I don't really see why there's a debate about whether building should be removed. It shouldn't. Building needs to be changed to minimise its current downsides. The building mechanics benefit those who play negatively, especially at lower skill levels. Turtling players aren't fun to play against and it is not only far harder to beat a turtle than it is to turtle. It also means that the game isn't remotely accessible for new players which might prove to be a fairly big issue for a game with such a large casual/kids audience as the problem gets worse and worse and worse.
There's no world in which it is reasonable for there to be a mechanic which allows you to instantly and cheaply create a wall that blocks all movement and damage and to be able to instantly and cheaply replace it should it get destroyed. It really wouldn't be that hard to change things so that the mechanics don't foster turtling while still allowing all of the mobility/traversal/aggression that it always has.
There are plenty of ways to counter turtling, most recently the change that when you break a wall and if two players try to simultaneously build in a single spot (say, turtler and the one attacking the turtler), the game would choose (based on some fair odds) which player's wall/ceiling/floor is actually placed on the spot (so it's not always the turtler with R2/R1 held down who gets to place a wall/floor/ceiling), after which you could simply edit a hole into the structure and kill the one inside once luck favors you (usually doesn't take more than a 2-3 broken structures when the game gives it to you). There are also weapons that can get through repeated structure building of turtlers, so long as you actually shoot at the enemy that you can see behind structures and not just some empty spot.
And if you can't handle a single turtler in squad/non-solo modes, then you are not playing well for a squad. You just need two people shooting with an SMG, assault rifle or minigun from opposite directions and the turtler is beyond fucked.
The problem with "changing building" is that whatever changes they can & have tried to make (introduce a delay, make it so that explosives affect people within walls etc.) will eventually bring with it far more downsides that generally fuck up less skilled players & makes the game far more annoying to play for everyone on the receiving end than they improve the overall meta to be "fairer" for everyone or whatever you people want. Good players will always just change with the meta and I'd take the frankly relatively small number of excessive turtlers vs. being super easily fucked by anyone who can point a minigun in your general direction and rocket launcher being an auto-win for the ones lucky enough to find one.
In the early days, there was a penalty for building large forts.
the builder had the advantage of height, but they could be destroyed. I won a few games by destroying the base of towers and getting a fall death.
when they introduced bouncers, gliders, et al it gave an even greater advantage to builders.
this is the story of Fortnite, it's all about giving the best players the most advantages, and if anything comes along to affect that balance, they destroy it .
a recent example is the combat shotgun, streamers didnt like it as it levelled the playing field
and now snap to aim is gone, destroying any hope pad players had to level the field over mouse and keyboard players.
Combat shotgun didn't level anything. It was a ridiculously OP weapon with an insane rate of fire & reach. It benefitted pro players the most because if they got the jump on you, there was nothing to be done because they could get in three shots before you could even turn around to block them/shoot back. Pump is a bit too powerful but you could easily (half) miss and do little to no damage (doubly so when lag & RNGsus are not on your side and a hit to the chest did 30 damage) plus it's so slow to shoot that you can try to counter it pretty easily. Combat shotgun made the game far more monotonous because combat shotgun was all you needed in most situations aside from sniping people from afar.
I mean, it was so good that you could snipe people from the air way further away from you than should've been possible with a shotgun. The spread made it a better glider-counter weapon than many other weapons.
There have also been plenty of stuff added that help against builders (shockwave grenades, grappler, traps, explosives, certain vehicles).
