Why Fortnite is So Addictive
Unfortunately, my healthy sleep routine streak was ended since playing Fortnite. I was wondering why this game is so addictive, so I'm compiling a list here.
Added update below.
Building.
The one thing that makes it so addicting, is the one thing that made me hesitate from playing the game in the first place, and that's the building aspect. I look forward to going to my home base to add more traps, structure, and reinforcing materials. Sometimes I would just go to the storm shield base just to admire what I built, even though it's not aesthetically pleasing as some player's forts. Fully reinforced metal and brick layers is quite attractive, but it takes a lot of materials, but I grind because it's refreshing to see the beautiful materials once triple-reinforced. As you can see from the link, you can be as creative as you want, so the building can be complex.
I love just walking around the fort, going up the hill to get a bird's eye view of the fort, and hearing the sounds of my character Kyle's footsteps crunching on top of traps and building materials. I would sometimes just go to my home base to do just that, enjoying what I've built.
The game does give you limits to building structures, but I don't think anyone has ever had problems with the cap so you can build to your heart's content.
Graphics.
I find artwork style and graphics very important, as I noticed that I was never drawn into Minecraft because of the unattractive blocky nature of the game (as well as the emphasis on building), even though I played Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII which are the definition of polygons. The difference is that if you're going to build something, you want your building to look nice since you put in all the effort.
Fortnite has a cartoon style, and granted, it's not as crisp as games in that genre such as Gravity Rush 2, where I can't see any jaggies, and the art direction is absolutely brilliant and stunning. My friend, who's not a gamer, said Gravity Rush 2 was like watching an animated movie. Although Fortnite is not at that level, I like the colorful nature of Fortnite so it's fun to explore the world.
Story and Characters
Surprisingly the story is actually good and humorous. One thing I like about Fortnite is if you miss one of Ray's dialogues, you can go to the mission that you completed and play the intro and outro. Since the game is still in early access, I heard that after Plankerton (Canny Valley and Twine Peaks), there's no longer any story. I think I'm going to play through Plankerton, and wait for the game to come out, because I prefer to see the story while I play the game, rather than playing the dialogue back to back.
I also found Ray, the robot that guides you, very funny. Even when she's annoying by letting you know that the husks are intruding into the fort, that part is comical due to the tone of her voice.
Each hero you play have different personalities. Originally, I mained Kyle, the Constructor, a lovable guy who makes fun of himself for being overweight and out of shape whenever you run out of endurance. Because my shooting skills aren't great, I had to change to Ramirez, the Soldier, who reloads weapons very quickly and has more offensive power. Ramirez tends to be no-nonsense and gung ho, which is consistent with her class.
My favorite along with Kyle is Jess, the Outlander, due to her intentionally flat, sarcastic tone. The Husks do wear shorts, so it's funny when she encounters them, she says "Nice cut-offs". She also makes other quips, insulting the husks ("They're alive and they're ugly") and offering sarcastic advice such as "have you considered meditation?"
I haven't played any of the Ninjas, but I'm sure they also have their unique personalities.
Gameplay
Much has been said about the grinding for resources and experience points, but it's actually fun. When you use your pick-axe, a blue circle comes up that shows the object's weak points, so you want to aim your axe there. So it's not as mindless as you have to adjust the angle of your axe since the blue circle weak points change location. In that respect, there's some gameplay element in there with the coordination of aiming.
The enemies are not that diverse, comprising of tiny husks that run at you rather quickly, regular husks, the larger husky husks, and the even larger mist enemies. Even though I never got into shooters, even after playing the exceptionally polished Gears of War (I was surprised that Epic Games is the developer!), The Last of Us, and Uncharted 1 and 2. In fact, there were times when I was hoping to get past the shooting parts of the game as quickly as possible as the story and characters were infinitely more compelling, and not so much the shooting.
However, for some reason, I find Fortnite's shooting elements addictive. I actually want to get better at shooting, such as landing head shots and using the minimal amount of bullets necessary to kill enemies. I would actually go to lower level missions to practice in a more controlled environment. I cannot explain why I find the shooting compelling here, whereas not so much in the other games. I now know why FPS and shooters are so popular, as you want to constantly refine and perfect your head shots and conserve your bullets.
Gambling
The pinata loot system is exactly analogous to gambling, which can be a diagnosable addiction. Depending on the pinata, you can get mythic and legendary items (i.e. winning the lottery), and like gambling, you can buy V-bucks to get the upgraded and special llamas until you hit the jackpot. Reportedly, one person spent over $1500 to get a mythic hero, and unluckily, it's not the best one, which doesn't surprise me. One out of 10 of the upgraded llama may turn into a gold llama (regular, silver to gold) where you can get the best items.
Further, I'm a grind queen, and even I find it very slow to progress. Unlike Dark Souls 3 where you can grind the overweight angels on top of the building before facing off the Prince brothers, as many times as you want and it only takes minutes, it takes very long to grind out exp points in Fortnite. Various missions give out rewards, often less than 1000 exp, and after the second evolution (I believe you can evolve all items up to 4 times max), it takes 5000 exp, and of course, costs more as you level up higher.
You can definitely progress, but it's very slow, even for me. By buying the llamas, you can get EXP points very quickly, also adding to the addictive value of the game.
Major Con: Customer Service and Bugs
I haven't heard back from Epic Games, and it's been over 5 business days. I was reading about a husband who inquired about not getting a legendary item for a timed event in such detail, that it was obvious it was the developer's fault, but they denied. One helpful reply to his post is to contact BBB (Better Business Bureau in the U.S.) as businesses don't want to have negative reports (I'll try to find the link again). Curious, I went to see Epic Games' status, and it was not accredited, though not responding to 6 complaints doesn't seem that "bad".
In other words, I still recommend the game, but perhaps waiting until it's free in 2018, because if you pay for the game, and you lose your most wanted items, and I had heard that some people even lost their home base forts after a patch, you'll feel ripped off. Whereas if you encounter such glitches, but you pay nothing, then at least you're not being taken advantage.
Fortnite is a brilliant, addictive game (and can be a masterpiece in a more conscientious developer's hands such as Guerrilla Games of the Killzone and now Horizon: Zero Dawn franchises), and absolutely worth playing once it's free. If you don't mind paying money despite glaring glitches and unfinished portions of the game, I would buy it now. It ruined my sleep!
Have you played Fortnite and did you find it as addictive as I did?
The How of Happiness Review
Unfortunately, my healthy sleep routine streak was ended since playing Fortnite. I was wondering why this game is so addictive, so I'm compiling a list here.
Added update below.
Building.
The one thing that makes it so addicting, is the one thing that made me hesitate from playing the game in the first place, and that's the building aspect. I look forward to going to my home base to add more traps, structure, and reinforcing materials. Sometimes I would just go to the storm shield base just to admire what I built, even though it's not aesthetically pleasing as some player's forts. Fully reinforced metal and brick layers is quite attractive, but it takes a lot of materials, but I grind because it's refreshing to see the beautiful materials once triple-reinforced. As you can see from the link, you can be as creative as you want, so the building can be complex.
I love just walking around the fort, going up the hill to get a bird's eye view of the fort, and hearing the sounds of my character Kyle's footsteps crunching on top of traps and building materials. I would sometimes just go to my home base to do just that, enjoying what I've built.
The game does give you limits to building structures, but I don't think anyone has ever had problems with the cap so you can build to your heart's content.
Graphics.
I find artwork style and graphics very important, as I noticed that I was never drawn into Minecraft because of the unattractive blocky nature of the game (as well as the emphasis on building), even though I played Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII which are the definition of polygons. The difference is that if you're going to build something, you want your building to look nice since you put in all the effort.
Fortnite has a cartoon style, and granted, it's not as crisp as games in that genre such as Gravity Rush 2, where I can't see any jaggies, and the art direction is absolutely brilliant and stunning. My friend, who's not a gamer, said Gravity Rush 2 was like watching an animated movie. Although Fortnite is not at that level, I like the colorful nature of Fortnite so it's fun to explore the world.
Story and Characters
Surprisingly the story is actually good and humorous. One thing I like about Fortnite is if you miss one of Ray's dialogues, you can go to the mission that you completed and play the intro and outro. Since the game is still in early access, I heard that after Plankerton (Canny Valley and Twine Peaks), there's no longer any story. I think I'm going to play through Plankerton, and wait for the game to come out, because I prefer to see the story while I play the game, rather than playing the dialogue back to back.
I also found Ray, the robot that guides you, very funny. Even when she's annoying by letting you know that the husks are intruding into the fort, that part is comical due to the tone of her voice.
Each hero you play have different personalities. Originally, I mained Kyle, the Constructor, a lovable guy who makes fun of himself for being overweight and out of shape whenever you run out of endurance. Because my shooting skills aren't great, I had to change to Ramirez, the Soldier, who reloads weapons very quickly and has more offensive power. Ramirez tends to be no-nonsense and gung ho, which is consistent with her class.
My favorite along with Kyle is Jess, the Outlander, due to her intentionally flat, sarcastic tone. The Husks do wear shorts, so it's funny when she encounters them, she says "Nice cut-offs". She also makes other quips, insulting the husks ("They're alive and they're ugly") and offering sarcastic advice such as "have you considered meditation?"
I haven't played any of the Ninjas, but I'm sure they also have their unique personalities.
Gameplay
Much has been said about the grinding for resources and experience points, but it's actually fun. When you use your pick-axe, a blue circle comes up that shows the object's weak points, so you want to aim your axe there. So it's not as mindless as you have to adjust the angle of your axe since the blue circle weak points change location. In that respect, there's some gameplay element in there with the coordination of aiming.
The enemies are not that diverse, comprising of tiny husks that run at you rather quickly, regular husks, the larger husky husks, and the even larger mist enemies. Even though I never got into shooters, even after playing the exceptionally polished Gears of War (I was surprised that Epic Games is the developer!), The Last of Us, and Uncharted 1 and 2. In fact, there were times when I was hoping to get past the shooting parts of the game as quickly as possible as the story and characters were infinitely more compelling, and not so much the shooting.
However, for some reason, I find Fortnite's shooting elements addictive. I actually want to get better at shooting, such as landing head shots and using the minimal amount of bullets necessary to kill enemies. I would actually go to lower level missions to practice in a more controlled environment. I cannot explain why I find the shooting compelling here, whereas not so much in the other games. I now know why FPS and shooters are so popular, as you want to constantly refine and perfect your head shots and conserve your bullets.
Gambling
The pinata loot system is exactly analogous to gambling, which can be a diagnosable addiction. Depending on the pinata, you can get mythic and legendary items (i.e. winning the lottery), and like gambling, you can buy V-bucks to get the upgraded and special llamas until you hit the jackpot. Reportedly, one person spent over $1500 to get a mythic hero, and unluckily, it's not the best one, which doesn't surprise me. One out of 10 of the upgraded llama may turn into a gold llama (regular, silver to gold) where you can get the best items.
Further, I'm a grind queen, and even I find it very slow to progress. Unlike Dark Souls 3 where you can grind the overweight angels on top of the building before facing off the Prince brothers, as many times as you want and it only takes minutes, it takes very long to grind out exp points in Fortnite. Various missions give out rewards, often less than 1000 exp, and after the second evolution (I believe you can evolve all items up to 4 times max), it takes 5000 exp, and of course, costs more as you level up higher.
You can definitely progress, but it's very slow, even for me. By buying the llamas, you can get EXP points very quickly, also adding to the addictive value of the game.
Major Con: Customer Service and Bugs
I haven't heard back from Epic Games, and it's been over 5 business days. I was reading about a husband who inquired about not getting a legendary item for a timed event in such detail, that it was obvious it was the developer's fault, but they denied. One helpful reply to his post is to contact BBB (Better Business Bureau in the U.S.) as businesses don't want to have negative reports (I'll try to find the link again). Curious, I went to see Epic Games' status, and it was not accredited, though not responding to 6 complaints doesn't seem that "bad".
In other words, I still recommend the game, but perhaps waiting until it's free in 2018, because if you pay for the game, and you lose your most wanted items, and I had heard that some people even lost their home base forts after a patch, you'll feel ripped off. Whereas if you encounter such glitches, but you pay nothing, then at least you're not being taken advantage.
Fortnite is a brilliant, addictive game (and can be a masterpiece in a more conscientious developer's hands such as Guerrilla Games of the Killzone and now Horizon: Zero Dawn franchises), and absolutely worth playing once it's free. If you don't mind paying money despite glaring glitches and unfinished portions of the game, I would buy it now. It ruined my sleep!
Have you played Fortnite and did you find it as addictive as I did?
The How of Happiness Review
I feel like Addictive is the wrong word for your article here, You've listed some of the reason's you've enjoyed it so much, but I think the there are some very key points with this game that keep players coming back to it. The way this game utilises timed content, similar in a way to Warframe, is pure unadulterated genius. Even when you're not playing the game, you're still thinking about it. You're still keeping an eye on mission's and quest's, you're still logging on every morning to collect that days research points, and getting your daily equipment. Even if you take a break for a couple days, you're still never truly gone. Fortnite is a tough one to talk about with it being so new, however an example I can recall from my time playing Warframe, a friend of mine would keep a website tab open at all times, that monitor's what missions were available so he could look out for crafting materials he desperately needed. They keep you engaged with the game almost indefinately, similar to how Mobile games might do it, or MMO's.It is very very smart, possibly it could be a dangerous road to lead down, but they've nailed it in such a way it isn't a problem.
ReplyDeleteYes, I forgot about the timed elements and how you can get special items if you complete missions in a certain time-frame.
DeleteI also forgot to mention, which I will revise and update, that the Llama pinata system is very much a gambling system, where some have spent thousands of dollars to get a mythic hero. The partial reinforcement system of gambling holds true in Fortnite's Llama system, and in that sense, I think Fortnite can become an addiction, much like gambling, where the mythic heros and legendary best weapons are akin to winning a jackpot!