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Catch-Up Experience Is Unhealthy for Competitive Play

AShortJoke··80 votes·3,625 views

The way I see it, catch-up experience in the jungle is just a giant safety net for bad junglers. Just had a game where I was Vi and the enemy Graves invaded my blue buff level 1 and took it, so I responded by taking literally his entire bot side jungle, catching him at his red buff and killing him. Over the course of the game I stole each of his camps at least once, some more than that, had more kill participation than him, yet he was always on par with me in experience. For all of the mid game, I literally had double his farm, I am not exaggerating. Catch-up experience makes it absolutely pointless to out-jungle your opponent because they'll just catch up to you in experience immediately because of this ridiculous system riot has in place. Most low elo junglers "counterjungle" by running into your jungle quick, taking one camp, usually a buff, then running off again. Historically, this has been considered bad counterjungling because a good jungler will just counter-invade you like I did, but with catch-up experience now being a thing, it honestly amounts to about the same thing as actually properly counterjungling your opponent. Riot needs to remove this from the game so it stops hurting competitive play, because all it does is bail out bad jungle play.

68 Comments

SweedishGunner24 votes

They talked about it in today's NA LCS, Kobe (or Jatt) was saying about how he's seen complaints about catch up XP but no one ever mentions the gold deficit.

Even if he's the same level as you, you're going to be way up in gold which in theory should make you more useful.

JustSir3 votes

I see your point: however, you may have a gold advantage but you still get the raw base stat increase with the levels which makes gold advantage less noticiable ESPECIALLY in the jungle. when a tank jungler who has 50 cs and is 1/5/3 at 20 min and a fighter/mage jungler that is 150 cs and 5/3/6 at 20 min, and the tank jungler is more efficient and more useful, there is something wrong. There is no risk right now for making early risky plays and also not much reward either. If you get first blood and burn a few sums, no sweat off your shoulder, just play farmville for 5 min and the gold/exp advantage will be basically not there anymore. It is very frustrating as a non-tank jungler to get a early lead, and then have it nullified by a rammus in 5 min

PhDs Nuts13 votes

{quoted}

They talked about it in today's NA LCS, Kobe (or Jatt) was saying about how he's seen complaints about catch up XP but no one ever mentions the gold deficit.

Even if he's the same level as you, you're going to be way up in gold which in theory should make you more useful.

Not if the enemy jungler is someone with higher base damage or more utility. If you're ahead in gold on Shyvana, but they're equal in levels on Gragas or Elise, they'll still be much more useful.

Snowplosion7 votes

That's not catch-up EXP. That's Gragas and Elise being better champs. I would rather have a Gragas two levels down that a Shyv

SweedishGunner1 votes

Yeah that's why I said in theory. Depending on the champs it doesn't always work out in SoloQ.

Death by Glamour14 votes

You actually want more snowball?

Mens Hair Club45 votes

yes, i want to be rewarded for outplaying my opponent repeatedly and consistently

Ben Sharpio5 votes

heres what happens when you remove catchup exp: Whoever plays nid wins the jungle.

AFilthyCaitMain22 votes

or we can find a nice middle ground somewhere, somehow.

chipndip15 votes

Not gonna happen if you remove catch-up exp. Those that get invaded or power-farmed out are gonna auto-lose to Shyv and her groupies.

GripaAviara3 votes

You don't really outplay him consistently, you outplayed him once and because of that he is shiet and you way stronger than him, which means you can dominate his jungler and he will have no place to play safe since jungle has no turrets

Sraeg20131 votes

In a situation like that you should have no right to come out even as a jungler without your laners' help.

chipndip11 votes

For ONE good play/bad play? You just "deserve to get shit on for the rest of the game"? REALLY? You guys are inconsistent as fuck.

Sraeg20131 votes

Don't "you guys" me.

If you are getting killed and counter-jungled and your laners aren't helping then tough luck, but that how it SHOULD be.

Squey1 votes

He might be equal levels with you but i doubt he has similar amount of gold. I agree catch up exp should go down but i also think junglers level too quickly when ahead and the game has become "how well can u dodge ganks for the first 20 min?"

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

And then boards complain again when nidalee, elise and lee are the only viable junglers and everyone else is trash. Catch up needs to stay. Tune it down but never remove it. Atleast not in the jungle.

Jet Sett11 votes

That seems good on paper (except for the gold disparity you're ignoring) but that just means you'd be able to counter jungle them to the point where they're useless. You should NOT be able to invalidate to that point ever. It'd make junglers who have a slower clear or less dueling ability completely irrelevant after any disadvantage.

sobi9994 votes

Well put.

Sraeg20132 votes

It sure feels great when your midlaner/bot lane gets gank-spammed and made irrelevant by a jungler who is even in level when historically they'd be 3 levels down.

No, if you get counter-jungled constantly and killed multiple times without your team's help you should be irrelevant, just like every single fucking lane that gets camped.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

That is more because of how much exp kills/assists give than the jungle. If they are spam ganking you are clearing faster and WILL hit 6 before then because you will usually be an entire full clear ahead of them because of how slow they are to refresh the cooldown on the camps. It is why jungle Rumble WAS a good pick last season because he power cleared his jungle so fast he hit level 6 while mid was level 5 and bot was level 4. The fact that kills/assists grant ~half a level PER kill/assist is the reason their Shaco is close to levels with Shyvana and not the fact he is just sparingly clearing his Wolves/Gromp.

Ahri Body Pillow7 votes

Please keep the catch up xp, this games already just a huge snowball fest

Kyunsei13 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ahri Body Pillow,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8ENl7Evb,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-09-11T04:14:42.115+0000)

Please keep the catch up xp, this games already just a huge snowball fest

Catch-up actually help snowball fest, as jungler aren't punished for spam-ganking. Which lead to greater domination in lane.

Actually you are even rewarded for spam ganking, as getting behind in level will grant you more experience when you clean your jungle, optimizing your time/reward ratio.

Also if you don't have a kill right off the bat, that's not a big deal, as kill and assist also give a huge amount of experience if you are behind in level.

KoKoboto2 votes

Remove catch up experience. Fix all the snowball fest.

dominusx6 votes

what do you mean when i'm kha'zix with 190cs and the enemy yi has 100 and he is still only one level below me when i have more KP than him? That's fine. It's also fine when i try some fucktarded risky play get punished and still remain on par with xp with the other guy who powerfarmed while i died.

LexLutheran875 votes

Do you want games to snow ball?because without catch-up, there is only snowball... worse than it already is.

Be satisfied with your snowballed gold from positive play, gold is more multiplicative of power than xp anyway.

Games are better quality when the enemy still has some agency to get back in the game, and vice versa.

2Charmnot2Charm1 votes

Be satisfied with your snowballed gold from positive play, gold is more multiplicative of power than xp anyway.

Yet it doesn't matter when a tank falls behind in gold early game, why? Because they have the base damage to threaten you anyways along with their utility/cc long as they can get levels and thanks to this mechanic they don't fall behind in levels.

Do you see the problem now?

chipndip12 votes

So tanks should do 1 damage on every auto or spell, just to protect your feelings?

2Charmnot2Charm1 votes

I guess someone doesn't remember why item 1056 got nerfed this season.

chipndip11 votes

For the unhealthy mana regen of "12 mp per cs" you could get by stacking them, so they could poke freely. Has nothing to do with tanks using it as a damage source.

Looks like someone doesn't remember the reasoning behind their own references.

2Charmnot2Charm2 votes

Has nothing to do with tanks using it as a damage source.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

Notice i said BASE DAMAGE.

It was because of tanks abusing it so they can wave clear endlessly with their stupid base damage on their wave clear spells.

They nerfed Nautilus Gragas and a few other problem champs mana cause of it but they refused to do the same to Galio and just nerfed d ring hitting all the mages with them.

D ring has been the way it was for seasons and you don't think tanks had anything to do with it when the item gets nerfed after they been stacking it for a while?

Looks like someone doesn't pay attention to anything that's outside of the bot lane.

chipndip11 votes

Spamming wave clear spells REGARDLESS is gonna clear waves when they're WAVE CLEAR SPELLS. The point is that using a spell to wave clear repeatedly should cause you to go oom unless you're specifically investing in not doing so. Grabbing an entry level item a few times over to jump start your early game and get 12 mp a minion on a 6 minion wave basically giving top lane tanks that used mp never-ending mana supplies. Nothing about the base damage of the tanks was the issue. The fact that they could spend 800 gold and never go oom as long as they cs a bit while hitting you from a decent distance was the ENTIRE issue with stacking Doran's Ring. If base damage was the issue, they'd do what they did to Galio and nerf their base damage.

[zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-facepalm]

2Charmnot2Charm1 votes

Wow all you're good for is taking one word someone says at face value i'm wasting my time talking to you. When you learn to understand wtf is going on ill talk to you again if i ever bother to read what you're saying again.

chipndip11 votes

The rest of the stuff was unnecessary to respond to. Why respond to it?

Bionic Jellyfish4 votes

here's an actual counterjungling tip from a bronzie: dont just take all the monsters in his camp. instead, if possible, leave a small one so the enemy jungler only gets that tiny amount of gold and exp, then has to wait for it to respawn. do that for every camp possible. it may make a difference

SoundChaosDebug2 votes

Did they downvote you just because you said you're in bronze?

Phelas2 votes

Yes, welcome to the League of Legends official board.

Danjeng4 votes

If there was no catch up experience, junglers would just farm for days, which isn't very fun.

If you took every enemy camp at least once, you would end up with a large gold advantage, along with a buff advantage for your team (assuming you're nice enough to give your allies buffs), and more map presence.

I think Graves got a lot of farm from lanes, because he beat you out in cs.

I Main Swain4 votes

imo it would be unhealthy to remove it entirely, i remember the old days of sejuani (when she was actually more fun to play imo) when her early game was super vulnerable along with a lot of other junglers to the extent that if someone invaded or if she got a bad leash she would just be out of the game, straight up she would have to spend every moment until like 20-30 minutes trying to stay caught up in gold and experience. imo they should have it only activate if youre way behind.

Kyunsei2 votes

It isn't only unhealthy for competitive play, it is unhealthy in any level.

The more jungler are high elo, the more they are hindered by catch-up exp mechanic.

Rainfall2 votes

according to some boarders the game should be determined by a coin flip and all lanes snow ball the same.

MLDzXnRRR2 votes

Without this catchup xp, you won't be able to comeback after being camped by a Lee, Kha, Shaco or something similar. They will kill you at red and noone will come to help, then the game is over for you. In LCS or high elo your team will probably help warding and come to help secure objectives, but in soloQ you can afk in the fountain, because after you die once, expect that Lee to just continue camping you. The invades are disgraceful and demoralizing, I can't see how someone can be proud winning a game by being a bitch. Also, let's not forget that these people that camp the enemy jungle probably won't gank and the enemy laners can still win the 4v4 laning phase.

Sraeg20132 votes

Without this catchup xp, you won't be able to comeback after being camped by a Lee, Kha, Shaco or something similar.

That's how you are supposed to make the most out of those champions. Shaco without counter-jungling is worthless.

The invades are disgraceful and demoralizing, I can't see how someone can be proud winning a game by being a bitch.

The ganks are disgraceful and demoralizing, I can't see how someone can be proud of winning a game by being a bitch.

Acheron162 votes

First- you have gold advantage. If you are indeed good then use it Second- Catchup EXp only kicks in when you are like 5 levels behind someone. If they are getting catchup EXP then you have a huge lead. USE IT.

Wigglepufftuff2 votes

Oooh good idea, this is how we get riot to fix everything. We just say it's bad for esports, and they'll fix it.

SpecterVonBaren2 votes

Catch up XP seems more like a reward for aggressive junglers since they can gank all day long and then do one or two camps and be up in levels.

The Deckowner1 votes

They don't need to nerf catchu up exp, they just need to nerf raptor and krugs exp, make the camp give catch up exp as a whole instead of each individual small monster.

Weasel Kensei1 votes

The way I see it, catch-up experience in the jungle is just a giant safety net for bad junglers.

Then they would need to fix autofill.

As best I can tell it still will autofill people into roles that other people in the match qued for as secondary simply because the que time went long enough for it to autofill someone.

Autofill is autolose enough already, so I think some forgivness mechanics should be in place. That said, I think the catch up experience is too high. It really only takes like 6 camps for someone to go from whatever level, to caught up it seems. I think catch up XP needs to be slowed down.

Do also consider that catch up XP is a thing thats supposed to be around for supports who fall behind leaving a lane to ward. If catch up goes away it would be pretty harmful for them also.

Chaosedge1 votes

Meh, just play Warwick. I'd dare a Lee Sin or Vi to counter jungle me.

muted team chat1 votes

If you ever fall behind go do raptor and krugs. Boom you just caught up completely.

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