Epic Games has taken a significant step to clarify the situation in Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 or the #FortniteSeven update by releasing a huge TLDR summary. While the developers might have considered it a gesture of good will to the players by creating an easy-to-read post summarizing the new features and modifications, the response from the community has been rather different. Instead of expressing gratitude, gamers are bombarding the replies with their complaints, and one specific problem seems to be the one driving everyone mad completely.
What’s the outrage? The new emote wheel. More precisely, the complete overhauling of the emote and locker user interface. The players are going crazy with the alterations, and already there are massive numbers of comments telling Epic to “REVERT THE EMOTE WHEEL!!” just as user Mirio pretty candidly put it. It is not only one or two people who are on the bandwagon—the feeling is everywhere in the comments. Another user called T3rraconcordia derogatorily referred to the new emote wheel as “ass, terrible decision and annoying to use,” while a user called garfefe even highlighted the emote wheel difficulties for controller users and urged Epic to “revert the emote wheel NOW y’all didn’t realize how hard it is to type on controller.”
On top of the confusion and unpleasing experience caused to users by the emote wheel, the entire locker navigation system is a source of irritation for numerous players. User 𝕾 went on a rant, he said: “REVERT LOCKER UI. It’s so frustrating to navigate!! It’s great we get 2 extra slots on our wheel but the fact that the wheel pages are gone and the user has to individually search for anything now is horrendous. A nightmare on console.” This seems to be a widespread issue—the console users are especially struggling with the new interface changes that they feel were made without taking the controller’s limitations into account.
At the same time, some players are dealing with bugs that are nothing but technical problems. There is a crashing issue reportedly affecting a number of players, and HumblePig25 provided a detailed account of their misfortune: “I have been unlucky to only crash on the waves at the beginning, i have only been able to play once all the way through in my 50 attempts of trying to load in, but many others do crash on the first storm circle.” Flowzitto was wondering if he was having the same problem and attached a video of the same issue. Luke Morgan has also mentioned issues similar to those of the others with Macy 🦋 adding that it is happening on Xbox too and asking if there is a fix.
Another grievance that players have repeatedly voiced is the lack of the “Play Again” button. User Izanagimi even yelled “Why the heck did you take away the play again button?” which, frankly, is a pretty valid question. That button was a real lifesaver for going directly into another match without having to go back to the lobby, and its disappearance has definitely annoyed the player base.
Moreover, the whole matter regarding missing game modes has been causing quite a stir. A number of players are demanding Battle Lab and Solo VS Bots mode back, with b_dawg asking “What about solo vs bots game mode?” and Xenon pleading “Release the Solo VS Bots mode I need to do challenges in peace 😭.” The discussion about Battle Lab became particularly engaging with Anubis3714 and lahmearme talking about how Battle Lab was removed and is supposedly not coming back anytime soon because of some plot reason stemming from the bus driver’s death? Which sounds pretty unbelievable but hey, that’s Fortnite storytelling for you.
Not to mention, of course, the usual seasonal complaints that always come along as well. User Tutter simply stated “This season sucks ass bro” while Dani requested “We need more weapons.” Certain players are even begging for specific collaborations to be re-activated, with EPAC screaming “BRING NARUTO BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” in all caps as if we can’t have enough anime crossovers in the game.
Wait a sec, what was I talking about? Oh yes, the huge backlash against the UI changes. By the way, it is an interesting point that, amidst all the negative comments, at least one positive comment was made. User price supremacy actually commended the TLDR format by saying “can you post one of these for each update? looks so good.” So at least Epic hasn’t completely wronged the players in their communication.
The whole affair has a déjà vu quality that makes me remember when other games underwent significant UI changes and the community just blew up. Do you remember the time when Twitter changed its layout and made everyone mad? Or when YouTube did anything not in a user-friendly way? It is a well-known fact that gamers are extremely resistant to change, especially when it concerns controls and interfaces that they’ve gotten used to.
