After a last edition of the FNCS marred by cheating, Epic Games is setting the record straight ahead of Fortnite Season 4 Champion Series. The publisher has issued a first press release unveiling the roadmap of the upcoming competitive events and key dates for the FNCS — which will be held in Trios.
Here is the final schedule for the upcoming FNCS:
- FNCS Week 1: October 9 - October 11
- FNCS Week 2: October 16 - October 18
- FNCS Week 3: October 23 - October 25
- FNCS Finals: October 29 - November 1
This season, the final round of each weekly qualifier will feature the same 33-team group playing over two days, and for the Grand Finals a new Wildcard Match will be introduced to determine the last qualifying team from the group stage!
At the same time, Epic Games is revising its rules regarding competitive integrity in Fortnite. After the turmoil caused by cheating at previous FNCS, the publisher will monitor this event and react with the utmost firmness to the proven facts of collusion, smurfing and use of third party software.
Collusion
What is collusion (not an exhaustive list):
- Consistently working together with the same opponent. This includes fighting together or working together against a 3rd player or 3rd team who encroaches on a shared location or shared drop spot. With this clarification now in place, we’re now taking a greater stand to action if conclusive evidence is found linking opponents to common goals together.
- Staged engagements among colluding teams to deceive event admins. As an example: Manipulating storm surge factors intentionally by trading damage with no intent of elimination.
- Pickaxe swinging (or other actions) used as a form of signaling to opponents.
- Sharing loot or leaving items with or for opponents for their gain.
- Intentionally feeding eliminations to another team.
What isn't collusion (not an exhaustive list):
- Consistently dropping in the same location each match.
- Announcing a drop spot on social media.If you believe you're good enough to stake your claim publicly on a spot, be prepared to defend it. Players contesting your claim is part of the game, and should be encouraged.
- Choosing to not engage in combat at certain times.
- Coaching using the in-game replay tools.
Outright competitive bans will be made when the collusion evidence is conclusive, without any official warnings. Warnings will be issued in situations when players are very close to the line of collusion, and we will administer these in cases that could swing either way. Continued actions after official warnings could then result in competitive bans.
Reminder: Players actioned for 30 days or longer during last season will not be eligible for this season’s FNCS. We are continuing this policy for Season 4; any players removed from competitions for 30 days or longer will be ineligible to participate in next season's pinnacle event.
Smurfing or illegal restarts
Like last season, smurfing is still disallowed in most prized competitions. We’re splitting the current definition of smurfing into two parts:
- Traditional Smurfing: Playing on an alternate account that has a lower Arena Rank than your main account in order to illegally participate in tournaments or events that are only eligible for lower Arena Ranks. This type of smurfing will not be allowed in any official tournaments that are only open to those in lower Arena ranks.
- Illegal Restarts: Playing on an alternate account AND a main account in the same tournament window. This type of smurfing will not be allowed in any official tournaments, unless otherwise indicated.
3rd party software
3rd party aim assist software is never allowed. Players detected using this will be removed from Fortnite competitions and issued competitive bans.
Clout farming
This season, we will now be taking action against anyone who falsely promotes themselves as a banned or cheating player. This false information gets in the way of real investigations that action true bad actors. It also goes against the spirit of the game and Fortnite competition, which has no place within the competitive Fortnite community.
Technical issues
This season, we’re also modifying an older rule involving Technical Issues. Due to the nature and scale of online competition, we previously had a hard rule of not restarting or making matches null due to server crashes. While this will still be the case for the majority of online competitions, we are improving this rule to include any matches or tournaments that specifically use scheduled matchmaking (like FNCS Finals, or any sessions with only 100 players or less). This will give the Epic Competitive team more flexibility to make the best decision based on the factors at hand for any unfortunate scenarios (like a complete server crash) in
Original content by Romain "Zorg" Becquelin.
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