Upward balancing irrepairably ruins this game.

I have seen (large population) ultima online shards die because of upward balancing, let that be the warning i start with. Upward balancing is to make the problem the new example and pull everything to its strenght as to level the playingfield rather than admitting mistakes and reverting them.

You cant make a certain unbalanced role the precedent, yet this is exactly what is being done with the extreme buffs graves and cait get spearheading the so called 2016 'marksman meta', and it doesnt matter how "cule it lukes" thats but the fucking salespitch, make it cool looking and everyone eats it up ignoring that these "upward balancing acts" are instigated for only a single perpetual purpose wich is "flashy fast lcs games". The pattern is obvious that riot wants to cut down game time so they can fit in more games, increasing competitive rosters and with it money income from signups, promotions and most of all sponsors.

Empowering the cough "marksman" or id just like to keep it at 'adc' role will force the metagame to counter it with a new asassin meta as tanks will literally evaporate especially with the same pen items in place. Already the bruiser and tank role is dieing, bruisers now have turned into tanky asassins who fly across the screen from the corners in a second, true tanks are a legend of the past. Noone in their right mind can initiate with malphite and survive anymore with the 23054273 botrk's, hatchets, liandrys and the rest. Back when we only had last whisper and void staff to pen with it made a much more balanced game for roles.

But its obvious, riot wants to eliminate the tank role from the game completely because it slows down matches and thats not "flashy". Chasing a tank around the map doesnt make children scream their lungs out, only 2shotting one does.

So what is downward balancing? Obviously nerfing the imbalance back to the reasonable, yes it slows the game down, yes its less flashy, but its fair, and doesnt induce headaches from all the personified projectiles flying around, most importantly it makes a game calm and reserves tactical play alot better than the game of catch type B-game league is quickly becoming, especially when you strip away the graphics. Sure you upgraded the aesthetics of this game, league was a better game with worse graphics but a calmer gameplay.

The league community doesnt consist of apes that misunderstand the "genious" of the riot balance team, it consists often frontfought of an amount of coders and engineers itself. People with a long history of piercing balance issues in a vast amount of games. Some were part of teams themselves, I myself was, back in ultima online creating events and designing enemies so i know all about balance and what the tripwires and swamps are. The league community has voiced concerns and constructive ideas for a long time on forums and most of them were flat out ignored. People have explained with elaboration why all the pen, ignore and rend items were a bad idea but instead of listening you now build the whole fucking new forced meta on it. Do you even have any idea how many champions you could flat out delete from the game right now because they have never before been so unviable. And instead of fixing the core problem again you instead "rework" them to "fit into this disease. When a patient is ill you dont make the patients around them ill to make him feel better, you fucking treat the patient. And the patient in this case is your greed to make this game into something it never should be but has already shown to become; league of game of catch, with SUPER AWESOME COOL FLASHY CHROMA PACK$.

How often does a community have to protest with reason, you cannot force a meta without wrecking the foundations of this game; variety and dynamic. These concepts are no aesthetics, they are mechanics. You cant expect that making something look original is the same as playing original, and thats the grave mistake being made here. When you strip off the skin and sound and are left with the base shape of interaction you have actually removed variety, you have dumbed down all room for dynamics and replaced it with a straight line, hit or miss.

-ihaveapotion.