I haven't played in weeks mainly because of the dissatisfaction with the state of the game. I feel like me and much of the rest of the playerbase have been more than patient in asking for a meta-shift back to defensive champions actually feeling good and durable to play as. Player feedback has been generally adamant and clear on what is wanted, and delivery has been delayed and disappointing. We want champion damage reduced. We want damage types to be properly countered by their respective resistance types instead of true damage, non-niche penetration, and blatant overkill damage making defenses outclassed.
Pre-season has dried up as an excuse for inaction. The game is stagnant and trapped in a low point gameplay-wise. The only significant positive change that I can think of this entire season has been turret plating.
I am also not happy that all of the progress into making bot-lane meta more diverse (fixing the stale mandatory marksman meta) has been undone, yet all of the consequences from the experiment such as true damage proliferation, seem to have remained and even escalated. Marksmen are still dealing burst-per-second. I am not happy with long-ranged mage and marksmen top laners still running rampant and making lane phase in top a one-sided experience. I am not happy with assassins still 100-0'ing squishies from fog of war without counterplay. I am not happy with mages (even ones not classified as burst mages) still playing ridiculously bursty (killing in one CC) and having no real options or need to build DPS. I am not happy with the lack of itemization for AP bruisers, DPS/DOT/AOE APCs, lower-damage AP-utility-scaling catchers, etc. All AP classes are homogenized by having too much burst. I am not happy with tanks being forced to play as pseudo-assassins, or generally not being played at all. I am not happy with skirmishers playing as mobile ultra-snowbally AOE burst assassins. Most of the problems come from or are exacerbated by too much damage!
I am also not happy with supports still feeling like undesired xp-leeches on the team who are hardly allowed to roam and barely tolerated to exist in bot lane. This has gone on too long and support has usually been the least played role because of it. The role is inherently flawed in the way it has existed in the game. Also there is a lack of itemization equivalent to ardent censer for supports to assist non-marksmen classes.
I am also not happy with the feel of jungling in this season. Tank and supportive junglers feel especially bad to play as. Teamplay in general feels weak and overshadowed by solo snowballing hypercarries.
I've played League since season 2 but this season isn't worth devoting time on without drastic change. The rate of new content release that I feel drawn to has slowed to a crawl as well. Part of it might even be that excess burst homogenizes new champion releases so that they feel the same (Neeko could be cool if she wasn't just another burst champ). For the last several weeks, I've been playing Smite and other games instead. Smite has been a pleasant change of pace and I feel like fights actually have some nice back-and-forth action. All of the classes in Smite actually feel pretty good in relation to one another. I think Smite does a much better job of balancing ranged vs melee, with hunters (marksmen equivalent) actually dealing non-burst DPS, needing to land their ranged attacks (all skill-shots), being unable to attack through minions (limited lane advantage), and moving slower while running backwards to limit kiting - and despite all of these differences, hunters still get played and feel plenty rewarding in Smite. Assassins in Smite also can't assassinate tanky champions and can't as easily straight-up 1-shot squishy opponents, yet they still get played and actually feel more fun to play than one-dimensional assassins in league. In contrast to league, the classes in Smite all feel much better balanced at least in my limited experience with Smite. I might be disillusioned once I reach a more competitive level on Smite, but it actually seems much better than current League. It's a shame really, since I enjoyed League for a long time and I still like the sheer number of champions available to play in league (despite the sad fact that a handful of champions occupy >50% of total play rate).
