Is “wall taking” ping based again?

There is a debate going on between competitive Fortnite fans over wall taking and whether or not it is still a coin flip.

Amongst the controversial turbo building changes made last season, a mechanic was added that altered the process of holding or taking a wall. The update meant that “After a structure is destroyed, there will be a timer of 0.15 seconds before another piece can be placed in the same location” and “If two players are attempting to place a piece at the same time and location where a piece was just destroyed, a random roll will determine whose piece is placed, instead of ping playing such a large role”.

Essentially this made the game fairer for players with a higher ping, who previously would find it almost impossible to take control of an enemy’s wall. Most people agreed that although their were probably better ways to solve the problem, this change was for the best.

Taking walls still depends on ping @TTfue pic.twitter.com/tzIdy6ovF4

— FNATIC Eryc (@ErycTriceps) October 18, 2019

However, some players are now questioning if the update is still working. A post on the r/FortniteCompetitive subreddit by user u/BigBlackDana has sparked discussion amongst the community. The post describes how as a high ping player, opponents are regularly taking his walls first try but he is unable to replace theirs after multiple attempts.

Opinions are seemingly quite mixed, with some people agreeing and others arguing that they haven’t noticed a difference. The post did attract the attention of Epic Games’ Community Coordinator “FreightTrainUSA”, so they should be looking in to it.

Someone else who noticed the conversation was Ali “SypherPK” Hassan. He commented on the post to say that as a relatively high ping player himself, the coin flip mechanic still seemed to be working in Fortnite Chapter 2.

With an Epic Games employee commenting on the post, we can be sure that there wasn’t an intentional change made to this feature. Perhaps, there is nothing to worry about, but with the amount of bugs currently present in game, there could well be something affecting wall taking. Whatever the case, the developers are looking into it and hopefully any issues will be resolved shortly.