League of Legends’ jungle mechanics are going to be changed, tweaked, and reworked! Lead gameplay designer Mark Yetter has the details on how the Jungle will change in the LoL 2021 preseason.
It’s not that surprising at this point, everyone now expects Riot Games to change the jungle meta with each and every patch. Change is good, right? A fresh new meta! Better known as “Scruffy”, the lead designer had this to say on twitter about how the jungle mechanics will be adjusted. The goal, to make it easier for new players to learn and play the jungler role.
One last Preseason Preview before PBE: Jungle - doing very light changes:-Increase pathing diversity by making camp resistance more uniform-Expose some hidden mechanics visually to help newer players learn the jungle-Slight reduction to the power of kiting camps pic.twitter.com/SbXcp1uuuZ
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) September 28, 2020
There are a lot of changes mentioned, but the important takeaways are that camp armors, HP, XP, and movement speed are all adjusted to make it easier for new players to play the jungle. There are also some minor visual changes that better visualize what the camp creeps are doing.
Of all the roles in LoL, the jungler is arguably the hardest to play well. Knowing how to roam properly, clear camps, and set up ganks make learning this role no small feat. Remember, just because something is complex does not make it better. Sometimes the simple to learn and hard to master approach leads to much better game design. One could even think easy to play leads to more fun.
How Do These Changes Impact the LoL Jungle Meta?
The unified armor change for all camps and hp tweaks will allow for new jungle routes. Riot hopes that with more ways to clear the jungle it is less punishing to new players that do not know the optimal ‘meta’ clearing route.
The movement speed change means kiting camps is less effective and learning to kite camps is not easy to do if you are a new player. Therefore, this will encourage less kiting and making it less needed as jungling skill.
Since the changes are not even in the testing stage yet, it is likely they will adjust more or revert some changes when it hits the PBE.
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