Dear Riot...
First of all, I would like to say, thank you for creating this amazing game. It has its problems, yeah, and I'll get into those things later, but for now, I just want to let you know that I appreciate that you guys made League an overall fun experience me and my friends enjoy almost daily.
Now, although your game is pretty well made, there are some glaring issues that many players would love to see addressed. I would hate to see League go the way of Starcraft and such, so I hope anyone at Riot could at least ponder solutions to these problems.
First off, we have have to talk about the new player experience. League of Legends is a very complex game to delve into, and without proper help, a complete newbie would be intimidated by all the ins and outs of the LoL. Your provided tutorial doesn't help either, Rito. Sure, it gives basic controls, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of the knowledge needed to just have fun. It even gets some subjects wrong, like the infamous thornmail on Ashe, or a Dragon spawning in lane.
A suggestion I have for you is to create a "Summoner School" tab you can get to through the League client. From there, new players can recieve all the training they need to get better. You don't even need to create some tutorials yourself, there are many online guides to League many content creators already have made. The problem is, they aren't readily available to new players, and thus, they may not find it.
The benefits to "Summoner School" are many. New players will know how to play the game, and now, they are more likely to stay with League. An educated player will make less mistakes in a game, reducing the amount of toxicity caused by flaming teammates. Games will now be more fun and strategic now that players would know what and what not to do. The list goes on and on.
Theres another issue with League that's not as easily fixed: balance. When I look at the winrates of champions, I see such a big gap between the highest winning champions and the lowest ones. There could be as much as a 20% difference!
I'm not a man who knows much about the meta, but I know that the community hasn't been this unhappy with game balance im a long time. There are champions in this game that if you don't ban, you could already lose in champion select. And that is bad.
Now that we got those issues out of the way, we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Dynamic Queue. I know, I know, you already hear enough crap about this Queue by the barrage of boards post yelling "IM QUITIN LOOG OF LEGENS", but there wouldn't be this much uproar if there wasn't a problem. What solo players want is to be judged by their individual skill, not by if they have a better premade on their team than the enemy. Now, I don't have that experience with ranked, but I know that this Dynamic Queue debacle is effecting a lot of people in a bad way.
There is also another major problem with D-Queue that is way worse than the one I just mentioned. The problem isn't really with the Queue itself, it was how you handled the PR around it. When you released Dynamic, you promised that Solo Queue would come soon after. People waited, and waited, and waited, but there was no news. Until finally, one day, you guys at Riot basically said "You players don't know what you want, Solo queue is bad for the game". After months of waiting with false hope, players were basically treated with a giant "F*ck you" to their faces. This is the real problem with Dynamic Queue. Not the premades, not the boosting.
You're losing the fidelity of the players, Riot. These people are the people that got you guys so successful in the first place. You gave false hope to many, and then proceeded to shoot it down
All without even asking the opinions of players
Alienating the playerbase is the biggest red flag a game could make. The playerbase is what keeps the game alive. Their wants need to be at least acknowledged in a respectful way. If you dont do that, you'll start to lose them.
So please Riot, if you learn anything from this letter, please just learn that simple fact. I really love your game, and I want to support it as much as I can, but if what I get in return is a cold shoulder, I'll have to change my mind.
Sincerely, Captain AssTouch (formerly known as Sir Glitterfart), a Silver 4 Jungle main.
