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@Ghostcrawler: We want an AMA on the Jungle.

MajorPain9··130 votes·3,495 views

Reddit asked for one, and they got it. We are asking for one on your own forums, so lets make it happen. There is a lot of debate right now about the Jungle and lack of diversity, especially with the recent changes making it harder for champion variety. With Season 5 already underway and the meta solidifying itself we are at a prime moment to take advantage of the player feedback and development direction.

I have my own thoughts and opinions on the subject, but rather than post them here I want a BRIGHT RED AMA where the community can post their own concerns along side mine. You keep saying the feedback to the player base should be better, so I am challenging not only you but the entire Development team to take a little time out of your day. Sit down together and answer the communities questions and concerns. Debate us, challenge us, and let us do the same to you.

For my fellow players if you support an open discussion about the Jungle please lend me your upvotes. Slam this post right at the top of the Hot page, bold and proud for Riot to see that we as a community can have a open discussion, with out the meme's and vitrol we have been spewing lately. We can make this happen with enough support. Let Riot know that you want an open forum. That you do want your voice heard, and that you do have concerns or gratitude about the current balance situation.

31 Comments

Grand Eleven43 votes

As of right now, the art/skin team is the only team I give credit to actually using the tools at their disposal. They are vocal on the forums, they regularly tweak skins on the PBE, in general they are by far the most mature team on the staff from a player perspective.

It would be wonderful if the balance team had the same discipline as the skin/art team.

MajorPain914 votes

Agreed they are doing a fantastic job. The amount of Reds I see on them vastly out number any other department. Although props to Katey and Sweet, those two are the MVP's of the forum right now.

Caezium2 votes

The Skin/art team is honestly amazing. The quality of skins is absolutely amazing and part of why I play this game. They make the game look really nice.

(A terrible reason to play the game but... whatever)

Xela Syab3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Grand Eleven,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=p3bwApHN,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-02-10T05:05:12.356+0000)

As of right now, the art/skin team is the only team I give credit to actually using the tools at their disposal. They are vocal on the forums, they regularly tweak skins on the PBE, in general they are by far the most mature team on the staff from a player perspective.

It would be wonderful if the balance team had the same discipline as the skin/art team.

this is because this is where riot gets their money from, they have a huge creative pool from the gaming community for skins (popstar ahri battlebunny riven anyone?) and they can actually focus on that point for profit. There really isn't any profit gain from champion balance essentially they can force us all to play select champions for meta's release new skins for meta champions. I wouldn't be surprised if they didnt balance Lee until AFTER an ultimate skin is released for him. This is why Kalista hasn't gotten any balance changes against jungle minions, this is why J4 is alowed to bring limitless utility to teams, even champ reworks get a bundle released afterwards so we can buy skins. I'm not totally against this though, riot does need to make money to keep the company running however I would like more skin's being released, There's so much qq about zed but why hasn't he gotten any new skins besides a release one and tourney winner skin (no snowdown skin rito!), there's a demand for zac skins and not much being said about it? Even most j4 players want new skins they are bored with warring kingdoms, he needs some more skins (Infernal or Pulsefire J4 pls).

slippykitten4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Grand Eleven,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=p3bwApHN,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-02-10T05:05:12.356+0000)

As of right now, the art/skin team is the only team I give credit to actually using the tools at their disposal. They are vocal on the forums, they regularly tweak skins on the PBE, in general they are by far the most mature team on the staff from a player perspective.

It would be wonderful if the balance team had the same discipline as the skin/art team.

Definitely kudos to the art team, they do a fantastic job all around. However, it should be noted that communication on art is significantly easier than anything else. You can't ever really be 'wrong' on art. You can have different preferences, or things you would like to see, but you can't really just be black and white wrong.

With champion balance, champion design, jungle balance, etc, you can absolutely be flat our WRONG, and for that reason riot will never engage in an entirely open discussion about it. They abhor confrontation, and will never respond directly when their mistakes are pointed out for fact.

So i doubt the balance team (or any other team) will ever be as open as the art team regardless, but they certainly could at least pretend to make the effort.

But the art team definitely deserves its kudos.

FastFall2 votes

I disagree, I don't think it's that easy to be flat out wrong in balance I mean sure there are unbalanced things in League but if a champion is too strong you can do a number of things to target this, in this way it is kind of like an art though not fully so. For example Teemo, you can nerf any one of his stats (you could but some of his stats like defence aren't really what you want to target imo) or you could nerf his shroom cooldown, damage, radius, or vision among others. You could make his blind last shorter, put it on a longer cooldown, or have a chance that they actually hit. You could remove any one of his abilities and rework him completely. There is so much you can do.

However, this being said the art team is doing a great job.

Derpy Mike12 votes

I've given you my upvote, And I'll even leave a comment for good measure. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

MajorPain92 votes

Thank you, I know its a long shot in the dark this will actually happen, but I can not sit by and bitch if I don't try.

Jesus is Savior8 votes

Season 5 has been on for over a month. Bug has been known by reds for 25+ days.

Still no fix for summoner's insight mastery and smite.

But Riot TOTALLY cares about their diverse jungle player-base with diverse sets of strategies, right? ......right?

Juggernaut Jesus6 votes

Go talk to a brick wall, you'll get more answers that way.

Muted Summoner5 votes

Jungle right now is somewhat boring (an opinion) if your playing a tank jungle champion or a slower clearing jungle champion. IMO its all about how fast you can clear your jungle to get to a lane and gank it and if it can be ganked depending on the skill of your laners. Take Cho, with out Move speed quints/etc hes way to slow moving around and clearing the jungle. He has a rough early game, which leads to easily counter jungling or ganking him. If he builds Tanky to fill the tank role instead of going AP where he shines imo it takes so long for him to be useful in a fight other than a great silence and a knock up. His Q is hard to hit with, if the enemy doesn't run in to it. They have to be slowed or cced to actually get hit by it. Lee can get in and get out quickly. Rek sai can get in to the fight fast and so can Rengar, Elise, even Nidalee. Chogath and other tank junglers are good such as Sejuani, Nautalis but they feel so slow and just are imo.

They take so long to feel apparent. With these tank jungler it feels you rely more on your team compared to other junglers unlike like j4 or lee for a successful gank. Its not just about AP ratios or ad ratios, its also plays. Lee can make Plays, J4 can make plays. Chogath looks boring to watch, relies on an engaging team comp and feel like a Goliath who slowly walks around hoping to stomp the ground making enemies fly in the air with spikes, which happens to be weird I might add.

There isn't anything wrong with the jungle right now imo, its just there are more efficient champions out there who do the job much more efficiently. But now efficient junglers are so few now. Or perhaps these junglers are becoming so commonly seen that they are just boring so people don't want to play them anymore or the role. Of course junglers like Chogath can solo dragon now with ease even Mordekaiser can at lv 5(yeah i did it, several times, Im aware hes not a great cc jungler or even a jungler at all but hes capable of doing it. Involves using AP and Spell vamp quints).

I'd like to see more diverse junglers out there but how does one go about buffing so many without breaking their balance to where that jungler isn't seen in the jungle but instead top or mid lane?

Try playing a game of jungle in silver-gold elo and you get grunts and annoying team chat about why you pick that champion instead of Vi or Lee, J4 and you get blamed for sucking at the jungle and all sorts of crap. Of course if your team is competent, they don't over extend due to you being a slower champion and you pull off a great gank cause your laners made it possible, you get mad praise.

GnomeDigest4 votes

I have never seen less interest from randoms in que to playing jungle. I almost never see it called anymore. Eventually someone just agrees to do it.

From what I have seen the new jungle has driven players away from it, not excited people to try it. Considering in solo que you can get stuck with any role, they need to make jungling less painful for those of us who are not jungle mains.

A good first step to figuring out what those changes could be would be to talk to your players.

Retillin1 votes

I think this is a HUGE part of the problem. I feel so pigeonholed into a small subset of champions when playing. To the point I don't want to play jungle. It has lost it's fun.

Yfrappefort4 votes

As someone who used to like jungle, you have my upvote and bump. I still dream of a world where tank junglers won't be outclassed by Lee Sin, J4 and Vi.

RexZor3 votes

I agree you get an upvote i use to be a jungle main thats how i got gold last season but now i refuse to jungle and that's the only role i don't play because j4 is banned and lee is banned and i dont own vi or reksai so no other jungler gets the job done well enough.

Silents4293 votes

Oh yes, everyone will post questions that consist mostly of bitching, and complaints about Lee and Zed, and then the tiny handfuls of actual thought provoking questions, I see this being such a great idea on this forum. (Sarcasm)

Celeste Benal1 votes

Is this not a self-fulfilling prophecy?

slaya452 votes

Link to the reddit AMA?

edit: Can't find anything on the leagueoflegends subreddint in the past month with an AMA by ghostcrawler (or even referencing the jungle).

mack91122 votes

I do believe the hew might be discouraged to discuss anything on these forums as the toxicity is extremely high.

MajorPain99 votes

Probably because no one is talking.

Keevalroy4 votes

{quoted}

Probably because no one is talking.

Oh they're talking, but it's on Reddit, where you can make an account in less than 10 seconds with no experience in League necessary.

Because let's be honest, that's who Riot should be talking to rather than people who can prove they've played more than a single game of League in their lives since you can see people's accounts on Boards.

mack91121 votes

It's all cause and effect I suppose. I have watched many rioters try to have conversations on this board countless time only to be down voted and flamed into nothing. The inter webs is a cruel cruel mistress.

coppinslinger2 votes

If I was Ghostcrawler (or any Riot employee), I wouldn't be inclined to host an AMA here given how unpopular the current state of the jungle and the jungle champion pool is on the Boards.

That being said, it would be nice if Riot would step up and host an AMA here. Especially if it wasn't filled with "You're wrong about everything" comments on our end.

NorthernDruid1 votes

Yes please, let's have some real discussion and reasoning from them, let's be able to hear who they actually want in their jungle...

Let's hear if they really want Summoner's Insight to not work with Smite -_-

kunkudunk1 votes

While I would love to hear more on their jungle plans, I do believe Ghostcrawler has said many times that he is not on the balance team.

Retillin1 votes

There seems to be very few people who are on the balance team that post on the forums. I think Ghostcrawler has unofficially become the front person.

kunkudunk1 votes

That's unfortunate I suppose but the forum posters tend to be rather aggressive so I can't really blame them.

Chespin20131 votes

must upvote moar cant stop getting on alts

kinglallak1 votes

I think it is just that people are not being creative enough. I am 10W-1L right now on jungle poppy(or 9W-1L but I have 1 loss with top lane poppy) in ranked and that 1 loss I had the most damage to champs of anyone on either team and was 21-9-9(I was something like 13-2-3 at one point with all 3 lanes repeatedly losing 1v1s and 2v2s) and like 20W-4L in normals right now on jungle poppy, Now granted, I am only silver/gold level but I am also experiencing a lot of success on jungle diana on my smurf. There are champs outside the current meta that can do very well if people would learn to play them. I like to think of the rise of olaf as one of these with how insanely fast he clears both buffs.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

+1

Bakagiraffe1 votes

I rather see more tank junglers than the overuse of J4, Lee, and Vi. I rather see a tank jungler do plays(catching an enemy with their cc's). It's tough being a tank jungler sometimes :/

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