Did Riot sell to another company?
Their design and balance strategy has massively changed in the last month or so, along with their concern for player opinion. Literally everything people have been asking for has been changed lately, and in most cases well enough that even people who liked the previous state can't complain. Examples:
-SoloQ. It's back, but 5's has been completely converted to Dynamic. This just scratches the surface, though; extra end of season rewards for playing in both queues mean that players aiming to score those will somewhat reduce the waits 3 and 4 man parties in Flex Queue. In general, though, toxic and self-centered players will stick to SoloQ, leaving a more team-oriented environment overall in Flex and improving the gaming experience for team-oriented solo players. Good luck finding decent supports, SoloQQers.
-Assassins are no longer utterly toxic from a gameplay perspective, and all of their reworks seem to preserve their gameplay fantasy along with most of their old patterns. In addition, assassin junglers (Shaco, Rengar, Kha'zix) have gotten clear-specific touchups, and all assassins have some form of substantial objective taking power to make up for their slower kills.
-Lethality. My god, yes. This isn't just about assassins- stompy early game ADCs who build arpen to snowball are done. Final nail. They might build some late game, but Lethality will be considerably weaker on most ADCs. Admittedly, old Riot knew this was a problem and just ignored it.
-New supportive items, Aegis of the Legion aura removed. You don't even have to be a support to buy them, they're all around decent items and great buys if you're behind and want some teamfight presence.
-Practice mode announced- something else everyone has been asking for a long, long time. Just useful in general. Replays also announced. Both are a total 180 from what Riot was saying about them before.
-Jungle's rework. For those of you that liked the buffs, keep in mind Gromp's poison and Krugs' stun is basically all we're losing; blue mana was already redundant since you'd get it back shortly with the buff, and health on the other four camps is a great boon for squishier junglers. You no longer have an 'optimal' start based on your base stats- a champ with no AOE will gain an advantage from starting gromp, but slow down on red side with the large groups, or they can get their leash red side for Krugs, making their overall first clear slightly faster. Situation one is likely something you'd do for an invade to your opponent's red, while situation 2 would be for a team you're warier of fighting in their jungle; the end result is that the whole thing is much more dynamic, because you no longer have a clear 'optimal' clear.
-Little things. Twitch's Spray and Pray is back, they added an indicator to the loadscreen so you know if you've crashed ASAP, Talon's parkour (just yes, it's so well designed both from balance and gameplay perspective), plants (guys, these things are going to change objectives and counterjungling-vulnerable champs massively), and the fact that they're actually paying attention to detail (like the sound on Katarina's dagger bounce) are just a few of the smaller-scale changes.
TL;DR Riot is acting like an indie developer. A GOOD indie developer, with their game in free beta. It's like someone actually looked at Gameplay.
P.S. Calling it now, Talon Jungle.
