How bad are things? A breakdown of recent changes.
So riot has done some big things the past season. They've added an honor system, changed the IP/BE system, and changed the rune/masteries system. These changes can't possibly benefit everyone equally. I'm going to write out how I "feel" each one effects different types of players.
The honor system drops keys/skins/gemstones to players for playing "honorably". From what I've seen if you don't troll, talk shit, etc. you're fine. This system (most likely) punishes those who troll and makes it really hard for them to open chests for free. It benefits players who play a lot. If I play a lot one day I usually get an honor capsule or keys the next day. I might not play a bunch of games in one day for a few weeks and I won't see a capsule or key during that time. It feels like it's working more or less as intended. You get credit for each game you act like a sane person in. That's really all RIOT wants us to do. Act like normal people. Overall this system hurts trolls, helps hardcore players, is neutral towards casual players.
The rune/mastery changes felt necessary to me. The runes sucked. They buffed certain runes to make them simple and take away the pay to win aspect of the game. However, this made runes super boring. So it had to go. What we got in return is a chance to pick 6 buffs to our champs pregame to help define our playstyle. This is great in theory. In reality, every champ will have to be balanced around the best runes for that champ. Because certain runes will always help certain champs more than others they will always have to be balanced around the strongest champs for the runes. This will lead to winners and losers from the rune system.
Hopefully, each year we will have large rune changes/rune additions so different champs get to shine, or champs get to shine with different play styles each year. Overall, this seems to be a great change in streamlining the pre-game setup. The winners and losers of this will be determined over time based on balance efforts by riot. The system does help new players in theory.
New players need a lot of other things. A better tutorial, all options open at level 1, and probably lots of in-game short breakdowns of how the game works (maybe just get some YouTubers to make it and pay them money). The base rune/mastery changes probably help new players the most and hurt a few players who had very select rune/mastery combos that they depended on. In the end, most players will win or lose based on how their favorite champs and play styles stack up in the new meta, just like in the old system.
The new BE/IP system seems to really create the most defined winners and losers. There's a lot of hate on the forums about this, but I can see why they did it, and it's really not a bad system. The numbers might need tweaking, but overall it's fine. The players it helps the most are new players, who play 1-5 games a day averaging closer to 2-3 who need a lot of champs and don't really care what order they get them in. If you are keeping all champ shards you need and breaking down duplicates and champions you already have you will unlock all champions MUCH faster than under the old system. It's not even close.
There are a few types of people who will benefit the least from this system. The ones with most of the champs unlocked and might never get a champion shard they don't have. The people playing 10+ games a day will suffer because their leveling will take a lot more hours than people whose wins almost always grant them the win of the day bonus. Neither of those groups really need help. Most people don't play over 100 champs so you could easily have most of the champs you want by that point. If you're playing 10+ games a day and not spending any money on riot, you are already getting a ton of entertainment for free.
The group that could really use help is the group of players who get to play one day a week. The weekend warriors who get to play 10 games a week, but they all fall within a 24-hour window. People need to be able to stack 2-3 win of the day bonuses. Let the first one accumulate over 20 hours, the next over 48 hours, the next over 72 hours. Give the weekend warriors a chance to make the most of their precious hours.
You're welcome for the giant post you didn't ask for, and probably don't care about. Overall, I think RIOT is heading in a good direction. It all comes down to how the numbers are tweaked. We get a lot of free stuff between honor capsules/chests/leveling. I think it's pretty well balanced between getting things for free and what you have to pay for. I've played plenty of games where everything was way more expensive for way worse stuff. Then again, I don't care about rune skins/wards/emotes etc. I stopped leveling up my champion masteries past 5 because I didn't see the point. I've got a page full of tokens. I hope that's something they work on in the future. Possibly individual emotes for level 7 masteries on certain champs. Or something for having level 7 on all juggernauts. I don't know, but currently, it's a pretty lame system.