Anyone else feel like genuine game-play options have been replaced by gimmicks?
Remember how many different ways there used to be to play Jungle? I remember back in season 4 there used to be Jungle styles who played similar to how Jungle is virtually always played now (basically a farming-gank heavy-teamplay orientated style), then there was stuff like 'Godyr' or 'AFK Yi' who had their own very unique playstyles, and then there was stuff like Shaco and Evelynn which were considered cheese, would barely farm, and would instead focus on making the enemy laners eyes bleed.
I don't want to get too much into it otherwise I feel like I'll end up waffling and writing unnecessary walls of text, but some things to consider are; How much more popular invading/cheesing was before. How much more impactful counter jungling was. The differences between damage Junglers and tank junglers (the latter seems to dominate more now, whereas before picking a tank Jungler was actually a risk) Karthus, Brand and Fiddlestick Jungle were actually a thing. How effective Jungle pathing on a champion with a strong clear could allow you to become incredibly strong. Similarly, how strong gankers really were just that - strong gankers, and could really only be contested in ganking by another similarly strong ganker. (Whereas nowadays tanks are just as, if not even better Junglers than the traditional 'strong' gankers such as Elise, Lee sin or J4 (haven't seen a J4 Jungle i ages...)
Instead, now every Jungler seems to be played more or less the same. You farm, you gank, you get dragons/rift, and play as a team. Some may have stronger inclinations towards a specific aspect, but generally things seems more standardised. Meanwhile Scuttle, Blast Plant and Honey Plant mean that every Jungler can have good gank paths, sustain or vision control. Plus, clear speeds seem to have been more standardised too. Tank junglers can farm just as fast as a Lee Sin or Elise who were considered good at farming the jungle in the past. While champions such as Shyvana or Yi who were always exceptional at it will only really exceed the standardisation by a significant margin once they start taxing lanes heavily.
Top Lane seems to have suffered a similar level of generalisation. Most Top Laners tend to group with their team (despite them perhaps splitpushing in the past due to not being considered as good at teamfights), rift was added because splitpushing was clearly suffering. Aside from Tryndamere, it's unlikely that you'll see a Top Laner splitpushing all the way to an inhibitor while rarely (if not never) grouping with the team, whereas before this seemed to be a more common occurrence. Windows of power seem to be more standard too. Remember Renekton and what a massive lane bully he used to be? I used to be an Irelia Main and it wasn't a question of whether Renekton would dive me at level 6...it was a question of whether or not I could get out of it alive. Or remember how Tanks used to be weak early game in return for scaling into very good team fighters (something that most bruisers weren't too good at). Now picking a tank into Riven would be considered a good thing, but back then doing so could very well be a death sentence.
Now you might argue that certain things were busted, or OP, or unfair, but personally I think it granted a greater level of expression - how you wanted to play the game was more personalized. I.e, if you weren't big on teamplay you could become a godyr fanatic, or a hashinshin (before the meme), or a tank player if you prefered TFs, a Shaco/Eve player if you preferred the feeling of absolutely decimating your competition early and the high risk/high reward that came with such a playstyle and so on.
Thoughts?