CREATORS SPAMMING MAPS TO APPEAR IN DISCOVERY

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

Creators are currently duplicating and spamming maps to increase the likelyhood of them appearing in discovery.

This is working very well for a lot of people as they are appearing in discovery frequently due to how many duplicate maps they have made.

Due to the algorithm seeming to prioritise new maps, these creators are dominating discovery and taking valuable positions away from hard working creators.

As a result this is creating an ecosystem where spammers are rewarded more than hard working individuals/teams.

We have had no communication on this issue, and it is becoming a bigger and bigger problem by the day.

Also the system that is supposed to detect “similar” or copy thumbnails is clearly not working.

I don’t believe any map has a reason to share an identical thumbnail.

Below you will see some screenshots of the last week, where discovery is currently plagued with spammers.

Hopefully this can be addressed and improved going forward!

[mimmo_the_root]

I Hope they Will put in Place action honoring What they promise to solve weeks ago.

[AtAshTag]

I think the spam filter is working as from your pics there isn’t many if any players in the modes ?

I’m all for supporting anything to tackle this type of behavior but compared to 1yr ago this is a success imo

Also the same creator posting the same thumbnail is allowed i believe.

[NotDriedLettuce]

check the Top Rated New and Updated row in discover, guaranteed there will be atleast 5 of these creators any time you check

[ZeroShotBob]

Another one, and they have some players. All of these released in the last 3 days.

[JonesyPublishes (LoneJonesy)]

Why can’t epic just have someone look in the tab and actually moderate while something is in discovery to see if people are spamming. Just load up fortnite and look in discovery. Instead of moderating before something gets pushed to discovery. Its clear as day that someone is spamming the same trash map everywhere.

[AJLX1M1K]

The easiest way to find them is to just use the ‘last 24 hours’ filter for maps — the top ones there are almost always spam.

[ChesseTheWasp]

There needs to be bans being put out in the system for this

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

The spam filter is 100% not working.

Yes these maps, for the most part don’t have much players.

But every single time i check most engaging, new and updated or top rated, most of the maps there are from spammers.

The key issue is, it is already hard enough to get into discovery naturally.

But when you have the same bad actors spamming 10, 20, 30 maps all the time, it then becomes WAY harder because one of their maps is usually occupying a spot nearly every day.

They take valuable discovery spots away from hard working creators, especially small solo devs, who already struggle with the algorithm enough as it is.

It seriously needs addressing if we are gonna have a healthy ecoystem to build in.

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

I wish, hopefully something will be done/addressed eventually.

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

Yep, been seeing this nearly every day…

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

Agreed, we need improved moderation, what we have really doesn’t work currently.

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

This is precisely the problem, because Epic isn’t addressing this, more and more people think its ok.

The more people who think its ok, the more people who will do it.

So slowly the space is just going to get worse and worse.

People creating alt accounts, spamming maps there, spamming maps on their main account, duplicating small simple maps and making 20-30 copies of them.

The same thumbnail (which shouldn’t be possible anymore but still is)

Until this gets addressed, this ecosystem is a complete joke.

[Brandisnappy (Brandibuilds)]

Its the same every day, spam maps always in those tabs. Taking valuable positions away from honest creators.

[iicq-og]

A limit on daily uploads would go a long way.

[AtAshTag]

They thought of this but the issue is bug fixes.

Have you seen the live video they did discussing the issues ect ?

[TheTrxvis]

Every time, Every Day, Every Hour, We got ton of maps getting removed in the new and updated tab not because they are low-quality maps (many of them are high-quality) but because some creators post the same map duplicated 10 times a day. many teams who worked for months on a genuine experience didnt even get a minute of tabs because of these creators. And also many of these creators add bots to their maps to get tabs for their duplicated maps.

Imagine when the ads thing will come, we will get the same maps promoted by the same influent creators everytime.

Epic need to address this issue and improve more the spam detection system or even calculate the engagament payoutbased on the spam maps score for each creators calculated every month.

They need to give developers a great creation experience, not make them disgusted of the ecosystem.

[Belastrah]

Realistically… and even if you are developing a quality map… it’s NOT possible to publish more than maximum 1 game per month. Or, if it’s a really small game, that even still takes like a week, so publishing 10 maps a day should be a significant red flag to the Fortnite moderator team. Apart from current map updates, how about implementing a system such as:

PUBLISHING ALLOWANCES:

• Brand New Maps: 1 Maximum a Day (And if you really need to publish two or more, you need to submit a specific form, let’s call it the “Additional Map Publish Form”, and upon review the Epic Team can open up another publishing slot for you for the day. Alternatively, wait for the next day to publish.
• Existing Maps (Updates to Existing): 5 Maximum A Day (5 updates for bug fixes is also enough, because if you are really fixing issues in a new pubilshed map, in my experience it anyway takes many hours, so realistically, you don’t need more than 5 bug fix updates for one game per day.)

There can also be completely different rows in discover for stuff that is really NEW versus Updated. So for example, why not have NEW for completely new maps, and then Updated for existing maps that is updated into a new version? This way, everyone knows brand new experiences are in the New Category, while all existing experiences that has been updated is in the Updated Category. By now there are more than enough creative experiences to warrant seperating New & Updated into two categories. Furthermore, a category for NEW will create a more quality experience for Fortnite players as they can find authentic new experiences, and discover as a whole will present better.

Additionally, if there really are big teams out there publishing like 2+ map a day, then they can request via a specific form permission to publish 2 per day. Etc. I don’t see how that can be true though, because if you are a big brand and quality is important, it’s not realistic to publish 2 maps a day.

As a player I’m very tired of my Fortnite recommendations and the New & Updated being flooded by the exact same thumbnail for like the same 10 games. Additionally what you will actually notice is that for some reason it looks like 1 creator who has multiple accounts are also publishing the same game thumbnails at the same time in order to dominate Discovery. How they are still getting past Moderation is beyond me.

Since it’s not possible to publish 10+ “New” games a day, and realistically you can’t really “Update more than 2 to 5 existing games” at most per day, it makes sense to have a quota system in place.

I also agree about the new advertising in Discovery thing. Most of us are small creators and don’t have a marketing budget to speak of, so won’t even considering to compete. I can just see how this system will now be exploited by existing bigger creators who has a budget to dominate the advertising column. Perhaps here can also be a quota system in place in order to try to give everyone a chance to showcase their best work:

Advertising Quota System Suggestion (If 4 Creators per row.)
2 Creators (10,000+ Fortnite Followers)
1 Creator (Below 10,000 Fortnite Followers)
1 Creator (Below 1,000 Fortnite Followers)
(This way small to larger teams have a chance to advertise and show their work.)

[Gustavo_UEFN]

5 is actually a bad idea. Maybe for small genres, but for tycoons/simulators sometimes you really need more than 5 in one day, especially when something goes wrong. And just the idea of having to worry about not exceeding 5 updates while working in your legit map is crazy.

[Belastrah]

That is what playtesting and properly testing your game in private is for, before pushing update after update. We’ve been making games for 1.5 years in UEFN, and the hours it takes to fix stuff makes it very hard to need more than 5 updates a day. It takes hours to fix stuff, and then even more to run those through playtesting and private tests. So if you do need so many updates a day, I don’t think you are testing properly before just pushing an update and hoping for the best.

Furthermore, 5 is just a suggestion, it’s not like set in stone. Perhaps Fornite UEFN team can put it to the vote among the UEFN community as to what they think will be a good balance on daily update limits.