New Jungle Idea #1

[Softmints]

I think we're all familiar with the current jungle, but just to recap:

• There are four identical creep camps, with 2 creeps each. When killed, they spawn as troops on their respective lane.
• They reward a total of 30/50/70/90/110 exp to all engaged allies when killed.
• They respawn 45 seconds later at a higher level, up to level 5.
• Creeps have 500/750/1250/2000/3125 max life and 20/30/45/65/90 dps each.
• The Engaged curse adds 7% of a hero's current life as bonus damage when creeps attack. It also slows by 40% and is needed to gain any exp.

Some logic/analysis of this:

• The jungle in RoW was intended to be a team objective that was high-risk-high-reward. This was successful on RoW's old terrain, but hasn't worked on the new one. 'Engaged' with double-damage and slow was used to ensure the risk part, because RoW heroes need favourable positioning to burst a hero down.
• I changed the double damage on engaged to the 7% bonus because I didn't feel double-damage was working. The idea was that heroes would get low, but not really risk dying. However, now a hero who has farmed camps is low life and can't do anything else, which is silly.
• In conclusion RoW's jungle is dysfunctional right now.

---

Here's an idea for a different approach to the jungle. I have had these ideas floating around unorganised for a few months, so I figure I should present them.

• There are four creep camps. The two outer camps are now Boss Camps. The two inner camps (closer to mid lane) are Merc Camps.
• The Boss Camps consist of one big strong creep. Bosses are difficult to solo because of relatively high regeneration and decent dps, but 2+ heroes should be able to beat the regen. It drops riches/an equivalent contestable exp powerup.
• The Merc Camps spawn in groups of 3 mercs, one of each type. The last merc of a camp to be killed will spawn one of that merc as a troop on each lane. This means a jungler can choose which merc to 'hire'.
• I will speculate about possible different types of merc:
  
  • Hawk: Can see over trees in a large radius (anti-gank)
  • Golem: Reroutes some damage taken by allied units to itself (push/defend)
  • Wolf: Invisible; when an enemy hero enters 500 radius it pounces and slows (gank)
• There is no more Engaged.
• These camps spawn indefinitely and scale with game time.
• I don't know how I'll handle their respawn time. Perhaps merc/boss camps should respawn 60+ seconds after both merc/boss camps die to encourage roaming.

Some logic/analysis of this:

• The jungle is now open to be soloed or cleared as a team.
• Boss Camps give teams a useful option after getting Lightning Rod or winning teamfights.
• Merc Camps provide a selection of useful rewards. However, they don't give gold/exp.
• The risk of being interrupted is that the enemy will take the merc or the powerup, rather than a risk to the hero itself.

Thoughts/opinions/concerns/ice-creams welcome.

[Sarenarass]

Well, my problem with the old creep camps was that the damage you took was not worth the reward. Especially with the +7%, I'd usually have around 300 health left..even if fighting level 1 creeps. And that meant running back to the fountain or dying if attempting to rejoin the fray.

However, this system does sound like it could work out better. However, I don't see the "risk" as much without engaged since you can just run away now unless the creeps are pretty strong on their own.

Also, a suggestion: Make riches scale too? Because late game you really stop caring about them as you're making a lot of gold from pushing.. and around 3-4x as much gold from hero kills. It's not worth the time. So, either make riches scale on some %? Or maybe just create multiple riches and make the better ones spawn late game. 75 gold just doesn't feel worth it. Two creep coins that don't take long to get are worth it without the risk.

[Softmints]

I'm going to try out the merc/boss camps in 68v. The risk is more losing the rewards to a better mobilised enemy than actually dying.

[alyssandra]

Wolves need to not do one of the following:
1) be invisible
2) charge
3) do 25% of a heros hp

[Walter]

I think the wolves would still be useful and not overshadow the other two if they just slowed when they pounced, then just attacked the enemy hero normally.

[Grumbletok]

REALLY like this new jungle, very interesting and balanced.^^ Haven't actually seen wolves in action yet, but maybe they could instead spawn a small pack of wolves instead on each lane, overwhelming and maybe be stronger for each other wolf nearby, so opponents need to focus them down for them to be weak? Just a thought! Anyways, I'll love to give this jungle some more tries, but I agree with Sera, Riches should probably scale, maybe increase for each time someone in your team took it, making it even more attractive to have control over it?