League’s objective bounty system is being kept secret so players don’t find loopholes
Riot GamesLeague of Legends’ objective bounty system is shrouded in secrecy. It turns on when teams are behind, and turns off when things are more level. It’s by design that specifics aren’t made clear, Riot says, as they want players to focus on playing — not finding loopholes.
League of Legends’ objective bounty system is a finicky beast. Sometimes a team will be thousands of gold down and not activate it, while a team barely trailing would suddenly catapult into the lead when they linger for too long.
When Riot changed objective bounties again in LoL patch 12.13, they cited a desire to “make claiming bounties as the lead starts closing more fair for both teams.”
In doing so, the bounty lingering duration was increased to 60 seconds, but will fall off earlier if the losing team reduces the lead. They can also only claim one bounty as lingering bounties will cancel out the rest of them.
Some smaller calculation changes like passive gold generation through champions like Draven, Gangplank, or Twisted Fate aren’t taken into account. Dragons and turret values have also changed in weighting “to be more in line with player expectations.”
“The objective bounty changes to Dragons and Turrets are a nerf to their valuation,” developer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison said on Twitter. “This means that dragon and turret advantages are less likely to trigger objective bounties, which relatively means XP and Gold make up more of the share.
What Riot doesn’t go into detail about, however, is the specific calculations. How much is a turret worth to the objective bounty gods? When exactly do they activate, and what do players need to do?
That formula is likely to be a secret forever as the developers don’t want players to find workarounds or morph their gameplay around the new system.
“The reason why we just say turrets, XP, gold & dragons without releasing [the] formula is so that players don’t need to focus on avoiding triggering bounties while winning,” Phroxzon continued. “We want players to play the game and have it only turn on and stay on when it’s meant to.”
Whether that stance will change down the line remains to be seen, but Riot has promised they’ll continue tinkering with the objective bounty system until it’s fair for all.