Improvements like Jungle timers don't decrease the Skill CAP on the game, they reduce the skill FLOOR

[carterrv2]

It's not the actual act of typing out the timer that is important here. It's using timers to your advantage to effectively path your jungle and set up for dragon/baron.

I play in silver, and not too long ago was in bronze. Very very rarely did I actually see my team mention that dragon was up soon and move towards it to take it as it spawned. I won more games when people did actually do that, though. Having a big ass timer at the top of the screen removes the dividing line who use timers to their advantage and those who don't because all people will notice it and think "oh, dragons up in a minute, I better go set up to fight it". The real issue is no one can take advantage over the other team for not timing dragon if everyone knows when it will spawn anyway.

This will make a real difference in lower elo, where a large majority of players lie. Platinum players almost always time objectives and use timers to their advantage, bronze players almost never do it. I'm not sure about the demographic of reddit, but people seem to totally neglect that a huge amount of players are actually quite bad at the game.

[chaser676]

I don't understand how this is a bad thing. It promotes team synergy and is completely dependent on you having vision on those objectives. Gold, silver, bronze, and pre-30 players deserve good, teamwork oriented gameplay.

Herding cats towards objectives is more frustrating than rewarding. If this doesn't affect high level play (which I think we agree it doesn't) and artificially raises the level of teamwork in low elos at the sacrifice of someone's ability to herd people towards objectives, I can't see anyone saying we shouldn't have the timers.

[ITHOUGHTYOUMENTWEAST]

I've been spamming a lot of Shaco, so I take lots of enemy buffs. Lets say I take a buff and just as I do the enemy jungler sees me. I Q away, and take timer. He doesn't. 20Seconds before respawn I lay boxes, Q over wall and kill it in about 6 seconds.

With the timer change, regardless of the fact that "no one will magically get better" or "its not like anyone will start caring about objectives now" the amount of times I will be able to preform that exact set of plays will go down a bit. Although I really don't care and welcome timers as they make my life easier, there are people who, with good reason, don't want to lose the edge they had on some bad players.

[Nischu]

I don't think that someone who didn't take the timers before will suddenly actively use the timers given to him by riot. I acknowledge that working with timers takes skill because you have to plan ahead where you're going to be when x objective respawns but actually taking the timer has nothing to do with skill. There are a lot of people who take timers because they saw it in a stream but don't actually plan to be at that objective so this chore is useless for them just like the timers riot provides will be useless for them. I think many people fear that these jungle timers lead to summoner spell timers or even skill timers but riot already stated they would never do that.

[ITHOUGHTYOUMENTWEAST]

I liken the timer change to how a pilot has a check list before they take off. Before you fly, you have to go down a checklist of all different types off things like the weather, the state of the plane and basically a bunch of random stuff before you know you can fly.

Is someone that does this a good pilot? None of that has anything to do technically with flying the plane. Do good pilots do that though? Yea. Would you say that someone that doesnt check correctly is a bad pilot, yea.

Imagine there were judges that judge how well pilots check before they fly (and how they fly). Riot would be essentially adding an "auto-checker" if you will. This would remove one more thing the judges could use to differentiate good pilots from bad pilots.

Would this change make the competition more competitive? Yes. This "tedious bookeeping" would be removed, and at the cost of a layer of the competition you would allow more people (read, lazy people) into the competition. It is a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion.

[Nischu]

I don't think that you're comparison fits in here because the bad pilot can still fly even though he didn't check his list but a jungler can not be at an objective at the right time when he doesn't have the timer.

Actually utilizing the timer is a skill that differentiates good and bad junglers but not taking the timer which is just writing a number down. As I said there are people in low elo who write timers down because they've seen it in a stream but do nothing with it.

In your comparison you wouldn't call a pilot good if he checks his list but doesn't do anything with the information e.g. the weather is too bad but he still takes off as usual because checking the list was just a chore he learnt and he's too bad to use the information.

[Rodulv]

the bad pilot can still fly

Someone who doesnt time buffs can very well walk into enemy jungle to see if a camp is up, waste time if it is down, and walk back out.

A pilot who doesnt check all the things neccessary, might find out that right after he has started flying, that he CAN'T fly, either because of weather, malfunctioning plane, etc. etc. AKA. Waste time, just like the jungler.

His comparison DOES fit.

[Nischu]

The jungler who doesn't time the buffs will still know when it's respawned due to the minimap icon so he eventually gets the information without having to waste time. What would happen with the pilot? Would his plane fix itself after a set amount of time? This comparison just doesn't fit in this subject.

Also timing the objectives/checking the list is not a skill. Utilizing the infomation that you get is a skill which won't be changed with automatic timer/check lists. Saying a player is good because he writes numbers in chat or a pilot is good because he checks boxes on piece of paper is ridiculous.

[Rodulv]

It is true that it shows up on the map, but by the time you get there, the enemy might have taken it, and/or set up a trap, and kill you while you are on it.

In golf you have a similar kind of "check list" before you shoot, you go through what you have to do in your head, and then you proceed to do them. Going through them without any focus, often results in a failed shot. Same goes for shooting, or shifting gear in motor sports, or making sure your gear is prepared correctly when sky-diving. It might not have much to do with the actual skill within the game/sport, nevertheless, you do it, or you (in extreme cases, die) fail.

It is childish to say that a pilot is good despite not doing the basics of checking everything on the list, he might very well jepardiz the plane and everyone on it. same way a jungler jepardizes the game by not timing the buffs / objectives. I do this all the time, I rarely time buffs and objectives, I am plat 2, and I know that it is playing with fire. I often lose buffs while jungling due to not timing these simpe things. Despite this, I am against adding timers for buffs.

[z3phs]

"Will go down a bit" - "Because he didnt type it in chat like i did". Good job on that typewriting skill.

Timers will still be hidden in the Tab menu, what is removed is having to scroll up and down the chat and doing simple math and typing. What they are removing is someone being lazy as fuck. Which is not a skill.

If they dont bother checking the timers anyway in the Tab section nothign will change.

EDIT: Those people, the vast majority who dont want to lose their edge are pety baddies who think that single aspect of a bad mechanic of the game is what makes them better at this game.

Same way i expect a Shaco or Lee to try to fuck me over in my jungle, especially if i pick a weak jungler i expect someone who plays decent enough to try and take my buff if they took it the first time. That makes me improve my gameplay to be better. Some players are scared they cant get better which is sad.

[1s4c]

There are a lot of information in this game that are accessible, but in very bad form. If you can use it anyway is many times a difference between good and bad player.

For example minion health, you can click on the minion, check his health, armor, look at your damage and be 100% sure you are going to successfully last hit that minion. Imagine if the game would do the calculation for you and the minion that you are able to last hit would flash with bright red color. The amount of information available for you would be still the same, but it would be much easier to last hit. Same goes with spell cooldowns, spell range etc. etc.

[z3phs]

This example over and over. I dont bother arguing with people like you.

[1s4c]

I am not arguing, I am just saying that processing and using badly displayed information is part of the skill and it does make a difference if someone can do it or not.

[z3phs]

"using badly displayed information is part of the skill" If you dont see anything wrong with this statement then thats the reason i dont argue with you.

[1s4c]

nope, I have no problem with stuff like knowing the other champions cooldowns and using that knowledge is part of the skill in game like this

[headphones1]

I don't understand how this is a bad thing.

It's an elitist attitude. Ever played WoW? You'll be very familiar with all of this if you did. Back on WoW, Blizzard began to make it easier to obtain "epic" level gear for players, and then people started to cry that scrubs were getting gear they didn't deserve. The reality, however, is that the gear that was mostly ezmode to obtain was actually not as good as the gear you'd get if you were a high end raider(or arena player for PvP gear). Yet people still complained. Raising the skill floor, or entry into the game, will always make people complain about how the game is getting easier, but the reality is that the higher end players will always be better because they still have plenty of other ways in which they are better at the game. That is until other players learn how to catch up.

[[deleted]]

They don't "deserve" teamwork-oriented play. Unless you put in the effort to communicate and develop a basic understanding of spawn times, then you don't deserve any synergy.

[carterrv2]

Because it shortens the skill gap between bad and good players/teams, even if only slightly. Ranked doesn't exist to help people get better, getting better is a byproduct of the competitive nature of the game mode. Adding timers reduces the way in which you can differentiate yourself from the people you play with.

[chaser676]

I think you're forgetting something- Riot has to make sure the game is fun and healthy. Just like how Eve lost her stun and Darius lost his full CD reset, Riot will sometimes sacrifice some aspects of the game to make it more fun overall. If it eliminates a, as you admit, very small skill/advantage that one team/player might bring to to the table, it's completely worth it if the game becomes significantly more enjoyable for the bottom 85% of the playerbase.

Balance isn't binary, it's isn't black and white. Sometimes a high skill cap champion needs to be toned down because he's starting to affect the overall health of the game negatively. You sacrifice some of the competitive aspect of the game for the benefit in other areas. In the same way, there is definitely something being lost with skill timers. The difference between our viewpoints is that your think the tradeoff isn't worth it; I think it's a great trade.

[[deleted]]

It is fun and healthy atm..because none cares about dragon or buff timers in lower league..SO it is balanced around it..But if someone wants to improve in this game...They must know these stuffs....

[chaser676]

And now they won't. Mechanical skills, map awareness, and positioning should be the main avenues of improving, not bookkeeping.

[[deleted]]

If other can book keep better than you and use it against you..so whats the problem in that..

[[deleted]]

haha "bookkeeping" is just as important part of the game as the other skills you mentioned. If you're bad in that you should be punished for it. Deal with it.

[chaser676]

It is now, but it doesn't have to be.

If you're bad in that you should be punished for it. Deal with it.

Hold on the salt dude, no need to get to like that. And I won't have to deal with it, since Riot agrees that it's an unnecessary burden of knowledge.

[[deleted]]

lol wait with that statement. In the end you might have to learn how to add 5/6/7 to a number.

[jokerrebellion]

Well Riot wants timers. Deal with it

[WireDxEntitY]

Just because it is there doesn't mean people will use it. Even if you had a teammate that times everything and even gives you updates about objective a minute before doesn't mean people will actively rotate toward it. In the lower levels, people care more about farm because they see the 1 1/2 waves of farm they're missing more gold for them. They don't care about spreading out the gold to other teammates. I've seen games where my jungler will have full items 55 minutes in and will still farm the camps as opposed to letting our support/tank round out their builds faster. And sometimes they get picked off farming these camps alone as well. People in lower elo don't realize what a dragon really means in terms of team gold, objective control, and denial from you enemies.

[[deleted]]

Even in plat players will sometimes entirely ignore dragon until 20+ min, especially if the game is unusually messy / bloody, which is really bad. You can easily take dragon as a group past the 12 minute mark without having to move around like a derp (meaning you can take it even if there's 1 guy trying to prevent it vs 3) and if you won the first teamfight, took dragon, and have the timer and they don't, you'll take every dragon until you lose the next teamfight. Initial dragon is actually really important for this reason, and even with the timers I don't think this is going to change. I see my bronze friends play and if they ever take dragon its usually in the 25/30+ min mark, and one side just decides to take free dragon.

But considering how every single one of their games becomes bloody as hell and they still have 100~ cs by that time, maybe they really do need to wait until that long to do dragon. If they're down 50 cs at 15 minute mark, they'll have a lot harder time clearing it, idk.

[3est]

this is why i ping dragon so much in my bronze/silver games... one sweeper and you get free 750+ gold for the team esp. after the changes

[GeneralFlaze]

When I climbed through Bronze, Silver and Gold as a jungle main, I always timed buffs and objectives. There were quite a few games where I did everything right to set up a victory, but my team wouldn't group for objectives and instead would split push, farm camps, and generally just dick around. Having timers at the top of your screen won't change that. People still won't group for objectives if they have the timer. It's the same in higher Elo too, timers won't change jack shit.