I think Riot was a little misguided in their endeavors earlier this season.
The following is all IMO and I won't be able to link any references. It's all speculation.
It seems like Riot thought early in this season that fast games and games with higher tension would produce a more enjoyable experience. If we look at the limited-time game modes that came up, URF was described as fast and people loved it. The problem there is that the games this season aren't "faster paced" but rather they just end sooner.
When moments have higher stakes, then people feel that much better when they succeed. This feels like Riot's justification for making death timers so long. There aren't moments when you get a kill and it gives you nothing more than the gold + XP that every kill is worth. But that reduces the likeliness of the comebacks which people like, since every kill not only gives the enemy team objective control, but the global gold for each turret taken increases the power of people that were already able to handle you before.
And then there's Sated Devourer and Guinsoo's Rageblade. How Many times has Riot had to rework/remove on-hit items? Why do they insist on keeping such a hard to balance prospect in the game? I know it opens up unique paths for champions, but we've never had problems like "The ADC has too much AD" or "ADCs are critting every other attack, OP", it's always the on-hit builds either are too strong or too weak. I have no idea for their justification on this unless it's just something the game systems team wanted to keep incorporated under the notion of strategic variance through this grandfathered system.
So I do think Riot intended for the changes this season to be enjoyable ones for everyone, but in practice they contributed greatly to the reason season 6 as a whole will be looked down upon as much as things like the Atmog's meta or League of Black Cleavers.
