview.

---

Fortnite Season 5 Overview

---

We have talked about theories of what Season 5 was going to have in store for us over the last two reports. Things such as llamas appearing all over the world, a Durr Burger appearing on the beach in California, and a ton of hints of the past coming to the present. Well the theories, conspiracies, and answers we needed all came together Thursday when Epic launched their Season 5 for Fortnite.


This Season has definitely given us the most content out of all past seasons so far. Changes including a map overhaul where Moisty Mire and the Prison were turned into a desert wasteland with new points of interest such as Paradise Palms. On top of the Desert POI's we got some new ones up north with the removal of Anarchy Acre's being replaced with a golf course called Lazy Links and a Viking Village on a mountain near Snobby Shores.

As far as theme, it seems the leaks and conspiracies were right. It turned out to be a past come to the future kind of Season but not as heavily influenced as many thought it would be. Before talks of Egyptians, Gladiators from Rome, Greek Mythology, and more were all going to collide and we would get some sweet skins to boot. But besides the new Viking area there isn't really any influence from the past at all. This goes for the skins too.



The Season 5 Battle Pass skins include a female and male viking, a lifeguard, a soldier, female biker, graffiti man with Japanese mask, and detective. So the past did come to us but only from the far north where the Vikings reside it seems. On top of the skins we got a new addition called Toys. Toys are like emotes but actually usable in game to do physical things with. Things such as basketballs to shoot hoops around the map, golf ball to put at Lazy Links, and more. On top of these cosmetic additions we got cosmetic changes as well. In Season 4 we saw the addition of progressive skins. This means if you do challenges such as grind to a certain level by the end of the Season your skin would evolve into its final form. People found this grind super overwhelming and felt obligated to no life to get these final forms of the Battle Pass skins before they went away. This time around Epic made the change that you can grind the EXP needed for these skin evolutions even after the season ends. Therefore there is no rush unless you wan't to obtain the final form skins before most have. To me, a great change because the level 80 grind was hell last season for Omega.

Lastly we have got some major balance changes to the game which include:

• A golf cart vehicle addition (the first true vehicle in the game)

• Rifts being added. These are portals on the ground that you can jump into to re-fall from the sky, serving similar to the jump pad and great for getting around the map quicker.

• Shotguns being revamped and nerfed. Now you see how many pellets hit when you shoot a shotgun at somebody and the spread patterns are not random anymore. This buff came with a nerf to the double shotgun meta. They made it so if you switch from one shotgun to another it adds a timer that you have to wait before pulling out the second shotgun and so on.

• Storm Shifts on circles 7,8, and 9. This means that the storm shifts in random directions at the very end instead of simply shrinking. This will hopefully fix end game camping and promote fighting more.

---

Gaming News from Around the Globe

---

BFA Pre-Patch comes out in 2 days!

Legion is finally coming to its green end. On July 17th the Pre-Patch for Battle For Azeroth will be upon us. Per usual a pre-patch means removing some old content such as your artifact traits but more importantly adding new content such as updating classes and quests leading up to the BFA leveling experience. The biggest change is by far the stat squish. The numbers of your health, damage, and future item level gear will all be lowered to keep us getting to Diablo 3-esque numbers in damage. Lastly we have War Mode being activated which to me is the coolest thing being added in BFA. For players on both PVP and PVE realms you can now toggle World PVP on or off in your capital city. The coolest part is there will be incentives such as more exp, more loot, and access to all of your honor talents if War Mode is enabled. Worth.



BLOPS 4 beta comes out in August

Treyarch is opening its doors to the players to test out the newest addition in the Call of Duty Franchise in August. This multiplayer beta will include the games competitive modes such as TDM, Domination, Hardpoint, Control, and SnD. Later on in September there will be a Blackout beta which is their newest and most hyped addition to the game since its Battle Royale.

PS4 gets beta from August 3-6
PS4/Xbox One get Beta August 10 - August 13
PC Early Access is August 10
PC Open Beta is August 11-13

There is no word on how we can get our hands on the Blackout beta yet and the multiplayer beta is accessible via pre-order.



The Dutch can trade again in CS:GO

Due to new laws in the Netherlands banning Loot Crates from games Valve has released an update this week. This means that players in the Netherlands will not be able to open containers for cosmetic items such as weapon skins and stickers. But the update also gives back the power to trade for players in the Netherlands. This was disabled because in June Valve thought disabling everything from them even trading was the best way to comply with their new laws.

Personally I am sick of loot crates and wish this would occur in more countries but realistically big hitters like the U.S would probably never do such a thing.


DoubleLift releases a video on League of Legends issues


It is no surprise that something like this has finally been done. League of Legends as of late has been on a downward spiral in viewership and playerbase in the west for months now. To save face they have decided to go with this new method of patching that includes more frequent patches with major changes in them. This causes a constant change in meta so rapidly that players and pros alike are getting sick of it.

Doublift uses examples in this video such as Starcraft and Fortnite to back up his statements that small changes over long periods of time are better for a games longevity. Even if you don't play LoL anymore this video is worth a watch. Its concise, to the point, and polished off with great editing.


Fortnite's first Summer Skirmish was a total Mess

So if you don't know already Epic Games pledged 100 million dollars toward Fortnite esports just this year alone. Yesterday we saw the first rendition of this plan they have with their Summer Skirmish. A tournament worth $250k in prize money and $50k going to first place. A pretty big deal. But it all went to shit fast.

First, we have the drama of who they invited. People thought it was biased that they only invited streamers and pros and didn't give high stat players who aren't big streamers a chance to prove themselves. On top of that Epic didn't invite anybody from Faze Clan who has been dominating the community ran tournaments every Friday. So the only way to get Faze in the tournament was to have people who were invited choose them as their duo partners. So while TSM got to play together on a team Faze was scattered around. But wait it gets better.

Than the tournament happens and the flaws of a Battle Royale eSport shine line never before. Now I have watched pro skirmishes before this so I knew this was inevitable but a lot of people have not witnessed this yet. What am I talking about? Camping and a lack of incentive to kill people. In the 7th circle, which is basically the end of the game in a super small safe zone there were 30+ people alive. That is over 1/3 of the players. It was just a giant building camp fest because nobody wanted to risk dying and would rather camp and place higher. This is why I think Epic have been nerfing materials and increasing explosives because they saw these pro skirmishes in the past and realized EVERY game ended with somebody winning by timing a med kit and just living in the storm the longest, not actually by having a duel at the end with whoever else was alive. But even with these material nerfs and explosive damage buffs it happened again in front of everybody and it turned into a giant meme. BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER

There was unbearable lag the whole game. Players were rubber banding non stop and at some points had no control over their characters. I will link some clips that pretty much explain it all.

Twitch

Twitch

So not only was it a gigantic camp fest, not only were the teams unfairly made by Epic, but the lag in this tournament was literally unplayable for some people. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

They didn't even use the spectate mode. They literally just switched between the Twitch streams. You can see a glimpse of it at the end of the second clip above. The commentating was awful as they did NO research on any of the players and it was just clear that all around this tournament was set up terribly. Even Ninja who ran an outdoor LAN over a month ago had a better tournament setup than this with great casting and great use of the spectate mode. And his tournament on top of all of the great structure had incentive to kill because it was $2,500 if you killed Ninja regardless of your placing so none of his games ended up in a gigantic camp fest at the end of the match where everybody was roleplaying a hobbit.

It should be interesting to see how Epic decide to improve this.

[HunterHero]

Another great write up as usual Kenneth. I totally agree with Doublelift in his video, that pushing patches so often is like shooting themselves in the foot. I'm not sure if I totally understand why pros don't stream skirmishes, is it different from streaming with viewers?

Also I tried Fortnite for the first time this week and watched some of the tournament stream and yeah it was a total shit show. I don't get why this game is so popular tbh.

[Kenneth]

Another great write up as usual Kenneth. I totally agree with Doublelift in his video, that pushing patches so often is like shooting themselves in the foot. I'm not sure if I totally understand why pros don't stream skirmishes, is it different from streaming with viewers?

Also I tried Fortnite for the first time this week and watched some of the tournament stream and yeah it was a total shit show. I don't get why this game is so popular tbh.

its like a cartoony minecraft shooter in a popular genre that is BR. Also think the hype around fortnite has every normie in the world playing it just because everybody else is.

[HunterHero]

its like a cartoony minecraft shooter in a popular genre that is BR. Also think the hype around fortnite has every normie in the world playing it just because everybody else is.

Hmm that makes sense tbh. It's also flashy and you can buy skins and every child plays it, so everyone has to join in on it.