Buzz
(Homeland) - Riot's effort to enhance diversity in choices at the Jungle position is resulting in highly detrimental effects.
In recent years, Riot Games has been striving to make the Jungle position more 'appealing' for League of Legends (LoL) gamers. The reason is that the number of Jungle players in ranked mode has become too low, leading to a decline in match quality, and they want to address this issue.
One of Riot's solutions to this problem is to increase the strength or add jungle-clearing abilities for some champions in lane positions. According to Riot's explanation, this approach will help players who enjoy those empowered champions to tend to switch to playing in the Jungle position and somewhat address the issue.
In the latest update, in version 12.20, Riot will continue to increase the strength of Blitzcrank in the Jungle position, as he has a relatively high pick rate. However, according to many experts, Riot's approach is causing highly negative impacts on the Jungle position and the gaming habits of players.
'Why does Riot keep trying to empower lane champions and place them in the Jungle position? Stop it, Riot, don't disrupt the Jungle position of LoL anymore. This approach doesn't make the Jungle position more appealing at all.
Do you know why? When a champion is empowered so much, it becomes imbalanced in 1 or 2 patches. Those who like that champion will try Jungling and play terribly because they don't know how to handle the situation. And then when Riot nerfs that champion, players never return to the Jungle position again' - LEC expert Caedrel bluntly shares.
On Riot's side, they are trying different approaches to make more players want to get acquainted with the Jungle position by adding support tools to LoL in the Preseason 2023. However, for the community, this is still too little as they want Riot to design a separate guide for this position so that players can truly learn about the Jungle role.
Conclusion
Basically, Riot empowering Junglers for some champions to attract players only addresses the 'tip' of the problem and it is having negative impacts on LoL. What Riot Games needs to do is to make this position truly exciting to play instead of turning it into a burdensome responsibility as in recent seasons.
