Current State of Discovery - Critical Issues & Suggestions

[IamSushi]

Current State of Discovery - Critical Issues & Suggestions

Dear Epic, I am creating this forum post due to many issues observed by us - developers, and you, team behind Fortnite Creative & Discovery. I will be sharing my observations, with some of the issues being here for months now.

New & Updated

Issue: New & Updated (both variants) is stuck and maps are not rotating. Same maps are showing for days.
Impact: Some maps are getting “Tested” for days now, with free promotion. New uploaded maps do NOT have a chance to get tested due to this issue (the get queued into an infinite queue).
Since: 25/11/2025 (4+ days)
Examples: 5781-1881-5260, 1799-7552-4863, 7730-3560-3272

New Experiences

Issue: New Experiences is promoting maps that are not actually new, some maps are stuck for days into the top 6 of the category. Some maps are stuck in higher positions for weeks.
Impact: Some maps are getting “Tested” for days now, with free promotion. New uploaded maps do NOT have a chance to get tested due to this issue (the get queued into an infinite queue).
Since: 01/10/2025 (2+ months)

KPDH Category

Affects: KPDH New & Updated, KPDH: Survival, KPDH: Role Playing, KPDH Party Games, KPDH: More Islands
Issue: KPop Demon Hunter category is all spammed with non-related maps, the algorithm keeps the maps that transferred the type to KPDH. More Islands & other categories are full of 1:1 maps, by the same creators & spammers. Rotation does not exist & work. Some maps are in the same category for 2 months straight, making unfair competition.
Impact: Some maps are exposed in most popular (first) Game Collection for months now, even maps with 0 players. New uploaded maps do NOT have a chance to get into any of the KPDH categories.
Since: 01/09/2025 (3+ months)

Squid Game Category

TLDR: This category has the same rotation issue on different rows. Some maps keep the 1-6 place for months now. This is the same case as KPDH.
Since: 01/09/2025 (3+ months)

The Walking Dead Category

TLDR: This category has the same rotation issue on different rows. Some maps keep the 1-6 place for months now. This is the same case as KPDH.
Since: 01/09/2025 (3+ months)

LEGO Category

TLDR: This category has the same rotation issue on different rows. Some maps keep the 1-6 place for months now. This is the same case as KPDH.
Since: 01/06/2025 (6+ months)

TMNT Category

TLDR: This category has the same rotation issue on different rows. Some maps keep the 1-6 place for months now. This is the same case as KPDH.
Since: 01/06/2025 (6+ months)

Fall Guys: New & Updated

Issue: Fall Guys: New & Updated is promoting maps in the same positions for months now, with short/long breaks. Some maps are stuck in higher positions after every update.
Impact: Some maps are getting “Tested” in the same 1-12 position, with free promotion. Some maps do not have any chance to get “Tested” - as they keep getting the higher (13+) positions.
Since: 01/06/2025 (6+ months)

Featured Collections

Issue: Every (of the 8) Featured Collection has the same issue as mentioned in “Fall Guys”. Some maps, even with crazy work - get stuck into higher positions and keep their positions after every update (mostly in the “Collection: New & Updated” row).
Impact: Some maps are getting “Tested” in the same 1-12 position, with free promotion. Some maps do not have any chance to get “Tested” - as they keep getting the higher (13+) positions.
Since: 01/06/2025 (6+ months)

Featured Collections - More

Issue: During game updates, the Discovery Team (in Epic) sometimes missconfigures the Featured Collections and for few hours after the downtime ends - some Collections (such as Tycoon, Role Play).
Impact: Featured Collections get omited after updates by players, destroying the Collection ecosystem (people just move on and play other maps instead).
Note: This has been reported few times by me: Discovery Featured Collections not working, Discovery Game Collections missing & Featured Collections not working.

There are plenty of reports on forums, twitter (x.com) or probably even directly on discord, but those problems are just throwed away by the team. Those issues affected also categories such as Horror during Halloween (Discovery & Collection unattainable for horror category since the Fortnitemares update).

Summary

In my opinion, the current Discovery system isn’t well designed, it requires a lot of fixes & changes. I showcased some of the most important bugs that should be adressed and found by Epic themselves, but sadly - we “developers” need to find them - even then, we keep getting ignored.
If Epic wants to build a good ecosystem, they should start by fixing stuff (& banning spammers - look: CREATORS SPAMMING MAPS TO APPEAR IN DISCOVERY). No action was taken to the exposed spammers, no discovery changes were made.

We (“us”, creators) should work all together (with Epic) to resolve those issues, if they can not be found & resolved by the team inside. Tonight, Fortnite is launching a new Chapter & the “New & Updated” category (one of the most crucial category for testing maps) - is broken and I am sure Epic is sadly NOT aware about this.
Why there is no TESTING going on Epic side? Why don’t you (Epic) notice those issues, that some persist for almost a year now.

I hope that this reaserch will not be ignored and changes will be made.
(Data by FN360GG and FortniteGG)

Thank you and have a good Chapter 7!

[W1spy (Wisp)]

The “First person islands” tab is also bugged!
Maybe add this in the thread as well

[BloeUEFN]

Thank you for posting this needs to be fixed ASAP

[IamSushi]

Thank you, yes - sorry I missed this - but I am adding this to my post.

Thank you!

[L10NHEART (Lionheart)]

We launched two games in the last two weeks; neither has tested at all.

Before this, we had a 100% test rate. Each game had significant development behind it (custom Verse, custom assets, etc), so should not be failing Sophistication Score.

Discover is our life blood. When it’s not working, we are not healthy as a community.

This should be the highest priority at Epic right now short of game stability, and better safeguards need to be implemented to ensure this does not happen again. Two of the most popular weeks this year were just donated to the lucky few who benefited from these issues, which is wild. Anyone who launched a new game during this period should receive some kind of make-good on missed impressions/marketing.

[Zmeurica]

And still getting ignored for one of the most important issues atm, lots of creators are on hold right now waiting for this to be fixed to release their maps and it feels like this will be ongoing for a while as it s been more than one week since new & updated has been broken

[IamSushi]

Hey guys, Epic is aware of the issues as they DMed me about this. But please share your issues, so they feel pressured.

Thanks for your feedback and I totally agree this should be fixed ASAP.

[13HARAMBE37]

Conveniently more bugs appear as sponsored row got introduced

[I-Apfel-I (Apfel)]

I can confirm. My map is stuck in Driving Collections “New and Updated” for over 4 Days:
Mapcode: 5186-2785-2420
Normaly it joins after the “Collections” into Discovery. But since the bug it just stucked.

[SquidLatteFN]

thanks for compiling all of this, hopefully something is done about it!

[Shawk]

Seems the response by fncreate was to just remove New and Updated from all the collab collections?

It’s amazing how we all have to suffer over this because epic/fncreate refuse to remove these bad actors.

It’s always the same accounts. These accounts have been spamming a strat that games the system. They destroyed kpop collection and are now coming for combat collection:

All you have to do is enforce the rules on these accounts and the issue would be fixed by tomorrow. MAKE THEM A LESSON

I just hope epic is watching and learning from them and that is why they aren’t banned yet. I do think retroactively taking all their earnings back and suing them would be sweeter but I don’t know if most of us will survive the wait.

[danger-dev]

This is so unfair to legit creators. My map finally made it to discovery, only to be drowned out by these brainrot clones.

[AtAshTag]

This is what happens when people can buy/sell projects i said this before that it should have a check when you publish and if you are not the og creator it should deny the publish simple. Would solve a ton of these spam maps as aint no spammer spending weeks creating a map first they simply buy it 1 time from someone then start spamming.

[Shawk]

anonymity is meta, no integrity creators are the meta, acting like a gangsta on twitter showing dolladolla bills, by not pushing the rules with ip infringement or 20+ accounts pushing spam you are inherently not really “in the game” as far as solo creator small studio range, else your a studio etc etc then you put a ton of work in marketing etc its a big gamble now cause of just a few bad apples

[Giddybrom]

To be honest its just so frustrating to see that after an month the maps are still getting stuck there,

Its the most important aspect for creators, not getting seen whatever you make and unable to be building up your followers gets discouraging fast.

And on everything you see it feels their priority lies elsewhere.

Kinda looks like with all the big chances they went over their head.kinda breaking the base .

[LionUnchained (LionUEFN)]

I find it sus that they DM’d you about this instead of replying on the post.

Seems they want to minimize these issues instead of acknowledge them.

[p_lar]

Btw it’s still broken. This is very unfair to the creators who put in a lot of work and still don’t get on the tab when it’s been broken for weeks now. Please look into this.

[Shawk]

soon it will only be ai talking to us if at all, the ones who did talk to us seem to be leaving

of course the creators benefiting from all this and furthering their grip (job security) have a direct line with them on what changes they should be making to further their unfair advantage over all other “competition”

[Giddybrom]

By now i just start to think its one big scam to give the sponsored row a boost,just get all visibility removed from desperate creators and they will turn to the sponsored row

[rip_fxvo]

Same, my maps dont get in discovery anymore even tough they always did? And no communication from epic games, why are they doing this to us? Do they want us to quit?