Noticed that its very easy now to simply not play Fortnite, especially when playing UGC.
All you have to do is wait 10 mins on a PS5 while playing any UEFN map, and the sleep mode will fire up, then Fortnite will lose network on PS5 going in sleep mode, then also Fortnite has a sleep mode AND there is the new 60 min timer that kicks you for inactivity.
It’s like Epic doesn’t want players to simply take a break and go for lunch while playing, then come back. The hurdles of reconnecting to a game, remembering what you were playing, who you were playing with, sync with friends again, its just full of friction.
Idle behavior should be treated as a break from action, then once you pick up the controller you are good to go again, not you go into the UGC content and everything is frozen, and after like a minute you get kicked to lobby with message “network connection lost”. This just screams bad design and pushing players off the game.
Now I am not saying help the people who idle and mess up multiplayer games. But since Fortnite its a multiplayer centric game, afk state should be a thing that is supported by the infrastructure, and made in a way that helps both the players, the creators and Epic. Having a specific AFK state that the players automatically enter if they idle for X time, that is supported in Verse and devices will allow creators to build MP games with that mechanic in mind, and will allow Epic to control the reconnection aspect through that state.
Food for thought