Cheat Detection in Fortnite Arena Mode

Cheat Detection in Fortnite Arena Mode

By: Asa Montreaux

You may think you are going to win easily, and steal away hundreds of thousands of dollars of money from a Fortnite regional tournament like FNCS, but honestly — think again, think again hard. The Fortnite ownership is aware of the various tricks players have used to get ahead in the game, and there all out effort to stop players from stealing money and breaking the law in a myriad of ways, and have reacted in the most protective way imaginable. If you thought tournament statistics, or the videos on YouTube will exactly correct, think again.

Sources say that cheat detection expunges 9 to 9.5 out of ten eliminations in Fortnite Arena Mode. Arena is the current standard mode for all tournaments. In Fortnite Battle Royale mode, it is thought that 2 to 2.5 out of every ten eliminations are expunged. And in Zero Build Mode, it is thought 1 to 1.5 in every one eliminations are expunged. The cheat detection is highly evident in the game play.

When playing, often players thought they have experienced a bug, as they are eliminated after hitting the other player with enough blows to eliminate them. The reality is that players playing arena mode will fall over and over with zero or one eliminations. It is no surprise that tournament statistics as they are depicted right now, show that is possible to be in the top five in almost every single tournament with only three eliminations per game. Given the reported participation of over on hundred thousand participant for each region, in every tournament, this is a mind boggling issue. In fact, the claims from Epic that it is even possible to win any of these prizes, are rendered false by the repeated, and vicious, attempt by players and teams to cheat at the game.

The most ubiquitous cheat is utilizing God mode, by which players turn invisible and experience increased health and shot damage. There seems to be two ways to achieve this. The first is by travelling in two vehicles one after the other. The second is by getting so close to the other player that they cannot see you anymore. The cheater will try to get behind the player, or almost behind the player. When the player about to be eliminated turns around, they cannot see you. Then they are blasted from point blank range, the weapon always almost touching the player taken advantage by this tactic. The latter may be the most used, and the least exposed, by pros in Fortnite Arena mode as well as in Tournaments, as it does not involve the insertion of a code or the obvious exploitation of a bug, But it will laurel be something resulting in bans for players in the future, given the repeated use of it by players in the midst of cheat detection protection, which makes eliminations as hard to come by as a Victory Royale itself. 

I scoured Arena mode myself, spectating matches to see what happens given the obvious and universal cheat detection in place. I found one hundred percent of the time, that all eliminations were expunged. And when a player successfully eliminated a player, they were one hundred percent of the time eliminated by cheat detection, which considered them also eliminated, but essentially refused to tell the player at first.

I found things as ludicrous as point blank shots only resulting in assists. And matches won with more than ten assists, but not one elimination. But the most curious finding of all was just how the cheat detection works.

When a player shoots at another. The shot is not counted. But when a player shoots back, the damage done by that shot is then attributed to that player. You receive the damage you did the other player. The theory is sort of that the quicker player will deliver the most damage, thereby eliminating themself first every time. It is essentially a spartan arena mode where you are in a death battle. You will die, it is just a matter of when. You may have thought you made the perfect play, two shots, and eliminated. But all of the sudden, those two perfect shots will be inflicted by you, by the computer. 

There is no reason to further identify cheaters by name, but they are abound on YouTube and Twitter, using very old clips, slightly edited clips, or spliced together clips to insinuate perfect games. The reality is there is no way to succeed in Fortnite except on a viciously stacked team. In some ways, cheat detection reinforces the unfairness by which the “better” players win. Though the reality is these players have cheated repeatedly. And they had only got by on the skin of their assists to each other. That is the secret to winning in Fortnite, is eliminated players in a group, and assisting on the eliminations. 

But the reality is Fortnite statistics are estimations. They use fake names to indicate the performance of players that would have performed better if it wasn’t for cheat detection. Fortnite’s computers track who would have eliminated whom every time cheat detection is deployed. Sometimes you could have accumulated three or four kills despite the fact you thought you got zero, and you will not be paid for this based on the suspicion any player could be cheating. 

I will post videos every day this week of hilarious instances of eliminations expunged by cheat detection just on this article’s page.

Here are some screenshots and videos (to be added to during the week) of Arena Mode where Cheat detection is easily detectable:

This player had 13 eliminations expunged and counted as assists.

The player eliminated me while completely invisible. And then was eliminated by the computer by the cheat detection algorithm while no one was shooting at him/her.

Eliminations not counted at all at point blank range in Fortnite Arena Mode