What jungle changes are the developers planning? Pets will be added to League of Legends.
LoL regularly receives changes, in which the developers try to maintain a relative balance of the game and weaken too strong champions, as well as strengthen those who do not necessarily fit well in the game.
From time to time, however, much larger patches are released that affect virtually everyone – relatively recently, an update has been released to the game, which increased the durability of each champion. As a rule, a lot of news is introduced to League of Legends in pre-season updates.
Recently, they have introduced, among other things, mythical items that have significantly influenced how each hero is built, or elemental dragons that introduce a completely new Summoner’s Rift. This time, Riot decided to take on the junglers. How much could this role change soon?
League jungle changes
Junglers in League of Legends do not have an easy task. Players from this position must try to support virtually every lane, while taking care of the objectives, such as the Baron, Herald, and dragons. The role entry threshold is relatively high, and Riot will be looking to change that in the near future. The creators do not want the vast majority of players to avoid this position.
Many League players see the wildly complex set of strategies and game knowledge required to be even slightly competent at the jungle and are scared away. We want to lessen this barrier to entry. One of the ways we’ll do that is by easing players in, showing them how to play the role, and adjusting mechanics so they’re less punishing and more intuitive. The goal here is absolutely not to “dumb down” the jungle or remove the ability to show off your jungle knowledge, but to make sure that jungle is complex in the right places.
League of Legends Garena has published an entry in which the designers describe how they will address the above-described difficulties resulting from playing this position. Some of them relate to supporting the player in taking the path, and others relate to changing items, leashing or introducing pets.
The order of eliminating the camps and the mechanic’s fixes
Riot is experimenting with introducing a clear path tutorial – it compares it to an item recommendation system, but in this case, it applies to the first clear.
The creators are also working on how the camps are leached and modify their range and reset conditions. Rioter writes that it is a terrible moment for a new player is losing the mob’s aggro. He also mentions that even for experienced players, certain rules are “picky” and that some heroes may adapt to them better. Jungle itself should not be the deciding factor in determining whether a character is suitable for the role.
Camp clearing changes
Currently, in order for a champion to be suitable for the jungle, he must quickly and effectively eliminate camps. Because of this, slower heroes are rarely picked by pro players and simply don’t make it to the meta. As this is the main entry requirement, players don’t necessarily want to learn about the role. Riot wants to address this entry barrier.
Riot realizes that by doing this players will lose some ability to demonstrate their skills, but it ensures that the complexity of the jungle and its familiarity will be evident elsewhere. The creators believe that their actions will ultimately turn out for good.
If jungle clear optimization is no longer a major barrier-to-entry for jungle viability, way more champions can be played there. The meta is less set in stone, the jungle itself isn’t telling you that you’re bad at the game just because you picked Warwick and wanted to take raptors.
Skill should be rewarded across the roster of champs, not only on the select few that can effectively clear the current jungle. Some amount of the skill expression around clearing your jungle will be lost with these changes, but that means we can move some of the jungle’s complexity and skill away from clear optimization toward other places. We think this’ll be a good tradeoff for the jungle overall.
Items for junglers
The creators also want to take a look at the items that players go to the jungle with. Currently, in their opinion, the current items are not so exciting and understandable. While old items like Spirit of the Elder Lizard and Wriggle’s Lantern will not return, Riot is looking to introduce more influential options for junglers.
The reason most of us are drawn to the jungle is because it’s different from laning—we don’t want to sit in a lane and farm with dinky Doran’s items. The goal of the jungle item changes is to get them to express the difference between culling cool camps and farming boring minions.
Some of you might remember the old days of Spirit of the Elder Lizard or Wriggle’s Lantern—back when jungle items felt more meaningful and impactful. Let’s be honest though, those were problematic in their own ways. We want to capture some of that fantasy with a bit of a twist this time… pets.
Jungler support pets
As already mentioned, Riot wants to introduce pets to League similar to the one that appeared after Devourer getting stacked. Pets will help the jungler clear and knock down epic creatures. They will slowly accumulate stacks until they have grown enough to make the hero stronger. At the moment, it is not known what exactly the mentioned amplification will consist of.
Our earliest prototype was a jungle wolf that followed you around and whenever you killed a camp, Ahri’s foxfire missiles shot into the wolf’s mouth. At a certain point the wolf got really, really small (unlike our love of it) and attached to your head. Then a recolored version of (soon-to-be-outdated) Udyr’s Tiger Form glowed on you while Aatrox’s ult activation sound effect played repeatedly (and globally oops).
Due to the fact that Riot’s plans were published accidentally too early, players probably won’t find out too quickly about the work progress. Nevertheless, jungle players can be pleased that the developers are looking at their role.