The Way Players Act Towards Supports Is Why No One Plays Support, Not The Role Itself
I'm seeing lots of comments about how it is hard to get S rank on support recently (which to be fair is true), and how it isn't "fun" (which is subjective as I find it fun), but I don't think it is a problem Riot can fix to make support more attractive as a whole.
It is the mentality that others have towards supports (partially due to how they've been handled by Riot up to this point and in the pro scene) that makes it a frustrating role to play, especially coming from other roles.
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As a support, you are told you are babysitting someone else in a lane. Right off the bat, you are told, you aren't important, the ADC is, and that is before you even walk in lane. Is is your job to peel, engage, ward around your lane (with their help if they bother), and make sure you take none of the gold, and none of the kills (though the last isn't a "rule" so much as something that is likely to put your adc on tilt).
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Because of the responsibility you have, everyone basically relies on you without realizing it, which means you also have responsibility with more blame and little to no praise in return (That includes from the game itself).
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If you play a tanky support, you are likely to die a bit more than some, but you will get blamed twice as much because you are support. Take a game I played last week as an example. I twice had to full on flash in front of an Annie (wasn't the Annie's fault) to essentially "take the bullet" so they wouldn't get Blitz hooked. In turn, the Annie called me a noob, my adc flamed me for the next 15 minutes for "not knowing how to dodge Blitz hooks", and despite how many times I would save people by turning and taking one for the team to save 2-3 people, I would get yelled at for being "caught out" and so on.
The support role is still seen as the "bitch" role, pardon my french. There are tools in the game Riot has provided so others can't use the excuse for "no room for wards" and still people expect the support to ward. You are expected to take one for the team, but still flamed and blamed for doing so. You could be the one reason your team didn't get aced or did ace the enemy, and you will be the only one getting zero credit. This is by NO mean a "poor support" issue, because it isn't. It is simply a fact, and I imagine if some of us would admit it, even when we do play support one game, the next, even we are at fault for that mentality time to time without realizing it.
tl;dr that probably needs a tl;dr
While not on purpose, Riot, and the game itself has taught players that the Support role is expendable, can't carry (neither of which are true), and you are less important (you aren't supposed to get cs, have to work on less gold, have the biggest responsibility for warding, least damage, little to no kills, and even less experience by far), then turning around and putting further pressure on your shoulders to babysit an important carry in lane.
Sure Riot doesn't believe Supports aren't important, and not even all players do, but the way the support role is handled makes it feel less important than others, as the announce doesn't call out when you save a teammate, it calls out "double kill", you don't get credit for objective secures, the guy with smite does (not counting turrets in that). The game has conditioned players to hold up specific things as "important" by highlighting them visually and audibly, so players themselves now treat the support role as unimportant (unless they have played it enough to know better).
It isn't just the systems, the bad grading system that now decides if you can get an S rank for mastery 6-7 (no deaths, double digits assists, A- for example), or the lack of...things (gold, exp, items, etc). It is the way the role is treated by other players, who hold the role to a higher and lower standard all at the same time (higher because they are needed, but lower because the selfless acts are usually mocked as "bad play" not "saving teammate").
tl;dr for real this time:
It's our mentality as players that has to change first, not the game systems. While the systems will help, if players mentality about the role doesn't change, then all the system changes in the game won't ever help the role become more popular. Most players in every game (not just LoL) are selfish gamers, and the Support role is THE least selfish role in the game.
