I don't want to quit League.

It took me three hours to type all of this (with a snack break in between), but honestly, I preferred doing this than playing 6 matches and meeting 24 new people that I'd instantly hate.

I see posts all the time that just go something absurd, like, "Lol #leagueofscuttlecrab lol leaving league now bye;" no context beyond that, and no foundation beneath. That's just not it for me, though. I just feel too strongly about it. I don't want to quit this game, but I just feel more and more empty inside with each 30 minutes of my life I willingly waste in the hopes for some more sweet, sweet LP. I can feel my hands lightly trembling to the rhythm of my stressed, palpitating heart during and after each game, regardless or winning or losing. Neither outcome makes me feel good, or warm, or pleasant anymore. The serenity of a wholesome, family-friendly philosophy has been diminished to just a toxic mess where the only people that have fun are the trolls that die lots and say "Lol sorry wasn't looking; I was rolling a blunt." Ugh. Where can I start? Well, I guess I can sum it up into four main focal points of discussion, which can then be divided into sub-points. I guess. I'll start from what bugs me the least, and finish with what makes me want to unplug my laptop and hang myself from the ceiling with the cord.

#1. Bugs, Pathing, and Design choices.

A: Bugs. Man, you just can't seem to escape these little bastards, these days. Some are worse than others. My three least favourite ones are that you're not allowed to cancel empowered auto attacks (Darius's Crippling Strike, Jhin's Fourth Shot, etc.) (If this isn't a bug, then it slips into 1: C, instead), the fact that whenever you attack a large monster (especially scuttle crab), it'll just instantly regen to full health, making your first few attack pointless and wasting your time, and this one bane to my cs'ing, where minions will randomly give agro to the minion I auto'd. I'll be waiting to last-hit a minion, but no minions are attacking it. It has 81 health, and I have 78 AD. So I say, "fuck it," and I decide to auto it twice. But as soon as I auto it once, one single minion will turn around to kill it on me. Like, hello? Can you stop that????

B: Pathing. There are two different annoyances, here. One is where you're simply trying to last-hit as an ADC, but oh, no. You click on the low-health minion, and your champ decides to take three seconds walking around your own minion wave just to be in range of it. Since minions can push you around like a little bitch as if they gave you $5 beforehand. The other is with terrain. All the times there's something on the other side of a thin wall, and instead of putting a ward on that side, or attacking something over that side, your champ decides to just start walking away? Yeah, that doesn't get exponentially annoying with each game that passes by.

C: Design choices. This is the most annoying. Why does the exact pin-point of the cursor have to be on the top-left corner of the icon? When I'm trying to kite, all I see is a big, green blur swinging back and forth on my screen, and when I put that big, green blur over-top of an enemy, I expect my champ to actually attack it. But nah, the pin-point of it is on the top-left, because that's where the tip of the glove's index finger is, and that's where the point of the red sword is as well. So if I point directly at someone, there's a chance my champion will instead walk towards the point on the map slightly above and to the left of my target. Wow. Just wow. I don't fucking care about the aesthetic. I want accuracy! Give us an option to customize our cursor to anything we want!

#2. Bewilderingly Bizarre Balancing, Bronze B-liner Bullies, and Blatant Bcounterpicks.

A: Counterpicks. I tryhard in every game I play. I pretty much know the mechanics/playstyles of every single champ in the game (because I'm just that passionate about this game (and I'm a fucking nerd)), and I know how I would need to play around them in order to win. Or should I say, "whom" I would need to play, in order to play around them in order to win. Because that's what League has become. There's nothing legendary about this game; it's just League of Counterpicks.

If I'm first-pick, I'm so much more likely to personally lose than not. Surely, this applies to many of you, too. Because in those games, I'm forced to be put into positions where I'm absolutely helpless. Did I choose Darius top? Well, looks like they chose Quinn, or Kennen. Lucky me. Glad I'm forced to be completely passive and docile in lane because I'm absolutely destitute and hopeless against even trying to get in Q range of them. Did I pick Evelynn Jungle? Well, looks like they picked Morgana. How long does my predictable Charm potential last? 2.5 seconds? Good thing they now have a free spell shield that lasts for 5. Oh, good thing every single person on their team bought a Zhonya's, Banshee's Veil and three Control Wards, too. I sure haven't been rendered completely useless for the remainder of this game. I sure don't feel absolutely devastated for being wedged into a position where I'm unable to help in any way, shape, or form. Did I pick an ADC other than Xayah one single time? Well, looks like they picked Zed, again. Good thing I have a Brand support that'll do everything to keep me alive. Oh wait, he was autofilled. Oh, he's stealing my cs, too. Oh, he also does nothing to keep me alive. Oh, he was just waiting for me to die so he could steal my kills, too. Great.

B: B-liners. There are as many people that directly counter another as there are specific champions that don't even need to think in order to do well. I like to call them B-liners. Because all they need to do is walk in a straight line until the enemy is no longer able to kite or run away. You know, pieces or shit like Warwick, or Garen, or Udyr. They don't need to think like you do. Nooo, all they need to do is buy enough armour in the hopes they can chase you down and swiftly 1-shot you. As they build full armour. Were you kiting that Warwick as an ADC? Well, good thing your autofilled Lux support can't land her Q to save her 19 LP. Now, he can just press E, keep sprinting up to you, and boom. You're basically dead, now. Oh wait, you flashed before his fear could hit you? You've almost killed him, now? Oh, he just pressed R. Good thing you no longer have flash, because you're now back within hugging distance, unable to move, and he just gained nearly all of his health back. Yay. Now, he's super fast, you're super low, and none of your abilities are able to save your sorry ADC ass. Sure, they can be countered by a team that knows how to peel. I'd sure as hell love to be in an ELO where that exists.

C: Balancing conundrums. You know how sometimes, you have to work extra hard to outplay enemies? Some champions don't have to work hard at all. They're like B-liners, but they don't even need to B-line in order to be obnoxious.

I. Illaoi? It doesn't matter who or where you are. She's a ranged juggernaut. A tanky AD mage. Just think about that. Think about it. Use your brain. If you go out of your way to simply try to last-hit a cannon minion, be prepared to either not hit the cannon minion, or lose 110 health in the process. Or both. If you hide behind your minions, she can just wail on your while also killing your minions, killing two birds with one stone. If you don't hide behind minions, she throws out one of the most top-tier cancer abilities in the game, ascended to cancerous heights only seen next to Nasus's Wither and Zoe's Bubble of Sadness. If she hits you with it, you've basically lost lane. It's free damage, and if you're even more unlucky, it forces you to put even more cognitive thought into even surviving your lane for the next ten seconds, which in turn makes her require even less to continue freely dominating it. And then, her ult. There's occasionally a tip in the loading screen: "Sometimes, the mere threat of an ability is more useful than the use of it." Oh boy, I think I found the champ that literally wrote this tip. No one wants to gank her, because they know it's pointless. They know there's no hope to even try doing so. Illaoi doesn't need her ult in order to 1v1, which means she'll always have it when you try to gank her. Which means, you won't. Juggernauts are supposed to have trouble closing the gap between people, but Illaoi has absolutely no need to do so. She has a personal bubble that no one is allowed to enter, and she has ranged abilities that extend that personal bubble, allowing her to continue harassing safely until the end of time. All Riot would need to do to her is make her Tentacles scale off of bonus AD instead of total AD. That's all you need to do to make her less of a nightmare. Literally. I could think of many more things she needs (like making her cocaine-influenced ult-tentacles only go berserk on targets within the range of her ulted radius, or reworking her e to make her conjure a vessel that becomes filled with the spirit of the next target she auto attacks, so you can actually fucking WALK AWAY FROM HER when she tries), but that's the most essential one. Because if she's going to 100-0 someone, she damn-well better not have 3000 health and 400 armour whilst doing so.

II. Draven? What's there to be said? He walks up to you at level 1, and you lose 100 health. And then he does it again. And again. It's un-trade-able, as he out-damages you, and it's un-kite-able, as he has the higher tier of range only consistently surpassed by three other marksmen. And we all know that if someone even tries to kite him, they'll have to stop in place in order to land their own basic attack, which gives him the easy time of catching up and immediately winning the trade again. And again. And again. Whenever I play against a Draven, the literal only thing I can do in the early game is wait for him to tower-dive me. Because that's literally what every Draven in Silver does: they tower-dive, because they know for a damn fact that he's going to do more damage than me and the tower combined. This could easily be balanced! Either drastically reduce the base damage whilst buffing the AD scaling, or reduce the total damage whilst letting it crit instead! As of now, he gets free early damage just for doing nothing. It's a chore to play against, and it sucks the fun out of trying to do so.

III. Karma? What are you supposed to even do, here? You walk to lane, and this sadistic crack-whore just "LOCK LEE A LOOM!!!!!" or whatever the fuck she says and makes you instantly lose 150 health. You can't dodge her ult-q, because it has the blast radius of Kurt Cobain's fucking forehead, and you can't dodge the ensuing Comet that always comes after, thanks to that lovely 50% slow, unless you specifically play a champion designed to poof away from bad trades. The only reason Ezreal is always going to be a strong pick is because he can just press one ability to always unfuck himself without the help of an incompetent support. Anyways, back to Karma. Other mages can deal shit-tons of damage, too, but she has the absolute NERVE to dish out hard cc and ally movement steroids/shields on top of it. She's just overloaded, and it's a giant pain in the ass when she both negates your damage and deals a shit-ton of her own.

IV. Nearly every mage in existence??? Some of the mages in the game have interesting mechanics that I can enjoy and appreciate (Such as Brand and Ryze, and Azir, if he counts). They can utilize their abilities in different patterns to omit different results for the sake of different scenarios. That's great. You know what isn't great? A Syndra spamming Q in the backline before walking up, pressing E to stun everyone in a mindlessly large radius for a significant amount of time without the need to even aim, and pressing R to deal an actual truck-load of damage to top it off. It's the niche every mage has, and it's the niche no mage deserves. Lux, Syndra, Veigar, Zoe, Annie, Zyra, etc. All they do is sit around, spamming their hard-cc skillshot. Once they finally hit a champion with it, they proceed to press their other 3 abilities and instantly delete you. "Guess you should have dodged that one skillshot for the 19th time that fight xD" Yeah, fuck off. While Karma is the worst, she's horrible for her own special reason; they're all just annoying and monotonous to play against, though.

There are always going to be others with problems like this, but these problems can always be adressed! What a shame no one really cares enough.

#3. The Silver ELO, The Matchmaking Atrocity, and Autofill.

A: Matchmaking. This one isn't too complex to grasp. It's been beaten to death by many, many other people. When you're playing, you get placed against people you truly don't deserve to be placed against, and you get placed with people whom you'll probably never want to see again, afterwards. Riot says they implement secret algorythms to ensure that games will always have a 50-50 chance of being won/lost. That means if you're a good player, Riot is gonna put a good player on their team, and Riot's gonna put a shit player on yours. And they're gonna do that game, after game, after game. Eventually, Riot will have forced you to lose so many times, the MMR will consider you the bad player! So then they'll match you with (at least) competent players, and put the shit players on their team, instead! That's why people have been noticing themselves going on massive win-streaks, followed by massive losing-streaks. Including myself. And I hate every second of it.

B: The Silver ELO. I personally beat this one to death with my own pen. This current post I'm making is solely designed to vent every single thing that makes me cry, so I'm just going to link my previous posts. They all got severely upvoted, so that brings a shard of warmth to my heart, knowing I'm not truly alone in this sad, sad world. https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Kozz0rE0-silver-is-so-stressful https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/OHZ8hQRW-just-had-a-sad-moment-in-my-last-game https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/dGrmqRQA-remember-that-2018-ranked-message-we-all-got

Enjoy. I know I didn't.

C: Autofill. Ohhhhhhh, boy. Remember when we had the OPTION to get the guaranteed role we desired? Where we could choose to not play with certain teammates? Where we could host an actual norms game and choose the people that were on our team? Yeah, I miss Team Builder, too. I surely didn't mind waiting ten minutes for it to happen. You know why? Because I could just watch YouTube in that time! And watching a YouTube video between games is probably a healthy way to cool down after each game, anyways. Because when I instead only have to wait five minutes for a game just to be put into a match filled with inting morons that WILLINGLY pick Udyr against a Quinn and proceed to go 0/13/2 because she counters him, I'd prefer watching THREE YouTube videos instead, because I just have a completely miserable time in the 30 minutes of my life that have been wasted! Stolen away by the incompetence and trolling of people that either have no idea what they're doing or know exactly what they're doing.

#4. Ranked, Riot's sheer blindness towards trolls in ranked, and their sincere punishment towards the people that can't handle them.

A: Ranked. Sigh... I used to just play Norms. I was unranked for years, and I was much happier back then. Because when people trolled, and fed, and caused me to lose, I would just think, "So what? I went 54/4 as full crit Garen, and I had a blast!" I only started Ranked because I made a post on here a long time ago, saying, "Hey, I hate Illaoi. She OP," before a bunch of dilapidated, vapid, vacuous silver players responded with, "Yes, well, in the higher ELO's, people know how to play around her ultimate. You probably wouldn't know that, though, you uninformed, UNRANKED troglodyte. I bet you don't even watch Rick and Morty, you absolutely uncultured swine!" before readjusting their monocles and clinking their glasses together, emitting random "Fnrrrr" noises as a sign of bodacious condescension. So I decided to give Ranked a try! And I've been hooked ever since. If I truly believed I can only exert the energy and skill-expression of a Silver player, I would just settle for going back to norms and no longer trying as hard. But I don't! I made it to Gold last year out of sheer luck alone, and I as well as many other ex-gold players (sent to silver solely from the unfair new-years placements and not be their own incompetence) are struggling in every game we play to climb back up, but I've already stated all the reasons why that's just so damn hard to do without luck by your side. And whenever I get unlucky, I just wanna fucking die.

B: Trolls. Riot treats trolls the same way Democrats treat domestic terrorists. "Hehe, he's probably just having a bad game." No. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5LXCMwZP0 Do you remember these two assholes? It took Riot over 250 fucking games to realize these two people were legitimately trolling and not "just having a bad game." And Riot only found out because many YouTubers and Redditers made very popular posts about them! They did Riot's job for them! https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/H5EfNgIr-im-the-best-mid-fiora-player-here-is-my-opgg-and-just-follow-my-build-and-you-will-get-rank-1 And look at this guy! He's literally bragging about how he feeds as Fiora Mid, and Riot still hasn't given enough of a shit to notice. UGH!!!!! Riot, just get your head out of your ass and realize some people are actually trying to be bad on purpose!

C. Riot punishing those who can't handle trolls on a daily basis. ... .... This is why I'm done, mostly. Last year, I made it to Honour 4. I got my Medieval Twitch. I got Grey Warwick. I installed the PBE. I was happy. I was happy! Ranked didn't matter as much, and I didn't care as much! Things were good! League of Legends was still a game back then, designed to be played for fun! Now, I'm honour 0 on here. I'm still Honour 3 on the PBE, but on here, I just can't control myself, anymore. Every single game I play, I do my best to keep cool. Every single game, I treat every teammate of mine as a friend! An ally! I'll start off calmly when they make mistakes, like, "Don't worry; all the more gold for you to support me with," or, "Trynd, may you please stop tower-diving? You're not level 6, and you currently consistently die because of this." But mistake after mistake, game after game, troll after troll, and loss after loss, I just can't control myself, anymore. "Brand, what in the world are you doing?" "I'm killing all your minions so we can push to the enemy tower! :3 Also you bought a Cull, lol you can't talk shit now" "So we can get ganked more easily? You're stealing my cs and putting us at a larger risk of getting ganked because I bought an item that requires me to stay safe and farm?" "Yes :3" "Are you a fucking moron???" "Lol enjoy ur ban" BOOM!!!! Instant chat restriction. I get it; I am toxic, now. It might be the constant trolls in every game I play. It might just be the brain-dead autofilled Brand support I got that put me hopelessly behind beyond repair! It might be my own damn autism. I don't fucking know at this point. Do you think I'm toxic outside of this game? "After reading all the times you said 'fuck' in this post, yes." Yeah, oops. I guess that's what happens when you vent.

So, in the end, I don't know what I should do. I want to keep playing Ranked. I want to climb, and I want to get my honour levels back. I want to know that I'm not bad at the game I love so much! But everyone else seems to want me to feel bad about it. I want to stop playing Ranked and just settle for the PBE. I get free stuff, I don't get mad at teammates, and most importantly, I'm considered "honourable" on there! I want to do both, and I want to do neither at the same time.

I guess I'm just lost and can no longer find my way.