What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
A lot of people were kinda confused with why Riot decided to remove Smite rewards from
the game, since they gave potentially meaningful choices to junglers, and removing them could
be seen as simplifying the role.
Riot actually addressed this topic with a dev post, so we wanted to go through their
explanation and see what they could have in store for us as a replacement in
the future!
If you enjoy the video definitely hit that like button because if this video hits, let’s
say ratings, then I’m gonna .
To really understand Riot’s design philosophy behind the change, you first need to know
what Riot’s goals for the jungle were in Season 7.
Riot Fearless listed the three main goals that needed to be solved to make the most
out of the jungle.
The first is the every class and position should have what Riot calls ‘interesting
problems’ to solve in the early game.
The second goal was to make the jungle experience more meaningful than just trying to decide
where you can gank - since that favors the ganking junglers specifically, and it makes
games pretty repetitive since it’s always about who pulls off the most good ganks in
the early game.
The final goal for the jungle is to make it so that it’s more of a balancing act in
the early game - players should have to consider the strengths and weaknesses of their champion
against the jungle if they want to be able to actively gank.
It shouldn’t be a free ride where champions like Lee Sin can just easily clear and spend
all day ganking - every jungle champion should be able to affect the game differently, thanks
to factors like how healthily they can clear, how much they need to farm for XP and how
much farm they are willing to sacrifice to be able to pressure the lanes.
So let’s talk about smite rewards and tie them into these goals, since that’s probably
the easiest way to explain why they weren’t working as Riot intended.
They were originally designed to give junglers a way to survive in the jungle after it was
made way more difficult - but Riot didn’t want laners to be able to abuse the power
of the jungle rewards themselves.
The assumption was that having different smite rewards would give Riot a good way to balance
different junglers against the challenges they faced, but when the smite buffs released
they quickly became really divisive.
Some champions could abuse the buffs to an insane level and become super strong in the
jungle, while other champions were left in the dust.
That meant Riot then had to start weakening the camps and the smite rewards themselves,
otherwise the junglers that could abuse the bonuses would just be the only ones usable
in the new meta.
Nerfing the smite rewards came with one severe drawback though - they were fun because they
were impactful, and the less important they were rendered, they less fun they were for
the players to use.
The Smite reward system was designed to be a kind of ‘work in progress’ that Riot
could change - like testing out different buff types, so that they could tweak and improve
the system over time in order to keep multiple types of jungler viable - from farming tanks
to early gank powerhouse gankers.
Actually the smite buffs were inherently limited, because they couldn’t be too strong without
causing a stale meta, so the amount of design space that Riot had with the buffs was really
lower.
It was also discovered that proper usage of the buffs wasn’t really happening - the
pro players might for example know when to take exactly which buff was needed at the
time, and they would save their smite for that specific camp.
For the rest of the player base, junglers would just smite as usual whenever they had
it available or wanted a fast clear, and the buff wasn’t really relevant - maybe just
a happy bonus if it ended up being useful.
Outside of meta strategies like smiting krugs for an easier clear, buffs weren’t being
utilised to a point where Riot thought they were worth keeping around.
Combine that with the fact that making them strong enough to solve issues also would cause
a stale meta, and you’re left with a system that has little to no impact on the game that
only the pro players with really good game sense and knowledge can get a benefit out
of.
The jungle these buffs were built into was actually relatively stable - the aim of it’s
design was to improve the number of champions that were viable to play in it, but most of
this was down to the jungle monster gold and experience rewards and jungle items.
Every time Riot tried to change the jungle, they tried to tweak the Smite rewards to fix
the problem, but they just weren’t sufficient for the task at hand, so they were pretty
much failing in their design.
Let’s say for example that the pro players were building strategies around stealing jungle
monsters from the enemy camps in the early game - it ended up making more sense to change
the camp in question directly, rather than trying to change the smite buffs to stop that
happening.
And so, Riot made the decision to remove the smite buffs.
It was held off until pre-season since it would be a huge change to pro players who
used them effectively, and it would require a full re-balance of the jungle since Riot
would need to find a way to make it viable for different jungle champions types to actually
play in the jungle without being rendered useless because they wouldn’t have access
to things like the stun from the Krugs smite buff.
It also gave them plenty of time to figure out ways to solve those earlier mentioned
design goals, without trying to force a solution using the underwhelming smite buff system.
Riot is pretty confident that they’ve achieved it, by introducing a few different things
to consider in the jungle that should help them achieve those goals while keeping champion
diversity high.
One of the big ones here is what they are calling route differentiation - Riot is hoping
that the changes to jungle camps will make it so that different champions will take different
routes in the jungle, while also giving them a way to specifically target corner case strategies
or champions that are too weak or too strong.
Previously, jungling was just about whether you had to use spells or autos for clearing
- now it will be more about which camps you can tank, which you can clear quickly and
which you can only clear slowly, that kind of thing.
That means specific jungles will shine in different ways - and players can learn how
to optimise their jungle route and know their limits if they want to have enough health
to pull off ganks.
If any particular jungler needs help with their clear, Riot can fix that issue by making
sure they have the strength they need to deal with specific camps, and that way they don’t
affect the rest of the jungle champions like they would if they were making the change
to smite buff.
The next point Riot has considered for the new jungle is what they call ‘jungle uptime,’
which is essentially how long junglers can sustain and stick around farming the jungle.
Originally, most of this came from smiting red buff, which was a super powerful tool
since it means you could gain enough health to gank while also having an awesome buff
for ganking with since it gives you bonus damage.
This is actually why Riot moved some health return onto Smite - it gives players a way
to sustain in the jungle without feeling like they have to find a specific camp to use it
on, and it sticks around as a trick that junglers can use while duelling, since let’s be honest
it’s super cool when a 1v1 happens in the jungle and one of the junglers smites red
buff to stay alive and wins the fight.
With the health return on Smite regardless of which camp you use it on, this could be
a trick that happens way more often.
The last thing that Riot is offering as consolation to players that will miss the smite rewards
are new vision tools.
Originally both the Raptor and Wolf smites were used to gain or deny vision, in fact
they were probably the most well used out of all the smite buffs.
Riot know that removing those tools means junglers will have less access to vision,
so they are making sure they bake new tools into the game.
For Assassins that means things like the new Duskblade passive that causes a blackout and
disables wards when they are spotted by a ward, and it also includes tools like the
new Scryer’s Blooms plants and Control wards that should allow for some level of objective
control.
Overall it seems like Riot are definitely more aware of the issues of specific mechanics
than the players are, so it’s natural that some changes might come as a surprise to players.
It’s quite reassuring to know that they have plans in place to make up for the loss
of the smite buffs, and they definitely want to keep the jungle as diverse as possible.
Anyway that just about wraps things up for today’s video on the Smite Rewards - it’s
too soon to tell if the new jungle will promote diversity enough to match last season, but
at least Riot will be able to make more direct changes to camps and champions to try keep
as many junglers in the meta as possible.
And it looks like that’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like,
subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!