If a game requires there to be no meta to be fun, the core gameplay is not fun.

A lot of times on this board I see stuff like, "This game was fun when it didn't have a meta." A lot more times I see the same people suggest things to make the game fun again that would almost definitely break the game. But, that's never a good idea since players don't like unstable games (we begged Riot to stop making huge changes at the beginning of S8 and because those same players will often burn out because the core gameplay generally remains the same.

My favorite analogy is RuneScape. RuneScape was a game that a lot of people played around 2005-2007. You ask anyone who played it and they have fantastic memories of the game, but 90% of those people also burnt out and quit. Why?

It's simple. The game wasn't fun for those people. The world was magical and cool and the community made it phenomenal. Every vibrant memory someone has from RuneScape almost always, ALWAYS involves getting scammed or pked in the wilderness, a big house party or drop party, giving items to your gf (a dude LARPing as a girl), etc. There are very few that involve the gameplay itself and most are concentrated into super specific moments like slaying Elvarg, your first dragon.

As for the rest of the game? Not only is RuneScape an MMO, there's almost no skill involved in anything except high level PvP/PvM. The gameplay is that of a glorified cookie clicker. For most people, it's fucking boring as hell. Addicting? Sure. But once you get that first taste of boredom it hits you that RuneScape's gameplay is not something enjoyable to most of the population.

For the part of the population that does enjoy it? You get people that have the game down to a science. They have optimized the game and try every little thing to beat the game. But that isn't fun for most of the community.

In the same vein, I guarantee you that most of League's liveliness lies in the community. Why did you have fun before? Because you played with friends. You guys didn't give a damn about the meta because you were too busy doing dumb stuff and having a good time. Even playing ranked with a duo is good fun, and I'm sure there was always that one guy in your school that you were like, "dude, he's plat." and your friend would say, "that's incredible. We should play with him."

But as you played ranked for the chance to compete with him you realized something; this game sucks. You feel unimpactful in games. Everyone is angry. Only 4-7 good champions exist for every role at one time. You're expected to play multiple roles and not just one trick AP Tryndamere. That's when you reach a crossroads and have to answer two questions for yourself.

1. Am I playing this because I want to or because my friends want to?

2. Do I find this fun? Beyond all this meta nonsense is the idea of farming minion waves to push down towers enjoyable?

I feel like this board has passed the first question without serious reflection. A lot of players here don't understand that the only way to get real satisfaction out of this game is to practice and learn. To get frustrated. To get their asses beat over and over until they're proficient and both understand and appreciate the gameplay. This is a very punishing game. If you don't follow a roam, you could easily lose off that, and that's not a level of stress most people are equipped to handle. However, most people tend to stay because they don't really have much to do outside of that. I think if that happens to you, the most important thing to do is test stuff out, be adventurous, or maybe just try a new game or two and see if that's something you enjoy more. The worst thing you can do is play a game you hate internally but tell yourself you have nothing better to do.

And this especially applies to URF. URF was a terrible game mode that relied on people just picking the stupidest shit for it to be enjoyable. Sometimes though, you just want to unwind with an easy win so you pick Hecarim and your opponent also wanted to unwind with an easy win so he picked Wukong and now you're both angry at the tryhard playing the tryhard champion when in reality the mode just sucks.

That's all. If any of the previous text speaks to you about League in general, I think you should contemplate whether or not you're better off spending your time doing something healthier for you.

As for me, I still love the base game, this was just a rant about URF because it's a garbage game mode and my normie friends pressured me into playing it and now I have a bad taste in my mouth because the mode sucks and it's never been fun and I was reminded why.

But yeah, URF has never been fun except for those 2 days when everyone thought Riot broke the game...

... and when you're watching "The Fast" montages.

Otherwise, mode blows.

P.S. there are metas that are less fun than other metas (looking at you Ardent Censor). However, with the amount of complaining some people do, and the fact specific members of this board are never pleased, it's clear they don't dislike the meta, they dislike the gameplay.