/This is not a rant: Why you should no longer expect the game to be fairly balanced

I played a game. A game where so many illogical things happened to me that made me come to a realization. ######[The tl;dr of that game, in case you doubt "illogical": 0/3/0 Zed basic comboing me (no ult) for 1.1k damage 15min into the game, me being 4/0/1 Singed with 111 armor and two levels above him. Later the Yi which was behind the entire game, failing numerous ganks and being counterjungled by me, being 1/3/0 20mins into the game, hit two items and started doing 350 damage per auto on 2.04 Attack Speed, dealing MaxHP%, CurrentHP% and true damage per auto. The game was finished by the time he got his third item]

Yes, I felt frustrated with how the game is balanced. Which made me finally realize: I'm only frustrated because I'm expecting a fairly balanced game. For about a year now, the game balance has completely failed to meet my expectations (let's be generous with "a year", as there were some states here and there where the game was in a fine state previous to midseason 7, as opposed to since then where there was not a single sensible patch). How stupid do I have to be to keep on actually presuming that I'm queueing up for a fair game whenever I log in to play, over and over again?

Thus, I finally officially lost hope in proper game balance. But hey, bear with me - this isn't necessarily a negative thing. As I see it, it's not.

Firstly, and take this with a grain of salt, as you might disagree: I can't blame the balance team anymore. Perhaps the game has become so intricate at this point, with all the champions, items and reworks over the past years, that reaching true fair balance is very much impossible. I've never doubted the intentions of the balance team - obviously they mean good. People simply seem to claim that they're incompetent at their job, while others disagree. It may be true, or may not be. The fact of the matter though, is that anyone you'd put in that position would be incompetent at it, because a truly balanced game no longer seems achieveable. And so the balance team is doing their best at making the game as balanced as humanly possible. Which, as said, is not objectively balanced.

Secondly, my own mindset when playing the game: I'm somewhat of high ranking. At the very least, I finished Challenger last season on this account, and currently have an alt on Diamond 1 in SoloQ. I'm bringing this so you can understand how I felt towards the game before: I always thought that when I queue up for a game, it's possible to win it. I didn't always play competitively, but when I did - I considered the game to be competitive. An equally fair game, where both sides have the same chance of winning the game.

I no longer feel this way. Nor do I want to feel this way - Perhaps, if I don't regard this game as competitive, if I don't queue up to a game with the expectations I have, I won't get frustrated with my expectations anymore. Maybe you can find fun again in this game if you just drop all the expectations you have that are based on previous iterations of this game that you experienced years ago. Perhaps, with this, you'll find the game even more fun than what you want from your currently unmet expectations.

I'm aware some players may disagree with what I'm saying. Rather, they don't feel the way I feel towards the current state of the game. But I'm sure that there are also players that feel the way I do, and that's why I'm writing this. I just hope that if a player feels the way I do, I can show them the game in a new light, the way the game currently is.

If in the future, if by some sort of balancing miracle in a major patch, the game will truly get fairly balanced, then that's great. But for now, I won't fool myself anymore with false assumptions based on how the game used to be played years ago. The game has much more to offer than just how it's balanced, and everything from new champions to reworks, the lore, the art, and the work that is put into the game around it is just amazing, and has far exceeded "years ago" beyond any imagination in these elements. That's why I intend to find fun in all the game currently has to offer, instead of looking at what it doesn't.

Thanks for reading!