[{quoted}](name=Altonius Amakiir,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ljZuQ9bX,comment-id=00170000,timestamp=2018-04-16T20:09:19.979+0000)
This is really well said. It's rather frustrating this entire situation. I first started using the boards because their communication with players was so good. There used to be a reason to read through the red posts because they would hint at stuff coming up or common concerns with the game. That just doesn't seem to happen anymore. The last time I remember being able to do that was leading up to Warwick's reveal. I was able to piece together most of his kit based off of red posts. After he came it started to become harder and harder to find out Riot's future plans, then Ghostcrawler's monthly Q&A disappeared, and I just stopped being able to find much of anything by the time Xayah and Rakan came out.
I forgot Ghostcrawler's monthly Q&As were even a thing. I did a quick search to jog my memory, and I only see two different links. Did GC's monthly Q&A really just end up amounting to two Twitch recordings?
[{quoted}](name=Altonius Amakiir,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ljZuQ9bX,comment-id=00170000,timestamp=2018-04-16T20:09:19.979+0000)
As an analogy for how it feels now, with everything seemingly in the dark: It feels like someone is sneaking onto my computer and adding a bunch of mods to my favorite game. I may end up liking the mods down the road, but it feels like some bit of trust has been broken between me and the mod installer. As the owner of the game in this analogy I should have a say in what I do or don't want installed. It could be that the guy installing the mods is following me around and listening to me talk about the game to friends, but if they never talk to me about it or make me a integrated part of the process, it will always feel like a parent laying down the law.
I agree with this 100%. I understand Riot may want to keep totally new content somewhat of a secret, since it makes sense to build hype to an entirely new addition, but I think it is the absolute worst strategy to apply the same thing to changes to existing content. Even when a champion gets relaunched, that champion is a piece of content many players have become attached to and want to follow through development, to make sure that they turn out right. Similarly, while it's understandable that the devs may not have all the details on upcoming gameplay updates, or may change direction farther down the line, I don't think it's been healthy of Riot to keep us all in the dark when making sweeping changes to the game itself, e.g. the map, itemization, and so on. Fixing broken content is not the same as releasing new content, and Riot trying to apply the same secrecy + hype formula to both I think has had majorly negative consequences on both the game and player trust.
[{quoted}](name=Altonius Amakiir,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ljZuQ9bX,comment-id=00170000,timestamp=2018-04-16T20:09:19.979+0000)
I want the surrender@20 red posts articles to be full of rioters answering questions again instead of context quotes, I want it to take more than a few minutes to read again. Just needed to rant a bit about this. I have felt this shift in policy so much trying to get simple questions answered that it actually was causing me a great deal of stress in my life. It took something like 8 months just to get a response, not even an answer to a simple question. I honestly hate this shift in communication so much that it has made me seriously consider not playing anymore. It used to be if the game was in a state that made me adverse to playing it as much I would still have the feel-good that Riot cared and would fix it. That goodwill-type feeling is all but gone now.
I feel you on this. I joined the Boards specifically so that I could give constructive feedback and engage in dialogue with the devs, and even joined the Warden team (now the mod team) to make that dream happen. In practice, though, getting a Riot response is a crapshoot, no matter how well-written the post, and when a red post does happen, it's still a gamble on whether or not the Rioter in question will say anything of substance. I find it tremendously disappointing to hear from Riot that their devs don't have the time to answer players (and that is indeed often an actual problem), and then see a fistbump icon on a popular thread, only for the red response in question to be some one-word response to a pun, or alternatively some pages-long rant about how the OP was being hyperbolic and how the Boards are just a minority echo chamber of baseless negativity. I've been here since before the Boards even launched, and to this day I still don't know how exactly Riot incorporates feedback most of the time, if they even do so at all anymore. Most threads on Reddit comment on e-sports, and the only surveys I received from League asked me whether I wanted to buy a particular skin. The Boards were meant to offer clear feedback channels between the playerbase and Riot, but due to the complete lack of resources and effort put into the site, no such thing has happened.
