Big Changes Are Coming to League of Legends' Jungle Next Season

[Steven Bogos]

Big Changes Are Coming to League of Legends' Jungle Next Season

New monsters, new Smite effects and new items are coming for League of Legends junglers, in order to accommodate a wider range of jungle playstyles.

If you've been keeping an eye on the League of Legends competitive scene [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138112-League-of-Legends-World-Championship-Grand-Final-Summary] this season, you'll have noticed that the jungle role has become a bit... well, stagnant. Pretty much the only junglers who can stay competitive are those with absurd gank potential, which pretty much limits the pool to Kha'Zix, Evelyn, Rengar, Elise, Lee Sin, Jarvan, and the odd Rammus-pocket pick. Riot really wants to change that up for next season, and in a preseason update, have offered up some big, big changes to the League of Legends jungle.

"The 2015 changes are aimed at building a jungle that has components to empower and react to many different actions that junglers take. This allows us much finer control to react to the live state of the game with small changes to the jungle, rather than only having to tune champions and items," posted Riot on its official blog [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/preseason-2015-new-jungle]. What this means is that instead of ganking being the strongest action a jungler can take, tanking, farming, and counter-jungling could all become valid pathways. Riot has a three-pronged solution to this problem.

First up, Smite is getting a bit more love. "Each jungle camp now grants a buff the first time Smite is used on them (this buff is available each time they spawn). We'll have more details on these camps as we get them dialed in for release, but the goal of each reward is to provide a flexible tool that junglers can use in different ways based on the current state of each game," said Riot. For example, one of the rewards talked about was a friendly "ghost wolf" that would spawn if Smite was used on the wolf camp, who would then patrol the area and protect you from counter-jungling.

Next, a new jungle camp has been added: the scuttle crab. "This is the new monster found in the river that actually runs away from its attackers. The goal here is to give junglers a new reason to venture out of their jungle and contest the crab in smaller skirmishes. Currently, when a team defeats the Scuttle Crab, they're awarded a vision bubble and movement speed shrine that grants out of combat movement speed in front of Baron or Dragon pit."

Lastly, new items are being added. The Hunter's Machete will now upgrade to four other items, each of which changes your Smite spell to augment what type of action you might want to take as a jungler. For example, the Poacher's Knife provides you with additional power and incentive to cross the river and invade the enemy jungle, while the Ranger's Trailblazer makes you faster and safer at fighting jungle monsters, allowing you to stay safer while farming.

Be sure to check out the official blog post [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/preseason-2015-new-jungle] for a more detailed summary of all the jungle changes.

Source: Riot Games [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/preseason-2015-new-jungle]

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[Svarr]

Inb4 Dota is better comments.

Anyhow, i'm really looking forward to the new and improved Summoner's Rift, i'd still enjoy new maps though instead of so many champions.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Inb4 Dota is better comments.

Anyhow, i'm really looking forward to the new and improved Summoner's Rift, i'd still enjoy new maps though instead of so many champions.

I honestly think its too late for LoL for new maps. Heroes of the Storm made the smart move by having multiple maps right from the get go, and NOT giving players the option of choosing.

As long as summoner's rift exists and it's the competitive standard, it will be THE map of choice for all LoL players - casual and competitive.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Inb4 Dota is better comments.

Anyhow, i'm really looking forward to the new and improved Summoner's Rift, i'd still enjoy new maps though instead of so many champions.

I honestly think its too late for LoL for new maps. Heroes of the Storm made the smart move by having multiple maps right from the get go, and NOT giving players the option of choosing.

As long as summoner's rift exists and it's the competitive standard, it will be THE map of choice for all LoL players - casual and competitive.

I'll say that the rotating maps is one of the reasons why Heroes of the Storm is fun to me. I don't care that I have to unlock certain characters to play them forever or grind gold to buy them if I don't spend real money. The characters I already have are fun and the maps are interesting all by themselves with their varying mechanics. LoL turned me right off because it was the same damn game every time, no matter how people played. Its like Team Fortress 2, I can only play 2fort for so long before I have a seizure from boredom... and I love that map for nostalgic reasons (Old school TF games.... ah mammaries...)

 

[L. Declis]

Unless the patch is "Make the community less toxic", I am still not playing.

Seriously, I even played with friends, and all it did was make me like my friends less because they would just shout instructions at me. It's not played for fun, it's played to win. And for me, that's not fun.

 

[toms]

They do a major overhaul of the jungle every year, it seems.
Wonder if they'll ever get it right.

 

[Kyber]

My Ezreal jungle still better work or I'll fucking flip.

 

[loa]

I'm only playing dominion so this does nothing for me.
A "working servers" patch would be nice.

The game is unplayable for me since around a month because it sometimes blackscreens at the loadscreen, won't let me join the game that runs for everyone else after trying to reconnect over a dozen times, then claims I "left" the game, sends me a leaverbuster warning that will result in an eventual ban if I dare to try to play the game again and then tells me this can only be a problem on "my end" and that I should please fix it before playing.

So yeah, I'd take that over meaningless jungle changes.

 

[scotth266]

The jungle changes, just like every other big change to the game, are only going to make sense once we've gotten to play them ourselves. The overhaul to vision and support items really helped make the game better, so I'm looking forward to seeing if this is the patch set that makes multiple jungle styles/paths viable.

 

[War_Dyn27]

Dota is better...



ok serious talk now, this seems like a bit 'narrow' for a front page story, especially considering how small and/or gimmicky these changes seem (although I've only played like 5 matches before uninstalling so don't quote me on that) You'd think a bigger story surrounding this genre is the upcoming shutdown of Dawngate in 3 months but I haven't seen any thing about it on this site. I mean if it was a whole new map being released (the re-skin don't count)but its just a few qol of life changes doesn't seem worth a whole article

Unless the patch is "Make the community less toxic", I am still not playing.

Seriously, I even played with friends, and all it did was make me like my friends less because they would just shout instructions at me. It's not played for fun, it's played to win. And for me, that's not fun.

its a team based multiplayer game, every single ever one has had a sucky community, no amount of gimmicky mechanics or censors will fix that.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

I think LoL really made a mistake by adding so much stuff to the standard Dota map. The best thing about it was its simplicity and neutrality. Jungle camps giving a buff to players, all that sort of stuff just detracts from the game, in my opinion.

 

[loa]

You'd think a bigger story surrounding this genre is the upcoming shutdown of Dawngate in 3 months but I haven't seen any thing about it on this site. I mean if it was a whole new map being released (the re-skin don't count)but its just a few qol of life changes doesn't seem worth a whole article

Woah there, slow down for a minute. What?
I take a short break from dawngate, it just goes belly up.
I thought I would be informed if I was around here and this is literally the first time I hear about this huge thing.

 

[War_Dyn27]

You'd think a bigger story surrounding this genre is the upcoming shutdown of Dawngate in 3 months but I haven't seen any thing about it on this site. I mean if it was a whole new map being released (the re-skin don't count)but its just a few qol of life changes doesn't seem worth a whole article

Woah there, slow down for a minute. What?
I take a short break from dawngate, it just goes belly up.
I thought I would be informed if I was around here and this is literally the first time I hear about this huge thing.

Yep, just type Dawngate into google and its 'news' part is full of articles about it. Apparently it wasn't popular enough for EA (despite it not even being out of 'beta' yet) so they're pulling the plug.

ill copy paste the news from the Dawngate site here:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

An important announcement about the future of Dawngate


From Matt Bromberg, Group General Manager

Today, I have the unenviable task of announcing that we?ve decided to stop development of Dawngate.

I know this is disappointing news for our community, which has been so supportive and loyal. To all of you who have graciously given us your time and valuable feedback during our beta period, we?d first like to thank you.

Whenever we begin a game project, we do so with great hopes and expectations. In this case, we chose to enter a new genre for EA in MOBA, one that we knew going in was extremely competitive. We built a game in Dawngate that wasn?t simply a clone of existing MOBAs, but one that truly pushed the genre forward in many ways. Dawngate has been in beta for almost 18 months, including a full open beta for the past six months. Through that time, we?ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations. And although the game has grown, we?re not seeing the progress we?d hoped for. This isn?t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.

As for the incredibly talented team of designers, producers, engineers, and artists who have put so much creative energy into Dawngate: The game was truly a labor of love, and it shows. We?ve got nothing but gratitude for their hard work, and pride about what?s been accomplished.

As a part of the process of closing down Dawngate, we?ll continue to operate the game for the next 90 days. All players will be entitled to a full refund of any money spent during the beta. For most players, we?ll process those refunds within the next 10 days. If we don?t have current payment information on file for you, we?ll need to reach out first before initiating the refund. If you have any questions, you can reach us at help.ea.com.

On behalf of the entire team at Waystone Games and EA, I want once again to thank all our players for being part of this journey. Your straight-up feedback and the friendly reception we received all over the world at events was extremely encouraging and important to us. We appreciate it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________


I was surprised when I heard too, despite not even being interest in the game cause I hadn't seen any thing to suggest it was failing. Judging by their site it seems very sudden.

Sorry if this is too off topic btw.