Riot Games is reworking the forest for Preseason

Just yesterday, Riot Games published two articles at once, where they talked a lot about the changes in the forest in the upcomingLeague of Legends 2023 Preseason. Their main goal is to raise the popularity of the role, which now even many good players avoid like fire. But it seems that the developers themselves have big problems with where to go.

As a separate item, the reworking of the game in the forest was mentioned by the chief balance designer of the League of Legends Riot Phroxzon in a YouTube video that was released yesterday on the official League of Legends channel. Additionally, the article " LOL PLS: forest changes in Preseason 2023 " was published on the game's website.

Forest change vector

From what we were told, only the direction of work is known

Many players shy away from this position because they see that to play in the jungle you need to have a lot of complex strategies in your head and have a lot of knowledge. We want to lower the barrier to entry, and first we will try to show players how to play in the jungle, as well as make the mechanics more forgiving and intuitive. At the same time, we are not going to simplify the forest to the point of absurdity or deprive you of the opportunity to demonstrate skill - this position will remain difficult, but only where it is needed.

I myself, as a fairly experienced League of Legends player, can only fully confirm the fact that the forest is both the most unpopular and the most avoided role. And who, in fact, wants to voluntarily play the most stressful, responsible and at the same time difficult role?

Range and combat reset

In addition, we want to adjust the rules for fighting monsters - in particular, the range of their withdrawal and the conditions for dropping them. When you first learn to play in the forest, you can accidentally lead the monster so far that he loses patience and comes back, and this is very unpleasant. Even experienced players complain: some champions can use these rules to their advantage, while those who can't seem useless. The hero's vitality should not be determined by the forest itself.

At the same time, and not bad, and extremely controversial decision. Yes, resetting a fight with a forest monster can sometimes be a very unpleasant event. However, if these are neglected and the distance is increased, this can completely break the forest. Will start to dominatechampions with high AoE damage, clearing several camps at once. And the conditional Ivern will lose very much from this.

Stripping routes

We are currently discussing a number of changes - for example, a system of assistance in choosing forest routes, which will simplify the first clearing. It will be something like a recommended item, and we hope to remove another barrier to mastering the role in this way.

And this is definitely a good solution, which at least allows beginners to play the role of a forester without first watching tons of training videos on YouTube. The only “but”, will it be possible to turn off the help in the route? If not, it will become extremely annoying for experienced players.

Pets in the forest

The last major change to the jungle this preseason is in regards to items. The current tools are functional, but not cool enough and understandable (including the red Kara). Many junglers choose this role because it is more interesting to play in the jungle than in the lane - we are too bored to stick around with Doran's items and poke minions. Therefore, we want jungler items to reflect the difference between clearing cool camps and killing dull minions.

Some of you still remember the days of Lizard Elder Spirit and Wriggle Lantern, when items for junglers were really powerful. But it's undeniable that those tools also had their problems. We want to bring them back in a completely new way - as pets.

These crumbs will help you in the forest with various little things - clearing camps or taking epic monsters (like the puppy from the Satiated Devourer in its time). Playing in the forest, you will gradually feed and raise your pet until he starts to strengthen you.

What is clear from this is that Riot Games themselves have not yet decided how they want to see these pets. Will it be a full-fledged combat unit with its own health like Elise's spider, or just a nice addition to the early game in the forest? Reworking items in the forest is definitely a good idea, but pets can make things a lot harder. And this will obviously harm the role, which is so complicated in terms of its mechanics.

What do we end up with?

A couple of thoughts on plans to change the forest

Obviously, the gameplay in the forest is very different from the other four roles in our favorite MOBA game. If we can imagine other lines as some kind of confrontation between players in a microgame, then the forest is from the very beginning something like a speedrun, where the macro game is important. After all, the jungler needs to optimize his clearing path in order to keep up with the creeps and be at the right time in the right place.

Although Riot is making the right moves, as with help in choosing the clear route. But, in my opinion, they still lose sight of the most important thing - at the same time great responsibility and multitasking.

Now the jungler has too much burden on his shoulders: you can be responsible for success in any and every lane by making a successful gank. Or vice versa, the game will punish you too much if the gank fails, which your ally will also remind you of in the chat.

At the same time, the jungler is the only role that has a huge responsibility in successfully getting neutral objects like Dragons, Herald of the Abyss or Barons Nashors with their punishment of 900 pure damage to them. Too carried away by helping allies or farming, because of which he gave up the object? Again, the game punishes you a lot, and in the eyes of the allies you are a bad forester.

I truly believe that the only way to simplify and make the jungle more popular is to take away so much multitasking and impact on the game. Why not give supports in their special items tools to help out on neutral targets? This will both relieve the jungler and motivate support players to roam more often rather than stand as an addition to their ADK.