Epic Games release official statement on teaming

A blog post from the Fortnite Competitive team has touched on some key issues they will be focusing on regarding competitive integrity in 2020. There are some very important points to take note of.

The statement focuses specifically on the “Collusion Rule”, which looks to prevent players working together to “deceive or otherwise cheat other players during any match”. Here are the examples that they gave for what will be seen as collusion:

• Teaming: Players working together during the match while on opposing teams.

• Planned Movement: Agreement between 2 or more opposing players to land at specific locations or to move through the map in a planned way before the match begins.

• Communication: Sending or receiving signals (both verbal and non-verbal) to communicate with opposing players.

• Item Dumping: Intentionally dropping items for an opposing player to collect.

Throughout last year, players have been sending or receiving signals more commonly during official Fortnite competitions to the point where many players are confused around the ruling.

For 2020 (starting 1/20/20), we are taking action against any kind of in-game communication between opponents via signaling in official tournament matches. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Pick-axe swinging
• Emoting
• Toy tossing
• Jumping

Pick-axe swinging has been a major topic in competitive Fortnite in Chapter 2, and it has been widely accepted as ok. Well, this is no longer the case and will now be considered as a form of collusion. Epic have not revealed exactly what the penalties will be, but they said “We want to be explicitly clear that pacifism-style gameplay is still allowed, but if signalling is involved, we will review and take appropriate action for the teaming/collusion penalty”.

This news will likely cause some controversy amongst the community. On the one hand, it’s great to see the developers taking a strong stance against cheating, and that they are communicating exactly what is and isn’t allowed. However, many players will still feel that pick-axe swinging shouldn’t be seen as a form of teaming, especially with the lack of mobility still present.

Aside from the pick-axe swinging, there have been a number of accusations of cheating involving pro players and coaches talking in Discord during matches, planning out routes and deciding to avoid fighting certain teams. It will be interesting to see how this statement affects the situation and what sort of punishments are given to anyone caught out. You can read the full post here.