Where do we go from here Riot :/

So to start, I'm just like everyone else out there who feels like league of legends is going down the drain. If you don't agree or even care stop here move on read something else. However, if you're like me and love the core of this game and have both good and bad memories that stem from the thousands of hours put into playing this game then keep reading.

To start, i'm a weird gamer. When it comes to video games and even anime or honestly anything I love underdogs. I like the weaker pick, the off-meta the "troll" picks. When i first started playing this game in season four, I immediately wanted to be a skarner/urgot main. ( If you're a veteran like me you know what that means.) Now don't misunderstand. I AM NOT A TROLL. I don't intentionally pick these champions to lose matches or in order to upset my teammates. I just genuinely enjoy playing champs that require more skill than others to win. That doesn't mean i don't enjoy playing meta-picks, in fact I enjoy that too, but I won't feel nearly as much of a sense of accomplishment in those game where I would steamroll as the 5.0 ats Kogmaw from a few seasons ago as I would from a match as Karma mid against fizz or something. Unfortunately I haven't felt that feeling in a long while now and it's due to the streamlining of the game. The direction we've been heading in for a while now is a quick simple burst-centered game that allow players to have flashy matches that end as quick as they begin.

As a Zilean mid main, my league career has had its up and downs. Two seasons ago, I played all day everyday. If i had a chance to play or the time to finish a match I would. Now I find myself looking for a different game to devote my time to. I tried fortnite and all the other mainstream battle royales that have flooded the market and while they are entertaining they just to satiate that hunger I have for something to improve on like league did. After every game before I would be stuck thinking "dang am i ever gonna climb", "Damn, I outplayed the **** out of that guy", or " wow i really suck xD let's try hard next game" and would tell myself all kinds of things to motivate myself to be better. I would be on youtube watching all kinds of guides and videos in order to find inspiration for my next big focus. Now after every match I find myself saying, "Why wasn't that champ banned", "I hate this meta", "That item is so busted", the difference in my mentality when i go into a match is like black and white. When I go on youtube for my new inspiration all I ever see are videos detailing the most busted champs/build/items of patch ## and I find myself with nothing to watch. I can no longer look at the game in the same eyes. For now it seems to be all about what champ and what build you play. Back in the good ole days there were builds for champs in lanes that you couldn't even imagine seeing nowadays. I miss the days where winning a lane was about your actual skill and how well you outplay your opponent. Now it just feels like outplay comes in champ select and that's it. I miss that feeling that I got from killing a Darius in top lane as aD taric top (Rip AD Taric Top 2016). Carrying in this game's current state as someone who would rather stay off-meta is impossible now. It doesn't matter how good I am because those champs don't have the ability to carry matches in any regard other wise they'd be one of the 7 meta champs in the game .

I don't know when I began to see league differently, but what I do know is how much time, how much effort, how much money (hehe xD), I've placed into this game. with the direction it's going now, I'm starting to feel like it's a mistake. I don't expect Riot to listen to everything we say in the forums, and in fact I doubt they'll ever even read this post. But I just want Riot to know that they are ruining the great image I had of their game in my heart. Idk the background behind why you're making the changes that you are, but I can tell you one thing. They aren't giving respect to those players that have been around through the thick and the thin. Who have been playing since the game was in its early stages. My guess is that rRiot wants to shorten matches due to how fast paced all the other popular games of the video gaming community are nowadays and that's stupid. Ruining the core of a game in order to appeal to a new crowd seems like a short term goal at best and hope Riot realizes their mistakes soon before it's too late.