Creative AMA Recap - 11.7.19

Hey everyone,

Thanks for joining us last week on Thursday for the Fortnite Creative AMA on Reddit. We enjoyed fielding the community's burning questions and giving some insight into Creative's future. If you weren’t able to join us, we’ve got a full recap of all the questions and answers below.

When will we get fishing rods / motorboats in creative?
A: They are on the list to be added as soon as we can get water working in the way we feel works for creative. We’re not sure on the exact timing yet.

Are there any plans for prop merging?
A: We’re talking about solutions to allow creators to create their own prefabs, setting up the quickbar to save between sessions is the first step towards this work. Longer term, we’re hoping to find ways to optimize prefabs for memory and rendering speed.

Will there ever be a feature where you can choose a skin in your locker and apply it to a team? Or maybe even just like effects such as glows or something to distinguish players in an infection game mode or something.
A: We are adding new team glows in an upcoming release to help with team-based games.

Will we get the tilted town prefabs? Especially since it’s now gone?
A: Tilted Town prefabs are on the list to get into Creative.

Any chance we can get customizable barriers for weather effects (rain, fog, snow, etc) as well as barriers for filters and time of the day?
A: We have a design for a new time of day device as well as including some weather effects. We haven’t started work on it yet.

Any plans for more terrain pieces, or potentially terrain editor?
A: Terrain is consistently towards the top of our list of features we want to expand further. We have several terrain-related initiatives in the works. These things are in very early development at this point.

Are we getting a Creative Roadmap?
A: There’s no plan to provide a roadmap. Our work changes frequently and we don’t want to set expectations on timing and disappoint anyone.

Are we gonna get some kind of 'Painting device' to turn things into the color we want?
A: It’s on our radar! We’ve worked on a tool prototype that swaps materials/textures.

Playing featured islands directly from the game mode selection menu could make a huge difference. What do you think about it?
A: This is a cool idea. We’ve talked about multiple solutions we’ll see what the future holds.

Can we please get custom rift zones? Those would be so cool!!
A: Yes, there is work being done towards providing more options to allow custom rift zones in Creative.

Are there any plans to add the option to alter the Brightness/time of day/fog during a game.
A: Yes, there are designs to allow modifying time of day and lighting during games.

Will we be seeing more Creative Event Challenges in the future? The Halloween ones were awesome and I hope you continue to do them!
A: We’re glad you liked it! We’re hoping to continue to deliver Creative Challenges.

Will we get upgrade stations in Creative?
A: We’ve talked about adding the Upgrade Benches an option. First on the list though is water, fishing, and motorboats.

Any idea why these guns haven’t been added to Creative yet?

• Legendary tac smg

• All fishing items (except the 3 fish)

A: Fishing is planned to be added. Don’t expect all items to be added to creative, and do let us know what you’d be excited to have and see.

Prefabs and Galleries are pretty crowded now as we continue to get more and more and making it harder to find. Any news about the redesign of this menu, making it easier to find the gallery you want or better yet, some way to get the items apart instead of throwing the whole gallery?
A: Agreed! We’re working on a pretty major update to the Content Browser that we’re hoping to release in the near future. We won’t have the ability to break things “apart” in the initial release, but we agree that something like that would be really valuable. We have something along those lines in the works, it just needs a bit more testing and refinement before we can determine if it’s ready to be released.

Are there going to be more Creative-exclusive prefabs like the military base and haunted house ones?
A: Yes! We’re working towards adding more and more things that aren’t already existing within Fortnite.

Are there any plans to add a weapon customizer device to alter the weapon damage of items in my game?
A: We have some designs for a weapon customizer. We haven’t quite nailed it yet, and we’re still working through some design challenges, so don’t expect this feature anytime soon.

Chests are subject to the loot pool of BR. Can we get a device that gives us the ability to choose the loot pool from chests?
A: Having a way to set loot from chests would be awesome. We’ll see what we can do.

Hey guys! Thanks for doing another AMA. First, will there ever be a POI Namer or way to place text on the map? Will there be any Creative exclusive vehicles, such as simple cars, trucks, Battle Bus, etc? Finally, I am happy that the SaC process is now refined and easier to understand, but will normal players ever have access to publishing islands without a submission process, similar to how SaC players can do so now?
A: I can answer the device part of this. We're currently in the process of implementing a Map Marker device that can apply text on the map / minimap, it'll be available in an upcoming patch.

1) Would you guys consider adding NPCs that can be 'dressed' with an outfit from a player's locker? (Like if you have Castor, then you could make him an NPC in your game)
2) Will the water prefabs ever get the animation and physics the BR ocean, rivers, etc do?
A: 1) NPCs are absolutely on the list of features we'd like to add. What appearances the NPCs use is still an open question.
2) Water prefabs won't be getting new water those prefabs will stay the same, we'll be adding more water features in the future that support the new water systems

Hello, is there ever going to be a way to make the main island not be rendered? I feel like making this minimal change could improve performance by quite a lot.
A: This has come up internally! The performance gains aren't as dramatic as you might hope, but we're still looking into making it happen.

Do you think we could see some more custom Fiend settings? What I had in mind was an ability to choose what they drop and a difficulty scale (gets harder/more spawn in as time increases).
A: Yes, more fiend settings are planned including being able to set what they drop.

Can we allow damage volumes to have an option to damage player-built structures?
A: This is something we're definitely interested in looking at. There are some potential performance implications that we need to look into first.

Will you guys add something like logic gates ( AND , OR etc) for example they could work as follows : you can add as many conditions as you want and each condition will consist of trigger when receiving from channel and times need to trigger and then based on the gate type it will transmit a signal on a channel
A: Logic gates are something we want to do, and our recent Attribute Trigger is part of that drive. For a full on boolean logic system however we need something a bit more integrated than our channel system (which is more fire-and-forget). More pieces to help make game logic is always great.

Are you considering a no-build zone?
A: We're in the process of altering the Weapon Free Zone to do more than just add a weapon-block to the player, and one of the first things we're adding here is a build limiter. You'll see this in an upcoming patch.

Suggestion: A detection volume that detects if players are inside of it and how many players are in there.
A: Along with the Weapon Free Zone work we'll also be adding transmitters on entering/exiting volumes.

Will we be able to copy traps, or will all trap items be converted to devices?
A: This is something we definitely want to do. Traps are useful for some properties but the lack of flexibility can be stifling. There's still some discussion to be had about the best way to get there, but it's on our radar.

Will we be able to save selections to a kind of a book so that we can recreate systems quickly?
A: We have plans for selections saved to the Quick Menu to save over sessions, which should help you here.

Rather than a feature request to start out as you often see, I'm just curious as a game designer myself: how difficult can it be to consistently add to an ever-growing sandbox? To elaborate, I mean it must be difficult to do enough testing and ensure that items and devices work well enough and correctly together, especially with the Channels system, and are there any specific cases that stand out? I remember this being brought up about the Infinity Blade + Phone, and the Jetpack + flying. (If you can't answer or don't wish to, that's cool.)

Also, 3 quick things I'd be interested in seeing (or wondering if it's in the works):

1. Teleporters: Thank you! Just wondering if the "Relative" feature could be expanded on to correctly show the angle the player is looking? Right now, if you look up or down, it resets your position to looking straight and it isn't quite as seamless as I'd hoped for.

2. Also teleporter related: I'd love to see a way to make teleporting even more relative. For example being able to teleport the player x number of tiles or meters from their current position (perhaps a different device, or a setting). Is this perhaps in the works?

3. Sequencers: I'd love to see the option to reverse the sequencer's direction with a signal. It would be useful for making a kind of capture zone.

A: Testing creative is incredibly hard, we target the big changes in testing, and have a standard set we do every release. We are incorporating more creator made test maps into our process to ensure we're not breaking existing games and mechanics that all of you use.

1. We'll add the bug that we don't keep your view direction when teleported. See if we can fix it

2. We haven't talked about anything that does relative distance movement as a device, we'll consider it.

3. Reverse sequencer with a signal is a great idea we'll add it to the list.]

Do you guys plan on fixing inconsistent spawn pads when the teams are set differently, it's been a problem for a few seasons! As always thanks for everything ❤️
A: We're aware of a bunch of bugs related to spawning in the sky, and spawn priorities not working, player spawning onto the correct teams pads (if they spawn on the pad) we haven't seen any specific issues. The bugs are “work in progress” on fixing and you'll all be seeing improvements over the next few releases.

Are there plans to give more control over the respawn algorithm? As a person who loves arena/class based shooters, creating this style of game type is very difficult as the respawning can be in areas where enemies still exist, enemies are looking at, or players aren't spawned by their teammates.

Being able to recreate an arena shooter would be really awesome and respawning is currently the biggest hurdle.
A: We've a number of fixes and changes we'd like to make to player spawning. More control both over how you spawn and where you spawn is something we'd love to expose to Creators.

Love these AMAs, its great to see such great communication with the community. One question: will we ever be able to "path" or animate props, e.g. the rocket in the Dusty Depot gallery to make it move while in game? Thanks, and have a great day!
A: Paths and animating objects would be awesome! We've been discussing how we can make the animation work for quite some time. Can you give any other examples of how you're thinking of using them?

Will we ever get custom models? Like be able to create our own props and put them into our maps?
A: I can say we're actively looking into ways to increase both the variety and quantity of content that creators are able to make! As a couple examples: providing ways to kit-bash props together and saving out custom prefabs.

First of all, the amount of work you guys have put in is actually amazing. My only 3 questions are: 1- Will we ever be able to set the item spawner to a br floor loot preset (same spawnrates, weapons)? 2- Are you guys planning to make the storms in Creative more like chapter 2(more visibility)? 3- are there any chapter 2 galleries coming? (new trees and rocks for example)
A: 1) Great idea on adding BR loot preset to item spawner for floor loot. Will add it to the list
2) Will look at making a version of the storm that's more like chapter 2
3) Yes. There are Chapter 2 galleries coming

Hey there! Thanks for the AMA, I'm a fresh new user of the Creative tools so I had a few nagging questions on my mind.

1. Any Chance of Moving Platforms, or something akin to that? I've flown around a few ideas that would be best used with a moving platform, or something akin to that, and teleports can only really work so well, sadly.

2. Any Chance of standalone customizable spot lights? I've wanted to use lighting in cool ways, but it feels really janky having to test which specific prefab light gives the right effect, and then trying to hide the prop that's casting it.

3. Is there any way to make flying a pure toggle, instead of double tapping the jump button? Carefully placing props has been something of an exercise in frustration when i need to ever so slightly shuffle down, only to start plummeting 5 stories down at breakneck speed!

A: 1) We'd love to have moving platforms, there's a bunch of work to make them good.
2) We'll add more options for lighting to the list, We can do some cool things.
3) Setting up a key bind for fly is possible will add to the list.

Will you guys be adding more music or possibly custom music?
A: Yes the plan is to add more music to the radio device, we've talked about adding an ability to record sequenced music blocks into the radio device, is that the type of thing you're thinking about?

Can we have a (death) barrier that blocks/kills 1 team but not the other team? This would be great for maps such as dodgeball so that one team would not pass they enemy team.
A: Barriers that block only one team is a major technical challenge with our current systems, so not something that we're likely to implement in the near future. You should be able to eliminate players for a team that enter a specific area though.

Is it possible that you could give us the option to use the legacy Phone setup instead of using the new Phone setup? I personally preferred the way the Phone worked before the v11.10 update and I know others prefer that way too. Customization is never a bad thing!
A: In order to ensure that we can continue to add new features to phone we have to make some tough calls about what feature mappings go where. We're always trying to ensure that each update to the phone in a net gain, but we totally understand the frustration that changes to your workflows can cause. We really believe that in order to give you all the best experience, we occasionally have to commit to the new version and leave the old behind.

We're actively listening to what the community is saying and trying to incorporate as much of that feedback into the development as possible. Regarding some of the most recent additions such as the Quick Menu, we'll be adding in the ability to remap specific hotkeys to help facilitate certain preferences among creators. Please keep the feedback coming!

Can you please add the option For after the broadcast device broadcasts a message it transmits on a channel?
A: Yes will add an ability to transmit after the message has been sent.