Fortnite streamers Ninja and Sypher want a feature that bans ‘stream’ snipers

Richard Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja, speaks to the crowd at the start of the 2019 Fortnite World Cup Finals - Round Two on July 27, 2019, at Arthur Ashe Stadium, in New York City. - On August 1, 2019 Ninja announced he was leaving Twitch to take his video-game livestreams exclusively on Microsofts streaming service: Mixer. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo credit should read JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images) — Come on, it’s just a game. … Wait, don’t tell him we said that (Photo credit: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

Fortnite streamers like Ninja are tired of players that deliberately target them whilst streaming and call for a new feature to counter it.

When you’re as big of a name as Ninja, who has become so synonymous with Fortnite that he’s now got his own in-game skin, it doesn’t just attract new fans it also attracts griefers; those that aim to simply disrupt his streams.

Recently,
both Ninja and another Fortnite streamer, Ali ‘SypherPK’ Hassan, claim to have
become victims of ‘stream’ snipers: players that deliberately target them and
kill them in-game while they are streaming.

While this does just seem like a part of the game, this is apparently enough of a recurring issue that Epic Games has attempted to implement methods of preventing it, though none of them have been entirely successful.

During a stream together, Ninja and Sypher discussed other possible features, with Sypher coming up with an idea that could theoretically work, suggesting that you could simply ‘ban’ specific players so you can’t interact with them (thanks Dexerto).

‘You
get killed by somebody that you think is a stream sniper, and instead of
reporting, you can click ‘avoid this player.’ Then for 30 days, that person
can’t get into your games.’

Of
course, this feature isn’t flawless and could be easily abused by regular
players, who may decide to just ‘ban’ any player that’s remotely better than
them.

Ninja acknowledged this and said that the hypothetical feature should be made available only to streamers.

(Picure: Epic Games) — Can ‘stream sniping’ be recognised as a first-world problem? (Pic: Epic Games)

But if that were the case, what’s stopping streamers from abusing it? And who’s to say such a feature could even be implemented in the first place? It’s likely not as easy of a solution as some might think.

It’s
not surprising to hear Ninja express such a desire, considering he takes
playing Fortnite far
more seriously than most, to the point where apparently calling it ‘just a
game’ sent him on quite the tirade on Twitter.

Fortnite is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch.