Dear RIOT...

Dear Riot, My Summoner name is AngealColumbus and I was a platinum 3 ranked player last season (season 5). I have played this game since ending of season 2 and I want to thank you for creating such a wonderful fun game that I have enjoyed over the last four years but sadly in the last 2 years I have watched a game that I have spent the most time ever on in my life become an utter disgrace and fail to live up to expectations. Why? you might ask well I’ll break it down to you.

• Champions/Champion Mastery • Reworks • Skins • Client • Lore • Balance • Maps • Innovation/creativity • Esports • New champion select/ ranked • Maps • The future

Champions/Champion Mastery There are currently 129 champions in the game personally I think about 40-50 are in poor shape these are the ones I personally think need to be looked at as they get little or close to no play time due for mostly negative reasons.

1. Aatrox
2. Akali
3. Ashe
4. Cassiopeia
5. Cho’gath
6. Draven
7. Evelynn
8. Fiddlesticks
9. Galio
10. Gragas
11. Hecarim
12. Heimerdinger
13. Irelia
14. Jarvan iv
15. Jayce
16. Karma
17. Kassadin
18. Katarina
19. Kayle
20. Kennen
21. Malzahar
22. Maokai
23. Moredekaiser
24. Nami
25. Nocturne
26. Olaf
27. Rumble
28. Sejuani
29. Singed
30. Sivir
31. Skarner
32. Swain
33. Talon
34. Taric
35. Teemo
36. Urgot
37. Vladimir
38. Warwick
39. Xerath
40. Yorick
41. Ziggs
42. Zilean
43. Zyra

Reworks A few reworks were carried out in this time frame (since 2012) as well in your attempt to “improve” certain champions and increase their pick rate and I will be focusing on the success of gameplay update as opposed to visual update. Here is how I think they went. Success

1. Poppy
2. Garen
3. Master Yi Ok
4. Jax
5. Xin zhao
6. Twitch
7. Trundle
8. Olaf
9. Sivir
10. Heimerdinger
11. Gragas
12. Sona
13. Viktor
14. Soraka
15. Sion
16. Tristana
17. Zilean
18. Gangplank
19. Shen
20. Caitlyn
21. Kog’maw
22. quinn Poor
23. Evelynn
24. Katarina
25. Karma
26. Sejuani
27. Skarner
28. Xerath
29. Kassadin
30. Rengar
31. Nidalee
32. Cassiopeia
33. Ryze
34. Fiora
35. Mordekaiser
36. Darius
37. Graves
38. Miss fortune
39. Corki

Skins Overall the quality of skins has improved (credit where it’s due) but some of the champions that should be getting skins are not getting them. Some champions get a skin almost every year i.e teemo , ahri, riven etc while some have been waiting years for a new skin i.e yorick, urgot, taric etc

Client Aren’t we still using the old client after many “soon TM” promises?

Lore League of legends used to have amazing lore which allowed the gamer to understand the story of the champions they were playing, why they were in the league, their backstory and interaction with other champions and really created a fictional world that was quite immersive and with the release of new champions you used to integrate them very nicely into this amazing fantasy world that you have created but recently released champions like Kindred, Bard, Tahm kench, Illaoi seem poorly integrated. Very little or no affiliation with any nations, No clear reason for being in the league, no affiliations with previous champions, no clear birthplaces and it just seems like no one really cares anymore about putting some effort into making these champions feel real and relatable.

Balance Please can anyone at riot justify how strong the following champions are?

1. Kindred – overpowered counter jungling ability, no counter play, abusive kite and ultimate
2. Rengar - mid-air 1 shot capability
3. Fiora - riposte is unbelievable, aoe healing ultimate, immense damage,tank and lifesteal potential
4. Mundo – unbelievable health regen, unbelievable damage to tank ratio,
5. Poppy - unbelievable damage to tank ratio
6. Graves – overpowered abilities, quite tanky for a marksman
7. Udyr - high movement speed, immense physical and magic damage, large shield, short cooldown stuns
8. Leblanc – 1 shot potential, high mobility , little counter play,
9. Ryze – permanent snare potential, amazing tank for a mage, high damage, unbelievable damage to tank ratio. Death fire grasp was removed from the game for a reason but now we have Duskblade of draktharr? Hex drinker prevents magic damage mages from having a fair shot at fighting any physical damage bruiser or assassin due to how strong the item is. What is a Frozen mallet?

Maps I used to love the effort you put into giving us at least a winter Summoner’s rift during Christmas back in the good old days which I’m quite sure a lot of people loved and has not been seen in a very long time for no apparent reason. It would have been nice if riot tried to implement a random weather system into summoner’s rift in order to keep the experience fresh as the prospect of unpredictable weather on the rift seems like a very exciting one. Summoner’s rift remains the only classic 5v5 map in the game after 6 years that is just not good enough to be honest and given how large the world of runeterra looks on the map it is a real shame that its potential is being wasted due to a lax attitude by the company in general and overall laziness to finish what you have started.

Innovation/creativity Over the years what made league of legends fun was how creative the developers of the champions, skins and game were. New fun champions were being released, new game modes were being created, summoner’s rift got a new look, it was really looking like good times for the game we all love recently things have gotten really stale game modes have been constantly removed creating a lack of interest in them by the players, champion updates are even slower than they used to be and some champions don’t even seem to exist anymore, summoner showcase was removed, and in general it seems like no one is as excited as they used to be to add to the game creatively as it used to be and it’s become all about the money now.

Esports I can remember staying up to watch the finals of season 2,3 and 4 at absurd times (I live in the UK) and it was always worth it seeing a team who had worked so hard lift the trophy at the end and particularly the imagine dragons performance in season 4 was one of my favourite moments of watching the professional scene ever because I was happy to see league of legends grow from a little niche game into the biggest game in the world and I used to watch the LCS and the splits and support it with everything that I could because I loved how big the game had become and I was proud of the support and recognition it was getting worldwide UNTIL it became the only thing you seemed to care about. The ordinary league of legend player became somewhat of a second class citizen to RIOT. EUW servers were terrible for a long time and even went down for days, massive log in queues, bugs only getting quick fixes when they influenced the outcome in a professional match, the overall slow releases of champions and skins until the split or competition was over, it’s really hard to believe but there was a time when you used to release TWO champions at the SAME time! And every released champion came with TWO skins minimum. I understand that the professional scene is important but we should all be treated equally and there is no excuse why the ordinary player experience has deteriorated because of how large the professional scene has become. The price pool for winning worlds has barely improved in comparison to how much revenue that has been generated over the past 3 years why is that? I got a survey sent to my e-mail address last month saying my opinions on certain areas of the game would like to be heard and I was excited that maybe if the right questions were asked I could say how I felt about all the areas of the game that have deteriorated over the past few years . Every question was about the professional scene. I never finalised that survey because I was utterly disappointed with the questions I was being asked and it has put me off supporting the professional scene in general.

New champion select/ ranked The new design of the champions select looks nice but as you must have seen there are a lot of issues with it. Most of the times you probably get your second picked role as opposed to your first, we still have 3 bans despite the ever growing roster of the game, majority of the people voiced their concern about the dynamic queue which seem to have fallen on deaf ears, the client no longer pops up where it used to before to prevent people from accidental dodges, it was supposed to make champion select feel faster I personally don’t think so, communication is almost non-existent now in the lobby, accurate matchmaking is almost a joke right now and the list goes on and on. I personally don’t understand why solo queue was removed. It created a more balanced team than this new queue which can have 4 premades on one team and no premade players on the other and with the refusal to still give the game a proper voice chat system to push the teamwork based gameplay you are forcing down people’s throats it makes me wonder how much you as a company care about your average customer. Is this what you really wanted to achieve?

The future Honestly I don’t know if this letter would have any impact in regards to the future of this game personally I have started to lose interest in the game as a whole which is really sad as I used to love this game so much at one point and with 943 wins on dominion despite it having a small player base the current decision to take away another map that you basically set up to fail continues to show that the average league of legends player is suffering partly due to the immense growth of the professional scene and money is playing a huge part in destroying this beautiful game for the average player who collectively with you made this game as big as it is today. I took the time out to write this letter because I really hope its makes a difference because in all honesty I am really disappointed in RIOT over the past few years and they seem to have lost their way somewhere and I really hope they can go back to caring for the game and the community that made this game one of the greatest games of all time.

TL:DR The professional scene is hurting the game a lot for the average player. The current state of league of legends excluding the professional scene has deteriorated over time. Riot is taking the same path EA took to becoming the worst company in the gaming industry.