Vi's release was the peak of this game.

I still remember her login theme to this day. I remember logging in and playing the champion, and not just that, but enjoying playing ranked. Not ony was i excited for this patch, but I was excited for every single patch during this time.

It was the start of season 3, the middle of december and we were into the preseason. I was maining jungle vi and i still played champs like xin and udyr back in those times as well. All were equally viable.

Champion balance was not perfect in season 3, but it was the best of times in terms of the amount of competitive champs in the pool. You could see anything in ranked. Anything could own you, and likewise you could carry with anything from anywhere.

We still had the elo system at this time. 1850 was the benchmark for platinum, i actually never hit that. I believe i hit 1839 or so but i was proud of myself for getting that high at the time. I cared about my elo. It ment something to me. The ranked ladder was also only solo/duo. I was duoing with one of my friends frequently. We had met through wow and had been playing league since season 1.

I stopped playing league after season 3. My friend justin kept playing on and off but i didn't. Come season 6 i came back to see what was what. Me and justin had a ball. We played games together and we had a bit of fun.

At first it was fun. But eventually something happened. The problems of season 6 caught up to us. This game isn't the same old league of legends. Games didnt always reach 40 minutes before the conclusion. At first i thought it was just because we were higher rated. But pretty soon it became pretty clear that every game was just a stomp that ended at around 20-30 minutes. And then we would have games where i would get attacked by 3 people in my jungle at 5 minutes. Or a similar dive for justin at mid/top, sometimes even earlier than that.

Dynamic queue had caught up to us. soon i was too high rated to play with Justin. He eventually dropped the game altogether. He queued a lot on his own and he said he felt that he had no impact. Like the outcome of the game just completed depended on his team. He was tilted sure, but this is someone who was d1 last season and who was struggling to get out of plat. Now i have no one to play with, and really no motivation to play. I could probably get a bit higher rated, but i would only be rewarded with higher queue times and a rank that means nothing.

I think the problem is that boosting has destroyed the ladder experience. I was d1 a few patches ago and i stayed up there for a bit. When i played bad literally every person in the game would accuse me of being boosted. This frustrated me more than the fact that there were probably actually boosted players in my games that caused me to lose.

Not only that, but in high diamond it seemed like every single game i was pitted with or against premades. I had to adapt to this and play completely differently. And by differently i mean passively. Can't gank anywhere without an immediate tp coming in. Can't take any objective pre 20 minutes. The other team is just more coordinated. Thing is, the premades are so used to stomping that if you manage to just not feed until 20 minutes and stall for them to make a mechanical or impatient missplay you could just punish them for it and end. They got their rank with premade cheese and you have to take advantage of that lack of late game experience to win. But again, that is stupid. I could win against premades, but it doesn't change the fact that the game is just pure torture passive farming for half the game against them.

Another problem i have with this season is that rather than having a host of viable champions it just seems like you pick the most op ones. Sure there were busted champs in s3 but 6 bans was enough. Now 6 bans are not enough. Bang from skt was talking about league of legends in its current state and his opinion was that 'the game is no longer fun. You just have to pick the most op champions. Sometimes i can have fun playing those'.

Think about kindred this season. At the start of the season she had a 55% winrate in diamond. 12 patches she had 55% winrate on average. It went up at one point to 57% but she currently has a 54.9% winrate in diamond.

The entire season long this champion has been horribly broken. She has received nerf after nerf after nerf and she is STILL broken. My first time encountering this champion i was top lane and got solo killed by a level 2 enemy jungle kindred in 3 seconds. So i came back from playing in s3 and i see shit like that and just go: wow. This game is fucking broken now. I played during release xin, and i was more shocked by what that kindred did to me than what a xin has ever done to me or my team.

Theres no ranked integrity anymore. There no balance integrity anymore. Theres no fun anymore. I wish i hadn't played this season, because then i could have remembered this game for what it was: A game that was fun, fair, and that motivated me to compete.