Boards›Gameplay

State of the Jungle - an open letter to riot

MtZenon·2/27/2015, 9:34:27 PM·6 votes·671 views

Dear Riot,

As a jungler since late S3, I wanted to take a moment and give some feedback on the season 5 jungle. Overall, it has potential, but it's current state has something lacking: it's less fun to jungle this season. I wanted to offer some constructive feedback to fix this problem.

The good:

  • The idea that a jungle camp should 'cost you' something to harvest. The fact that the second red buff beats the snot out of me means I have to think twice before I clear it. This promotes decision making rather than afk farm-farm-gank-farm like S4.
  • Jungle item diversity is good. Multiple smite upgrades, 2 charges of smite, and a diverse enchantment system are great ideas and promote jungler diversity.
  • The increased difficulty of the monsters means that the spawn camps are less often farmed by laners. This is a good thing as it helps the jungler keep a defined role for a longer stretch of the game.

The bad: - The difficulty of the jungle monsters is a huge problem with respect to jungler diversity and is NOT compensated for by the jungle items.

  • The current XP deficit means that ganking is very challenging
  • Shoring up a weak lane is usually not possible to do - an enemy doublekill is the likely outcome
  • carrying from the jungle is very difficult and usually not possible - I can't imagine learning to jungle this season as a new player. It's frustrating enough as a veteran.

Some specific examples: **- Having to back after clearing 2-3 camps isn't fun. It's just frustrating.

  • Being consistently 2-3 levels behind the solo laners AND at a significant gold/item disadvantage isn't fun.
  • Being forced to repeatedly back because of monster damage is oppressive. Laners back only when they are ready to buy or have just lost a trade or have been ganked. Junglers back to survive.**

**The end result is that jungling feels like a constant struggle just to survive and impact the game meaningfully **- it's more work for less enjoyability/reward. Falling behind individually (an early jg invade) or as a team (2 lanes struggle/lose) greatly limits your options. I think this is seen in game as fewer people are interested in jungling these days. Again, it's just not as fun to be a weakling.

Supports also have less XP and gold than much of the team, but a support is usually not expected to contribute damage and/or survivability to the team, but utility. Utility is minimally impacted by gold and level disadvantages.

Constructive feedback: **- Have the cost/benefit ratio of the monsters improve. **You want the red buff to beat the snot out of me? Great - but make it worth my while. You recognize that the gold deficit of the jungle requires a jungle item (+30g/kill) to make it worthwhile. How about 20% more XP from jungle monsters on my upgraded machete?

  • How about improving the health/mana recoup cost of a large monster by 50% if you hold a machete? By 100% if you hold an upgraded machete? That way I still have to say "That thing will kill me if I'm this low. I have to back." but I can take 4-5 camps instead of 2-3 so long as I can kill them.

**In the end, jungler diversity will improve only if there are multiple viable strategies to get through the jungle alive and still be able to impact the game. Otherwise, junglers will be limited to the few who can survive. ** I'd like to close by saying that I think the S5 jungle has a lot of potential, and I hope Riot takes some steps to make it more enjoyable and fun.

Thanks for reading, MtZenon

****TL;DR -

  1. The current jungle feels oppressive. Getting the snot beat out of you by monsters while being at a perpetual disadvantage in terms of XP and Gold just isn't very fun and limits both jungler diversity and jungler impact.
  2. Fix this by improving the cost/benefit ratio of taking jungle camps.****

4 Comments

BluePolarizer2/27/2015, 9:45:46 PM1 votes

+1. Some ppl say that supports are also affected by low gold. That is wrong - supports are typically gold independent and most of all, get gold just for being in the game from GP10s. Junglers are expected to tank, deal damage and usually both, and both require huge amounts of gold. Unless you are snowballing, AFK farming or get to splitpush while your top joins the team, you will be poor the whole game.

OhOkYeah2/27/2015, 9:53:13 PM1 votes
  • I can't imagine learning to jungle this season as a new player. It's frustrating enough as a veteran.

Man it's terrible as a less experienced player. Even after hitting level 22 and being able to have a mostly complete rune and mastery page, it's really discouraging. I've watched videos and asked for advice multiple times on the forums and thought it was completely pointless to jungle. Until I tried warwick and fiddle. They did very well. Currently testing jungle routes on a bunch of champs I own on another account and some are just too frustrating to play. I had to recall with rengar before having enough money to upgrade the machete. Kha was much better, but still way too slow to keep up. Not being able to gank early is alright, but being behind by multiple levels is just pointless. About to go try Xin, lee, yi, nid, rammus and voli. Just disappointed that some champs with really cool kits can't do it even though they are supposed to.

MtZenon2/27/2015, 11:13:46 PM1 votes

If you can't jungle with a blank rune page, the jungle is too hard. I think I may post that...

4nth0l0gy2/28/2015, 4:20:52 PM1 votes

Lot of good things said in the OP.