Dear Riot, My Thoughts on Preserving League of Legends

Now, don't get me wrong. I think League of Legends is the best game out there and is certainly the one that has held my attention for years. But as we all know, games are not forever and I'd predict that League is coming to the end of its 'Golden Age' in the next couple years. However, I think that this can be avoided and here are some of my ideas for the improvement of the game to keep it as the World's number 1 game and esport for years to come.

Just to give readers some idea of my background to critique the game I'm a pretty average skill player hanging around Silver and Gold ranks in Seasons 4,5, and 6 with probably around 4,000 or so hours played on the game in total. I am someone that plays the game to connect with friends IRL and also that I've made in game, but do enjoy competitively playing ranked to improve my skills on various champions or roles as well. I have spent a good deal of time watching high elo streamers and have heard a variety of their issues with the game as well so I believe I have some grounds to address both the League for the majority of players and also those that play the game competitively for a living.

With that being said I believe there are three main groups of people that play League: those that play for fun (normals and other game modes primarily with a group of friends), those who combine "fun" gaming with competitive (play some normals, and now dynamic queue ranked, to connect with friends but also some solo queue competitive), and those who play competitively (primarily by themselves or with one duo partner attempting to grind out rankings). I believe as time has passed since Season 5 all three of these groups have lost players that used to love the game and will contribute to League's eventual fall in popularity.

So here are my suggestions to gain back old players, entice new players, and keep current players in each of these three tiers.

Players who play for fun:

• Make some change in the way champions are purchased. This could be done in either lowering champion cost or increasing IP gained per game, but I think this really is a clincher for a lot of players. If you consider that a champion worth 6300 IP can take at least 50 games, or 30 hours of playing, is just absurd when considering players that are trying to play the game to have fun and try out different things with friends. Perhaps this could even be done just by giving large IP boosts to a party of players, which I know has been done at select times, but why not make it permanent?

• Access to all summoner spells at level 1. I can understand the logic that unlocking spells over time might be some incentive to keep playing the game for someone who has just started, but in reality this doesn't happen. I can remember I first started playing League with a friend and had no idea about summoner spells, runes, masteries, etc. and it just means nothing to a new player. This one is not like a huge problem, just something that could be done giving new players some tools to experiment with immediately after they start playing ( is way cooler just to watch for a level 2 than ).

• Shorter games for Normal Blind Pick. This one is huge. I have a ton of friends that transferred from League to Overwatch once it came out and the main reason was the length of games. I know there are modes like ARAM that work for this, but honestly I don't think these are widely utilized by the community. I think that some minor changes to turret health, gold accumulation, and respawn timers could easily reduce the games by 10 minutes just in the mode of Blind Pick Normals. More competitive players love the length of 30-45 minute games as it allows for individual skill to shine which I agree with, so why not just have that in Ranked and Draft Norms to give satisfaction to those crowds, and those looking for a quicker fun game with friends can have a 15-20 normal game on the only map that players like, Summoners Rift.

• Continue cycling out those game modes with special rewards and events. Riot does a great job of this currently and it does have a large impact on players that come to the game just to have fun.

Players who like fun and competition (assuming elo is from Bronze - Plat):

• Honestly I think the new champion select works perfectly for this elo. Longer queue times of 3 minutes are nothing compared to the joy of having roles delegated and skipping the confusion of old champ select. Please continue this.

• Allow players to duo with people from two divisions away. Please. I literally dodge my Gold V placements because I have friends in Bronze that I love playing with and would rather play with them than rank up which just shouldn't be a philosophy in this game. I shouldn't have to choose friends over ranked or vice versa. What's the harm in a Gold queuing with Bronze? Just place them in a high silver game as these groups really aren't super different in skill. Restrictions should still exist for like Diamond with Silver as there are huge differences in skill, but for lower elo it is less important.

• Make Season Placements less devastating to rank. Honestly I know that Riot places all players in Platinum at the start of every season which causes me to go from Silver II to Bronze III in a placement where I win half the games, but why? Challenger players should have to be placed in Masters to earn their spot in Challenger, but why move all Diamonds down to Plat? Diamond isn't that exclusive of a group. I think winning around 50% of placements should put you back where you ended the last season. For someone that doesn't play a ton of ranked it is super demoralizing to end up in the same place I started last season every year, even though my skill level has obviously improved, it's just a question of putting in the hours to climb.

Players who play competitively or for a living (elo of Diamond - Challenger/ LCS):

• These people hate the new champ select. Straight up. I've watched streams and queue times of 60 minutes are unbelievable. Matchmaking puts Challenger players with low Diamond which is a huge skill gap and makes for uneven games. It honestly has many high elo players demoralized, and I know one of the problems is LCS players playing far less solo queue than they used to, but I'll discuss that later. My solution would be the old champion select with first pick based on LP for players at ranks Diamond and above. This ensures that if a low diamond player does sneak into the game the Challenger players get a chance to carry by playing their main role and not being autofilled into a role they are less skilled on. I've said I love new champ select for lower elos, but since high elo is mainly autofilled or select fill anyways to avoid the 60 minute queue times it really has no difference and just hurts them.

• Make Challenger Great Again. Jokes aside I think that bringing LCS players back into solo queue is essential to make high elo ranked at the level it used to be. This could include greater punishment with decay in Challenger or some really cool rewards for maintaining challenger, or even being in the top 100 in challenger like skins(you make amazing skins riot you can do something special), Summoner Icons that can be flexed in game, Special animations, really the possibilities are endless and players love that stuff. I think this should be emphasized to keep the top level of players loving the game as much as they always have been.

Alright and so ends my very long post. I honestly have loved this game for many years and will continue to love it, but I long for the days when my friends felt just as pulled into it as I was. I'd like to see this community continue to grow while keeping the old blood, and while the nature of video games is to eventually get boring, I think the continuous patches and balance changes keep this game interesting enough. But the addition of little plants and new dragons really isn't enough to bring back old players or address the concerns of current players who are thinking of quitting. One big change I didn't mention because I know it would be extremely difficult is the addition of a cycling of maps, these could still be 5v5 and just randomly cycled in just normal blind pick games (I'm stealing an Overwatch idea that seems to be one that really works for casual gamers). Now that would be a long term design change and wouldn't expect it to be implemented soon, but could possibly take place over several seasons. The rest of these suggestions seem to me like short-term changes that could take place in a single season and I really cannot think of a reason not to make them. Please consider this as I love to be a part of an organization that really listens to its members and I'd love to hear back on any issues with my ideas so the League community can continue to help Riot brainstorm and make League of Legends the best it can be.

Thanks for the amazing game, TI Frost

P.S. I miss old graves... bring him back he was my main adc :( :( :( </3