New Ward Concept - Intruder Wards

Barkley··3 votes·337 views

As a jungler, I'm often faced with counter jungling strategies. While normal wards will help me defend against it by myself, the game lacks any sort of mechanic to alert my team to what's going on, aside from typing in chat "Hey I'm getting counter jungled, can you guys help me out?" or spam pinging the jungler when he walks over a ward.

And we all know how well chatting to your team works in this game.

So my idea is to implement a third ward type, an "Alert Ward" or "Intruder Ward" or something of the sort. Basically you'd buy it at the shop, it'd cost the same as a control ward or maybe even slightly more or less, I don't know I'm not a developer, and this ward would basically allow you to create a trip wire from one point to another (within a fixed maximum distance obviously) and if any enemy champion wanders over your trip wire, the entire team gets a global mini-map ping.

The ward itself grants no vision AT ALL until it is triggered, and lasts a fixed amount of time (one minute?). Perhaps upon triggering, it could give the global minimap ping and transform into one of those blue trinket wards. one shot and its dead, but at least it lets you know who's nearby. Perhaps the ward just flat out never grants any vision at all - I dont know, I'm not a developer. The community can discuss this.

This gives junglers a way to announce to their entire team that someone is entering their jungle that shouldn't be.

OR it gives advantaged top laners an opportunity to booby trap the enemy jungle and set up for an aggressive invade. OR it notifies your whole team that someone's snooping around the baron pit. It could give a lot of strategic options, but mostly I thought of it as a way to announce to my team mates "Hey, I'm getting counter jungled. Here he is. He's right here. Help me!"

6 Comments

DrugsForRobots2 votes

Riot had this almost exactly and called it the 'Mandrake Ward'. They decided they didn't like it apparently.

I repackaged and tweaked it and called it the 'Snitch Ward' (along with a Sentry, Observer, Beacon, and Beholder), with the intent that these would replace all of our current wards. But then CertainlyT said, "Wards that are unique and special are lame."

I think he was missing the point: Wards that telegraph how they work to opponent's can be played around - they become more interactive - while also being overt about how they control a given space or territory. Some people may see Wards like this as 'gimmicky' but then, people thought the same thing about Plants and Riot doubled down on them and it worked out for the better.

Barkley1 votes

Not sure how they're lame...

DrugsForRobots1 votes

The full quote for context:

"Stealth is cool because you can create ambiguity about your position but it is most powerful to use stealth when you already have ambiguity about your position and so we see most champions with stealth ending up in the jungle and stealth is basically just used as a way to bypass enemy opportunities for counter play like putting down wards and so we have to make new kinds of wards that are just a little bit more special right and have some drawbacks that you then do and so the whole game is just reproduced but with a different kind of ward - that's lame."

What CT doesn't seem to realize is that stealth is bypassing enemy Wards. He nor the other Rioters have any problem with a non-'stealth champion' like J4 being told "that bush is warded" and then approaching from another direction, one that isn't warded, so he can jump out of no-where, i.e. ambush aka gank the enemy. J4, in that scenario, was using stealth in the true sense of the word, but 'stealth' to Rioter's apparently just means 'Shaco Q' or 'Teemo Passive' or 'Evelynn Passive' i.e. different invis-abilities. (And don't start about that 'but there is invis AND camo' nonsense - no there is not. Invisibility means they can't be seen, 'Camouflage' is just invisibility with proximity as a parameter.)

And again, he misses the point of having such wards (they aren't lame, he's not thinking it through!) If you have wards that 'have drawbacks' (such as giving off a ping that allies and enemies can hear, like you mentioned) then you have wards with innate counterplay. Wards with innate counterplay mean that the wards could grant vision in more powerful, more interesting ways and NOT need to be hard-countered by a handful of specific anti-ward items. And they could even afford to be FREE.

And no, being able to Sweeping Lens or Oracle Alteration a ward is not innate counterplay. Innate means intrinsic to the thing itself, the Sweeper is an external factor. Of the 4 varieties of ward construct we are given, 2 are invisible by default (they fade after 1.5s, which is the only innate counterplay they offer - the ability to destroy them in that brief window) and the other 2 become invisible if you place them in brush.

And this kind of thinking - not understanding what stealth is - pervades Riot HQ. Just look at Duskblade of Drakkthar:

item 3147 The item meant for assassins, supposedly to enable them be sneaky assassins, only lets them deny vision after they've been spotted by a ward. It's entirely reactive. If it gave players (or let players get) info about nearby wards before being spotted by said ward, they could be proactive in their vision denial - letting them deny vision, not by destroying a ward, but by bypassing it altogether i.e. actual stealth gameplay.

mr Boombastic7871 votes

Sounds nice though in my opinion I think instead of giving it a blue ward afterwards it should just give a effect to the one who walks in it so you can only see him. Of course it would still ping. Then it wouldn't counter ganks and flanks completely but still be very useful.

Barkley1 votes

Yeah I mean I'm down for whatever. I just think it'd be nice to have something that alerts the whole team to a person entering an area.

mr Boombastic7871 votes

I think it would work really well in league

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