Fortnite players lament the battle royale "becoming a chore" as XP changes make leveling up much slower in Chapter 6's debut season
It's not just you - progressing through the Battle Pass seems way slower right now
Fortnite Chapter 6 is here, and dare I say it, it's already a blast. With a stunning new map full of Japan-inspired locations, fresh movement mechanics, and more, there's a lot to love, but not every change in the latest season has been well-received.
Namely, it's not taken long at all for battle royale fans to notice that there's a distinct lack of XP available in the game right now. Aside from the flurry of new Fortnite quests to bring in the new season, big changes have been made to ways players can earn XP, making leveling up seem way slower.
As highlighted on Reddit, Milestone quests for Battle Royale – which previously granted generous amounts of XP throughout each season for tasks you'd generally complete over time, like driving distance in vehicles and eliminating opponents – have been removed entirely. The closest equivalent, it seems, are the new Weapon Expertise quests, which task you with slowly racking up damage on opponents using different weapon types. These are very slow going, to the point that one player suggests that "they either gotta bring back milestones or like, halve the requirements for the challenges."
Elsewhere, where there used to be daily quests for different modes like Battle Royale, Reload, and Rocket Racing, there's now just one merged tab for them all. Previously, you could earn loads of extra XP for the first few daily quests you completed in each mode, but now, this merged quest tab can be progressed in any mode except Save The World, and only for a total of 60K bonus XP, significantly reducing the total amount.
Perhaps the biggest changes come in the form of playtime XP, though. Fortnite news account @Guille_GAG on Twitter reports that while Fortnite Reload's daily playtime XP has stayed the same from last season (letting you earn up to 600K each day just by spending time in the mode), others have changed. Notably, you won't get any XP at all for simply hanging out in Battle Royale, which is a huge loss for the game's main mode.
The playtime XP grants got updated in Chapter 6! #Fortnite Total caps per day:• Battle Royale: 0 XP• LEGO Fortnite: 570K XP • Reload: 600K XP• Fortnite Festival: 100K XP • Creative mode: 60KCreative mode now resets accolade XP weekly instead of daily, with a 900K XP… pic.twitter.com/AyoJAdcMSHDecember 2, 2024
At the very least, it sounds like some of these changes might not be intentional – it appeared that Save the World's XP cap had been changed to 727K weekly rather than daily, but the Fortnite Status account has since tweeted that players are currently earning "less XP than intended" in the mode, and the devs are working on a fix. Similarly, XP has been temporarily disabled in Lego Fortnite after the developers "detected an issue with how the XP was granted."
For now though, the sweeping changes aren't exactly popular with anyone. "This game is becoming a chore man," one player writes. "Before the changes I'd play Fortnite for an hour or two every day cycling through game modes. Now I play one drop[,] maybe two drops max in BR and get my dailies and there's nothing left to do," says another.
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Hopefully as the season goes on, we'll gain more ways to level up efficiently. After all, those new Battle Pass rewards are too cool to miss out on.
I'm one of 12DOVE's news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.