League of Legends has been accused of sacrificing game depth by the various DOTA communities and even the game's own players. The accusation is that League of Legends panders to new players so that it can be more popular, that the game is made for the lowest common denominator. Whether that is true or not doesn't really matter; does making the game more simple actually lower the competitiveness of the game? This accusation rings true even more so now because Riot has recently revealed that jungle timers will be timed for the player, as long as they saw the death of the buff/monster. What change will this bring to solo-q if any and will it lower the competitiveness of the game?
In short, yes, yes it does. Competitiveness is usually measured by the amount of platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. In soccer speed, stamina, ability to dribble/pass the ball, etc are all platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. Take away any of these and the game becomes less competitive. For league, just simply knowing timers was a platform in itself. Forgoing using that information simply knowing the timers relieves pressure on the map because you know its time that you don't have to worry about that objective being taken. Using this information creates so many opportunities for the team such as being able to sneak things right under the nose of the enemy because they weren't prepared. Players who used this information to squeeze wins out of their usual solo-q grind will soon find that anyone can now do this. The platform that they used was ameliorated for other players, closing the gap of skill of players. Make no mistake, if Riot continues to make these kind of changes(imagine if ultimate/summoner cds were shown, turret ranges, minions lit up when they can be lasthit, etc) the gap of skill between players would continue to shrink.
Normality breeds progression. Turn the clock back a few years and jump into solo queue. You're gold right now, but what rank would you be now? You would probably rank number one on the solo-q ladder, no joke. The things you're exposed to now were underdeveloped or not even known. I remember that during a pro game HotshotGG was praised for getting 100 cs at the 12 minute mark. Thats standard now, most people in gold get 100 cs by 13 minutes now. The playerbase's ability to farm has exponentially grown since the old times. People didn't know about lane control, people didn't even know dragon existed and bush control from supports wasn't maintained. Now all those things are standard, expected of the average league player. This application of information brings about change in players, they learn to slowly adapt and counter it. Whether subconsciously or by learning it from some sort of source, the loss of one platform creates another. When applying this to the new jungle timers, does this mean that players will eventually become better due to this change?
I did say that the competitiveness of the game will decrease and thats because Riot is removing one platform from the game and a new one won't be introduced because it already exists. The use of the knowledge would be the platform born from the normality of knowing timers, but since players already use this knowledge its not really adding anything. The level of overall play will certainly see a rise because the platform of using jungle timer knowledge will vastly increase in say, a years time. Most players will have new information to work around. I believe that you won't be able to see the timer of a jungle mob unless you see it die, and not just the spawn itself. This encourages people to clear out wards of spawns not just to make sure the enemy doesn't have vision of it, but they can't get the timer information to create advantages with. Things like this will overlap the current level of play so whether or not the competitiveness of the game will decrease shouldn't even be an issue. In the long term it should increase and surpass what was there before.
A more important question is what jungle timers did for the average player and what the change means going forward. It should go without saying that this change won't affect professional player since these things and more are already timed by the players. However having a timer may slightly change how players react as opposed to just having a time. Knowing the jungle timers is like a gate to using that information for the average player. Remember that the true power of knowing jungle timers come from the knowledge on how to use the information, not the timers themselves. Its simply a gate, but that could be said for all things that could be timed (player cooldowns) in the game. The thing that makes jungle times different is that their always stagnant. They never change on a game to game basis, they don't change according to how the player acts. If the player could do something to elongate or shorten the jungle times then it would be a different story, but they can't. The jungle time information is simply a gate, its a very, very, verrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyy small platform gating a much more large, and important platform which is using the information.
We can also look at it from a game design perspective. Imagine a door and a dimension behind it. The size of the door represents the information required to open it, the size of the dimension behind it represents the amount of information it holds. When it comes to jungle timers the door is relatively small, probably no bigger than 7 feet because all it holds is static timers. Behind it however is a rather large dimension, its size completely dwarfing the size of the door holding it by far. When it comes to things like player cooldowns, you meet a different story. The dimension is enormous, probably biggest there is in the game. The door however is nothing to scoff at either because this door holds information such as every single cooldown in the game, how they are affected by level and cooldown reduction. The door is very much proportional to the size of its dimension, if both the door and the dimension are platforms it doesn't make much sense to remove either one if they match. If the door is minuscule compared to the size of the dimension, removing the door may not be that bad of an idea. If the door is huge and the field is minuscule in comparison, you may not need the door or the field.
All in all I think it'll be a healthy change for the game. I can't wait to see how the level of play will increase due to how players use the information and how they counteract it.
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| Screenshot of the new timers on the HUD at the top center of the screen. A timer for each team's buff, dragon and baron show on the HUD. |
In short, yes, yes it does. Competitiveness is usually measured by the amount of platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. In soccer speed, stamina, ability to dribble/pass the ball, etc are all platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. Take away any of these and the game becomes less competitive. For league, just simply knowing timers was a platform in itself. Forgoing using that information simply knowing the timers relieves pressure on the map because you know its time that you don't have to worry about that objective being taken. Using this information creates so many opportunities for the team such as being able to sneak things right under the nose of the enemy because they weren't prepared. Players who used this information to squeeze wins out of their usual solo-q grind will soon find that anyone can now do this. The platform that they used was ameliorated for other players, closing the gap of skill of players. Make no mistake, if Riot continues to make these kind of changes(imagine if ultimate/summoner cds were shown, turret ranges, minions lit up when they can be lasthit, etc) the gap of skill between players would continue to shrink.
Normality breeds progression. Turn the clock back a few years and jump into solo queue. You're gold right now, but what rank would you be now? You would probably rank number one on the solo-q ladder, no joke. The things you're exposed to now were underdeveloped or not even known. I remember that during a pro game HotshotGG was praised for getting 100 cs at the 12 minute mark. Thats standard now, most people in gold get 100 cs by 13 minutes now. The playerbase's ability to farm has exponentially grown since the old times. People didn't know about lane control, people didn't even know dragon existed and bush control from supports wasn't maintained. Now all those things are standard, expected of the average league player. This application of information brings about change in players, they learn to slowly adapt and counter it. Whether subconsciously or by learning it from some sort of source, the loss of one platform creates another. When applying this to the new jungle timers, does this mean that players will eventually become better due to this change?
I did say that the competitiveness of the game will decrease and thats because Riot is removing one platform from the game and a new one won't be introduced because it already exists. The use of the knowledge would be the platform born from the normality of knowing timers, but since players already use this knowledge its not really adding anything. The level of overall play will certainly see a rise because the platform of using jungle timer knowledge will vastly increase in say, a years time. Most players will have new information to work around. I believe that you won't be able to see the timer of a jungle mob unless you see it die, and not just the spawn itself. This encourages people to clear out wards of spawns not just to make sure the enemy doesn't have vision of it, but they can't get the timer information to create advantages with. Things like this will overlap the current level of play so whether or not the competitiveness of the game will decrease shouldn't even be an issue. In the long term it should increase and surpass what was there before.
A more important question is what jungle timers did for the average player and what the change means going forward. It should go without saying that this change won't affect professional player since these things and more are already timed by the players. However having a timer may slightly change how players react as opposed to just having a time. Knowing the jungle timers is like a gate to using that information for the average player. Remember that the true power of knowing jungle timers come from the knowledge on how to use the information, not the timers themselves. Its simply a gate, but that could be said for all things that could be timed (player cooldowns) in the game. The thing that makes jungle times different is that their always stagnant. They never change on a game to game basis, they don't change according to how the player acts. If the player could do something to elongate or shorten the jungle times then it would be a different story, but they can't. The jungle time information is simply a gate, its a very, very, verrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyy small platform gating a much more large, and important platform which is using the information.
We can also look at it from a game design perspective. Imagine a door and a dimension behind it. The size of the door represents the information required to open it, the size of the dimension behind it represents the amount of information it holds. When it comes to jungle timers the door is relatively small, probably no bigger than 7 feet because all it holds is static timers. Behind it however is a rather large dimension, its size completely dwarfing the size of the door holding it by far. When it comes to things like player cooldowns, you meet a different story. The dimension is enormous, probably biggest there is in the game. The door however is nothing to scoff at either because this door holds information such as every single cooldown in the game, how they are affected by level and cooldown reduction. The door is very much proportional to the size of its dimension, if both the door and the dimension are platforms it doesn't make much sense to remove either one if they match. If the door is minuscule compared to the size of the dimension, removing the door may not be that bad of an idea. If the door is huge and the field is minuscule in comparison, you may not need the door or the field.
All in all I think it'll be a healthy change for the game. I can't wait to see how the level of play will increase due to how players use the information and how they counteract it.
