I think I understand what Riot is trying to do with the jungle. And I actually really like the idea.

Alright. It is no secret that Riot has been making a lot of jungle changes, to (at least from the boards) criticism aplenty. They first made the scuttle crab changes, which were much hated by the boards. Season 8 saw us complaining about how much level 2 ganks and early game snowballing rules the jungle. Riot responded to these claims in season 9 by.... nerfing power farm junglers? Making early game junglers even stronger, right?

So I was trying to figure out, what is Riot's end goal here, what is their vision for the jungle? They frankly haven't been clear about it, so I started by figuring out what my ideal jungle would be. And it was here that I realized that most of the changes I had in mind lined up with Riot's own decisions. The problem was, the changes Riot implemented failed to have the desired effect for several reasons which I will go over here.

What is Riot's jungle vision? Well, I believe their vision for the jungle is a team-oriented second support type character. Their idea is that the jungler would be able to pressure opponent's and assist their teamates by using things like scuttle crabs speedboost to help teamates gain river control, but not have as much kill pressure as before, certainly not being able to do things like tower dive that they can now.

What are the changes they made and why do they fit in this theory? I will look at 4 I believe to be most signifigant and why they did not have the desired effect.

Firstly, the scuttle crab changes. The goal here actually makes a lot of sense in theory. With the scuttle crab, their is a neutral objective for junglers to fight over early game that their laners can rotate over to participate in a fight. This way, the objective can be a key part of early tempo game, allowing one jungler to limit enemy laner roams and jungler invades while allowing your own laners to roam more effectivly with some vision protection. Junglers can gain their team a signifigant supporting advantage that can be contested for interesting fights without it being gamewinning snowball like drake or rift herald. Since the ungler has been weakened by the scutte fight, they cannot snowball with a level 2 or 3 gank In theory, this change makes a lot of sense and I can see why Riot eagerly doubled down on it despite community outrage.

So why does it fail this goal? Because the scuttle is rarely effectivly contested. Since the scuttle does not fight back, the stronger jungler can always take it because they do not take damage from the scuttle the enemy jungler can punish. Most laner attempts at interfering can be prevented by the opposing laner hard shoving the wave or simply the other laner walking to the scuttle as well, and the team with the stronger jungler will still win that fight. So instead of creating interesting action and unique fights over one of the frankly cooler objectives in the game, it is near impossible to contest. Because there is no fight to contest the scuttle crab, the jungler takes no damage and can still snowball into an early gank that should not be as strong as it is now. Sadly, the scuttle changes have the opposite of the intended effect.

Secondly, the reduced ward time changes. While Riot said these were to prevent cautious games in general, they will obviously have an effect on jungle gameplay. This seems like a pretty good change on paper. It allows junglers to have more suprise ganks so long as they take more unusual routes. Aggressive objective fights over dragon or scuttle might go undiscovered long enough for an objective to be secured. This will force junglers to focus a lot more on using things like scuttle and pink wards to have safer invades, protect your laners, and ensure you can safely farm. If you let your less powerful vision go away to focus on kills, you get punished by the enemy jungler, midlaner, and support punish you for acting without enough information. Jungler focuses more on vision, and supporting. Focuses more on objectives. Seems good on paper.

Sadly it also does not work in practice. Since you have little vision of your own jungle as you don't have the wards to spare, you often have to resort to vertical jungling against more powerful junglers you do not have the vision to avoid (as they secured scuttle crab before you). Vertical jungling goes against Riot's supportive jungling goal because once the jungers are divided into top and bottom they do not need to worry about contesting vison or about danger in securing things like scuttle. This leads to more ganking junglers that should be much lower on health.

Thirdly, turret plating. Now, this one seems really strange. A turret change should affect junglers the least, right? And while Riot might have had other motivations while making turret plating, I am sure jungling was on their mind. Turret plating forces junglers to play more supportivly (in theory) since towers are so beefy, junglers might be called upon to help destroy turrets. The bonus gold woud reward the jungler for playing with their team. Instead of powerfarming or ganking more, the jungler helps the team secure additional plating and objectives. Seems good, right?

Well, the problem is you have to get the laner out of there first. The result is that jungers become more focused on taking longer and more early ganks in order to secure the nessecary plating. This increases the problem Riot attempted to resolve.Turret plating enforces camping a lane, and vertical jungling, both of which violate Riot's jungle vision.

Finally, one of the changes we have not yet seen live, but one that will probably also be unsuccesful. Reduced camp EXP. Although many people see this as nerfing powerfarmers, I don't think this is the goal. I think the intention here is to reduce how early junglers can get to that level 2 or 3 powerspike. Instead of ganking a lane super early, they won't have the strength to. They'll fight over scuttle. Powerfarmers, strangley enough, become stronger (in theory) because early game junglers become much weaker early. Since junglers that try to become carries will be weaker, the junglers must focus more on supporting their team without getting outright goal. Which, if you remember, I believe is Riot's goal.

Now, why is this not working? Why is Riot unable to fulfill their vision they've had for over a season? The simple answer is, they won't share it. Riot shares why they make changes, they share the changes they want to make, but they never say what they want the game to be, and frankly I'm not sure why. A lot of the feedback they get is flawed. Most of the people on this board envision tanky teamfighting junglers, so they give their feedback to Riot based on their hope of seeing tanky teamfighting junglers. Riot knows this, so they don't implement these changes as they don't line up with their vision. But since Riot never shares it's own vision, we can never give it feedback based on what Riot wants.