How A Game-Breaking Glider Glitch Cost Bugha His Number One Spot in FNCS Qualifiers
With the Fortnite World Cup cancelled this year, players and esports fans alike had high hopes for the Fortnite Championship Series. Despite being run entirely online, this tournament was still able to take place. Many were hyped to see how the Fortnite competitive scene had been doing during the quarantine, as this was the first big Fortnite tournament to happen since live events were shuttered. What fans and competitors did not expect, however, were prevalent game-breaking bugs to skew the results of the competition.
Click to enlargeThe Glider Bug Strikes at FNCS
2019 Fortnite World Cup Solo winner Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf was not expecting such a glitch to happen to him. After the 2020 Fortnite World Cup was cancelled due to complications with running the event fully-online, Bugha was ready to take the FNCS by storm. Instead, he was met with a game-breaking glitch, which cost him his win and slotted him in second-place, falling behind Liquid STRETCH in the qualifiers.
Despite the bug being unavoidable and unfair, the match was not re-scored, and Epic Games did not step in to make a statement regarding the error. The bug in question is the infamous glider glitch, where players are unable to control their glider speed when they are redeployed in specific areas. The conditions for this bug to occur are completely random and leave competitors powerless when it occurs. They are vulnerable to enemy fire, completely unable to gain eliminations in a match, and unable to reverse the bug's effects.
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Epic’s Promise to Fix the Glitch
Epic Games have acknowledged the existence of this bug before, as it has run rampant amongst the competitive scene for months now. In the recent Joyride Update, v13.40, Epic Games even promised that the bug would be fixed. In fact, they even advertised that the bug was fixed in the patch notes. Unfortunately, this was after the FNCS qualifiers and Bugha's unfair loss, but players were still optimistic about the change.
It turned out that the bug was not entirely fixed, leaving competitors and players furious. The general consensus was that Epic Games was just trying to silence players over after the bug gained mainstream attention due to the FNCS. Fortnite professionals were upset that Epic Players are hoping that after the long-awaited release of cars in-game, Epic Games will finally squash the bug that is leaving competitors, fans, and onlookers frustrated. Fans can only hope that with the massive v13.40 out of the way, developers will have time to tackle persistent bugs and in-game glitches that players have been reporting over the months.
The official Fortnite Status Twitter announced that they were aware of the issue in a tweet posted on August 5. They also added that the Fortnite stream was working to address the issue and posted a card on the official Fortnite bug Trello. This still does not explain why Epic Games promised that the issue was fixed in the v13.40 patch notes, but players are at least happier that Epic Games has finally decided to take the issue seriously.
It makes sense why Epic Games finally chose to address the issue, but that doesn't make it fair. Bugha is perhaps one of the most prolific Fortnite competitors at the moment, especially after his win at the 2019 Fortnite World Cup last year.
It is unfortunate that such a highly-regarded competitor had to sacrifice his number one rank in the qualifiers for Epic Games to start taking the glider bug seriously. Casual players and professionals had been complaining about this bug on the official Fortnite BR Reddit, Twitter, and in-game for months and Epic Games seemed to turn a blind eye to all of it. Bugha's loss at least popularised the issue and forced Epic Games to take a closer look at it, but the loss shouldn't have happened at all.
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Bugha’s Response
When the results were announced, Bugha was understandably not happy. He was utterly shocked that such a bug would have even made it into such a large-scale competitive event, where so much money is on the line. Additionally, this blow to Bugha's competitive streak happened right after the one year anniversary of his most significant win: the 2019 Fortnite World Cup.
Upset and frazzled, Bugha took to Twitter to vent his frustration and let his fans know that his second-place rank was not his fault. He posted the leader board results, as well, to show fans that this did actually happen. Those results were later finalised, which upset many Fortnite competitors.
Uncertainty in the Fortnite Competitive Scene
Fortnite professionals are wondering when the bug will actually be fixed and if a new one will take its place. Bugha's loss speaks volumes for the state of competitive Fortnite, as it completely overthrew Bugha's rank as first place in the qualifiers and was overlooked by judges. The fact that an uncontrollable glitch could cost someone a rank in an officially-mandated Fortnite competition, especially such a highly-regarded one, makes it seem like the way that players are ranked or scored in these competitions unfair. Even if scoring is not necessarily unfair in practice, the fact that glitches can upset the balance of a match makes professionals feel as if an uncontrollable bug can overthrow their peak performance.
Players are wondering if the next round of FNCS will finally resolve the issue or if players competing will just have to hope that what happened to Bugha won't happen to them. In the meantime, Fortnite competitors can only hope that the Fortnite developers are actually looking into the issue, rather than just posting about its existence on Twitter.
Images via Epic Games
