My PERSONAL views on League currently.
Not sure where to put this so Sorry in advance if it's the wrong board.
Hello League players, Riot employee's and anyone else. I have come here in hopes to Brain dump what I see happening with riot, league and the LCS/LAN events. Now I will say this is the view of just me. And all the things are opinions of myself, and should be treated as such. Before you don-vote please read this through as I will not be putting a TL;DR.
Ok so I started playing in and around early Season 1 on EUW. I never reached level 30 on there due to Ping issues and buddies from my area becoming interested in the game. So I jumped to NA. Currently Gold 5 (but playing like bronze 5 right now). I play around 4-5 hours a day when I don't work and I get at least 1 game a day when I do work in. I think I have over 3000 games total played over the 4 years or so I have had the account. With that said, lets get to why I am here.
In recent patches there has been an influx of Ping, decrease of FPS, and the client has become something of a Joke. I could handle the FPS drop, but the Ping increase is where it starts to become to bothersome to play. For context, I was always at 60-75 ping, and right now I sit at 80-110 on off peak hours. 110-155 on peak hours of the day. There have been points where I thought it was just my net acting weird and not wanting to be co-operative but when it started to become a "normal" thing I knew it wasn't my end. Apparently it just isn't me either. My friends (3 of which work in IT) have been having the same issue. One living on the West coast. Who's ping is normally 35 at a bad day before. Right now he said it was 65. Which is abnormal for him. I understand servers just don't spawn, but the lack of notice I have seen from riot on this, is by far deplorable. I would like some more "in-the-loop" interaction by riot on these matters that effect not just the non pro players, but it has effected Pro-players as well. So much so they couldn't practice in solo-que or Scrims (from what I have heard).
Next issue is the so called balance riot has been doing. OK I have been a very infuriated person with balance lately. I have actually questioned riot on MANY of occasions with certain changes to champs. A major change being Lucian. Not only did you not address his power, you actually buffed him. Be it a mistake buff, but you managed to buff him with the intention of a nerf. A dash that can be refreshed by auto attacking, and no mana cost. NO champ in the game that has mana costs can do this. Ez, uses mana to cast Arcane Shift, Vault on Quinn takes mana, Caitlyn's 90 Cal net takes mana, the only one who can reduce the CD is Ez, by landing Q on a minion/champion. But Lucian is the only champion who has a dash that both reduces it's Cool down and has no mana cost all at the same time. I would have liked to see Lucian's damage hit. That what was making him to over power most match ups. But it doesn't end at Lucian either. Lets take a look at a re-work from a while back. Xerath.
he was perfect. He wasn't OP or UP. He was a skill champ. Believe it or not, but he was a fun champ to play against AD Mid's. His passive was perfect for that. Bonus armor for a % of ap he had. I somewhat like the new passive because I can lane longer, but his skills are very clunky, and don't act like someone would expect from a siege champ. I know from past experience that If you messed up with Xerath (pre re-work) that you HAD to wait for spells in order to combo out someone. Not only that, his Ult feels SO bad. I had that doing the move command can stop the ult. I would understand it stopping if you move and all, but it should be a bit like vlad's pool. Once you activate it you can't stop it.Unless CC'ed out of it. Like I said, I don't know what you guys in the balance department are doing, but I think you are taking steps backward into imbalance then balance. Just sayin'.
Next I want to talk about the Client. This has been a HUGE pain in the butt for a ton of players. There have been MULTIPLE complaints probably a day, about the client in one form or the other breaking. I know it's not exactly easy to just build one, but there was no address on the issue till not to long ago. IRC it wasn't till a huge mass of players started threads on here, EUW boards, and the other server's boards about wanting a new client. Or at least an update to this one to make it more streamline and feel better. Now I haven't seen the new client on PBE since I have no interest in playing and testing it. I want it to be a feature I want to experience from Live. The patcher I like (I patched PBE recently to check out SR update). That's about all I have to say on that issue. NEXT!
One of the final issues I have is all the broken promises and features you, yes you riot, have said you were going to add "soon." The major one being the Replay system. I get that there might not be things you like about it, and want to improve upon, but it's been nearly 2 years. If you aren't releasing it any time soon then don't and let a 3rd party app to do that. I know personally I would like a replay system integrated into the client before season 6. but I am very doubtful that it will come to light before then. Next "promise" was Magma Chamber. You displayed it at All stars last year. it looked amazing and I was excited to play it. But it was shelved do to some unknown reason (which I still don't know what the issue was). My question with this is why do you release information, pictures, details and other things about features if you aren't going to release them? This is a serious question. I want an answer since I think the community deserves an answer. At the end of the day The community pays for the game. Yes sponsors help, but WE the players make up a huge part of Revenue for riot.
Next is the LCS/Venues/LAN events. I feel like we are being cheated out of many things. Better servers, constant context, and things that generally should be done. But instead are being put to the side in order to make the LCS, LPL, Worlds a HUGE deal. I get worlds being a big thing needing a major production team and such. But both EU and NA got new "studios" for the LCS. Probably costing in excess of 400,000 dollars. Riot it's time to step up and make a choice here. You are the leading front of Esports currently. You are showing that you care more about the way the LCS looks and displays the "game" you have built. But I see a game that has become a dramatized, over hyped, Circus for lack of a better term. You have put so much into making the LCS something people could enjoy, rather then making the game better and making your player base happy. The pro's have even shaken their heads at points in time with the way riot has done things. Most recently the Worlds, issue. That was done horribly and hopefully you learn from this mistake and do it right next time.
Last thing I am going to divulge in is the issue of your TOS/EULA/Summoners Code. I have gone through extensive readings of 50% of the EULA, a good chunk of the TOS and read the entire Summoners Code multiple times. And there are some things I think you missed along the way. The fact that there is no way we can hold you accountable for issues with accounts (regardless of fault) unless personal information was compromised. Such as Credit card information and other sensitive info like that. Now I had my account "hacked" due to my own fault, and it took MULTIPLE people to help me get it back 100% in my control. Context. I had a keylogg on my system and didn't realize it till it was too late. It also took way to long to get the issue resolved, the account locked, and waited on a reply from myself on the security of my accounts linked to the League account in question (this one). But there have been attacks that have gotten account information which can lead to credit card information being taken, and used without the owners consent. And by no fault of the account holders, riot can not be sued in any form of the matter relating to account compromising. Take Phantomlord for example. He has his account hacked, moved to Brazil, IF this happened to a Pro-player, or riot employee, That shat would have been resolved Real quick. and By quick I mean within an hour of it happening.
/end Brain dump and rant?
Sorry for the long amount of text (again) but I think things need to be brought to the front and riot made aware of people opinions of what the game is going.