This game is becoming a joke....
I've played on and off since Season 2ish. Give or take a few months. I've played it casually at most, over all enjoying it, even through the more questionable meta's.... I saw the new runes coming out and thought "awesome".. boy was I wrong...
And it's not just the Runes, it's what the runes end up showing, and that's just how imbalanced and broken this game really is.
Towers are wet paper bags as people have been saying for Eons.
Games are decided in the first 10 minutes, and sucks to be you if you make 1 human error, because that'll probably cost you the game.
You've got highly played champs like Xin who are designed to snowball, who are designed to win 1v1 matches, and go crazy after that, with invincibility ults that just compound on his already snowballing steroids.
This game has become a snowball game. Nothing else, no skill involved either. A game revolving around "team that makes the first mistake loses" is not a well balanced game. A game where the teams need to consistantly make good choices, or whatever team makes the right calls the most wins is a well balanced game, but right now? Nope. There are so many snowball mechanics its nearly impossible to come back from.
Dragons gradually buffing the team(s), usually the team winning gets the dragons, and more dragons, and more, its a slow snowball mechanic.
Rift Herald nuff said, 9/10 times the team alerady winning is going to get it, only securing their victory more as the herald sieges down yet another tower.
Baron and Elder, etc.
It's almost impossible these days to come back from a loss unless the other team massively screws up, and that isn't what a good well balanced game should be. "The team winning by 10 minutes wins unless seriously screwing up, or the other team has a late game mega steroid champion like Twitch".
That's just messed up on so many levels for balance.
But alas, that's what riots gone for, and what they have. A game who's balance doesn't actually exist, but revolves around snowball mechanics and steroid overdose champs who have insane power output cuz you have x, y item and are past 10 mins..
It's become a snowball vs steroid game. Instead of skill, and ouplays vs skill and outplays.
Just last game my vayne leashed for me on red, and accidently took it from me. My blue was also stolen. I was screwed. I couldn't outfarm, or keep up with the enemy xin. He had double buffs, and blew through his jungle much faster than me. He got 1 kill, and started counter jungling me. There wasn't crap I could do from that 1 mistake pre 5 minutes of my vayne taking red buff essentially resulted in our secured loss. Pre 5 minutes.
After that he was so far ahead he took the drakes, and rift, got a few more picked kills, and got away due to his ult, and MS runes, and there wasn't jack anyone could do about it.
Then the Runes come into play. The runes themselves result in such a snowball 1 sided game. If worthless turrets, and the drakes, dragon, herald, etc. weren't enough of a snowball mechanics favoring the already winning team, the runes are the last nail in the coffin to truly make this game a joke now.
I'll quote what Jrud said as he summed it up perfectly: "In the last 2 seasons the game has just become focused more and more on snowballing. Towers are insanely weak, objectives are focused on giving permanent advantages to the currently winning team, and now the new runes are heavily weighted to snowballing damage dealing champions.
I would much rather play a game that rewarded consistent skillful play than a game that can be decided by a single fight at 5 minutes. I've seen plenty of games where one single misplay by an ADC spells disaster for his lane, then the support and ADC of the enemy team are free to terrorize mid and the enemy jungle on the bot side which can easily lead to a huge advantage and often times a won game.
Furthermore, the most powerful of the new keystones all increase damage by percentages and multipliers that will be affected by items and being ahead. Press the Attack marks your opponent with the 12% damage increase debuff; so if you're an item ahead of your opponent because you're winning and you both have that mastery, you're going to get much more out of that mastery than he is, and that's where the problem lies. The same goes with increasing your attack speed modifier with Lethal Tempo. If you have more damage than your opponent, you're going to be attacking faster with more damage, it's a multiplier on your winning streak. Basically all of them except for phase rush, unsealed spellbook, and Glacial Augment have a snowball mechanic in one way or another that will make an already ahead champion continue to be ahead."
This game isn't fun anymore. I only get to play 3-4 games a week if even that, and only getting maybe 2 games a day when I do get to play, sometimes only 1. To come into this joke of balance is not fun, rewarding, or even worthwhile. Why play a game where the first mistake 5-1o minutes in results in your loss no matter how well you play after that?
When mechanics are so 1 sided, that the team winning can snowball massively out of control, and where champion kits themselves like Xin who are already by design made to snowball out of control, get buffed even more ontop of that with the new rune system?
There isn't a reason. I'm done.
