Reign of Gaming

No one can deny that Riot Games likes to change its game up every so often. Sometimes the changes work out and are good. Sometimes, regardless if they worked or not, we'll be forced to keep them. At other times the players themselves can dictate a change of the game whether by constant bitching or by discovering new technology in the game. That said Riot tends to look at both these things and go "Well we don't like that Gragas can build a million builds, Ahri being built a tanky AP and so forth" and change things (sometimes too much) or the worse kind when people are like "OMG Jax nerf! his Q went from 1.0 AD to 0.7 now he's useless!" That last part was referring to a very old nerf her received before his remake. Jax was being used and slowly being found to be op so Riot nerfed his Q ratio and people freaked out and said it was too much. Riot then apologized and buffed it back up...only for pros to use Jax and his op status solidified and then nerfed it again later.

That starting paragraph will have some relevancy in a bit. What I want to talk about today is League of Legends having variety in gameplay and whether or not it can actually be achieved. I bring this up because Riot is planning on making it possible for a few AP characters to potentially jungle. This can perhaps be one of the most impactful changes for Season 3. Oh and there is a TLDR this time.

The thing that has resonated for the jungler since the beginning is that it allowed characters that didn't exist in the game (because they weren't used) a chance to shine. Characters like Amumu, Nautilus and Rammus would have only hell if they decided to lane but they can jungle and therefore may actually see some use. There are a lot of AP characters right now that simply don't exist. Brand, Annie, Sion, Malzahar and so on and so forth - they're no longer seen. If they were made to jungle then there's a chance these characters might be seen again. However, if they work, they bring a whole set of problems with them yet those problems will force dynamic play!

Think of what kind of team compositions we have right now. We usually have a bruiser/ tank top, ability power mid, support + ranged carry bottom and a support/tank in the jungle. As far as the jungler is concerned he is being forced to be this every damn game due to the lack of gold and experience in the jungle. Now that they're bringing it back up to Season 1 gains that could change. The options for your jungler type may open up and Riot claims they've made it so more AP junglers can exist. So if AP junglers can become a thing and can thrive in the jungle then it can potentially change the dynamics of team compositions. We might see things like Tanky AP top, ranged carry mid, tank+support bottom and ability power jungler. That could very well happen pending how well it works.

By opening up the jungle to more types of champions Riot will be making it so the players can form more team comps than before and flush out even more champion picks. It has the potential to make champion select harder and trickier albeit Riot still needs to increase how many champions it can ban and make it so you ban again after your first picks in order to open up the champion pool a bit more.

However as I said a bit ago this is all pending on how well it works out. If AP junglers (or any other type) turn out to be complete crap then they won't be used. If they turn out to be the best choice with no contest then all the other types won't be used (as much maybe). If they are simply an option then they'll either be niche or picked often. That said just like at the start of Season 2 we will see a bunch of "viable" junglers of all kinds but it is inevitable that a lot of them will be weeded out.

Then here comes the biggest thing that will determine the diversity of the game. It won't be the champions themselves actually being good or bad. Ultimately it will be Riot who will determine which champions they are fine with jungling. They will nerf or buff the hell out of those they feel are working too good or aren't working well enough. This is what I fear with Season 3. I fear that Riot may just force change for the sake of it. I know Season 3 is advertising a whole new game for us and changes are everywhere beyond just the jungle but I'd rather certain things not be forced.

Again like at the start of Season 2, the community is going to go into full idiot mode and say the most stupid crap imaginable. I will no doubt be forced to read a lot of this due to research but I will be fed the most illogical and unfound claims by people. Like in Season 2 someone actually claimed that Warwick was even stronger than before. The hell was this guy smoking? I'm betting he played one game with a Warwick and that Warwick stomped and with that the guy made the decision to claim this champion as overpowered. Everyone knows Warwick, especially before he was buffed, wasn't used in Season 2 and was definitely a weaker contender in the jungle. That said it's not say I didn't read anything worthwhile during the uproar but a lot of it was stupid.

This is how I feel the first months will be. The community will make tons of wild claims and Riot will be forced to pick and choose between which need to be addressed first. I fear they may speed through some things and push out a buff/nerf/change in order to just move it through the line. Even worse is that I pretty much know the community will bitch and moan about certain things and that may motivate Riot to just make a knee-jerk decision on it. To Riot's credit they've become less opt to do that because the loudest in the community are usually stupid but given how much noise will exist during the first few months some stuff might just get through.

Then of course it depends on how badly Riot wants this to work out. I wouldn't be surprised if Riot has a sort of list somewhere with the names of champions that are being looked at for buffs/nerfs already. If X champion works out too well in Season 3 we will nerf them. If Y champion doesn't work out how we hoped they would then we buff them. With that said it wouldn't surprise me if they had a few AP junglers in mind that they hope end up jungling and thus they are on this buffs/nerfs thing pending their jungling potential.

Now what does this all have to do with diversity? Well if you think about it - everything...at least for this game. We might have new team comps thanks to the jungle being opened up and allowing more characters. I can't really speak about what a jungler will "need" to be yet but that will eventually be discovered and inevitably become a forced requirement for all potential junglers. The first few months will be a cesspool of chaos with people making wild claims, people bitching and moaning, and then Riot having to address even the most stupid of ideas from the players. Then Riot will be forced to cut through a lot of things in order to fix, trim and put things in order amongst the chaos. Then Riot will end up doing their buff/nerf rounds to whatever they see fit. We, the players, will be stuck with what we get at the end. The diversity of this game is often stripped at by Riot because they are aware of the truth that the game will become stagnant at some point. By constantly updating the game (or forcing things to change) they can keep the game from becoming imbalanced (for awhile) or stagnant (again for awhile). Hell sometimes something is an accident but it turns out well enough that they'll leave in the game until it becomes a problem (Skarner's ultimate). Think of it like a trampoline. The game is the person jumping on it and the person is jumping up and down experiences low and high times. At some point or another, by the sheer will of physics, if the person doesn't make enough of an effort to stay in the middle, the person will hit an edge of the trampoline and faceplant onto the ground.

For a tldr of this article with all its incoherent rantting: The players will be given the tools to evolve the game. We will get to experiment and enjoy the changes and figure out all the new tricks and combos and all that good stuff. Some players will bitch and moan about them and force Riot's hand in some issues. In most cases though Riot will decide what happens. Whether or not the players were the ones that created a new strategy/tactic or brought a champion to greatness - it will be Riot who decides whether that discovery stays or is removed. Among the things we are allowed to have, Riot will also just force some ideas onto us. We will have variety until it becomes difficult for Riot.