@Riot my thoughts on current LoL and what could be fixed going into S9

LCS and Sponsoring by Mastercard and other ESPORTS nonsense:

Honestly hate this garbage. I scarcely watch the pro scene but every day I FEEL its effects ingame. Watching the balance team constantly get petrified due to a big event (like worlds) or have annoying balancing hiccups because of proplayers (Taliyah,Azir,Kalista,Sivir ect). I feel like the more $$ that becomes involved in LCS the further we stray from focusing on having a fun INGAME experience because designers are forced to start worrying about the VIEWER experience by higher ups. This usually means mutilating the game to look feasible fun for the people who _dont _ play League by removing the tedious but strategical aspects (lane control/splitpushing/40~50 minute games) and replacing it with ACTION ACTION ACTION! ( 20 minute fiesta's w Baron buff deathballs and bloated damage). I actually dont want LoL to ever be on ESPN or something normally because then there would be a bunch of money sharks and business men looking to come in and LoL would lose its way. League is meant to be PLAYED not WATCHED. Keeping a game fun to watch for outsiders but also fun to play can be extremely hard. I mean Magic the Gathering is a absolute SNOOZEFEST to watch for anyone who doesn't play but its fun as fuck to play. Does that mean MtG should start butchering its gameplay to be more exciting for some ephemeral viewer? Just focus on keeping LoL fun to play and partake of. I mean just look at overwatch. They obsessed over E sports and now its massively declined in popularity. Meanwhile fornite gives almost no shits about making big "leagues" and whatnot but they're fucking KING of PC gaming atm. We should just be happy for what we got. I'm not saying that you should just stop caring about LCS and whatnot BUT it should definitely be moved down a couple notches in priority to other things. If LoL runs off all its players then nobody will be left to watch LCS anyway so FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS! FOCUS ON THE CASUAL NON-PRO EXPERIENCE!

F2P Model clearly impacting balancing decisions:

There are some champions that I feel get blatantly special treatment just because they're popular and thus will ALWAYS sell skins especially oversea's. These are champions that very obviously have questionable or controversial designs BUT these complaints are always overlooked. .

Then there a buffs OBVIOUSLY put in just to sell skins like how Lucian got buffed when he was performing perfectly fine because his cowboy skin, Garen being buffed into monster mode because of his God king skin or how Lee Sin gets monster Q buffs then suddenly he gets a bunch of Chroma's abruptly out of nowhere. I get that you guys dont want to release skins for a underperforming champion but this is getting ridonkulous. another example would be how it was recently revealed that super popularity in China makes him a hot subject for rework team. Considering they make up like some extreme number 80%+ percent of the playerbase its incredibly scary how much $$ could potentially be lost if they botch it. Plain and simple you guys need a better way of getting cash besides skins primarily and champion balance. You need to spread out your sources of income instead of relying on big river.

SUGGESTIONS: ADD MORE WAYS TO MAKE MONEY SO YOU STOP HAVING TO RELY ON SKINS. You guys are sleeping on a gold mine but are intent on not acting unless you can invent the wheel in some way. If you could just get other forms of money coming then you wouldnt have to rely on purposefully sub-optimal balance and 70 skins a month to feed your bajillion workers and ever expanding empire.

EXAMPLES: ANNOUNCER PACKS: Sjokz,Phreak,Pyke,DarkStar Thresh,Odyssey Kayn,Gangplank, Star Guardian Ahri were all at one point in the game as announces. Add them back and sell them for 1350 RP or something.

INGAME EFFECTS: Remember the golden back animation for Challengers? Well do like a Dark star back effect. Or a Star Guardian one filled with glitter and sparkles. a Lunar Revel one with sunlight/moonlight effect. How about a logo of the players favorite LCS team appears while a silver scrapes-lite rendition plays?

SELL MAP ACCENTS: maybe someone wants to use the snowdown accents 24/7? Or the BloodMoon map effects? Maybe bring back CLASSIC SR Rift coloration with that funky purple/orange? Bilgewater pirate theme? You could easily sell these client-side effects for like 1350 a pop.

ON KILL TAUNT EFFECTS! Okay remember how urf a while back had those wonky kill effects? Orbital Laser? the Spooky Urf, heartsplosions? all based on your summoner icon? Add that back and sell them same as how Heroes of Newerth did with Taunts. If you are scared of them being too distracting have an option to turn them off/on in settings. Whats better than Dabbing on an enemy with Pengu after they misplay? Dabbing on a enemy with Pengu as they are VAPORIZED.

https://youtu.be/UZavO1j8A4c?t=45 <- for anyone who may have forgotten

ALSO this should be pretty easy considering Twitch and Riot have basically been life partners from day1 but how about getting TWITCH EMOTES as in-game Emotes? Do you have any idea how much $$ you could generate from having Jebaited,Kappa, haHAA or PogChamp as actual ingame emotes? They would sell like hotcakes from now until the end of eternity.

Make each mode selectable in private custom lobbys Def Not Dominion, Ascension,Blood Moon, PROJECT Overdrive,all for One ect should all be a game mode/map option in personal lobbies.

you always try to get the community to get together or LAN and whatnot so here is a way to do that. do like other games and actually let people play any mode they want in private with their buddies instead of forcing them to choose between SR/TT and ARAM only. Post launch dont focus too much resources to bugfixing these monsters unless something is gamebreaking.

RUNES:

is not broken. Dark Harvest MAKES her broken is not broken. Hail of Blades MAKES him broken electrocute being forced on every assassin? Aftershock basically mandatory on any tank with a CC? Summon Aery conflating poke making oppressive champions even MORE oppressive?

Keystones were cool at first but now I think they are more trouble than they're worth keeping around. I think you should seriously consider removing Keystones (NOT RUNES ENTIRELY! just the keystones) and reworking some of the rune trees. The impact of these runes need to be kept at a minimal level and not literally dictating the tier list like they are now. An entire year of having OP interaction after OP interaction abused is just tiring and I don't want it to happen for a second year. If you REALLY want to keep a keystone effect around then add it to an item or something. IE: could have the https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/7/79/Phase_Rush_rune.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/64?cb=20171126182204 "Phase Rush" effect as a passive which would finally give stronger reason to be picked in the shadow of . A Premier "in-combat" movespeed option. Or likewise the https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/2/29/Predator_rune.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/64?cb=20171126181955 PREDATOR effect could be added to considering how lame EoN is out of the other options atm. could adopt the https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/3/3a/Demolish_rune.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/64?cb=20170926025614 effect offering a more personal and "hands on" method of applying tower damage compared to its brothers .

the point is the REALLY good effects that had a potentially positive effect on gameplay could be kept while the others are simply purged from the game never to be seen again.