"This was a horrible change for many people": How Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 8 has become an unpleasant grind fest

Fortnite's weekly challenges have been the primary means to level up for a while now. Last season, players earned 30,000 experience points for each challenge completed, and they had a total of 12 or so to complete every week; bringing the grand total per week to a solid 360,000 XP.

Although the grind was not easy, most players found it quite doable. Sadly, that is not the case for the current season, and the community is discontented to such an extent that the developers took to Twitter to announce that fixes would soon be implemented.

However, the real question to be asked is: "How did Epic Games botch a tried and tested formula up so badly?"

---

Fortnite Season 8 XP grind has irked the community

While there's no answer to the "how" aspect, developers have not yet said anything about it on social media. However, the "why" aspect has left players, content creators, and the entire community rather confused.

Why change a tried and tested system that has helped content creators make a living and enabled the community to space out their leveling process to make the game feel more fun and enjoyable?

While Punchcards are indeed not a bad way to level up, they feel rather cluttered. They have no relevance to the storyline and feel rather arbitrary. But that's not the main reason why the community is discontented.

Failure to deliver a proper experience gain system can be rectified. Data can be used to implement a better rewarding challenge system and fix them accordingly. However, nerfing the popular Impostor mode that was introduced last season was the last straw for many.

Given the low XP gain from in-game challenges, many players began farming the Impostor mode to climb the ranks and unlock Battle Pass rewards. When a few players began reaching absurdly high levels within the first few days of Fortnite Season 8, the developers nerfed and slashed the XP earned by half; suffice to say, it was not the best move that could have been made.

Taking into account that people buy the Battle Pass with real life money, negatively setting or slowing down the pace at which they can unlock their already paid cosmetic rewards is bound to irk fans.

Additionally, given the demographics of the community, a good portion of players are school or college-going students who simply do not have the time to play Fortnite throughout the day. It seems rather unfair that in order to unlock already paid for cosmetics, players have to treat the game like a full-time job.

Although Epic Games has promised to work on a solution that should be showcased/implemented by September 28, 2021, the community is still skeptical about it. All said and done, hopefully things will improve soon before the community starts losing faith in the game.

Disclaimer: This article reflects the personal opinions of the writer.