Epic Games have released an explanation that provides clarification for Fortnite Battle Royale players who have been experiencing high connection ping recently.
Ping, usually measured in milliseconds, refers to the network latency between the player’s game and the server they’re connected to, essentially measuring how long it takes for a certain in-game action to take place after it’s been initiated.
One major issue Fortnite players have been having lately is their user interface showing a ping value that’s much higher than what they’ve been used to in the past.
Some players have even reported major inconsistencies between the ping value shown in the UI and the connection page in their settings menu.
A lot of these ping-related complaints began surfacing heavily on March 12, coinciding with the release of the v8.10 update earlier the same day.
So my ping has doubled in Fortnite and I am at a pretty consistent 10-20% download packet loss for the first 5 minutes of each game. :X
— Ninja :usa: (@Ninja) March 12, 2019
Fortunately, Epic Games have provided a bit of clarification as to why players have been seeing a higher ping value on their UI.
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As it turns out, the whole issue is a visual glitch and not an actual connection one, meaning that for most players, their actual ping should be right around where it was before the issue popped up.
“At this time, we believe that the increased ping values being displayed in the debug UI are primarily a visual only issue,” Epic tweeted. “While we are continuing to investigate reports, we’re actively working on a fix for later this week.”
At this time we believe that the increased ping values being displayed in the debug UI are primarily a visual only issue.
While we are continuing to investigate reports, we’re actively working on a fix for later this week.
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) March 12, 2019
Interestingly enough, a lot of players who have been complaining about seeing higher ping have also claimed to experience laggy gameplay, which begs the question of whether the issue really is only visual or if these players are just being affected by placebo.
Either way, the problem is pretty significant, so the sooner Epic can get it fixed up the better.