@Riot is camping problem noticed/planned to be dealt with?

Zero Skill Tank··14 votes·1,358 views

Camping has become THE dominant jungling strategy. Over the years, there was a multitude of changes that made it more profitable/easier. To name just a few:

  • limited green wards/visible red wards - sticking to one side of map ensures that enemy wards are down and allied red wards are up. Both of those things make successive ganks to one lane easier than with old vision system. Ganking another lane gives enemies time to set up vision/clear red wards, so it's very directly discouraged over camping.
  • first brick gold - massive gold bonus ensures that repetitive ganks are more "worth it" than ganks in different areas, at least until first tower falls
  • jungle changes - introduction of smite items made killing jungle monsters way more difficult and way less profitable (exp penalty) for non-junglers. Effectively, the only person that can punish a camper for sticking to one side of the map is the enemy jungler (compared to entire enemy team in the old days).
  • catch-up exp for junglers - it was nerfed, but it's still off the charts, to the point where junglers purposefully abuse it by leaving small monsters alive. It makes giving up farm from one side of the jungle less of a problem.
  • introduction of new camp-heavy junglers - most notable example is new Warwick, who (even more than other junglers) has easier time ganking the person who is behind, because they are more likely to be low on HP.
  • runes reforged - while there are runes that require unique takedowns, there are many that don't

Note that many of those were great changes on their own - but each of them pushed the game towards camping just a little bit more, and their cummulation pushed the jungle into camp-heavy state in which it is now.

Camping is an OK strategy when it happens every now and then, but when it's the default it really hurts the game. Sure, you can ward and play safer, and that's a skill to learn, but camping shouldn't be something that happens in pretty much every game like right now - the player getting camped has their impact on the outcome of the game vastly reduced no matter what - playing safe has it's cost, too, and ultimately camping means that one player is left praying that his jungler uses his time better than the enemy, because they can't do much on their own.

The TL;DR here is: pls reduce relevance of camping, and bring forth other jungling strategies

21 Comments

Apparently Noob11 votes

I have a positive upvote thread where I showcase a game in which the Jungle Jax hangs out in Top river bush for 3 minutes doing nothing but wait for me to use my mobility skill to go in. And by the end of the game he's higher level, equal farm, more kills than my jungler. As easy comparison, all my jungler did was power farm, and Jax only killed me one time in lane. But he invested 60-70% of his time in a bush. He had 30 cs at 10 minutes. And he was rewarded for it and won.

How the hell is that fair.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

It looks like in that game the Jax was even in farm by the end of the game and was 5/2/5 compared to your Yi who was 0/8/0 which means that Jax was alive a lot more to soak up more xp while Yi was dead. This is why he was 3k gold ahead of him by the end of the game and was 3 levels up.

Aimléss9 votes

Indeed, camping needs to be nerfed. There needs to be a viable way for players to counter it that isn't "Rely on your own jungler to counter gank and get other lanes ahead." The laners themselves need a way to punish a jungler for camping. Ganking in general is far too impactful in this meta anyway, I've lost a ton of games where the 64 CS Lee Sin gave his team a huge lead while my Shyvanna or Yii farmed up to 120 CS but it didn't matter cause the score was 16 to 6, with 3 towers down before 20 mins.

Salson4 votes

Honestly, item 1041 and item 1039 should give less exp than a completed Jungle item. This would force Junglers to chose between gaining power through farming and ruining someones game.

Also, Red buff is broken and should have either it's slow or damage removed.

Ifneth1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, item 1041 and item 1039 should give less exp than a completed Jungle item. This would force Junglers to chose between gaining power through farming and ruining someones game.

Also, Red buff is broken and should have either it's slow or damage removed.

That’s a really interesting idea. The camping behavior you describe is unhealthy, and we could use the XP rewards from jungle items to punish it. The simplest fix would be for starting jungle items to grant bonus experience on only the first clear of a camp, while complete jungle items would grant bonus experience on repeated clears. When a player clears an enemy jungle camp with any item, this bonus experience could be increased to further reward a farming or counter-jungle style.

HaIlMonitor2 votes

On paper that sounds great, but what happens when you get level 2 cheesed by an enemy shaco and he steals 3 of your camps? Now you dont gain any xp until you kill 2 or 3 more camps (after the respawn around 4 minutes) so you are worthless the rest of the game?

Ifneth1 votes

{quoted}

On paper that sounds great, but what happens when you get level 2 cheesed by an enemy shaco and he steals 3 of your camps? Now you dont gain any xp until you kill 2 or 3 more camps (after the respawn around 4 minutes) so you are worthless the rest of the game?

I mean, you wouldn’t gain any XP regardless, would you? I don’t jungle so please elaborate.

HaIlMonitor1 votes

You wouldn't, but the point of catch up xp is so when stuff like that happens you actually stay in the game and don't become worthless.

It is like if you lane have you ever been level 2 ganked, tp'd back and got ganked again and died? You are now 2 or 3 levels behind, a few waves, and legit can't do anything except die under your own tower? That is basically how it used to feel when you would die in jungle early before. except now your whole team suffered because if they walk anywhere they have to deal with that 80 farm udyr at 10 minutes.

Ifneth1 votes

{quoted}

You wouldn't, but the point of catch up xp is so when stuff like that happens you actually stay in the game and don't become worthless.

It is like if you lane have you ever been level 2 ganked, tp'd back and got ganked again and died? You are now 2 or 3 levels behind, a few waves, and legit can't do anything except die under your own tower? That is basically how it used to feel when you would die in jungle early before. except now your whole team suffered because if they walk anywhere they have to deal with that 80 farm udyr at 10 minutes.

I never mentioned catch-up XP. I said bonus XP—the bonus XP from your jungle item. And to be clear, the ‘first clear’ rule would be your first clear, not the first time anyone cleared it.

HaIlMonitor1 votes

That wouldn't be to bad then. Sounds pretty solid, althought it goes vs the "build whatever, whenever" Attitude of most players I dig it :p

Ifneth1 votes

{quoted}

That wouldn't be to bad then. Sounds pretty solid, althought it goes vs the "build whatever, whenever" Attitude of most players I dig it :p

Yeah. It punishes cheese-camping by making the camper recall or walk across the map afterward instead of re-farming nearby camps, and the enchantment XP boost from enemy camps encourages counter-jungling to punish ganks.

HaIlMonitor3 votes

A huge problem with this is whenever Junglers could scale off of farm with things like Feral Flare or Devour everyone gets super salty about that too. As far as solo que goes you either have to have a crappy system like this one because if you don't people would just stop ganking like season 5, come storming out of the jungle and 1v5.

Zero Skill Tank1 votes

That's just not true, when vision wasn't as easly cleared as right now, and it was easier for non-junglers to clear camps, it was profitable to at least try to pressure all lanes. At very least, you needed to visit other side of the map frequently to ensure you don't fall behind.

Feral flare/Devourer denied that, because it was a broken item that allowed junglers to hard scale by safely killing AI-controled monsters better than with other gold sources.

HaIlMonitor1 votes

Nasus Veigar

Stacking guys denied that, because it was a broken mechanic that allowed laners to hard scale by safely killing AI-controled minnions better than with other gold sources.

Oh wait we are talking about jungle, so yeah in season 5 Good laners would actually pressure jungle, the junglers would have to ward for safety, counter jungle, try to gank some (usually around ult spikes): Vs now where they just do a single clear and gank for 10 minutes....

Rester2 votes

Get rid of jungle, problem solved :3

Jokes aside I'm not sure if this is on their radar anytime soon. But I feel the camping pain, no fun especially when they come back less than a minute later.

XDDD2 votes

They might realize that when they buff item 1402 and item 3117 rush Elise becomes a thing again.

They literally just run around the map at light speed missing all their cocoons, 100-0ing laners anyway, and catching up in level via a couple of assists and a couple of jungle camps.

Pretty disgusting how jungle can just pick a certain player and say "fuck you in particular."

The Minion hunt1 votes

team game as long as u don't give up kills and farm your lane half decently, your team might carry you. From the solo queue perception it sucks the big one, but if it's the best you can do, you did your best. Cant ask your jungle to call mia, that's a lie I do. lol.

Colton1471 votes

Shyvana would rather counter-jungle than to gank.

Häxel1 votes

wait.... you have zombieward and ghostporo: you can literaly after each gank place your ghostporo in again. Ofcourse if he sits the whole time in the brush it is bad if you facecheck, but if you know he sits there your jungler can come or farm adn get far more out of it. Only midlane is kinda problematic for having to care multiple sides. But by sticking more to one side you can guard one with vision and stay away from the other.

Zero Skill Tank1 votes

you can literaly after each gank place your ghostporo in again

But that's the entire point. If you gank mid and than go top or bot, you will most likely be spotted by ghost poro on this gank, and worse than that you give the midlaner chance to safely place new ghost poro/zombie.

But if you just gank one lane over and over again, they can never do that. Sticking to one side ensures that you can scare the poros, kill zombie wards or even attack the person trying to put them, knowing that they have no vision yet. By camping one lane you pretty much ensure they have little to no vision.

This makes camping one lane way easier.

Need Gold 4 Tent1 votes

Ah, my hobby

More from Gameplay

More by Zero Skill Tank