Breakdown on League's direction from long time player on the verge of quitting

An Important Note My complaints are mainly directed at how fun the game is for intermediate level league players (players around the gold to diamond skill level in normals and/or ranked). This is the level of player I am and most of my friends were. This is not taking into account interactions with other players like toxicity ruining fun etc. this is only going to be on the gameplay itself.

GENERAL BALANCE STATE

Starting off Riot has always had their struggles with balancing League but generally their changes from season 2 to 4 have been positive improvements to the game such as nerfing boots so we can open with something else or increasing gold/exp to jungle and support so they aren't relegated to being 3-7 levels down on laners. However, starting around season 5 after Morello was no longer lead champion designer I believe there have been very few improvements and mostly neutral or negative gameplay changes until the present. This is the number one problem with the current game. For me it seemed to start after season 5 around when Morello was no longer lead champion designer where more broken champions were reworked/released than ever before such as the reworks and the disastrous juggernaut patch which was more a problem with the items than champions with all being nerfed or changed frequently (black cleaver is STILL problematic in season 7). In my opinion, its just been getting worse since then with a few times where Riot has improved the game for a short while until new changes come out and throw it off again. In season 4 and earlier I recall most of the time there were around 1-5 super overpowered champions that mostly could be permabanned and you could have a relatively fair game. Since season 6 its become more like 15+ super overpowered champions on average and you cannot ban them all anymore. This means usually you will play against op champions every game which makes the game hard to enjoy depending on how abusable the champion is. A similar problem exists with items and other game elements which would take too long to go into depth on but champions are the main issue.

THE MOBILITY CREEP

I may be in the minority on this but I do hear the same gripe a lot. New champions and reworks over time have added more mobility to the game overall and new levels of mobility that never existed before such as camille's hookshot, talon's wall jump, or kayn walking through walls. In my opinion mobility is probably the most valuable attribute to have on a champion even above crowd control. It is extremely important especially in solo queue and very versatile. You can surprise players for easier kills, escape ganks, chase other champions, add a stronger initiation if you have cc, dodge abilities easily among other things and generally gives you a crutch of safety to fall back on because you can make many more positional errors than an immobile champion. Since these hypermobile champs like and others are usually very popular you're pretty much facing hypermobility every single game. This inherently makes it much harder to play skillshot reliant champions and immobile champions due to the huge advantage mobility gives (like trying to hit Qs laning vs , have fun kids). Mobile designs can be done right like (I know a lot of people hate zed but he has some clear counterplay, brings no utility and has mostly single target damage) but often they are made with too much utility in their kit such as ekko with 2 slows, an aoe stun + massive shield and a huge heal on his ultimate. Playing against so much mobility is frustrating to me as a tank/bruiser player but just in general too. As a result a lot of kitable bruisers seem to be among the worst champions in the game and some are receiving huge buffs recently again and again but they still are barely playable . Its getting to a point where immobile bruisers will need to be buffed so they're so much stronger than other champs they will be effective or they will need more mobility added to stand a chance vs the competition. A perfect example you see now is who has received the largest buffs by a longshot and it took all those changes for him to be effective again. To me the game was more enjoyable in the past with less mobility where you didn't have to deal with it on 3 or more champions every game.

PATCH FREQUENCY

This is a big problem with getting balance accurate. I've always thought Riot patches the game too often even in the past. However, I've noticed in recent seasons the patches have been getting bigger and more frequent as well as the addition of a huge midseason patch on top of the preseason. Doing this often does not allow enough time for players to adapt to changes and new content so interpretations for the next patch are often skewed. I do agree with their philosophy to keep the game fresh and fix gameplay problems quickly however I think they just way overdo it. If it were me, I would remove the midseason patch and patch the game at least half as much so a patch per month. I believe this would help the balance of the game tremendously as the meta would be more clear as to the problem areas. It wouldn't make the game any less stale either unless they really mess up and the game is in a poor state for longer. Even small tweeks can change a meta with time such as nerfing three champions slightly. As proven with other games like Smash bros or Starcraft, the meta will keep itself fresh by players figuring out new counters or ways to play given more time and does not need to be changed every two weeks to keep it interesting.

CONCLUSION

On the gameplay end, I do not enjoy League as I used to. It feels like a totally different game from Season 4 which is the game I really loved to begin with. It seems like its going to continue with poor balancing, excessive changes and seemingly neverending mobility. I will say that I have played with many people over the years with around 40 on my friends list who all have quit except 3. Some of them for the same reasons I listed above, poor balancing and what the game is changing into. I've been playing League reluctantly for the past year or so due to no other alternative MOBAs I find appealing but eventually unless Riot changes their direction for the game I'll probably quit altogether. Hope this was a tolerable read; its my first post on the boards ever and I might post about more League topics.