@Meddler Various Things I want to Mention

So, I know the title is vague. This post will be all over the place, likely not very organized, but will be in bullet points. Onto the actual content...

• Piggy backing on another recent thread (about not turning into Jagex) I agree, to an extent, with what the author said. The way Jagex regained the trust of the remaining playerbase was through holding global, no restriction polls on major content updates. They still changed minor things, stuff like if Ryze got a .1AP ratio nerf, but major things were voted on. They, initially, needed a 70% approval rating to pass it, to the best of my memory.
• Rewording the last point: Let the community vote on major changes.
• Don't be afraid to say you made a mistake and revert changes! The juggernauts should have been reverted, not bandaged. ALL the pros, ALL the youtubers, the ENTIRE playerbase agrees with this. Literally EVERYONE. This is true for a LOT of other updates and we'd respect you a LOT more if you could admit that you fudged up. Take accountability!
• WotA removal? WTF? So what that Akali and Vlad abuse spellvamp. You know who abuses lifesteal? Olaf. Aatrox. Kindred. Xin Zhao. They ALL have built in sustain (like Akali and Vlad) AND build lifesteal (like Akali and Vlad) but they don't get their items removed. Spellvamp CAN be balanced, you're either biased towards AD or lazy. (which, I know you are biased. it's obvious. Lee Sin getting no nerfs, AD itemization being better, Zed getting miniscule nerfs, ADCs getting overbuffed but being too terrified to overbuff AP champs).
• Hold a vote that's active for the second week of every patch (so that people are used to the patch) on who needs buffed/nerfed in the next next patch (vote held during 6.10 would be in place in 6.12). Eventually, all of the votes will sync up and just be delayed buffs/nerfs. You'd also have to post the results of the last ones, so people remember who is getting buffed/nerfed. ////This one is like ehhhh... I'd like actual feedback on this\\
• AD Items are far too strong compared to AP. They also have more types of AD defensive items compared to AP defensive. Steraks Gage (until it's nerfed), Trinity Force, Maw, and QSS for AD. AP only gets RoA, Zhonya's, Abyssal, and Rylais. You CAN count Liandry's and Serephs, but they're usually grabbed for the offensive portions.
• AP Items build paths are awful. People complain about Zhonya's, and you (mostly) fixed it. It's a LOT better now, but it needs a passive that ISN'T the current one. Hexdrinker/Maw is the AD vs AP counterpart (so the enemy builds it) and has a much better build path, better passives, and cheaper. The Zhonya's cost AND AP nerfs in the mage update look FABULOUS. The CD, to the best of my knowledge, is equal to Maw passive. The ONLY issue is with Seeker's Armguard. Seeker's needs to have a passive, either replacing the current or added, that does something like Hexdrinker (gives shield at certain % hp from lethal magic dmg) but change it to against AD, or a generic shield.
• Other than that, Sheen needs it's AP back... It's not a worthwhile first buy on most people who get Lichbane early-ish (Fizz being the exception) and returning the AP to it would definitely do it some justice. It would require giving the AP back to Trinity Force (or you could make it a disappearing stat, I'm 99% sure we're happy with current TriForce, I am at least.) It's just not strong enough to get over the other bits. Even on Akali I tend to grab the Aether Wisp first...
• When the boards complains about balance issues REPEATEDLY, please listen. Zed has been an issue for a while. Cassio has been called for another rework for ages (and you finally listened!) Karma has been called for a rework or a revert basically since her rework. Your community knows what it wants, and especially if people make long, detailed threads with proper discussion in the comments, you should probably take their ideas into consideration. On top of that, listening only to the top 0.5% (Diamond+) on balance issues is a HORRIBLE practice. You're catering the game to them while basically ignoring the people who actually play your game, the Bronze-Gold players. Bronze-Gold is about 90% of your players, yet you totally ignore them when talking about balance. You do realize that, despite being in Low ELO, a lot of us actually know balance and just don't put effort into ranking up (or ranked at all). A lot of us also can't climb due to mechanical skill, not game knowledge.
• I know you like the way you're different from DotA, you're also simpler, but simpler isn't always better. The way DotA works with crowdcontrol DOES need to be different from League, but DotA's is a LOT better. DotA has a lot more types of CC, which allows for non-champion based counters. There's also slows and various other disables league has in kits, but in items. League should implement some of these, but they need to be smart about it and make sure that people get it for the active/passive, not the stats (Zhonya's syndrome)
• Silences are fairly common, there's disarms (no auto attacking), invulnerability (fizz pole type), dash items (I see the new item <3), damage amplification, spell-reflection (banshees but instead of blocking spell, it reflects the effect, damage included), a suicide item (not recommended for league), Aura Lifesteal, Aura Armor, Area Heal + Mana (Heal + Clairvoyance combined, costs about League equiv of 4000ish), Invisibility, etc.

Riot, being different is good, and you've done an AMAZING job with your game. Your community is horrible and will NEVER be satisfied (we've all come to this conclusion, don't even try to say it's not true) but that isn't your fault - it's just how people are in general. You've done an amazing job making the game less toxic, trolls are a lot less frequent.

Basically, your report handling department and your art (both visual and written) departments are AMAZING. Bravo on both of those. But your game design department... your balance department... both are absolutely horrendous. You need to listen to your users more often or your game WILL plateau (which is what happened to RuneScape, and is happening to you right now) and you'll release a monstrous change that no one likes and you'll lose most of your playerbase (like RuneScape).

On those, your Customer Relations department is very meh. It's gotten a LOT better (<3 Meddler and Repetoir) but it's still not good enough. You guys don't communicate thru an easy to access developer blog. With a game THIS big you NEED to constantly update your playerbase of changes that you're planning and get feedback. It's been happening a LOT more lately, and I LOVE that, but it's still not enough at all.

I love the fact that you constantly update! It's amazing to have new content every 2 weeks. DotA doesn't do it and that's why I'm over here. My issue is that the constant updates are making you guys sloppy. They're making your balance decisions very hasty and rash, and often bad/extreme. You should probably tone it down to every 3 or 4 weeks rather than every 2. It'll make you guys able to balance stuff better, able for us to get used to the changes and see if it was actually an issue or we just needed to get used to it, and overall make everything better.

Also, stop putting 90% of your money into the LCS... The LCS was REAAAALLY boring so far, and a lot of your playerbase doesn't even pay attention to it. It's not worth it for 99.5% of your player base to be ignored constantly because you're giving all of the attention to the top 0.0001%. It's EXACTLY what the US is doing to us. Shoving reality TV down our throats so we ignore the actual issues that are going on. Eventually more people WILL notice this and they WILL call you out on it. Better for you to make inevitable changes sooner rather than later.