New creator loading screens overrides non default loading cosmetics

[Sprintermax]

Summary

After update 36.20, a new feature was added that uses the island thumbnails as default loading screen for creator-made islands (announced here: https://x.com/FNCreate/status/1944789163640803745)

But, the new feature is not replacing only the default loading screen as mentioned on the announce, but instead replacing every single loading cosmetic, including individual selected cosmetics or shuffle based on favorited cosmetic list.

This issue makes the majority of the loading screen cosmetics feature currently unused/unusable, since it is always overriding the loading images and not only replacing the default loading cosmetic as said on the announcement (aka. no loading selected by the user).

Please select what you are reporting on:

Creative

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

UI/Tools

Steps to Reproduce

1- Select any non-default loading screen, or set it as random (with or without favorite filtering) on the locker
2- Select and matchmake into any creator-made island from discovery
3- See that the loading screen shown is the island thumbnail, instead of the proper non-default currently selected cosmetic on the locker

Expected Result

• When using default/none loading screen cosmetic selected on the locker, show the island thumbnail as loading screen.
• When using any loading screen on the locker (including random and favorited filter), shows the currently selected loading screen cosmetic instead of the island thumbnail

Observed Result

• The island thumbnail always shows regardless of the selected cosmetic on locker, contradicting the announcement which stated that it would show as default loading

Platform(s)

Any (Fortnite Client)

Additional Notes

Besides being a minimal cosmetic feature compared to others, being able to customize and select loading screens on fortnite is an awesome and different feature for the players. The current behavior of replacing all including non-default loading screens is taking this customization away from players and consequently a regression on this aspect. And, assuming what the announcement said about default loading, that is almost certain a bug.

[Sprintermax]

Just as an example (and adding some context), I care about loading more than other cosmetics due to their diverse arts and visuals:

I have 747 loading screens, from these I also manually filtered and favorited 300+ loadings one by one over my 7 years of the game since this cosmetic type launched in Season 4 Chapter 1, to be displayed during the loadings of the game as it was intended for.

Using the “random” feature (it randomly picks an owned cosmetic, or randomly picks a favorited cosmetic if exists any), I was able to control and customize ever further the visuals of the loadings of the game to my liking.

All these features got basically obliterated due to the weird behavior described above. If the island thumbnail were replacing the default loading (X Icon / No Cosmetic on image bellow) it would be fine, but replacing all custom selected overriden cosmetic (Random and Custom Selection) is not the expected behavior since it was described otherwise on the announcement, and a regression on the customization as I described above…

[Bug-Reporter]

FORT-943315 has been created and its status is ‘Unconfirmed’. This is now in a queue to be reproduced and confirmed.

[vOrdiant]

Pretty sure that’s intended, similar to how the Blitz mode or any live event modes override any other loading screen. In a future update they’ll allow us to make custom loading screens as well instead of using the thumbnail image which makes total sense, as the ecosystem grows and unique games are made, some creators will want their games to not be tied to any Fortnite Cosmetic or visuals.

I guess it could be useful to give creators the option to opt-in/out of that functionality.

[Sprintermax]

I think you understood it a little wrong, I like the possibility of creators placing custom loadings, I am not against it and did not said to revert or remove that functionality…

I also know that in the future creators will be able to select custom images on creator portal for the loading, and that’s also fine (this feature was also stated on the announcement post).

My report is about it replacing the non-default loadings, as described some times on the texts above. The announcement post clearly states it would be used as default loading, and even before that change came, me and other users of the community was already talking about how it would work and how it could be implemented in a best way.

If they were going to replace all loadings (including non-default), they would not need to mention anything about “default loading”, since that would not be adding any extra information to the announcement and behavior of the functionality. And even if that were the case, it would still lead to the problem that I described about being a massive regression on the user customization and the entire loading screens cosmetic type. So in any way or another, the report is still valid for consideration on how the feature behaves.

I also know that some LTMs and events had exclusive loading CTAs on the past, but that’s a special edge case and not common daily usage of the platform. Remember that even Blitz started with the idea of being a LTM at first place, changing later due to community feedback.

And, besides the main point of recression on the cosmetic type, this is a client feature that does not affect gameplay on a map, and these things are expected to be a choice from the player and not the creator (such as other customizations as keybinds, hud visuals/scale and so on), specially with fortnite already providing this customization for 7 years already.

Forcing it enabled for everyone, or even being an option on creator side to optin/opt-out id bad, because it can lead to spammy behavior just for marketing/ad reasons, removing the choice of an existing feature from the player and so on… We know that creators have behaviors to push everything regardless of making sense or not (you can see this with other features such as auto localization, some voice chat configs and so on), it’s not fair letting the player choices in the hands of some creator morality, specially when involving advertisiment (and again, having the regression of an already existing good feature that always worked fine).

I believe that the behavior that was properly announced is already enough, specially for the current state of the platform, of it only replacing the default loading and not replacing non-default selected cosmetics in the locker.
But, nothing prevents it having better and different iterations in the future, an example can be when Creator Economy v2 releasing (creators being able to make cosmetics and granting them to players), allowing creators to conditionally give loading screen cosmetics to the players so they can properly collect and choose the images for playing a map, participating an event from a creator and so on (Also that can incentive more good/fair usage of the feature and less spammy images)

[Mineblo]

I personally disagree, I would rather it overrides the player’s Loading Screen HOWEVER I will agree on that it should be a setting the map creator can decide on. It’s not the first time creators could override/hide items players had in their locker.

Namely Creators already could:

1. Hide the player’s Backbling and then equip their custom made one
   
   
2. Hide Jam Tracks from player’s emote wheels
   
   
3. Disable the emote wheel
   
   
4. Override a player’s outfit using the Disguise Device

[Sprintermax]

We creators can even make entire player invisible in verse, but that’s for gameplay and in-experience interaction and functionality, not client side customization. Some of them are even to help when complaining with other things such as with IARC, to disable features that are not “needed” for the experience to work or that can lead to different avaliations of the content.

Would you say that they should remove client options such as keybinds, hud scale, languages, sound volumes, screen tooltips, spatial audio, turbo build, subtitles customization, damage indicators, input sensibility, hud element visibility, safe zones and so on? All these are client customizable features, many of them makes sense to be client customizable, some does not but still great to have, and some of them are also exposed for creators to control if wanted on experiences, working together, not overriding (for example client has priority over hud visibility than server when disabling an element, even with a possible excuse that “if some element is hidden, player will not be able to play correctly/some information will not be available for him”)

Nothing against having creator option to opt-in/opt-out of loading screens (I even mentioned the possibility of having it in a future review of this functionality), but like I said on the other message, the original message was not about lack of control by creators, was about another feature instead. Nothing prevents having both functionalities together, they are not multually exclusive. (And also should consider the ecossystem and its goals, not only the current state/limitations)

What I wanted to say is: Correlation does not justify Cause. It’s not just because something works in some specific way, that justifies another thing working/needing to work on that same way. This is in any context inside internet or real life. Usability, conditions and lots of aspects affects it, can’t “globalize” a decision without taking each context into count. (And even some examples that I mentioned earlier contradicts it, having inverse logic for control/flexibility and usability both on the creator and client sides). We can use arguments to defend an idea, but the argument should not be generalized without context/pushing to areas that are not related to the main topic. (That’s a very common problem in many discussions and what most causes fights or conflicts between people in real life)

Another example is text chat positioning that has bugs, inconsistent across platforms (even ignores creator options) and so on, regardless of how it is, does not affect usability and experience for the individual or all players on it…

I wanted to make a post related to regression on chat features (bad navigation, no commands anymore, no client customization, wrong and inconsistent UIs and so on), but sadly the forum does not provide a category for that, only for uefn and creative specifically, and the chat is something globally available inside fortnite not only related to these modes
It has lots of creator related problems too (some existing creator options does not work, no creator customization, lack of permision control are some examples), but I think it would be better to place it all together to avoid fragmentation on the information since it is all the same feature