How-To Fix Hamster Balls in Competitive Fortnite

Epic’s newest vehicle – introduced to replace planes  – may have caused more problems than they solved.

Update: The ballers have been temporarily disabled due to fall damage glitches but will be added back as soon as the problems are fixed.

The Baller

In the most-recent 8.10 update, Epic added “The Baller.” This vehicle is unlike anything that has been added to Fortnite and was unanimously loved by the community upon release. The ball allows you to grapple onto any structure (player-built or not) and pull yourself towards it. It is incredibly fun to use, as you can spiderman yourself across the map while inside (and protected from damage).

While the baller is insanely fun for the casual player, it has posed problems for competitive play. Since the ball protects from damage, players will grapple in a tree and wait out chunks of the game. If they have a viable loadout and full materials, then why not just wait till endgame?

This strategy is not ideal for viewers, as no wanted to watch Myth sit in his 1-by-1 in season 3, and no one wants to watch him hang from a tree in a ball now. Fortnite has the best mechanics of any video game right now (including the ball), but needs to find a way to create a more interesting competitive playlist, from start to finish. This problem requires a bigger solution than merely fixing the hamster ball, but that is another article for another day.

Ballers are not just used to wait until endgame starts, they are used throughout the endgame as well. In the most recent Scallywag Cup, I would estimate that 30-60% of players used a baller at some point during the moving circles. Since ballers have 300 health points, no one is willing to take the time to shoot at them as the best case scenario is they break the baller and do no damage to the player inside. This results in half of the lobby playing and the other half rolling and grappling around the final circles. This disparity among players (ones with ballers and ones without) has resulted in lots of complaining from streamers and competitive players.

While Epic may just accept that the baller is unpopular with streamers and remove it – as they did for the plane, I propose a better solution. I believe that the baller should stay in the game, as it is fun to watch and fun to play with. Epic instead should find a way to balance the baller, keeping the game more exciting but also fair.

I have thought of a few ways to fix this problem. Here they are:

1. Fewer Ballers

An easy and…