Hi Fortnite friends,

Online Test 8 is here! OT8 includes helpful improvements to Skill Tree, Defenders that can help in your Outpost and more. Check out the full details below.

Major Features

Skill Tree and Outpost Refund

• Skill Tree
  • Reset and refund player Skill Trees. 
  • Skill Tree structures and layouts have been iterated upon and a new onboarding sequence has been introduced. Players get to choose again how they would like to spend their points within the new structure.
  • Outpost quest completion is now required to unlock additional tiers of the Skill Tree.
  • Research Points have been rebalanced and player Research Point wallets have been reset. Players will receive a refund for the Research Point nodes that they purchased in OT7.
• Reset and refund players’ Stonewood outposts. Saved building layout is reset, but players are granted the resources they spent and the traps they placed back within their outpost storage inventory.

Defenders

Time to start building your army, first up: Defenders!  These survivors have the ability to Defend your outpost along with your stalwart heroes. Having trouble playing playing solo when you get toward mid Stonewood Outpost? Deploy your first survivor in a fortified emplacement and equip them with a gun and have them cover you! Survivors can level up, use certain classes of weapons, and can be deployed in any of the owning player’s Outposts. More to come as we move into the Fall.  

• Defenders are now ready to help defend your Outpost!
• Defenders are currently awarded through quests, and can be upgraded in the Vault.
• There is a Defender for each major type of weapon in Fortnite: Assault Rifle, Melee, Pistol, Shotgun, & Sniper Rifle.
• To summon a Defender in your Outpost, you must first craft a Defender Beacon.  You can experiment to determine the best placement for the Beacon.
  • Once you have placed a Defender Beacon use it and pick the Defender you want to summon to the Beacon.
  • Only one Defender can be deployed to one Defender Beacon, if you pick a different Defender at the Beacon the original will go back into the vault.
  • While anyone in an Outpost can build a Defender Beacon, only the the Outpost owner can summon their Defender.
  • Defenders are limited to a beacon boundary centered around the Defender Beacon.  They will remain in this area at all times, and if they are knocked out of it they will return to it.
• Defenders need weapons from you.
  • To give a Defender a weapon, the Outpost owner should drop an appropriate weapon on the ground near them within the beacon boundary
  • Make sure you drop ammo too!
  • If you don’t like the weapon you gave the Defender, drop a different one and they’ll give the original weapon back.
  • Weapons and ammo are returned when the Defender is teleported out or when the Outpost owner leaves the Outpost.
• Defenders can be downed, so make sure you build structures to protect them and keep your eye on them to see if they need any help.

Recycling is now unlocked in the skill tree

• Recycling unlocks are based on item rarity, so that you cannot immediately recycle rare items.
• Upgrading the Recycler now influences what items can be recycled in the vault.

Content

• All Hero cards now have a unique appearance, along with matching icons in the UI.
• Stonewood, Plankerton & Canny Valley are currently the areas open to be explored.

Improved Storms

• All regions of the game now have wind blowing through them. The intensity will increase gradually as you progress through the game.
• While in a Fight the Storm mission, there is now a constant wind throughout the entire zone.
• While under Spawn Clouds during an encounter, a new more ominous post process has been added.
• Outpost spawn clouds will now show the same visuals as other missions throughout the game while underneath them.
• Wind improvements: Storms now cause much larger areas of wind that sweep out from the clouds to the primary mission goals. Performance issues with wind changes are also significantly improved.
• Shrubs and Cars now are affected by the wind.
• Upgraded rain, lightning, dynamic light flashes and debris effects in the storm.
• New Art for Clouds, Sky Materials, and Enemy spawners.
• Lighting and Fog adjustments in Fight The Storm mission.

Release Notes

Art

• The props that were previously grey in Survivor Shelters are now not placeholder, and have final art. Don't eat too many Broder Bites!
• Various props found in Survivor Shelters have had their health values revisited to be more in-line with their scale and type.
• Canny "Hot Smoggy" Lighting Changes.
  • Removed the radioactive-overexposed color adjustments that appear during the day.
  • Adjust lighting at night time so the shadows are not harsh and black.
  • Reduce fog density.
  • Increase distance fog appears from player.
• Canny Medium "Foggy Spooky" aka "Green Fog" adjustments.
  • Reduce density of fog significantly.
  • Increase distance from player where fog will start.
  • Adjust color of fog and various settings to prevent it from becoming radioactive in areas.
  • Adjust color of the morning and evening light to be more distinct and vibrant.
  • Adjust nighttime colors so the scene did not get too dark.
• Plankerton Blue Fog Lighting changes.
  • Reduced fog density significantly.
  • Increase the distance from the player that the fog will appear.
• Some curtain props looked ugly. Now they're pretty.
• Fix for Taker effects on players not cleaning up.
• Updated several tree models.
• Added art for the StormShield Amplifiers in the Outpost.
• The Encampments models have been upgraded.

Gadgets

• Fixed a bug preventing the Banner gadget from upgrading walls up to level 3 when fully upgraded.
• Prevented Adrenaline Rush gadget from being activatable while dead.
• Airstrike now gives the correct number of bombs for its upgrades.

Gameplay

• Added a brief stun to enemies on resurrection, so players regain control before having enemies surrounding them again.
• Added an animation to play when releasing from death and not resurrecting in-place.
• Spawn rifts will destroy a small area around them when spawned.
• Reduced combat score by 25%.
• Increased building score by 50%.
• Updated crafting score on all recipes.
  • Crafting score is now based on the ingredients used in the recipe. This brings the feature up to parity with OT6 so that it now works with the revamped crafting recipes and economy from OT7.
    • Example: Cheap trap recipes are now worth less.
    • Example: Rare guns are worth substantially more.
• Fixed an issue that could cause players to be stuck holding the Building Edit tool when no longer in edit mode.
• Fixed a case where weapon fire effects could occasionally get stuck on after quickly tapping and releasing the fire button.
• Fixed a delay after cancelling a reload before being allowed to reload again.
• Fixed an animation pop when interrupting certain weapon reloads by firing.
• Fixed assault rifle reloads not actually updating the ammo count until the very end of the reload animation.
• Force guns with individual-bullet reloads to play the outro of their reload anim if cancelled by pressing fire, and then queue a fire input.

Heroes

• You can now configure your hero squad from the Squads tab or when you are in the lobby.
• Bonuses received by the Primary Hero should be inspectable.
• Improved usability on displayed stats.
• Fixed Hero tooltips not displaying stat upgrades in the Vault when previewing a level-up.
• Fixed incorrect rotation when throwing the Constructor's Plasma Pulse projectile.
• Fixed Outlander Fragment ability not allowing Phase Shift activation until after a fragment has been picked up and used.
• Prevented the Outlander fragment container from briefly displaying the failed interaction text immediately after a successful interaction.
• Gravity Sphere will now wake up nearby sleeping husks.

Homebase/Skill Tree

• The skill tree now has videos to preview abilities!
• You can now zoom in the skill tree with the mouse wheel.
• Selecting a skill tree node will now highlight all paths leading to the node, so you can visualize the chain of prerequisites.
• Unpurchasable skill tree nodes now display, in their tooltip, the reasons for why they cannot yet be purchased.
• Skill tree nodes on the introduction page can now properly be navigated to when clicking on a locked squad slot that they would unlock.
• Skill tree nodes with different unlocking branches now properly color their connectors based on each of the prerequisites.
• The picker for squad slots now sorts already slotted items last.
• Clicking on a locked squad slot will now take you to the skill tree node that unlocks that squad slot.
• Squads now display icons for each bonus given by the squad and its members. The tooltip for the squad's icon and the effect icons underneath it elaborate on the specifics of each effect.
• Slotted survivors now properly display their power rating if it changes; for example, when the survivor levels up.
• When slotting a lead survivor, their profession icon now highlights if they are a good fit for the type of squad.
• Improved usability on squad slots - easier to tell what their purpose is and what bonuses are being received.
• Heroes in a ground operative slot can no longer be unslotted or retired (but can be replaced), so you can't leave yourself without a hero set to play as.
• The level up button in the squad slot picker will change into an upgrade button when an item is at maximum level and can be upgraded.
• The set bonus icons on survivors in squad slots are now styled differently when the set is completed.
• The tooltip on empty squad slots now describes the bonus of slotting a survivor there and how synergies within a squad work.

Items

• Reworked the One shot and Scope One Shot artwork.
• Increased Outpost Defense Mini Reward Llama drop counts.
  • Outpost Defenses now give a large chunk of Hero XP to all participants.
  • Added support to better scale Outpost Defense rewards based on difficulty, for use with Hero XP.
  • Higher Outpost Defenses now give more XP on their completion badges.
• The Vault now has a limited storage capacity for certain types of items. Items acquired when at capacity have limited functionality, which can be restored by recycling other items to make space.  You don’t need to hoard everything any more!  
  • Items that have overflown the vault:
    • Can not be leveled up, upgraded, slotted or used
    • But can be recycled or retired.
• Vault tabs now sort by crafting tier by default.
• Selecting a new item in the Vault no longer causes all new items in the same tab to be marked as seen.
• Greatly increased trap drop rates in card packs that have schematics.
• Adjusted upgrade card packs to more reliably give out at least one schematic and survivor.
• Fixed a bug that negatively impacted Weapon Llamas upgrading to silver/gold
• New recipes for Rocket and Grenade Launchers to account for their lower durability.
• Renamed alterations from [Upgraded] to [Rare] and [Prime] to [Epic]
• The Tiny Instrument of Death now uses a more energy-thematic crafting recipe.
• Pulled down overall shotgun damage just a bit and reduced the amount of headshot crit damage.
• Updated item upgrade materials to have Storm-themed names and appearances.
• Fixed a bug where pellet shotgun tooltips didn't take into account the number of pellets fired resulting in understating their damage.
• Fixed grenade and rocket launcher evolution.
• Fixed a bug where the Firecracker gun's projectiles were not exploding on impact with the Whack-a-Troll.
• The Boot Axe was using the stats of an axe and the attack pattern of a sword. Changed the stats to match the attack pattern.

Traps

• Ward traps can no longer be recycled. They are now one-time quest rewards instead of normally acquired traps.
  • Created more rarities of the floor healing trap.
    • Floor healing traps can no longer drop in card packs. They are given out as quest rewards.
    • Adjusted floor healing trap recipes to use less bacon and added some nuts 'n' bolts. Removed location-specific ingredients.
• Healing traps now give score when triggered.
• Fix issue where the number of uses remaining on a trap could be incorrectly calculated if the trap had its maximum uses/durability increased via bonuses.
• Updated the visual damage guide for the gas trap.
• Traps now appropriately scale based on the Weapon Skill attribute of the placing player.  

Onboarding

• Added a WiP animatic connecting the Homebase with Outpost deployment
• Added new Store tutorial that happens after your initial Outpost deploy. Players who have already passed that part of the game will skip this tutorial
• Added optional teaching quests to upgrade heroes .
• Opening mission changed - level changes, movies and effects, oh my!

Quests

• Outpost defenses must now be completed in your own Outpost in all cases. Updated Outpost Defense Quest Details to include this text: "Defenses must be done in your own Outpost to complete this quest." and we’ve also increased the rewards for people helping each other.  
• Additional quests were added to the second half of Plankerton and Canny Valley. If you are past that point in the progression you will be given automatic credit for completing them
• Changed Medic Quest to Craft 10 Health Stations instead of Acquire 10 Health Stations
• Outpost Defenses 7-10 for Stonewood, Plankerton and Canny Valley now have the recommended # players noted in the Quest Details.
• Updated some Bonus quest objectives for existing quests to require looting or destroying objects.
• Reduced the number of Takers required for Bonus: Finders Takers (Plankerton).
• Updated Quest Rewards including distributing health station and jump pad schematics.

Mac

• Increased the number of input buses for CoreAudio 3D Mixer to support 64 audio channels.
• OpenGL support has been removed and several driver crashes were fixed in the versions leading up to 10.11.4. You must now have a Metal API compatible video card and must be using OSX 10.11.4 or newer to launch the game.

Primary Missions

• Launch the Rocket mission slightly rebalanced to be more epic!

Outpost

• Added more environment art to Outpost levels.
• Added cinematic introductions for enemies at the beginning of some Outpost stages.
• Updated voiceovers in the Outpost to help with clarity.
• Added a WiP animatic narratively connecting the Outpost deployment with previous missions.

Store

• Reduced the chance of the People Llama appearing in the store. Now it'll only appear a maximum of 4 days in a row! Maybe. Sometimes….
• Increased the chance of "It's a Trap! Llama" appearing in the store.

UI

• Added a "Play" button to quest entries in the quest journal that automatically starts playing a valid hex to make progress for the quest.
• Quests can now be Pinned in the front end. Pinned quests will show up in the quest status display while looking at the hex map.
• Updated the Location Select UI to allow cycling through locations.
• Improved readability of the right side objectives display while in game.
• Updated the UI used for announcements that appear in the top middle of the screen while in game.
• The end of day recap UI should no longer overlap with other notifications.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause health bars to display 0 while the player is alive.
• Death screen will no longer show the extra lives display when the player has 0 lives remaining.
• Popup windows no longer persist on top of "fullscreen" screens, such as the confirmation for retiring a survivor from the squad slot picker.
• The home base power of your friends in the Invite / Join screen now show the appropriate numbers and update when they change.
• Updated item UI to display tier as a group of stars, added item rating, and removed item level. Increased size of item icons. Simplified item UI when shown very small.
• Enemy health bars will now show up if anyone damages them.

Animation

• Additional work on turn in place system to work with melee system.
• Refactored the main player sprint animations as well as melee windmill animations.
• Added weapon poses for female body types.
• Additional weapon animations added (Hammershot, AMR, Triple Tap, Hydra)
• Selection menu animations for Male and Female Soldier updated.
• Melee aim offsets added for harvesting and combat weapons.
• Jump addressed to work better with melee swings.
• Enemies will use strafing animations.