Solo Exp vs Shared Exp punishes teamplay, and that's bad.

This preseason has infuriated me for one primary reason - the very significant difference between solo lane and shared lane experience. I'm not quite sure what the impetus was behind this, but the reality is that it punishes roaming for midlaners.

I just played a game as midlane, admittedly not my main role, where at level 6 I recalled and decided to roam botlane to gank. This gank was successful - I got a kill and an assist, and was feeling pretty good about it all. Until I realised that my opposing midlaner had just been soaking up experience by refusing to move from the lane, and had achieved almost a 2 level advantage on me in this time. I subsequently lost the lane because I was too far behind to win the matchup.

It's crazy to me that a play like a midlane roam, which traditionally was a risk/reward scenario, is now just an outright bad play, even if you are successful. Sure, my botlane was able to breathe a little and catchup, but all I did was trade one losing lane for another - my own. This feels absolutely awful honestly, and I think Riot really needs to rethink how they're handling shared vs solo experience, as it really promotes stale gameplay.

As I said, I'm not a midlaner normally, and am in fact a Bard main, and I have found that timely roams allow my ADC to get ahead when he is safe in lane, getting that sweet sweet solo experience. As a Bard main I abuse this, but I still think it is genuinely bad design. What's more, dying in a solo lane is more punishing than ever because you not only fall far behind in gold, but also significantly in experience. 1 death can decide a lane.