Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-26815373-20161225053323/@comment-1330314-20170203100412

On the topic of vision, what would you think about completely removing wards from the game, and instead shifting all of vision onto plants?

A large ongoing issue with wards is that, despite their power, the items themselves just feel boring. As we've discussed before, sight wards are really terrible at conveying their power, especially at lower elos, and their own invisibility just makes things worse. Despite their free placement, in the end there are only a fixed amount of "optimal" ward spots, and as you mentioned, the universal, AoE sight of wards is just about the least interesting and engaging way to apply vision.

Alongside that, you also brought up the idea of wards as security measures and countermeasures, and we both discussed the possibility of vision tools as control points across the map to be contested. The advantage to a plant-based vision architecture is that it would a) make vision a more interesting and interactive tool for players of all experience levels, and b) allow vision to be tailored right down to every tiny area on the map, which could include your own ward types.

Off the top of my head, here are some vision plant examples, several of which come from your collection:
 * A "lantern" plant, which would project a beam of light that would provide vision through brush and walls. Would be permanent and indestructible, but would "turn off" after a few seconds. Autoattacking the plant would turn it on and cause it to swivel in the target direction, activating it for your team. At least one spawn location could involve the space in-between the Raptor camp and the river, allowing players to reveal the brush near Raptors, behind the Brambleback camp, in the river brush or in mid lane.
 * The snitch/Mandrake ward in plant form. Autoattacking it would activate it for your team, whereupon it'd have a lifespan of about 60 seconds, before dying and regenerating later (the respawn time would probably adjust over time, just like yellow trinket). Would deliver a ping whenever an enemy passes very close to it, audible to the team controlling it and the player who set it off, but would only ping the same champion if they leave the radius and come back. At least one spawn location could involve the tribrush near top and bot, and the plant would serve mainly to signal the arrival of a jungler, who could then also try to play mind games by waiting a bit before ganking. The plant could also potentially serve as protection against invaders and counterjunglers, and would help signal the presence of enemies trying to sneak a Drake or Herald/Baron.
 * "Artillery" ward plants, which would shoot a vision-granting pod across a long distance when autoattacked, which would then persistently reveal a small area around it, much like a ward. The plant would then be consumed and would respawn after a long-ish delay. This is basically meant to be a plant version of Scryer's Orb, so the pod could perhaps be made to last until destroyed, or alternatively the pod could be indestructible, but would have only a limited duration. At least one spawn location could involve the areas right outside the base gates, which would allow sieging teams to take a peek at the enemy's defenses (and perhaps even teleport to the plant for an Xpeke), and defending teams to project vision outwards into a jungle that's likely being controlled by their opponents.

There are likely a great deal many more possibilities to this, especially since the above would leave some pretty large gaps in Summoner's Rift, but that could at least be a start to a more varied and organic (heh) vision system. What do you think?