My guess is that the change really is for a majority of players. That internal data suggested when games end 25-35 min the majority of players put in a second game or 3rd game. I don't think the scheduling playtime is a minority, I think most folks tend to play fairly casually with a few matches every day or so. Dedicated folks like myself, the ones who have a day off work and sit down and spend 4-6 hours on league when they love the meta, I don't think that's nearly as common. I think we might be the minority, just going off the Dev attitude and seeing what they target and focus on. Looking at the end results of their decisions I don't feel like im the target audience for many changes to game including game time.
Snowball, Honestly it was getting pretty bad in longer matches as well, it just took for ever to close out. The attitude of we can win this in late has been way less common in my games over the last few years, seasons 1-4 I recall 12 - 20 kill gaps and folks being like WTF ever, once we get to 6 items and level 18 their lead counts for shit lets play this one out our comps superior late. Around season 6 I started noticing an increase of GG FF 20 once there was even a 3 kill lead in a lane. I don't know if that's exactly related to game time, player attitude, increase in folks not throwing leads, or just the state of the game. Its likely a mix of several, But I do know that teammates who give up and quit over any loss of a lead really handicap their team, and that shit seems pretty common last few years, and often times treated like its acceptable?
I think its possible to preserve gameplay and reduce the game time to be approachable to a majority of players. I really feel like there's the potential here to rebalance the game for this. I want to generate enough interest, to try and make enough of the boards and player base vocal about this and that its importiant to us all to hit a good middle ground. Because if you Shorten it to much and I don't think its possible to keep league as the same gameplay.
Theres just to much impact around a misplay because each moment accounts for a higher % of the game so the amount of time your team pays the price for a bad decision is higher. This Always results in more snowballing, even when game balance is the exact same. Like even if on paper you have it set so that every champion enjoys power spikes at the same % of a games time for the same % of the games duration they used to. Example (40 min vs 20 min games. Spike at 10 min, now spikes at 5 min. Loses steam at 20, now loses steam at 10.) Each individual moment in a shorter game accounts for more influence over the matches outcome. Theres no way around this.
Anyhow, current meta I kinda like, its a good opportunity for folsk to try new things learn new roles play new comps, theres a fuckload of viable comps that have not been viable for years if at all. If we could push the game time back, about 5-10 more min, I think ADCS would be viable again. I Always feel there are a lot of immobile mages that are strong and don't get the respect they deserve, but then again they need to be good w skillshots so some parts of the player base will always be subar on them. I think an increase in good tank support mains would probally assist marksmen back to viability, like my money is that 
is likely sleeper OP currently. Might be wrong, anyhow its irrelevant.
The current meta, its fun for me, but I think if games lasted even 8 more min then this meta would be AWSOME for dam near everybody and we would see much higher champion viability and comp viability.
I could care less about being praised for landing 80% of my death sentences, or dark bindings, but when having a specific lane partner that is deprimental to you being able to make money because they picked something that has no individual survivability into Brand and completely rob me of the chance to help the rest of the team late game, of course I'm going to complain about how the majority of marksman feel like troll picks right now and how hard it is to support them no matter how well you did pre rip adc patch
let me enter my lane Riot... Don't do
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