I didn't really start watching professional league till season 6, with little clips here or there in season 5. I keep hearing that the balance choices and the way current champions are released are due to the fact that the game was too boring for casual audiences. Watching older clips from those seasons, it looks like I'm watching a completely different game. However, it certainly didn't look boring though.
Tormentula3 votesBack in the day there was a lot of unique strategies you'd never see outside of watching LCS, so it was very investing to watch and try to understand how these strats work, and you'd see more variety in picks built around different team comps and strategies.
For example; you'd look at LCS and see a duo top+jungler walking around with bot lane swapping to race for towers, it was really alien to what players were used to, and on top of it, more action happened because of how hyper aggressive and productive everybody had to be to win...
then came 2016 and LCS lost numerous strategies so every game just looked like your average solo queue game, there was hardly any room for different team compositions (everybody just played for teamfight compositions rather than picks or off-meta lane counters), and on top of that dying and losing tower was so ridiculously risky that in LCS players didn't play aggressive.. they played completely passive in fear of losing off of 1 single pick, you'd see first blood at 20 sometimes even 30 minutes which was boring af, on top of everybody playing tanks for teamfighting comps.
Death by Glamour1 votesS3 was hyper aggressive especially in china with stuff like aatrox jungle just so you could lvl 2 towerdive
S4 was pretty much the same with assasins seeing a lot of play
the Korean meta began to take hold in S5 where games were stalled out by ziggs and xerath clearing wave easily (why we have empowered minions now), cinderhulk meta was boring to watch but personally better to play in
assassin/bursty metas are generally more fun to watch but usually I have no idea what is going on until the casters do a slower replay
Syrile1 votesI think the game was much more exciting before. Season 6 was probably the most exciting and I even started after that season was done and over. World's was much better than the last two. -_-
TimeToDieSuckers1 votesI don't remember what season(s) the following things took place in, but my god were they boring.
Every game bot lane swaps to a 2v1 lane on both sides of the map (bot lane vs top lane) in other words usually a tank hiding under turret, occasionally getting turret dived 3v1 and being forced to lane against 2 players. ResidentSleeper
The turret wintrading, 95% of games teams would intentionally give up say bot outer turret at like 3-4mins into the game, while the other team takes your top lane outer, then you recall, head to the other side (top or bot) and trade those turrets too. No fights, just trading turrets for free gold. ResidentSleeper
Also, incredibly passive play which would equate to like 5 kills throughout the entire game, both sides combined. ResidentSleeper
Not, all of those things were competitive "meta" at the same time necessarily, but 2v1 lanes and turret trading is insanely boring, and I swear to god it felt like it lasted for years in competitive. (or maybe my memory is just bad)
Regardless, I like games to be in their "proper" roles, as it is more akin to what league of legends is really like when you play yourself. No 2v1 garbage.
Hügö1 votesIt was interesting for the players that liked the strategic part of the game when the teams rotated and intentionally giving up objectives to get something else. For the younger players who have the attention span of a fly it was probably boring as the just want to fight.
Stars Shaper1 votesIt used to be even more boring.
At least in LEC we saw some peculiar teamcomps, back in last season was who rightclicked best.
