Proposed Bounty Rework (Sometimes Less is More)

So, after reading a few opinions about the updated bounty system, there are a few things that stand out to me:

• The bounty system is designed to allow for comebacks in a game about incremental advantages, which is going to make some people mad either way
• The bounty system takes into account kills over short periods of time, so it taxes certain styles of play with more risk
• The system was recently reworked to include creep score

I believe Riot is trying to make the game more fun, because a game where one team builds up their advantages continuously over the course of a match becomes predictable as soon as someone has a noticeable lead.

To be fair, I am simplifying things here. I think overall, the competitive aspect of the game drives the loyalty of the fan-base, and what is fun to one person may not be fun for the next.

With that in mind, it makes sense to cater to long-term players, but you also want the game to be fun and approachable by new players, who have no experience. The bounty system adds a risk task to being too far ahead, which allows the tides to turn with strong plays and errors from your opponents. I think this is a good feature in the game, but it also lessens the divide between consistent and inconsistent plays.

Better players league tend to be more consistent in the skills they hone. By spending hundreds or thousands of hours on the game at the Platinum level, you should be noticeably better than someone who just placed in gold for the first time. The bounty system disincentivizes the traditional early game, but with the hope that players make up for that with skill in other areas. It gives the chance for comebacks and lets new players get back in the game, and play more.

That being said, I think the hope for the meta to be affected by bounties is complicated mathematically. It is currently positioned as a drawback for effective laning and cs-ing, which are some of the most basic skills in the game, incentivizing strategy in early game play.

The game could be more dynamic by virtue of distinguishing more clearly between phases of the game, which is one of the bigger hurdles for new players to understand. By making the laning phase more concrete it would help players understand their roles. This requires more changes on a time-scale. The other change that came out to compliment this change was another great idea in turret plating.

Riot would need to work on some balancing, but they could postpone the bounty system until turret plating fell-off, effectively distinguishing between the early, mid, and late game. This would also reward players on focusing on champions over minons in the late game more, which I believe should be encouraged.

Because bounties would be stopped or scaled down until the mid-game, this system would take the position of a late game mechanic, since it usually takes time to get a bounty. They would need to make bounties easier to get or more taxing on those getting them to give the opposing team a chance to get back in the game. I think upping the bounties is the right way to do it, because it makes the interactions between players seem more meaningful on the individual level.

This change would be further complimented by announcer notifications when bounties were placed that pointed out the character and the influence they currently have on the game. It might even be nice to give the base some sort of indication of a bounty board, to point out the advantage other players have in the game, and effectively paint a target over their heads. This could be potentially upgraded to include special bounties for neutral and farm objectives that the game sees you are losing on.

This would let the system feel more interactive, giving visual queues to priorities without changing the strategy. It would probably lead to less feel bad moments for new players as well, such as ganking someone before realizing that they were destroying your top-laner and are actually 3 levels above you. They are more likely to learn from this experience with the visuals as well.

I think I mentioned a few changes that (with balancing) could make league a more fun and interactive game without negatively affecting the competitive spirit of the game. Let me know what you think!